Our directors introduce their 2024 plays, recorded live in September 2023
Time and the Conways
by J B Priestley
Directed by Colleen Batson
An amateur production by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd
Main House
Friday 12th January to Sunday 20th January (Not Sunday 14th January)
This 1937 play by J B Priestley is the first of three based on a motif of time: can we time travel forward and use that knowledge to inform our past? The Conways are shattered by the death of a father, and we see how the actions of the past wreak devastating effect on them and the ones they love. This multi-layered play is one of Priestley’s most loved.
The Picture of Dorian
Gray
By Oscar Wilde. Adapted for the stage by Merlin Holland and John O’Connor
Directed by Jane Lobb
An amateur production by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd
Main House
Friday 9th February to Saturday 17th February (Not Sunday 11th February)
Enter the seductive and decadent world of Victorian London where beauty masks malevolence and morality is put to the ultimate test. Oscar Wilde’s classic brings to life the story of a young man who trades his soul for eternal youth and beauty, offering a spine-tingling study of the perilous descent of a man untethered by conscience.
The Water’s Edge
By Theresa Rebeck
Directed by Alison Green
An amateur production by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd
In the Bar
Wednesday 21st February to Sunday 25th February
Award winning writer Theresa Rebeck’s mysterious and thrilling drama about the secrets we bury and a family striving to make sense of their memories of the past and of each other. Why do they hate and how can they forgive? When each possesses their own version of the truth, what is the resolution that will finally bring them peace?
Released in 1995, Bill Bryson’s travelogue about his journeys the length and breadth of the British Isles went on to sell 2 million copies and spend three years on bestseller lists. Premiered in 2023, Tim Whitnall’s adaptation takes Bryson’s adventures from Calais to Scotland asking just what it is about this sceptred isle that makes Britain so great.
TBC
A Youth Theatre Production
Directed by Pauline Armour and Jessica Ann Jenner
Main House
Thursday 21st March to Saturday 23rd March
Watch this space for an exciting 2024 production by the award winning Bromley Little Youth Theatre
Home, I’m Darling
By Laura Wade
Directed by Josh Lawson
An amateur production by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd
Main House
Friday 12th April to Saturday 20th April (not Sunday 14th April)
Judy and Johnny Martin are the perfect ‘1950’s’ couple. Whilst her husband is at work, Judy lives her fantasy of being the dream housewife. However, this domestic bliss is not what it seems and, behind the gingham curtains, how happily married are the happily married? Laura Wade’s biting satire won the 2019 Olivier Award for Best New Comedy.
Five Kinds of Silence
by Shelagh Stephenson
Directed by Rob O’Neill
An amateur production by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd
In the bar
Wednesday 24th April to Sunday 28th April
This emotional and absorbing play shows the lives of a mother and her two daughters as they attempt to cope with the effects of a lifetime of domestic violence. Beautifully crafted and poignant the play explores themes of love, loss, and the resilience of the human spirit. Winner of Best Play and Best Drama when it first showcased. Don’t miss!
Arrivals and Departures
By Alan Ayckbourn
Directed by Paul Ackroyd
An amateur production by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd
Main House
Friday 10th May to Saturday 18th May (not Sunday 12th May)
At a London rail terminus an elaborate trap is being deployed in an attempt to capture a dangerous terrorist. Two strangers who are brought together to help in the operation relive memories of their lives. Each act concentrates on one of the two leading to a dramatic and surprising ending. Ambitious, inventive, and mischievously funny.
Flare Path
By Terence Rattigan
Directed by Gillian Gissing
An amateur production by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd
Main House
Friday 7th June to Saturday 15th June (not Sunday 9th June)
It’s 1942. An off-duty weekend for 3 RAF aircrew and their wives in The Falcon Hotel is anything but relaxing when Patricia’s ex arrives to whisk her away from her husband just before a new bombing mission over Germany is ordered. What will she do? Who will survive the night? Rattigan’s beautifully written play manages to be both profoundly moving and wonderfully funny.
