Ambitious Underachiever - one-woman cabaret comes to Rugby

Ambitious Underachiever at The Lounge Café & Bar, Clifton Wharf, Rugby, on Friday 26 September. 7.30pm. Free entry, pay whatever you want!

Preview

Acclaimed American cabaret artist Mychelle Colleary brings her one-woman show Ambitious Underachiever to The Lounge Café & Bar, Clifton Wharf, Rugby on Friday 26 September 2025.

Ambitious Underachiever is part confessional storytelling, part smoky jazz set, part musical theatre cabaret. Colleary takes audiences on a wry and soulful journey through ambition, chaos and resilience. Think part Ginsberg’s Howl, part cabaret confessional, part late-night jazz club. With original songs alongside Strayhorn, Sondheim and more, it’s a show about falling short, trying again, and laughing at yourself along the way.

The show was developed in collaboration with theatre-maker Russell Lucas (co-creator of An Evening Without Kate Bush) and has toured the Brighton, Shaftesbury and Edinburgh Fringes in 2025, where audiences described it as “captivating,” “hilarious,” and “unexpectedly moving.” Colleary has also performed internationally in renowned venues in San Francisco, New York, London and Paris.

California-born, New York-schooled, London-seasoned and now living aboard a narrowboat, Mychelle Colleary has sung everything from jazz and folk-rock to opera and Turkish Sufi music. In Rugby, the show will be presented fringe-style in a café-bar setting at The Lounge Café & Bar, Clifton Wharf, echoing the spirit of the Fringe in a local, intimate space.

Ambitious Underachiever at The Lounge Café & Bar, Clifton Wharf, Rugby, on Friday 26 September. 7.30pm. Free entry, pay whatever you want!