“Howard gave me the confidence to try new things”

IT is a brave – and talented – actor who could begin 2026 playing the title role in the Scottish play and end it in a one-man (comic) version of the tragedy of the melancholy Danish prince.

From Macbeth to Hamlet (aka Omlet), with a festive side order of a Christmas quiz, Stu Mcloughlin is having an exceptionally varied and exciting year.

He has just begun a tour of his first one-man show, Omlet, opening in Clevedon. During the tour he will be rehearsing and planning his Christmas show, It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Quizmas, which he will take on tour after its beginning at Clevedon, ending over Christmas at the Tobacco Factory Theatre in Bristol from 3rd December to 5th January.

Stu is the surviving half of the brilliant comic theatre company Living Spit, named because Howard kept being told he was the image of Henry VIII. Howard Coggins died in 2023, after a short illness.

The pair, both alumni of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama (Stu in 2001-4 and Howard a decade before), founded Living Spit in 2012, with Craig Edwards, another Welsh drama school graduate, who has directed all the shows. The other member of the team, who also trained at the Welsh college, is Fiona Trim, who has stage managed all the shows.

The idea for Omlet came from Craig Edwards, and initially Stu was not very keen. It came up during a research and development week on Shakespeare’s plays and Craig won him over after bringing along 36 eggs to represent the various characters. So during August, when Stu was playing three roles, including Launce, in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Two Gentlemen of Verona at Straford upon Avon, the idea really grew on him.

“What I have tried to do is get all the most famous bits in and all those quotes that have made it into English vernacular,” he says. It is “action-packed, getting to the bones of the story.”

Omlet made its debut at Living Spit’s new home at Clevedon’s Market Hall (pictured). For ten years the company was based at The Shop, where they produced their own and other performers’ work. But following a change of landlord, they have joined the Clevedon Pier Trust, which had bought the 86-seater hall. Omlet was their first show there and was quite a hit – playing to an amazing 1,000 people over its run from 29th September to 10th October.

This first solo show is a big departure for Stu, and for Living Spit, venturing into Shakespeare. But it is very much in the tradition started by Howard, who was the one who looked and planned ahead. Now Stu has learned to get used to planning – he is now thinking about 2029.

Stu and Howard delighted audiences around the region in big venues and village halls with their hilarious and imaginative versions of history, including The Six Wives of Henry VIII,Elizabeth I – Virgin on the Ridiculous (pictured left), and Adolf and Winston, legends and favourite stories such as The Nativity and Too Many Greek Myths, broad comedy including One Man and his Cow, and some very dark tales, most recently There’s Something About Typhoid Mary.

While most people now associate Stu with Living Spit, his career has included Coram Boy at the National Theatre, many roles with Cornwall’s still-missed Kneehigh Theatre, including The Wild Bride, the acclaimed Brief Encounter and A Matter of Life and Death (Kneehigh at the National Theatre), the Devon-based Shanty Theatre, where his roles included a crab in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and many television and radio plays.

And with Christmas only just over two months away, he will soon be preparing for a season as a quiz-master, in a novel entertainment in which he will set the questions and the audience will be in pub quiz-style teams, with songs, music, jokes … and prizes! (He doesn’t yet know what these will be).

Looking further ahead, Living Spit will be working on two shows after Christmas and a new show for autumn 2027.

Since Howard’s death, Stu has been thinking more about the future. “I wanted to do this to honour him,” he says. “Omlet is something very new for us, but the job of an artist is to consistently explore different ideas.

“Howard gave me the confidence to try new things.”