Award-winning Spanish theatre company Yllana and Toom Pak presents the UK premiere of TRASH! at the Peacock Theatre, Sadler’s Wells’ home in the West End in February 2025

Award-winning Spanish theatre company Yllana and Toom Pak presents the UK premiere of TRASH! at the Peacock Theatre, Sadler’s Wells’ home in the West End in February 2025.

This high-energy show is set in a recycling centre, where four creative workers give new life to waste and rubbish including propane tanks, umbrellas, balls, toolboxes, horns and bin bags by using percussion, movement and slapstick comedy in hilarious musical sketches.

With active participation and interaction encouraged, TRASH! is set to be a fun night out for audiences, who are invited to sing, dance and replicate rhythms with their bodies. Each night, two spectators are welcomed up to join the colourful characters on stage and become a TRASH! musician for one night only. Audience members may even be inspired to reconsider the use of some of their own household rubbish, as each discarded item is joyfully revived through music and sound by the performers.

Musicality is a key part of TRASH! As well as percussion, the performers make their own instruments from everyday rubbish, drumming on propane tanks or tuning plastic bottles using compressed air, and audiences will recognise popular songs, including Beethoven's ‘Für Elisa’. Sung acapella versions of pop and rock classics including ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘Stand by Me’ also form part of the evening, in a show that promises to surprise and entertain at every turn.

Founded in 1991, Yllana specialises in comedy and physical theatre. TRASH! is created and co-directed by David Ottone (Yllana), Jony Elias and Gorka Gonzalez (Toom Pak).

The cast is made up of four talented artists including Aka Thiemele, Bruno Alves, Fran Mark and Gorka Gonzalez hailing from Spain, the Ivory Coast and Uruguay. 

TRASH! arrives at the Peacock following a successful European tour, which concluded in Madrid at the 1000-seater venue Gran Teatro Caixabank Príncipe Pío, where the show enjoyed a sold out run in October.

David Ottone, Artistic Director said, “After a successful European tour, we are thrilled to be taking TRASH! to the heart of London, the Peacock Theatre. TRASH! is an energetic, inventive, humorous, and at times, downright wild stage show that seamlessly blends percussion, dance, acrobatics, live singing, and physical comedy and deals with the musical possibilities of our everyday waste. Come and enjoy the ride!”

David Fry, Peacock Theatre Programmer said, “I am so excited for the UK premiere of TRASH! in London. Upon seeing the show during its European tour, I was carried away by the joyful silliness that the show creates, as was the rest of the audience, but more than this the talent of the four performers is what captivates from start to finish.”