Hello, and welcome to the Rag Factory!
April 2019 Please note; our website is under reconstruction, but we're still open! We still have affordable rehearsal space for theatre, film, improv. Best way to find out more? Please just use the contact form to get in touch and we'll be right back to you.
The Rag Factory started in 2006 to provide affordable space & facilities (equipment, technical assistance, props & furniture) for people in the creative industries, whether performance-based (such as theatre, film, dance, music & fashion) or visual arts (such as painting, sculpture, photography, installation & graphic design).
Click here for answers to some common function & technical questions (opens new page).
Situated just off London’s Brick Lane, with fast access to both Liverpool Street and Aldgate East tube stations, we’re also very easy to reach.
Since then we've diversified - not only providing space, but producing our own theatre, co-producing all manner of arts projects with partners, providing technical support (from prop hire to full production services) - our aim is to help your project to become a reality (and we happen to have a lot of space to do it in).
While we’re regularly used as a casting and rehearsal space – we may not be in the West End, but we are very conveniently located for a number of Fringe and off-West End venues – we’ve also hosted hundreds - if not thousands now - of exhibitions, live art events, theatre performances, and all manner of other goodliness. Yes, even corporate stuff for the likes of Red Bull and Orange/EE.
We also became a regular filming location for shorts, features (from low-budget indpendents to one of Woody Allen's London projects), TV (all major broadcasters), and so on. We're honest about our pricing aim, too - we want 100% of the location budget, big or small, to allow us to do our bit for artistic "wealth redistribution!"
More recently, in response to the ever-rising rents in this part of town, we've created affordable workspace here, too, and now host People Tree (the original 25-year-old Fair Trade international fashion brand) amongst others.
So if you need space – whether to think, rehearse, film, work, meet, exhibit or just generally create wonderful things – with a Central London location but without the West End price tag, please browse the site, or feel free to call and book a time to see us in Heneage Street, just off Brick Lane.
We also provide production services assistance away from the buildings here - from producing shows to setting up theatres (both temporary and permanent), writing business plans for new arts adventures, and sourcing / supplying all manner of weird and wonderful props & equipment (from sofas to swords, pedestals to pistols, torches to tyres, even whole vehicles!) - so if you've got an interesting problem or project then feel free to get in touch to see how we can help.
We've got many exciting developments planned for 2018 and beyond - new buildings, new spaces, new initiatives - so keep checking back to see what we're up to.
"A CONSTELLATION OF LONE STARS"
An Unforgettable Comedy in Two Short Acts.
Deep deep deep in the dirty heart of Texas, a constellation of lone star revelers hang over Maynard, saturated in long lost tales, a lot of moonshine.... looking towards a future unknown.
Join us for a night to remember on the rough, wild, open plains of Texas.
Three women simmer in the relentless sun over back porch gossip and many strong Bourbon highballs.
Three men kick back in a dusty saloon bar drinking, fighting and celebrating past conquests.
Will these lone stars find each other again?
Will anyone walk out of here unscathed and sober? Who knows?
We promise you are in for a TEXAN NIGHT TO REMEMBER! YEEEEE HAAAAHHHHH!!!
I should have liked to begin this story in the fashion of the fairy-tales. I should have like to say: "Once upon a time there was a little prince who lived on a planet that was scarcely any bigger than himself, and who had need of a sheep . . ."
It has been many years since the Pilot parted with the Little Prince, and the time has come to share his story. Find your way into the Making Space, and help him to remember... An interactive performance-workshop in which the audience playfully helps the company construct the story with puppets, live music, and shadows. Your suggestions create the play.
Lux & Vox is a theatre company who create theatrical playgrounds in which children and adults of all ages can rediscover play.
Talent show burn out Boyd Miller is on the brink of despair when he receives a strange letter inviting him to the reading of a will. The deceased turns out to be the enigmatic jazz virtuoso and famous seafood chef Rimbaud Delinquent. When Boyd is bequeathed a priceless collection of records he is drawn into a surreal international adventure by a series of desperate characters from Rimbaud's life. Boyd travels from London, to Canada, to the bottom of the ocean in search of himself and the secret behind a man he never knew.
For three performances only the Rag Factory is housing Barnaby Hallam's new play, Rimbaud Delinquent. After the success of last years Brick Lane Rabbit Hole, Barnaby and team are back with a fresh new play. A Surreal Mystery Comedy of epic proportions, which raises contemporary issues about the value of hard work, and the temptations of short cuts. Packed with crazy characters and spaced out humour, blessed with a talented young international cast and with inventive designs by the talented Olivia Rowe you are bound to have a riot of a time. .
A night of improvised comedy, based on the audience's suggestions, and bringing to life your favorite tv classics.
Combining genres such as news, reality tv, cooking, soaps and much more, The Rubiks will take you on a journey through your tv guide giving you the ultimate night of laugh out loud entertainment.
With sellout gigs throughout London and the UK, The Rubiks are one of the hottest, youngest and wildest acts around!
"The Rubiks is this generation's version of Whose line Is It Anyway?"
Trip The Light Theatre Company presents The Sun Shining On Her Hands.
Prepare to be immersed in an intimate and theatrical experience that thrusts the audience into the world of the characters.
Inspired by Georg Buchner's 'Woyzeck' and using real-life accounts of gender discrimination, this production explores the struggle to be recognized as an individual in our modern world.
Using explosive dance sequences, folk music and a marriage of modern and old text, The Sun Shining On Her Hands is a unique theatrical creation that will leave you wanting more.
VISUALISE! presents CLASSICAL MUSIC DANCE MASH-UP - a series of eclectic performances of classical & contemporary music infused with dance, film, visual projections to create virtual reality settings from Oriental countryside to exotic Argentine club. Featuring a kaleidoscopic range of music by old masters such as J.S. Bach, all the way through to Astor Piazzolla, and contemporary composers Cydonie Banting and Gang Chen.
Artistic director Belle Chen has curated the finest new wave of London talent for this event, including Yijia Zhang, Bei Bei Wang, Carl Smith, Tomoro Maruyama, and Celine Avrahami.
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