The new comedy is written and performed by Lily Sinko…
Magdalena, Woman of Joy is a new comedy tracing the outrageous life of the cutthroat and fiery Magdalena. Cigarettes for breakfast and period blood for tea – Magdalena has a past as twisted as her eyeliner.
The production will run 11th – 28th June at Playhouse East, a newly established independent theatre and creative arts hub in the heart of East London. Raised in a crumbling cabanon in Marseille by her crooked papa, Magdalena is shipped off to the Virgin Mary School for Bad, Bad Girls (cash only), where innocence is optional and detention is deadly.
‘Youwantto f*ckme ? That’s okay. Iwantto f*ckme too sometimes.”
Blending drag, clowning, traditional storytelling and hilarious audience interaction, the show is raw ridiculously joyful, and impossible to forget From first love to last cigarette, from riding bare-ass on a rhinoceros to hearing confessions in a corrupted cathedral – Magdalena has seen it all, done most of it twice. She’s about to confess everything… if you’re brave enough to listen.
Writer and performer Lily Sinko is a French-English actor, writer, theatre maker and comedian from Marseille (via London), and co-founder of Vandens Karta Ensemble. Her work leans into the uncomfortable and the absurd, with recurring themes of family, sex, violence, women, love, and the surreal. She’s half Marseille, half East London, and it shows.
A long-time explorer of clowning, Lily has been developing the character Magdalena since 2019. Originally born in sketch comedy and ensemble shows, Magdalena has lived many lives, including at The Cathedral, other Vandens Karta productions, and as work-in-progress pieces at Actors East and VAULT Festival. She’s also popped up in members’ clubs, cabarets, sketch nights, and even the odd Christmas party.
What started as a recurring sketch has grown into a fully realised piece, chaotic, tender, and strange, shaped over years of performance, reinvention and joyful weirdness.
Director Daniel Kettle is a theatre maker and artist whose work has been presented at venues such as Drogheda Arts Festival, Pulse, The Other Palace, VAULT Festival, Pleasance London, Arts Depot, and Sheffield Theatres. His play Steve and Tobias Versus Death was recently adapted for the stage in Busan, Korea, and he designed the cover for I Saw Satan at 7-Eleven by Christopher Brett Bailey. Daniel is a long-time creative collaborator and director on Magdalena, Woman of Joy. Together, he and Lily have built a partnership rooted in instinct, humour, and a shared love of the strange.
Tickets
Magdalena, Woman of Joy – 11 th – 28 th June 2025 (Weds-Sat), 8.30pm
PLAYHOUSE EAST, 258 Kingsland Road, London, E8 4DG
