There are very few theatre experiences in the world where the ticket price includes a scotch pie and a pint of beer. There is precisely one where you get those things at lunchtime, in a converted church, while watching a brand-new short play — and it has been running in Glasgow's West End for over two decades.
A Play, A Pie and A Pint at Oran Mor is one of the city's most beloved cultural institutions, and its spring 2026 season runs through to 27 June with a programme of new writing that showcases some of Scotland's finest theatrical talent.
The Format
The format is gloriously simple. At lunchtime, audiences file into the magnificently painted auditorium on the top floor of Oran Mor — the former Kelvinside Parish Church on Byres Road, converted into a bar, restaurant, and arts venue in 2004. They watch a short play, typically around forty-five minutes. They eat a pie. They drink a pint. They go back to work, or to whatever else the afternoon holds, having had a complete theatrical experience for roughly the price of a cinema ticket.
It sounds almost too modest to be remarkable. But A Play, A Pie and A Pint has commissioned and staged over a thousand new plays since it launched in 2004, making it one of the most prolific new writing programmes in British theatre. It has given early platforms to playwrights who have gone on to major careers, and it continues to attract established writers who relish the discipline of the short form and the energy of a lunchtime audience.
Why It Endures
The spring 2026 season offers a fresh batch of new writing every week through to the end of June. The programme ranges across comedy, drama, and everything in between — a reflection of the series' longstanding commitment to variety and surprise. Audiences never quite know what they are going to get, which is precisely the point.
What makes the format endure is partly practical and partly atmospheric. The price is accessible. The lunchtime slot means that theatre is not competing with an evening out — it fits into the day rather than replacing it. The venue itself, with its Alasdair Gray ceiling mural and its cheerful irreverence, feels like nowhere else.
But there is something deeper at work. A Play, A Pie and A Pint is a Glasgow institution in the truest sense — it could not exist anywhere else, and it does not try to be anything other than what it is. It is democratic, unpretentious, and unapologetically local. The pie is a scotch pie. The pint is a pint. The plays are new. The audience is everyone.
Practical Details
Performances run Monday to Saturday at lunchtime at Oran Mor, corner of Byres Road and Great Western Road, Glasgow. Tickets are available from the Oran Mor box office and online. The spring season runs until 27 June 2026.
If you have never been, this is your season to try it. If you are a regular, you already know: there is nothing else quite like it.
