Image credit: Louise Mothersole (left) and Becca Biscuit (right) photographed by Christa Holka.

For more than a decade, Becca Biscuit and Louise Mothersole have stood side-by-side as Sh!t Theatre: best friends, artistic conspirators, political excavators, and proud devotees of The Muppets. Their long-term friendship – forged at Queen Mary University and strengthened through countless shows, singalongs, late-night Duckie pilgrimages and emotional oompah sessions at their beloved hidden sanctuary The Tiroler Hut – is the emotional engine of their work.

This December, they return with EVITA TOO, running 9–31 December at the Southbank Centre, directed by the brilliant Ursula Martinez. It’s Sh!t Theatre at their most epic and unhinged: a glittering, political, deeply researched deep-dive into the life of Isabel Perón, the world’s first female president – nightclub dancer turned First Lady, stepmother to a corpse displayed on the dining-room table, employer of a chaos-wizard who later chainsawed off her husband’s hands, and leader overthrown by a fascist coup. In true Sh!t Theatre style, the story is told with bombastic music, feminist fury, forensic curiosity, and comedy that swerves gleefully between camp excess and absolute horror.

Equal parts spectacle and sincerity, EVITA TOO reminds us why Becca and Louise remain one of the most distinctive, generous and joyfully chaotic forces in British performance.

Let’s start with Becca…

If we followed tiny-Becca through the 80s or 90s with a camcorder, what early moment would show us the first spark of “this is who I am – this is the kind of performer I’ll become”?

There is a video of me and my friend Holly aged about 9. We are ‘dressed’ as David Bowie and Mick Jagger – I have an enormous lipstick mouth painted on my face, and we are staring at the telly, copying the dance moves from the Dancing in the Street music video and insisting Holly’s dad film us. I then had to go to a doctors appointment and refused to remove the Mick Jagger mouth.

EVITA TOO is part political excavation, part glittering spectacle. What drew you personally to the story of Isabel Perón – and which moment in the show feels like it speaks most directly to your own life right now?

Isabel Perón’s father died when she was young, plunging her family into poverty. She was working as a nightclub dancer when she met ex-President Juan Perón and they married and moved into a house they shared with the corpse of his previous wife. She hired a wizard as her personal secretary who was the member of a cult who would eventually chainsaw off her husband’s hands and use them to blackmail the Argentinian government. The morning after her husband died of a heart attack, she became the first ever female president in the history of the world; she led for 18 months before being overthrown by a fascist military coup who then went around telling people she’d been asking for it. A lot to empathise with.

Image credit: Louise Mothersole and Becca Biscuit photographed by Christa Holka.

Imagine another universe, one where Isabel Perón was President of England, she WhatsApp’s her closest advisor, You – what one line of advice from your own lived experience – 2025, post-Brexit Britain, the arts in crisis, the whole lot – what would you tell her?

‘Madame President, make sure you get enough fibre.’

Your work has always balanced the tragic and ridiculous. What is making you laugh most in your life these days – and what’s giving you real, grounded hope?

The Muppets Instagram account.

Image credit: Louise Mothersole and Becca Biscuit photographed by Christa Holka.

Which three London venues, scenes, pubs, clubs or oddball communities feel like home to you – places you’d say are part of your creative DNA, and which our readers should absolutely go and experience?

Duckie at the RVT (Royal Vauxhall Tavern) – any kind of Duckie event really, but the old Saturday nights at the RVT were a really important part of our creative DNA. We’d been going since we were 18 and loved everything about it, especially when the night landed on the same evening the clocks went back so you’d get an extra hour of dancing.

The Tiroler Hut which is an Austrian basement bar in Westbourne Grove ran by Josef and his family. There is live oompah music every night and the first time we went together, Louise cried with happiness and said ‘this is what I hoped adulthood would be like’.

Soho Theatre, our forever home.

Film credit: Trailer for EVITA TOO at the Southbank Centre. Trailer by Claire Nolan.

Enter Louise…

Before the improv groups, before the guitar, before Sh!t Theatre – what was young-Louise like in the 80s or 90s? Can you remember a moment where performing, research, or the impulse to make something strange and true first appeared?

In the 80s young-Louise was a small, yellow, furry baby. When my mum first saw me post-birth she burst into tears and asked, ‘What’s wrong with it?!’ So I suppose I made a weird impression from my very first appearance.

In the 90s I was an only child and quite lonely so I was forced to be creative. I made a big brother (called Thomas) out of a broom. I filled the gaping maw of silence in a pre-internet world with music and songs I made up myself.

I would be in the garden hopping around as a rabbit from Watership Down who’d had its ears ripped by the Efrafa; or I’d be dressed in my Mum’s dressing gown, toting a Playtime torch, and pretending to be an FBI agent investigating unsolved mysteries. I’d (probably problematically) cut an eye-hole into a sack and run around avoiding imaginary crowds as Joseph Merrick.

It never occurred to me to do anything other than perform and create when I grew up.

Image credit: Louise Mothersole and Becca Biscuit photographed by Christa Holka.

EVITA TOO resurrects Isabel Perón from the footnotes. What part of her story fascinated you the most – and what surprised you in ways you weren’t expecting when you started researching her?

Everything Becca has said above. Plus, considering all the bonkers facts Becca has laid out, it amazed me that Isabel Perón could have been so thoroughly rubbed out of History. From a purely historiographical perspective, how that erasure came about was fascinating to research and unpick.

Imagine you could travel back in time and sit at Isabel Perón’s dinner table. What question would you ask her that wouldn’t make sense in any history textbook?

I’d ask her: Could you please pass the salt? Oh, no, the other way, oh you can’t reach around… don’t worry, I’ll get the salt. Wow, that corpse is really in the way, isn’t it? Doesn’t it get frustrating, your husband’s dead previous wife taking up so much of the dining room table? Does she ever put you off your food, or do you get used to her being here? Does she start to just feel like part of the dining room decor after a while?

Image credit: Louise Mothersole and Becca Biscuit photographed by Christa Holka.

Your work always feels like an argument between chaos and care. What’s something you believe fiercely right now – and something completely stupid that keeps you human?

There is so much to feel fiercely about right now that it gets exhausting. Like many right now, I swing between angry, scared, hopeless and numb.

The Muppets keep me human. They have a lot to teach the world about humanity and they give me hope.

If a newcomer asked you to show them your London, which three venues, communities, clubs, folk nights, rehearsal rooms or cultural micro-scenes would you take them to – and why do those places matter to you?

Duckie at the RVT will always occupy a camp, gaudy room in my heart.

Camden People’s Theatre and the Soho Theatre both feel like home to us.

I don’t want to go on too much about The Tiroler Hut because, selfishly, I don’t want it to get so busy that I can no longer get in…

Find Becca and Louise at shittheatre.co.uk and on Instagram @shittheatre

Sh!t Theatre: EVITA TOO
Southbank Centre
Tue 9 Dec – Wed 31 Dec 2025
southbankcentre.co.uk

Special offer
You can get £10 OFF for the 9, 10 & 12 Dec performances using promotion code RUNRIOT10.

Instructions: Select the date, then add the promo code RUNRIOT10 in the top right box (Promo Code → submit). Then select your seats and complete your booking