Bug
By Tracy Letts
Directed by Debbie Griffiths
An amateur production by arrangement with A3 Artists Agency
In the bar
Wednesday 19th June to Sunday 23rd June
Set in a seedy Oklahoma motel room, Agnes, a divorced, lonely waitress, becomes involved with Peter, a soft-spoken Gulf War drifter. As the relationship between Agnes and Peter develops, so does their bug infestation. A thrilling, twisted tale of romance and paranoia. Shocking, obsessive and deeply engaging. Strong drama at it’s very best!!
Brief Encounter
By Noel Coward. Adapted for the stage by Emma Rice
Directed by Roxana Graves
An amateur production by arrangement with Concord Theatricals Ltd
Main House
Friday 5th July to Saturday 13th July (not Sunday 7th July)
The classic tale of the impossible love affair between two married people who, having met at a train station, are hurled headlong into a whirlwind romance that threatens to blow both their worlds apart. Set just before the beginning of World War II, it remains very much intact. Imaginatively and sensitively adapted for the stage, it is both joyful and heartbreaking.
Jane Eyre
By Charlotte Bronte. Adapted for the stage by Chris Bush
Directed by Jessica Ann Jenner
An amateur production by arrangement with Nick Hern Books
Main House
Friday 13th September to Saturday 21st September (not Sunday 15th September)
Brontë’s classic tale of self discovery and a quest for love embodied through the eponymous heroine! Jane Eyre bursts onto the stage in Chris Bush’s witty, fast-paced adaptation which cuts straight to the heart of this much-loved novel. With just six actors playing over thirty characters this is Jane Eyre as you’ve never seen it before and won’t want to miss!
Honour
By Joanna Murray Smith
Directed by Karen O’Neill
An amateur production by arrangement with Nick Hern Books
In the Bar
Wednesday 25th September to Sunday 29th September
What happens when a middle-aged man leaves his wife for an intelligent, younger woman? How does a wife who has been supportive, loyal and loving deal with the information that everything she’s done over the previous 30 years wasn’t enough? How does their daughter come to terms with the fact that the marriage she grew up watching wasn’t as perfect as she thought?
Jack Absolute
Flies Again
By Richard Bean and Oliver Chris
Directed by Pauline Armour
Main House
Friday 11th October to Saturday 19th October (not Sunday 13th October)
A huge hit at the National Theatre in 2022 confirming that comic lightning really does strike twice! Updating Sheridan’s ‘The Rivals’ to WW2, Richard Bean, the mastermind comedy creator of ‘One Man Two Guvnors’, brings us an uproarious mix of hilarity, derring–do and romance. It’s funny, very, very funny – a glorious blast of sunshine !! Not to be missed.
The Southbury Child
By Stephen Beresford
Directed by Mike Darbon
An amateur production by arrangement with Nick Hern Books
Main House
Friday 8th November to Saturday 16th November (not Sunday 10th November)
David Highland keeps a grip on his Devon parish with disordered charm and high-handed determination. But when his faith forces him to take a hard line with a bereaved parishioner, he finds himself isolated from both local opinion and his own family, facing a future that threatens to extinguish not only his position in the town but everything he stands for.
Yellowfin
By Marek Horn
Directed by Rob Widdicombe
An amateur production by arrangement with Nick Hern Books
In the Bar
Wednesday 20th November to Sunday 24th November
How did the fish go?
Where did the fish go?
Why did the fish go?
The three great questions of our age.
Is it a warning?
Is it a message?
Is it a sign?
Let the record show
We want to know what we don’t know,
We want to know what the fish didn’t know.
No price is too high for that knowledge.
A razor-sharp comedy.
A howl of anger.
A call to arms.
The Life and
Adventures of
Nicholas Nickleby
(Pts 1 & 2)
By Charles Dickens. Adapted for the stage by David Edgar
Directed by Josh Lawson
An amateur production by arrangement with Josef Weinberger Limited
Main House
Wednesday 4th December to Saturday 14th December (not Sunday 8th December)
When Nicholas’ father dies, leaving his family financially ruined, he must find a way to support his mother and sister in a society that is governed by the corrupt and the greedy who would see him fail – including his own Uncle! This touching and funny two-part adaptation of Dicken’s classic novel, by David Elgar, won the 1982 Tony Award for Best Play.