Who’s who
The method behind the madness
Mike Sengelow
Producer & Artistic Director
Trained at Arts Educational, London. Mike is an actor director which can be quite confusing at his age. It means he often tells himself where to go. He has a foolishly devout belief in the power of sketch comedy to transform the world and bring peace to the universe. He’s started several bar fights trying to convince people of this. In his native New Zealand he cut his teeth as an actor-director on 5 series of the sketch comedy TV show Skitz. TV acting credits include: Husbands, Slow Horses, Father Brown, Wandavision, The Crown. Film credits include Wonderwoman 1984, Magnificent Eleven. Theatre includes: Wink the Other Eye (Wiltons Music Hall), Leaving, Mountain Hotel, Factors Unforeseen, Private View (all at Orange Tree Theatre), Robin Hood (Theatre Royal Margate) and What Shall We Do With the Cello (Atelier).
Mike Sengelow
Producer & Artistic Director
James McCabe
Producer & Chief Writer
James co-founded The Frow Show with Mike Sengelow in 2015. He has over 20 years’ experience in the dark arts (aka as a London advertising creative/ copywriter), was European Correspondent for Radio Live NZ and scripted several plays and short films. He likes good wine, good crisps, good fun, and good company, but sadly, has had to settle for The Frow Show. He writes because he cares. And no one cares that he writes.
James McCabe
Producer & Chief Writer
Jane Stead
Writer
As a freelance writer for 30 years, Jane has worked in radio, telly, print and was theatre reviewer at the London Newspaper Group. She wrote for Comedy Rep at the Soho Theatre, has several unpublished novels, and writes a distraction website for people in prison to help reduce self-harm. She smuggled some of them out to star in the show but got arrested for doing so. The circle of life.
Jane Stead
Writer
Rupert Widdicombe
Writer
Rupert spent the first half of his career as a journalist and feature writer for UK national newspapers and magazines, before swapping deadlines for do-gooding as a communications specialist in international development, education and environmental sustainability — worthy work that is, sadly, almost entirely joke-free. Along the way he’s also written scripts for short films, TV and animated series, where nobody minds if he’s silly. A resident of the Frow for 23 years, Rupert has been writing for the Frow Show since the very first one back in 2016, and shows no sign of stopping.
Rupert Widdicombe
Writer
Aly Macrae
Musical Director
Aly is an actor, musician, composer, musical director, sound designer and beardy bastard. This is Aly’s second rodeo on the Frow Show, although he is a regular at the National Theatre of Scotland, and sometime player at the Bristol Old Vic and the Royal Court. He was recently Musical Director on the Donmar Warehouse’s production of Macbeth. Film work includes Wild Rose, while his music features on Radio 4 and you can download his debut album ‘Popstardombeckons’ – he’s already trying to cope with the adulation that comes with Frow Show Stardom.
Aly Macrae
Musical Director
Kim Wright
Movement Director
Kim Wright is a theatre director and movement practitioner whose work is rooted in playful, physical and ensemble led storytelling, creating rehearsal rooms where character, comedy and narrative are shaped through play, rhythm and improvisation. With a particular interest in physical comedy, Kim works with performers to find the rhythm, pace and physical detail that make a moment land, from a tiny gesture to full-scale chaos. Their practice explores how movement and choreography can sharpen storytelling, heighten comedy and connect performers and audiences. Kim has worked across regional theatre and touring, including the New Vic Theatre, Mercury Theatre and TRUESTORY Theatre Company, and has shadowed Mischief Theatre. As Movement Director, Kim is excited to build the physical language, comic timing and fast-paced transformations of The Frow Show.
Kim Wright
Movement Director
Lucy Ramsden
Actor
Lucy trained at The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama before surviving a comedic baptism of fire alongside Rik Mayall in The Comic Strip Presents… Since learning to dodge flying punchlines, she has balanced her comedy chops with some serious stuff for theatre and TV including Earth & Sky, (Nuffield Theatre & tour), What Shall We Do With The Cello? (European tour), Wolf (Cockpit), Y Palmant Aur (S4C), Epic (Kurve Films). As a proud original cast member of The Frow Show, Lucy has faithfully clocked in for every show since 2016. However, she readily admits that her absolute greatest production to date will always be her two sons.
Lucy Ramsden
Actor
Amanda Home
Actor
Amanda went to Dartington College and did a Drama and Visual performance Degree. After finishing, decided Cornwall was rather nice so got a job as an Actor and Puppeteer based in Penzance. With Theatre Rotto she toured all over Europe and developed a love of Vodka in Belarus. For the twenty fifth anniversary of Glastonbury Festival Amanda made an enormous foot, which travelled from Penzance to Glastonbury on the top of a van, perplexing drivers but providing much needed shelter for partygoers who couldn’t find their tents. Later Amanda studied Drama teaching at Central School of Speech and Drama.
