“Welcome to the Abel Institute. Where life is licensed.”

What would you do for sex in a society that punishes pleasure?
Sex used to be everywhere: schools, screens, the streets. Desire was a drug and chaos followed close behind. 
Now, within the fortified walls of London, Sex is unknown, pleasure forbidden, and intimacy replaced by order. 
Enter The Nesting Programme, society’s clean slate. No sex. No sin. Just state-approved reproduction. 

When Jake and Evie are hired to demonstrate the ‘licensed act’ of reproduction the last thing they expect to feel is… pleasure. But under the watchful eye of the Abel Institute and its more experienced employees, they struggle to separate morality from instinct, love from lust, and professionalism from pure, carnal want.

Will they submit to the strict morality of The Institute or dare to feel pleasure in a society that forbids it?  

Pest Theatre brings you their confronting psycho-sexual thriller, The Empty Nest. Written by Daisy Roe, One Under Par (The Bridge House, 2023), and Blue Balloons Pink (The Hope Theatre, 2022). Directorial debut by Michael Seabrook, Tuck (The Etcetera Theatre, 2025), and In The Afterglow (The Hope Theatre, 2025). 

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Part of Write Club 2026

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Running time:​ Approximately 60 minutes

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LATECOMERS MAY NOT BE ADMITTED.

UNDER 18s ARE NOT PERMITTED INTO THE THEATRE FOR THIS PERFORMANCE. 

No re-admittance once the performance has commenced. 
Refunds and exchanges are not available.