Living Spit started out as a bit of a joke.  

  

After many years working as actors, both together and apart, Howard Coggins and Stu Mcloughlin had an idea for a show, The Six Wives of Henry VIII, based purely on the notion that Howard looks a bit like Henry VIII. In 2012, after cobbling together a script, Bristol Old Vic Ferment said they could put it on, but told them that first they’d have to form a company or they wouldn’t get paid. Never ones to allow small details to stand between them and cold, hard cash, and with the addition of Craig Edwards on directing duties, Living Spit was born.  

  

They bought the costumes from charity shops, never spending more than a tenner. They made the props from various bits lying around their respective houses. Despite this people came to see the show and liked it and told them they should take it on tour and to Edinburgh, which they did. When literally no-one wanted to see it any more, they thought they ought to make another show, so in 2013 they made Adolf & Winston and played to packed houses at Bristol Old Vic and all over the country. Since then there have been several further shows: “In Cider Story” (2013); “The Devil and the Shopkeeper” (2013); “Elizabeth I -Virgin on the Ridiculous” (2014); “One Man & His Cow”; “The Devil and The Shopkeeper 2 (A sequel)” (2015); “Living Spit’s A Christmas Carol” (2015); “The Fabulous Bacon Boys”; “Frankenstein” (2016); "Tortoise Vs Hare" (2017); "Living Spit's Nativity" (2017); "Giants of Science" (2018); “Living Quiz” and “Living Spit’s Odyssey” (2019).  

 

In 2020 the company defied Coronavirus, kind of, by taking a show to London for the first ever time (Henry VIII – nominated for an Off-West End Award) and by producing the main stage Christmas show at Bristol Old Vic: “Living Spit’s Beauty and the Beast”, which then toured regionally in 2021. We were also delighted to remount one of our favourite shows “Living Spit’s Frankenstein: The Musical”, originally a co-production with Wiltshire Creative, in 2021. In 2022 we returned to London and undertook one of our largest ever tours with a remount of Elizabeth I: Virgin on the Ridiculous. This included a very sunny week at the wonderful Minack in Cornwall, a two-week residency in Bristol and a total of 60 performances around the South-West.  

 

At the end of 2022, the company was shaken to the core by Howard Coggins receiving a cancer diagnosis. He was astonishing over his final year including, unbelievably, playing brilliantly in some performances of a 2023 tour of One Man and his Cow. However, very sadly he died in late 2023. Before he died, he’d left strict instructions that the company continue, along with a few excellent suggestions for future titles. Through 2024 and 2025 the company continued to make new works and remount some old titles, working with brilliant actors new to the company. Over this time Craig Edwards also joined Stu on stage twice, for a highly successful tour of Adolf and Winston and a wonderful Christmas run of Living Spit’s A Christmas Carol. Other highlights over this time included There’s Something About Typhoid Mary and Too Many Greek Myths, both solely written by Stu.