Amanda Home
Actor
Chris Packe
Actor
No film, TV or stage credits. No actor training at all. Chris is raw like sushi. But he has been delicately seasoned by the soy sauce of a decade of Frow Showing. It seems to work well enough.
Chris Packe
Actor
Nicholas Bendall
Actor
Nicko trained as an actor in his native Melbourne, Australia, where he worked in Theatre, Film and TV before moving to Paris to study clown and theatre at l’Ecole Philippe Gaulier. Here he met his wife and they now have 2 wonderful daughters who are exhibiting strong signs that they’ve inherited idiot genes from both sides of their lineage. Nicko has shot commercials on horseback and upside-down flying armchairs, extensively toured his own children’s show, ‘Defrosted’ (a spoof of ‘Frozen’ created with his wife) and now works in Theatre, Film and TV in the UK. Credits include: ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’ for Walt Disney Studios, ‘Top Boy’ for Netflix and ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’ with Chichester Festival Theatre.
Nicholas Bendall
Actor
Ben Shafik
Actor
Ben is delighted to be returning for his 3rd Frow Show, mostly because he’s hoping that it will help pay for mounting therapy costs incurred as a result of being in his first 2 Frow shows. Ben has worked as a professional actor for nearly 30 years and gained a reputation in the industry as a gifted character actor, as long as that character is some sort of eastern European/middle eastern Ganster. He has moulded this versatile yet reassuringly similar character to many, many stage and screen projects over the years and can currently be seen being a gangster in Amazon Primes critically acclaimed (probably) “Gassed Up”.
Ben Shafik
Actor
Melody Grove
Actor
Melody went to drama school in Glasgow, despite warnings of knife crime…happily she found it one of the friendliest places ever and eventually met her partner there. She’s been in loads of plays and was nomm’ed for an Olivier for her role in ‘Farinelli and the King’ which began at the Globe and went all the way to Broadway baby! Other work includes Call the Midwife and lots of BBC radio plays and audiobooks: check her out on audible! Melody and Aly’s musical ‘Hi-Vis’ will be broadcast on Radio 4 this Hogmanay and they hope to be bringing it to a stage near you soon!
Melody Grove
Actor
Lotte Allan
Actor
Lotte is a comedy writer and performer. She was recently shortlisted for the 2026 Female Pilot Club competition and the 2025 David Nobbs Memorial Trust Comedy Writing Award, for her sitcom Polterheist. Lotte has an MA in Comedy Writing from Falmouth University and trained at Ecole Philippe Gaulier. Lotte has written for BBC Scotland Breaking the News, and BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz and Dead Ringers. Lotte has written sketches for Gobby Girls at Edinburgh Fringe and for their two sell-out Soho Theatre runs. She performs solo character comedy and is a Soho Theatre Labs Alumnus. She was a founding member of Dumbshow Theatre, with whom she has toured nationally and internationally and has performed in and devised many of the cult alternative Christmas shows at The Wardrobe Theatre, Bristol. Lotte will be returning to The Wardrobe Christmas 2026/7 to be in Goldilock Stock and Three Smoking Bears. Lotte also works as a Performance Curator and Exhibition Maker.
Lotte Allan
Actor
Oli Lewis-Barclay
Actor
Oli went to Cambridge and wants everyone to know that. Despite being white and privately educated, he failed to get into Footlights, so he did loads of proper acting instead. He then entered a drama coma for 20 years before infiltrating the Forest Row Pantomimers and starring in several productions before they found out he was under the statutory minimum age of 70. Mike and Jamie found him dealing David Attenborough impersonations down an alleyway in East Grinstead and invited him to perform in the very first Frow Show. He’s since been in (almost) all of the shows and writes the odd sketch too. He used to work in advertising. He’s now a wedding celebrant, and does a bit of voiceover work. He is 1/64th Tasmanian Aboriginal.
Oli Lewis-Barclay
Actor
Our story
The story so far
What began as a one-night experiment in the studio room of the village hall has somehow grown into a string of sell-out shows, proving that people will happily leave the comfort of their sofas for an evening of organised silliness.
Today, alongside our live productions, we’re working with creative partners to develop new theatre projects and building a youth programme for teenagers and young people with a passion for comedy, performance and storytelling.
There’s plenty more nonsense to come.
The short version
Born in a Forest Row village hall, 2016
Produced at a range of venues over the years
Building a comedy programme for teens
Our mission
What we believe
At The Frow Show we believe there is a lost power in live sketch comedy. We seek to create a shared experience inviting audience members to consider the things which both divide and unite them. The power of our comedy is to provoke and inspire and this lies at the very core of our creative process. We explore topical issues and problems, fresh and relevant whether relating to local, national or global content. We aim to provide both an entertaining and memorable experience which is unique in its format and of the highest level in its execution. Our ambition lies in the joy of creating original funny content that allows the court jester to poke fun at the King… and the King can’t help but laugh.
Mike Sengelow & James McCabe — Producers of The Frow Show
“We don’t laugh because we’re happy – we’re happy because we laugh.” — William James
