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Our programme this year is:-

9-18 September - The Maintenance Man by Richard Harris 

21-30 October - Amadeus by Peter Shaffer

9-18 December -The Farndale Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society's production of A Christmas Carol by David McGillivray and Walter Zerlin Jnr

20-29 January 2011 - The Lightning Play by Charlotte Jones

February tba Wokingham Youth Theatre production

24 March - 2 April - Confusions by Alan Aykbourn and The Browning Version by Terence Rattigan 

5 - 14 May - Of Mice And Men by John Steinbeck

9-18 June - Ladies' Day by Amanda Whittington

14-23 July - Our Country's Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker

 all evening performances start at 7.45pm

by Richard Harris

9 – 18 September 2010 at 7.45pm

directed by Peter Stallwood

From the author of Outside Edge and Stepping Out comes this bitter-sweet, witty and perceptive look at the collapse of a marriage and the development and decay of an affair. Bob is a do-it-yourself enthusiast with a longing to be needed. Even after he is divorced from Chris he constantly returns to his former home until Diana, his new love, begins to resent having to face competition for his time from his children and his Black and Decker.

Booking opens 1 July

by Peter Shaffer  

21-30 October 2010 at 7.45pm       

Directed by Pamela Barter

First presented at the Royal National Theatre, and then as a major Oscar nominated film, Amadeus is a modern classic. In old age, Salieri recalls his successful career as Court Composer, his hatred of Mozart, and how he contrived the brilliant young composer's death. A musical genius, Mozart died neglected and impoverished while the mediocre Salieri lived in a blaze of fame and praise. A great play and of course a great musical score!

Booking opens 1 August

The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen’s Guild Dramatic Society’s Production of A Christmas Carol

by David McGillivray & Walter Zerlin Jnr

9 – 18 December 2010 at 7.45pm

Directed by Alan Long

In festive mood, the F.A.H.E.T.G.D.S. ladies mount yet another assault on the classics with their stage version of A Christmas Carol. Enthusiasm their middle name, and with the virile support of stage-manager Gordon, the cast present a dizzy array of characters from the Dickensian favourite (and a few which aren't). Expect the unexpected including audience participation – if you are brave enough!

Booking opens 1 October

by Charlotte Jones

20 – 29 January 2011 at 7.45pm

Directed by Simon McCartan

A new play by Charlotte Jones, author of Humble Boy, first performed in London in 2006, a play which by turns is funny, mysterious and ultimately shocking. Celebrity ghost-writer Max Villiers and his shop-a-holic wife Harriet are hosting a party at Hallow’een. Their guests include a failed monk; his date, who dabbles in New Age ideas; the heavily-pregnant Imogen, a friend of the Villiers’ daughter; and her strait-laced husband. Max’s new plasma screen TV dominates the room but only he can see the images from the past that appear on it, revealing the tragedy that the Villiers have long tried to bury but must now face.

Booking opens 1 November

setails to be announced

16 – 19 February (dates also to be confirmed)

Booking opens 1 December

An evening of One-Act Plays:

24 March – 2 April 2011 at 7.45pm

Confusions

by Alan Ayckbourn

Directed by Geoff Gee

We shall be presenting two of the 5 short plays which deal riotously, but with sharply pointed undertones, with the human dilemma of loneliness. Alan Ayckborn writing at his funniest and most perceptive.

The Browning Version

by Terence Rattigan

Directed by David Edwards

Rattigan’s little gem of a play has long been a favourite and recently reached the big screen featuring Albert Finney. It is 1948 and ill-health is forcing Andrew Cocker-Harris to retire from school-teaching. His wife despises him for being a failure and has been finding consolation with a master, Frank Hunter. The headmaster refuses to grant Crocker-Harris a pension, and he is struggling to teach young Taplow the joys of Latin. A poignant and beautifully written piece.

Booking opens 1 January

by John Steinbeck

5 - 14 May 2011 at 7.45pm

Directed by Nigel Lawson Dick

Steinbeck's own stage version of his classic novel tells the story of George and Lenny, the fast-talking farm hand and the simple giant who accompanies him on a life of casual labour in the California Agricultural Belt of the 1930's. They share a dream of a little place of their own, where Lenny can tend the rabbits and they can "live off the fat of the land". As we know, however, the best laid plans of mice and men ‘gang aft agley’ and tragedy is never far away. 

