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

NP = New Play eligible for the Best Unpublished Play Award.

Public adjudication of each play from Tristan Marshall GoDA follows at the end of each evening.

Monday 22 May

Limitless Academy of Performing Arts

SHOWTIME!

A non-competitive, musical extravaganza of excerpts from a variety of West End musicals, originally compiled to celebrate the Coronation of King Charles III. 

Tuesday 23 May

Feelgood Factor – BEST Theatre Arts

The Real Inspector Hound by Tom Stoppard

Best Theatre Arts’ Feelgood Factor class brings you Tom Stoppard’s The Real Inspector Hound. A ludicrous farce littered with dead bodies, pretentious theatre critics, outrageous philandering and complete buffoons. 

Stoppard’s play-within-a-play spins a web between two narratives that is almost impossible to untangle and has been described as ‘a classic of the English comic tradition’.

BirchTree

Potholes: The Modern Menace by Pete Jeary (NP)

A new play on an old nuisance. Please join Harold as he tries to gather support in making the council do something about the state of the roads. He’s no Rod Stewart – but what Harold lacks in charisma, he makes up for in dogged determination. And what he doesn’t know about potholes isn’t worth knowing. “If people like us don’t make an effort, then who will?”

This wry comedy twists and turns as if it were dodging potholes from beginning to end.

Wednesday 24 May

Les Comédiens de Calisso

Waiting for the Bat  by Mark McDonald Ingram (NP)

An Academic awaits confirmation of his residency status, reflecting prosaically on life, loneliness and old age. Frustrated, desperate and fearful of expulsion, he starts to see a bat in the house. Could this creature portend his imminent demise?

Bawds

Philip and Rowena  by Gillian Plowman

Philip and Rowena meet in a hospice. Together they find friendship, romance and an amazing capacity for fun. And share an extraordinary devotion to life.

Thursday 25 May

Back to Front Theatre

Lila on the Wall  by Edward Allan Baker

Journalist Lila must investigate a three-month-old story about a woman who saw Jesus’ face on a graffiti-laden wall. But the woman who saw it is off on a tour in Italy, and Carl, a young cameraman who prides himself in figuring out “emotional landscapes”, is determined to make Lila believe in something again.

Waterbeach Theatre Company

One Night in Toledo  by Mark Easterfield (NP)

On the terrace of a hotel in Spain two women meet and, as they talk, an uncomfortable history begins to emerge. In such a chance encounter, when confusion is easy, is it right to step in when danger beckons?
*Content warning: This play concerns themes of violence and abuse.*

Friday 26th May 7.30pm

The Players’ Theatre (Wales)

Hamlet – the Catalyst  by William Shakespeare

King Hamlet of Denmark has recently died and his widow has quickly married his brother. Prince Hamlet is distraught with grief and horror at his mother’s swift and, in his eyes, abhorrent choice of husband. The Court is still celebrating the marriage while the Land is on full alert against a threatened invasion.

Two night sentries inform Horatio a close friend of Prince Hamlet that they have experienced a supernatural visitation and the 3 men inform Prince Hamlet of the ghostly apparition and he decides to keep watch with them.

SMP

Dead Offensive  by Paul Adam Levy (NP)

“The prime minister of the United Kingdom is f***ing dead!”. A rundown comedy club, four comedians and a Latvian sex worker. Can everything though be joked about and turned into comedy or are some topics strictly off limits?

Written by the award winning Paul Adam Levy and featuring a talented all female cast, Dead Offensive is guaranteed to have you in stitches one moment and questioning your own morals the next!
*Content warning: contains explicit language and references to suicide.*

CADS

Don’t Blame it on the Boots by Nick Warburton

Eric is playing the ghost in a production of Hamlet. His fiancée Liz wants him to wear the boots her father wore at Stratford but Eric is more interested in the young and impressionable actor playing Ophelia. Director Kate is starting to wish she’d produced Macbeth instead…

Saturday 27th May 7.00pm

Total Arts Community Theatre

A Sudden Violent Burst of Rain by Sami Ibrahim

Elif shears sheep for a rich landowner. Every other waking hour she spends queuing outside the palace, hoping that the King will let her live within the city walls. She comes from a far-away land. She is searching for sanctuary.
And this is what we call a hostile environment.

From award-winning playwright Sami Ibrahim, a poetic fable of an impenetrable immigration system that mirrors our own performed by current AETF British Champions TACT.

SMP

These Are the Days by Shari Gledhill

“Don’t you want me baby”. Spilled coffee, Sweaty Steven and the 80s. Through the words of Matt and Vicky, we explore the highs and lows of one couple’s love story. But will theirs be one of happiness or sorrow? Featuring live on stage music accompaniment, this will be a storytelling experience like no other.
*Content warning: contains themes of loss and death.*

Followed by the final adjudication and Presentation of Awards