The Importance of Being Earnest is the most renowned of Oscar Wilde’s comedies. It’s the story of two bachelors, John ‘Jack’ Worthing and Algernon ‘Algy’ Moncrieff, who create alter egos named Earnest to escape their tiresome lives.

The It by Vivienne Franzmann tells the story of a girl who has “IT” gradually growing inside her until one day it explodes out.

Tuesday by Alison Carr takes place on what looks like an ordinary Tuesday until the sky over a school opens up and suddenly things are no longer as they should be.

A laugh-out-loud variation of the virgin birth in which a woman finds her life spiralling with confusion when she wakes up morning unaccountably pregnant. And to make matters worse, Angel Gabriel and Lucifer turn up.

Two Lives Crossing, The White Rose, and another two 10-minute plays, organised by the NWTC and hosted by LEAPA

The play chronicles the arrest, interrogation and eventual execution of a group of University of Munich students who protested the Nazi regime at the height of World War II.

Theatre Improvisation Workshops in English, run by the award-winnig CRIME SCENE IMPROVISATION Team from the UK

Mirth meets murder in the world’s daftest whodunnit! Crime Scene Improvisation is an utterly unique murder mystery comedy that is different every show.

Karen sits in a fancy hotel bar with an exotic cocktail. Clearly uncomfortable with the setting and the drink, she looks around. A man with a somewhat self-imposed confidence, introducing himself as Antonio, boldly asks if he can join her. He tries a little too hard to impress her. She is cold and annoyed, yet does not ask him to leave. Is there something there? Where will it lead? Will they manage to peel each other's onions? Behind every word lies another truth.

Karen sits in a fancy hotel bar with an exotic cocktail. Clearly uncomfortable with the setting and the drink, she looks around. A man with a somewhat self-imposed confidence, introducing himself as Antonio, boldly asks if he can join her. He tries a little too hard to impress her. She is cold and annoyed, yet does not ask him to leave. Is there something there? Where will it lead? Will they manage to peel each other's onions? Behind every word lies another truth.

The Adventures of Rocky and Skye is a series of fast-paced scenes about four friends growing up together. Brainstorm is a semi-devised play about the teenaged brain

Play about the mysterious death of Theobald Wolfe Tone, the founding father of Irish Republicanism

NWTC hosts the festival of European theatrical societies - 12 play over 4 days plus a fringe programme

The participants worked on different aspects of theatrical skills.

The Ladykillers is a classic black comedy. Mrs Wilberforce, a sweet little old lady, rents out a room in her lopsided house to Marcus, a professor of music. She is blissfully unaware that he is actually a maniacal criminal who is putting together against a gang of misfits who will stop at nothing to commit the heist of their careers.

Separate viewing of filmed NWTC entry to the FEATS Virtual Fringe Festival 2021

The participants worked on different aspects of theatrical skills.

Top Girls is a 1982 play centres on Marlene, a career-driven woman who is heavily invested in women's success in business

Hilarity abounds in this portrait of three couples successively occupying a suite at The Plaza.

When Randle Patrick McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) gets transferred for evaluation from a prison farm to a mental institution, he assumes it will be a less restrictive environment. But the martinet Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher) runs the psychiatric ward with an iron fist, keeping her patients cowed through abuse, medication and sessions of electroconvulsive therapy. The battle of wills between the rebellious McMurphy and the inflexible Ratched soon affects all the ward's patients.

Susan is a middle-aged woman, trapped in a loveless marriage to a smug vicar, and estranged from her son. After a minor accident with a garden rake, her mind starts to conjure up the perfect fantasy family.

Brighton Beach Memoirs tells the story of a chaotic week in a household made up of two families, when a series of events causes the members to grapple with how to support one another despite disagreements and economic worry.

A lonely and shy widower, Guy Jones, joins a local amateur light operatic society and rises through the company ranks purely by his inability to say no – this spills over into his personal relationships with members of the society. The play is juxtaposed with scenes and music from John Gay's The Beggar's Opera.

On-line virtual festival of European English language fringe plays

A play about two sets of parents; the son of one couple has hurt the son of the other couple at a public park. The parents meet to discuss the matter in a civilized manner. However, as the evening goes on, the parents become increasingly childish and the meeting devolves into chaos.

"A Mysterious Affair" - devised piece based on themes of 'Tension' and 'Murder Mystery'

Workshop in cooperation with M Mitchelson

A laugh-out-loud variation of the virgin birth in which a woman finds her life spiralling with confusion when she wakes up morning unaccountably pregnant. And to make matters worse, Angel Gabriel and Lucifer turn up.

Improv workshop in cooperation with CSI UK

Writer's group session to partner and write play content together.

"Treasure Island" is the story of a twelve-year-old boy, Jim Hawkins, who finds a treasure map that belonged to a pirate, Captain Flint. Jim and his friends travel to a faraway island and meet ex-crew members of Captain Flint, who were also looking for the treasure and take Jim as a hostage.

