The smash-hit pirate radio show Blaze FM is heading to the Belgrade Theatre this week, on the 7th and 8th of October.
The work is a callout to anyone who grew up familiar with local pirates shimmying up lift shafts and scaling buildings to hang aerials, as Blaze FM is set in a rundown Hackney council flat where a pirate radio station blasts the airwaves with new music and uncensored political perspectives.
Written by real-life Grime MC, and no stranger to pirate radio, Jammz and James Meteyard, the play fuses Grime, Garage, and Drill into a story of survival and subculture.Β Ultimately, it's really a story of how music unites and builds communities, and provides a voice for free expression, and how they battle to keep their station alive as outside pressures threaten its existence.
Blaze FM is produced by The Big House, who make award-winning work with care-affected young people. Much like pirate radio as a medium, The Big House aims to create work that provides a voice for those who have to make their own channels. Ultimately, Blaze FM asks questions about freedom of speech: not just what is allowed, but who is allowed to say it, and who decides.
Blaze FM is directed by Artistic Director of The Big House, Maggie Norris, who initially started off creating work with offenders at Only Connect. Norris took Blaze to the Edinburgh Fringe in 2025, where it took home the Best Director Award and a Shortlist for the Black Performers Award. Now, Blaze FM is on tour, marking it as The Big House's first ever touring show. Coventry is the final leg, following a sell-out run at the Lowry in Salford and Bristol Old Vic.
Coventry, do you fancy crying, laughing, dancing, and feeling 2000s nostalgia?
It feels fitting that Coventry is where Blaze closes out its tour. After all, pirate radio has always been part of Coventry's story - from Renegade FM's pirate radio rigs broadcasting from office blocks to council flats in the city centre, to Coventry being the long-term home of Dorothy "First Lady of Pirate Radio" Rome. Blaze FM may be set in East London, but it's just as much a Coventry story as any other.
