RABBLE Theatre have announced a highly experienced cast for their acclaimed play, Glitch – The True Story of the Post Office Scandal, which will be coming to Northern Stage from Tue 10 – Wed 11 March as part of a spring 2026 UK national tour.
Joanne Howarth will play the leading role of Pam Stubbs, the sub-postmistress of Barkham wrongly accused of stealing tens of thousands of pounds. Joanne was in RABBLE’s The Last Abbot in 2021. She is a Shakespeare’s Globe Associate Artist and has played in 5 seasons there, recently in The Crucible in 2025 and Much Ado About Nothing in 2022. She’s been in 11 productions for The Royal Shakespeare Company, most recently in 2023’s Falkland Sound. Joanne started her career at The Wolsey, Ipswich and has played many places on the Glitch tour including The Importance of Being Ernest in Chester; Our Lady of Blundellsands in Liverpool; and Henry V on tour to Scarborough. Other favourites over the last 40 years include Told By An Idiots’s You Can’t Take It With You at The Royal Exchange Manchester; Parliament Square there too and at The Bush; Goodnight Mr Tom in the West End; King Lear with Glenda Jackson at The Old Vic and The Pull of Negative Gravity at 59E59 New York City. Television includes Wallander, Grange Hill, Spooks, It’s A Sin, Call the Midwife and Eastenders.
The ensemble characters who make up the rest of the play will be played by;
Naveed Khan trained at The Oxford School of Drama.
Theatre – Tamburlaine; Buddha of Suburbia and Tartuffe (RSC); Pitcairn (Shakespeare’s Globe, Chichester Festival Theatre & Out of Joint); Parlour Song (Greenwich Theatre); A Thousand Splendid Suns (Birmingham REP); Around the World in 80 Days (Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds); Paradise of the Assassins (Tara Arts); Darknet (Southwark Playhouse) 59 Minutes to Save Christmas (The Barbican & Slung Low); Flood – To The Sea & Flood – Abundance (Slung Low & BBC); The Trial (Watford Palace Theatre); Pioneer and After the Rainfall (Curious Directive).
TV – QuarterLife (Amazon Prime); Black Ops (BBC); The Cleaner (BBC); Ludwig (BBC); Generation Z (All3Media International); Suspect: The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes (ITV); This City is Ours, (LeftBank); Sex Education (Netflix); Breeders (Sky); Not Going Out (BBC); Tell Me Everything (ITV); Living in Fear (Sky); Humans (Channel 4); Electric Dreams (Channel 4); Hold the Sunset (BBC); Josh (BBC); Birds of a Feather (ITV); River (BBC) and The Catherine Tate Show (BBC).
Feature Film – Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy (Universal); Fuze (Sigma Films); Death on the Nile (20th Century Studios); Between The Lights (Laal Blue Dot); Northern Comfort (Good Chaos); What’s love got to do with it? (Instinct); Body of Water (BFI & BBC Films); Survivor (Millennium Films); Second Coming (BFI/Film4).
Sabina Netherclift, based in Reading, trained with Jacques Lecoq in Paris and has worked extensively as a performer, movement director and director. Her acting credits include Glitch stage 1 and Off the Block (RABBLE Theatre); The Great British Bump Off (South Street Arts Centre), The Red Ladies, The Feast During the Plague, The Overcoat (Clod Ensemble); and The Nativity (Young Vic). On screen, she has appeared in Doctors (BBC) and The Rise and Fall of Ancient Rome (BBC).
She co-founded Filament Theatre, alongside composer Osnat Schmool, and is a resident artist at South Street Arts Centre. Sabina lectures at GSA and is a regular teacher for RABBLE Theatre’s participation programme.
Laura Penneycard, based near Reading, will join the ensemble cast. For RABBLE, Laura has been involved in various development projects, Off The Block new writing festival and the radio production of Who Killed Alfred Oliver?. She has been involved in Glitch from the very beginning.
Laura graduated from The Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama 2002. Theatre credits include The Mousetrap; Firework Maker’s Daughter; Master and Margarita directed by Blanche McIntyre & Of Good Report chronicling the work of Spike Milligan & co. She has toured with Clwyd Theatr Cymru, Bristol Old Vic, Birmingham Stage, Yellow Coat Theatre, Queens Theatre Hornchurch, Torch Theatre, Rosa Productions, Greenham Trust and ACT Productions.
TV & film credits include Doc Martin and multiple historical horrors.
Glitch is written by Zannah Kearns and directed by RABBLE associate artist, Gareth Taylor. Dramaturgy is by RABBLE associate artist, Beth Flintoff who is also associate playwright at the Royal Court Theatre. Sound and Music Composition is by RABBLE Associate Artist, Benjamin Hudson whilst lighting design is from Oliver Welsh. Set and costume design is by Caitlin Abbot.
The tour spans the majority of England and even into Wales, near the post office of Sir Alan Bates.
The play was originally commissioned by the University of Reading and based on an original idea by Elizabeth Conaghan. It was created in association with legal professionals and victims of the story and first produced in June 2024 at Minghella Studios, University of Reading.
For further information and to learn how the production was created, please visit https://rabbletheatre.com/glitch/.
Cast and Creatives list in full
Pam Stubbs Joanne Howarth
Sir Alan Bates/Barrister Green/Ensemble Naveed Khan
Kay Linnell/Barrister Swift/Hilary/Ensemble Sabina Netherclift
Tracey Felstead/Nora/Justice Fraser/Ensemble Laura Penneycard
Writer Zannah Kearns
Dramaturg Beth Flintoff
Director Gareth Taylor and Gemma Colclough
Design Caitlin Abbott
Lighting Design Oliver Welsh
Music and Sound Design Benjamin Hudson
Based on an original concept by Elizabeth Conaghan
