FORMER LOADED PRODUCTION EDITOR, NOW TRANSGENDER PLAYWRIGHT AND ACTRESS, STARS IN TRANSGENDER REIMAGINING OF FRANKENSTEIN
Cruel Britannia: After Frankenstein
18-30 June 2025
Media Preview 19JuneThe Glitch, Waterloo134 Lower Marsh, London SE1 7AE
In 1994 Kristen Smyth was production editor on the very first issue of loaded – the magazine about to become 90s Britain’s most notorious lads mag. Despite staff only initially being contracted for three months, the underdog men’s magazine became a cultural phenomenon, selling almost 500k copies a month at its peak.
Nearly three decades later, Kristen transitioned to become a trans woman, moved to Australia and became a critically acclaimed actress and playwright in the process.
“Transitioning was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” – Kristen Smyth
loaded was credited by The Guardian as “defining an era.”For its first two years Kristen was pivotal in creating the iconic lads mag bible.
Kristen Smyth became a playwright after actor Tom Hardy suggest she take a stab at an improv night.
Kristen Smyth now returns to London, 30 years on from the peak of loaded, with new play Cruel Britannia: After Frankenstein, making its London debut at The Glitch in Waterloo, after rave reviews for performances in Melbourne and at the Edinburgh Fringe.
Written and performed by Smyth, Cruel Britannia: After Frankenstein is a transgender reimagining of Mary Shelley’s seminal novel set in Thatcher’s Britain, 1983. Viktor becomes Frank, an 80s football hooligan, and the Creature becomes Ruby, his trans secret self. It’s a play that crashes West Ham’s Inter City Firm into the heart of gender politics and this June London audiences will get their first chance to see Cruel Britannia.
“Set in Thatcher’s London, the poetic epic tells of hooligans and club kids wrestling for joy in a world that aims to make them, and their queerness, monstrous.” –
Playbill on Cruel Britannia’s hit Edinburgh Fringe run
“A trans goth classic of its own” – The Age on Cruel Britannia’s Australia run
loaded dominated lads culture and its creators partied to excess with the stars it documented. By the time loaded folded in 2012, two staff members had been sectioned, several were being treated for drug and alcohol abuse, and one suffered a tragic accident. At the peak of loaded, Kristen was already spiralling, drinking heavily and doing lines of cocaine at her desk.
It wasn’t until 2018 that Kristen started transitioning. After hormone treatment, top surgery, facial correction and a deeply personal journey, Kristen finally feels comfortable in her own skin as an actress and internationally performed playwright.
Kristen’s loaded years were followed by decades of chaotic searching for her true self that took her from the mountains of Central Asia to a rehearsal space above a pub with Tom Hardy and Kelly Reilly, to getting millions of dollars out of five Australian Prime Ministers until finally, she saw a trauma specialist.
“At the second session the therapist said to me, ‘Has anyone suggested that you might be transgender?’ And as soon as they said that, I felt a gut response completely out of nowhere.” – Kristen Smyth
Kristen has brought football hooligans and club kids together in a world of HEAVEN and SUBTERANIA, Kensington Market, Green Street and Portobello Road. Her story telling is poetic and vibrant, fierce and furiously funny. And she has plenty to say about toilets!
Cruel Britannia: After Frankenstein, written and performed by Kristen Smyth, is at The Glitch, Waterloo, London, 18 – 30 June. Tickets available now from theglitch.london
Kristen Smyth was part of the The Big Issue launch team in London in 1991 and then moved on to become a senior editor at loaded in the mid-90s. She has worked for an international aid agency in Central Asia and in health policy at the King’s Fund in London. After a move to Australia in 2008, she worked for ten years in the Federal Parliament in Canberra. She was a health policy adviser for Bob Brown, the leader of the Greens and an advocate and lobbyist for millions of dollars for youth mental health and addiction research.
