Season 2024-2025
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Life's Too Short - SOLD OUT
Thursday 3rd April - 7:30pm Richard Easton launches his compendium of poems, Life's Too Short. He will be performing a selection of poems from the work as well as answering questions. |
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Concerted Effort by Nigel Cropper - SOLD OUT
A Rehearsed play reading Thursday 24th April - 7:30pm Our actors perform a rehearsed reading of Concerted Effort a brand new play by Nigel Cropper. The bar will be open. |
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Pygmalion
by George Bernard Shaw Directed by Natalie Crompton Evenings: 10th & 12th to 17th May 2025 - 7:30pm Matinees: 11th & 17th May 2025 - 2:30pm One rainy, London night, phonetics professor Henry Higgins takes in a flower girl named Eliza Doolittle in an effort to win a bet with Colonel Pickering, an expert in Indian dialects. He bets Pickering that he can teach Eliza elocution and pass her off as a lady to all of London society. |
Despite many reservations and objections Eliza ultimately agrees to their experiment. Over the course of her education, Eliza’s father, Alfred Doolittle takes his chances with Higgins for money, but this backfires when he unwillingly becomes a well-off, middle-class gentleman thanks to Higgin’s connections with a rich philanthropist. Eliza turns out to be an apt student and easily convinces the ladies at a garden party that she is a mysterious duchess. Despite her success, Higgins is pompous about his efforts and never truly thinks of Eliza as a lady or his social equal after her stunning transformation. With a proposal from the besotted Freddy Eynsford-Hill lingering in the air, Eliza leaves Higgins to seek her own future.
Tickets on public sale from 19th April. Theatre Club Members may Book Now.
Tickets on public sale from 19th April. Theatre Club Members may Book Now.
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Grandma’s Homecoming
A rehearsed reading of the play by Howard Brower 28th – 29th May 2025 : 7:30pm (Please note that as this is a visiting production, it is not included as part of Whitefield Garrick Theatre Club Membership.) The hilarious but moving black comedy of how to transport a body, from Bushey near Watford to Manchester on a very busy Friday afternoon before Shabbos. It’s such a mad story, it couldn’t be true, could it? And some live music performed by Jaynie Powsney. All proceeds to be donated to the British Heart Foundation and other local charities. Tickets available here |
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Visiting Production
Darkness Visible & Hallowtide 22nd - 23rd July 2025 7:30pm (Please note that as this is a visiting production, it is not included as part of Whitefield Garrick Theatre Club Membership.) From the writer Martin Paul Roche, one evening, two actresses, two stories ... and two reasons to be afraid. On each of the 22nd and 23rd July ‘New To You Theatre’ bring two eerie one act plays to Whitefield Garrick. Darkness Visible Katherine has decided to see a Counsellor to help her with a fear. Her only fear; one which has been with her, haunted her for most of her life. It is a fear many of us have had at one time or another and probably grown out of. But her fear has got worse as she has grown older and she can no longer live with it. She is hoping to be “fixed” by the sessions she has booked with Sarah, her Counsellor, and during her first one, she tells the story, her story; the story of what terrorises her. Can Sarah help her come to terms with her fear? Or is there more to it, more and than she is telling her? Facing your fear is to know it. Knowing your fear is to understand it. 0But believing it? That could take your fear to a completely different place … Hallowtide Sophie has awoken in a wood. Hallowtide Wood. She has no memory of when or how she came to be there. In the dark, in the middle of nowhere, and surrounded by confusion she is discovered by Georgia who isn’t lost exactly, but appears to have lost herself. Cut off in the enforced solitude and isolation of their surroundings, it’s more than the woods which appear to be creating shadows. And it is not long before the lines between reality and recollections begin to blur. What can be believed? Who should be believed? What have they accidentally stumbled into? That is, if they ever did stumble. If it ever was an accident. For some things are never really what they seem; especially on All Hallows Eve; especially in Hallowtide Wood. Book Here |
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Visiting Production (GM Fringe)
The Positivity Experiment by Catherine Cropper Directed by Andrew Cropper 24th-26th July 2025 Following her success in last year's GM Fringe Festival with Life After which was shortlisted for the Audience Choice Award, we are delighted to welcome back Catherine Cropper to Whitefield Garrick with a brand new play. After suffering a breakdown, singer, Jas, is ready to jump. Cue Vee, a witty, chaotic mystery, who offers an intriguing proposition: give them a year to prove just how incredible, amazing and completely, undeniably beautiful life can be. A gentle, uplifting glimpse into healing, packed full of music, laughter… and rival gnomes. |
Season 2025-2026
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Lovesong by Abi Morgan
13th – 20th September 2025 Directed by Natalie Crompton Drama ‘Lovesong’ by Abi Morgan is a poignant and beautifully crafted play that intertwines the lives of a young couple in the early stages of their marriage with their older selves, reflecting on the lifetime they have shared. The narrative shifts between past and present, sometimes using movement to represent this, with all four actors at times occupying the same space. |
Through a series of tender, sometimes heart-wrenching moments, the play captures the essence of enduring love and the bittersweet nature of growing old together.