Booking opens 1 March

by Amanda Whittington

9 – 18 June 2011 at 7.45pm 

Directed by Mark Hampshire

An exuberant comedy about four likely lasses from the Hull fish docks on a day trip to the races. Work, love and life are just one long, hard slog for the fish-filleting foursome Pearl, Jan, Shelley and Linda. But their fortunes are set to change when Linda finds tickets to Ladies' Day at Royal Ascot the year it relocated to York. Out go the hairnets, overalls and wellies as the four ditch work, do themselves up to the nines and head off to the races for a drink, a flirt and a flutter. If their luck holds, they could hit the jackpot - and more besides...

Booking opens 1 April

by Timberlake Wertenbaker

14 – 23 July 2011 at 7.45pm   

Directed by Diane Jessie Miller

The play was first performed at The Royal Court Theatre in 1988 and 1989 to critical acclaim. Set in Botany Bay in 1789 it tells of the rehearsals for the first play to be performed in Australia. Surrounded by forbidding conditions Lieutenant Clark attempts, under the authority of the first Governor General, to bring culture to the penal colony through a production of Farquhar's The Recruiting Officer.  His cast is a motley bunch of villains, murderers and prostitutes. Funny, moving and thought provoking, Our Country’s Good brings the season to a great conclusion.

Booking opens 1 May

by Willy Russell

Sep 10-19 at 7.45pm

Directed by David Edwards

Liverpool hairdresser Rita is hungry to find some meaning to life and embarks on an Open University course.  Her tutor Frank has a disillusioned outlook on life which drives him to the bottle.  The effects of the course on Rita are both amusing and dramatic as her fresh, intuitive approach becomes cloudeed and stifled as she grapples with the problem of formal eductaion;  while Frank also learns something - to believe in himself again.  

by David Haig

Oct 22 – 31 at 7.45pm

Directed by Pamela Barter

A beautifully written drama about Rudyard Kipling's blinkered patriotism with regard to the enlistment of his sensitive, myopic son Jack in the First World War. Based on fact, this play was recently seen on television with the author as Kipling and Daniel Radcliffe as his son.

by Alan Ayckbourn

Dec 3-12 at 7.45pm

Directed by Peter Stallwood

This brilliant new comedy by the master of the genre involves a dramatic coup de théâtre in which the bewildered central character finds himself cast in a mélange of widely differing sub-plots with hilarious results. The closest Ayckbourn has ever got to pantomime!

by Ira Levin

Jan 21 – 30 at 7.45pm

Directed by Nigel Lawson Dick

In this spooky thriller, a chance encounter brings Susan and Larry to the Brabissant mansion. It seems Susan has an uncanny resemblance to Veronica Brabissant, who died tragically some years earlier. But all is not as it seems. Edge of the seat stuff!

The Government Inspector

by Nikolai Gogol

Translated and adapted by Alistair Beaton

17-20 February at 7.45pm

Directed by Fiona Rogers

Wokingham Youth Theatre offers you the opportunity to see our cast of talented young performers in one of the most famous comedies in world theatre. Gogol’s masterpiece has lost none of its bite.

In a small town at the back of nowhere corruption is rife and the Mayor and his cronies have got it made. But when they learn they’re going to be subject to an undercover government inspection they panic. Mistaking a penniless nobody for the powerful official they swiftly fall victims to their own stupidity and greed. In this hilarious new translation award-winning satirist Alistair Beaton brings to life its dazzling blend of preposterous characters and all too real situations.

by Alan Bennett

Mar 25 - Apr 3 at 7.45pm

Directed by Mark Hampshire 

This fascinating play, combining comedy and pathos, is based on Bennett's extraordinary 20-year relationship with Miss Shepherd, who lived in a van initially outside his house in Camden Town and eventually in his front garden until she died. Not to be missed!

by Henrik Ibsen

April 29 - May 8 at 7.45pm

Directed by Hedda Bird 

A sensation when first written, Ibsen's play has remained one of the great classics of 19^th Century theatre. Its central character, Nora, breaks out of her secure, loving yet repressive marriage and, in a highly dramatic denouement, strikes a blow for feminism.

by Derek Benfield

June 10-19 at 7.45pm

Directed by David Edwards

In this merry comedy of marital mishaps the scene is set for an evening and morning of riotous misunderstandings and mistaken identities as the guilty parties try deperately to keep their romantic secrets secret! Everything we expect from a Derek Benfield comedy.

Booking now open

by Melvyn Bragg

July 15-24 at 7.45pm

Directed by Alan Long

A musical drama in which we follow our hero through his early years as a farm labourer, through domestic tribulations and into and beyond the First World War and its social effects. With music by Howard Goodall, this is essentially a life-affirming saga of country folk.

Booking now open