Performances commence:
7.30pm Monday to Friday, 7pm Saturday

Our adjudicator, Chris Jaeger MBE GoDA, will give a public adjudication at the end of each evening after the performances are complete

Monday 22 May

Our festival opens with the winners of the Welwyn Garden City Youth Drama Festival

Best Theatre Arts (BYTE)
Just by Ali Smith

A young woman arrives in a strange town and discovers a body stabbed in the back with an umbrella. Someone’s guilty and around here outsiders aren’t welcome. Justice must be done.

Biggleswade Amateur Theatrical Society
Snowflakes by Sarah Ridley (New Play)

Snowflakes follows the journey of Autistic teenager Will as he runs away from home and befriends an elderly widow named Rosa.

Tuesday 23 May

Meridian Theatre
Afterplay by Brian Friel

Sonya and Andrey meet in a Moscow cafe, and share their stories – but how much is true and how much is what they would like to be true?

Pierrot Players

Remember Me by Michael McFarlane (New Play)

In a family all you need is love, loyalty and trust, but life has a way of putting these things to the test

Wednesday 24 May

Anglia Ruskin Creative
The Last Act in the Story by Sean Lang

A modern take on the medieval mystery plays.

Barn Theatre Club
Tell Me On a Sunday by Don Black and Andrew Lloyd Webber

What a treat! You may be old enough to remember the 1980’s show performed by Marti Webb that played in the London West End alongside Variations with Wayne Sleep. ‘Tell Me on a Sunday’ is a one act song cycle telling the story of an ordinary English girl from Muswell Hill, who journeys to the United States in search of love. 

Thursday 25 May

Blitzed Theatre Company
The Package by John Arthur Green (New Play)

A mysterious package arrives on their doorstep. With no name. With no details. Just the package. Big enough to hold a human head. Is it a mistake or have they been found?

Tiger Theatrical Productions
A Friend in Me by Timberlake Westrum (New Play) Withdrawn

This new play centres on two characters and their increasing interdependence, as one of them experiences what can only be described as, well let’s say, a run of very bad luck, just as well they have each other, isn’t it?

BAWDS

Anyone Can Dance by Sean Baker (New Play)

Joe and Samantha have been together nearly six months. Joe wishes they’d met years ago, Samantha isn’t so sure…

Friday 26 May

Players’ Theatre (Wales)
The Honourable Member by Jeremy Hylton Davies

Set in the Welsh Assembly in Cardiff, seat of the Welsh Government. We’d like to say it’s fictitious, but they say politics and religion end at the waist, as does perhaps corruption?

Drama Queens

Untucked by Teresa Hennessy (New Play)

Two artistes share a dressing room. One, an old hand; the other, a newcomer to the profession. Will the old-timer give the benefit of his experience, or jeopardise the fledgling’s first flight into the unknown?  A bitter-sweet comedy of trust and jealousy; frocks and frills.

Saturday 27 May

Lighthorne Drama Group
12hr Life by Robert Scott

Like a scene from a Hollywood movie, Dylan and Samantha meet by chance in a railway waiting room – he on his way to another boring conference, she visiting family before emigrating to Canada – and a day-long adventure ensues. But could this be more than an unfulfilled “brief encounter” – will they share more than just a 12-hour life?

St Monica’s Players

Rally Cry by Paul Adam Levy (New Play)

After inciting the bloody overthrow of a headmaster, the new headmistress of a secondary school has to negotiate the promises she made to the teachers who helped her. But when the corpse of the previous head starts to talk, she soon realises that she is now a player in a cruel game of one-upmanship.

Players’ Theatre (Wales)
Calling Time by Derek Webb

A delicious collection of light and dark comedies between friends and strangers, sharing secrets and fears, both thought-provoking and laugh-out-loud funny, all set in a local bar. 

Followed by the Awards Ceremony

Programme subject to alteration