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The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale
Adapted by Alexandra Wood 8th-15th November 2025 Directed by Alfred Howard Mystery/ True Crime Summer 1860, an elegant country house, a young boy is found dead in an outside privy. All clues point towards the murderer being a member of the grieving household. Called to the scene is the most celebrated detective of his day, Jonathan Whicher from Scotland Yard. But this case challenges him in ways he's never been challenged before. |
Over twenty years later, still haunted by the case, Whicher visits the murderer. As they replay the past, they start to question the nature of truth, the desire for certainty and the possibility of redemption.
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Moonlight and Magnolias – by Ron Hutchinson
10th – 17th January 2026 Directed by Dave Eyre Comedy 'There's your first problem. No Civil War movie ever made a dime. Or ever will. 'Hollywood, 1939: semi-independent mogul David O.Selznick has just shut down production on the most eagerly anticipated movie in history - his mega budget version of Margaret Mitchell's bestselling novel Gone with the Wind - scrapping the original script and sacking the director in the process. |
Determined to produce a rewrite in five days, he engages the reluctant services of ace script doctor Ben Hecht - possibly the only person in America who has not read the novel - and the movie's new director Victor Fleming, poached straight from the set of The Wizard of Oz . His reputation on the line, and with nothing but a stockpile of peanuts and bananas to sustain them, Selznick locks himself in his office with his two collaborators, and a marathon creative session begins..
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Present Laughter by Noel Coward
7th – 14th March 2026 Directed by Peter Larkin Comedy At the centre of his own universe sits matinee idol Garry Essendine: suave, hedonistic and too old, says his wife, to be having numerous affairs. His line in harmless, infatuated debutantes is largely tolerated but playing closer to home is not. Just before he escapes on tour to Africa the full extent of his misdemeanours is discovered. And all hell breaks loose. |
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Bronte by Polly Teale
9th – 16th May 2026 Directed by Andrea Parle Drama Polly Teale’s literary re-imagining of the turbulent lives of the Bronte sisters portrays the women from childhood to death, weaving back and forth in time. In 1845, their brother, Branwell Bronte, returned home to Haworth, West Yorkshire, in disgrace, having been dismissed from his employment following an affair with the mistress of the house. |
As their brother descends into alcoholism and insanity, his sisters, Anne, Charlotte and Emily, attempt to keep the household together and protect their father, Patrick. In the midst of chaos, they write more furiously than ever before. Focusing on their creation of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights respectively, their journeys and engagement with their characters offers a glimpse into the states of mind of the sisters during this time.
Each feels tortured and ill-at-ease in their own way, as they struggle to align their literary creations with real life. With a certain amount of mystery surrounding the artistic legacy of the Bronte sisters, Polly Teale’s interpretation of their fractious relationship and tortured ambition presents a fascinating glimpse into the lives of three of Yorkshire’s most famous authors.
Each feels tortured and ill-at-ease in their own way, as they struggle to align their literary creations with real life. With a certain amount of mystery surrounding the artistic legacy of the Bronte sisters, Polly Teale’s interpretation of their fractious relationship and tortured ambition presents a fascinating glimpse into the lives of three of Yorkshire’s most famous authors.