Alice falls asleep and dreams that she follows a White Rabbit down a rabbit hole. She has many wondrous, often bizarre adventures. Alice often changes size unexpectedly, growing as tall as a house and shrinking to three inches.

Writer's group session to partner and write play content together.

Improv show in cooperation with CSI UK

Bertie is your average teenager, as happy being around his friends as he is dreaming of what his future holds. Starting in 1914, his world is suddenly turned upside down as World War I breaks out and he is rushed to the front-line. Inspired by Joan Littlewood’s brilliant “Oh what a lovely war”, we will take a different journey where we instead focus on how life was for Bertie, his family and friends both ‘back home’ and on the Western Front.

Chekhov’s first masterpiece" which is underpinned with a subtle yet complex humanity. It is a comedy of frustrated lives, of lost opportunities and the clash between generations in which each character must face their own aspirations and disappointments.

No one knows who the killer is: not even the cast, mirth meets murder in the world’s daftest whodunnit. Crime Scene Improvisation is an utterly unique murder mystery comedy that is different every show. A rip-roaring crime comedy entirely made up on the spot to solve a surreal murder chosen by the audience. Who? What? How? The choice is yours. The problem is theirs!

It is autumn. An older woman appears on a deserted New England beach. She has come to make a decision, but will she make it alone? The middle-aged matron she was argues her case for the comfort of a retirement home. The younger girl she was urges her to sit again and eat blue berries and study ants. What will she do?

The Hobbit is set in Middle-earth and follows home-loving Bilbo Baggins, the hobbit of the title, who joins the wizard Gandalf and thirteen dwarves that make up Thorin Oakenshield's Company, on a quest to reclaim the dwarves' home and treasure from the dragon Smaug.

“HUSBANDS SUPPLIED” is an agency, run by the formidable Mrs May, to which single women who want a husband, or have lost a husband can come to find the man of their choice. It is Tuesday morning (always a busy time for the agency) and sure enough an assortment of unusual women arrives looking for a husband. As more and more women arrive, but no men, the situation grows tense. So when one man finally does appear the competition to have him gets fierce. But only one woman can win. Originally written in 1939, “Husbands Supplied” is a strikingly modern comedy which inverses the traditional male-female married role models to hilarious effect.



BGT rehearsing "Husbands Supplied"

“FIFTY” is a classic British farce. Seemingly boring David turns fifty today, and his wife Fran and daughter Jessica arrange a surprise party for him, together with the jolly yet slightly annoying neighbour George and his wife Debbie. What none of them know is that David is having an affair. So when he shows up at the unexpected party with his half-naked mistress, the scene for havoc is set. Throw in a dubious son-in-law, a few alleged strippers and an escaped convict, and the disaster is assured ...as are the laughs!

The Pillowman is a stunning play by Martin McDonagh, a contemporary writer known for his grotesquely weird and surreal plays, is captivating, disturbing and blackly funny. At its centre is Katurian, a writer of short stories much like the ghoulish “fairy tales” of the Grimm Brothers, many of which deal with the gruesome murder of children. Yet the issue at stake is not the content of the stories but the moral responsibilities of the author and his readers. The Pillowman deals with these issues in a wonderfully subversive way, expertly interweaving horror and high comedy into a spellbinding story, its blackness shot through with fierce humanity.

Soaked in Seaweed (Canada)
A ship's crew and its passenger have shipwrecked on an uncharted island. Here they discover human weaknesses and strengths in the midst of the tragedy.

The Secret Garden (North America)
A magical discovery of life through a friendship and exploration of a special garden.

The Origin of Water (Australia)
A dream time story about the origin of water before the existence of humans.

The two Brothers (South Africa)
Two brothers who grew up together, hunting in the solitary fields of South
Africa, until one day… when one of them betrayed the other…

Jack and the Beanstalk (England)
A poor boy and his mother, hopeless and abandoned, discover a new world thanks to some magic beans which will transform their lives.

Oliver Twist is born in a workhouse in 1830s England. His mother, whose name no one knows, is found on the street and dies just after Oliver’s birth. Oliver spends the first nine years of his life in a badly run workhouse where he is bullied into asking for more food by the other young orphans. He narrowly escapes a beating and is eventually apprenticed to a local undertaker, Mr. Sowerberry. Desperately unhappy, Oliver runs away at dawn and travels to London where he meets Jack Dawkins, a boy his own age. Jack (otherwise known as “The Artful Dodger”) offers him shelter in the London house of his benefactor, Fagin. However, Fagin is actually a career criminal who trains orphan boys to pick pockets for him. After a few days of training, Oliver is sent on a pickpocketing mission with disastrous results.

Finding Sophie by Janice Dunn is a 50-minute, thought-provoking one-woman play, written in response to the blame culture surrounding the case of Madaline McCann (although the case is not referred to in the play itself). After the show, Janice will discuss the issues surrounding the writing and staging of difficult subject matters.

"The Strange Horseman" is a short (around 30 minutes) play by Michel de Ghelderode, an avant-garde Flemish dramatist who lived from 1898 to 1962 and wrote weird, wonderful, surreal, macabre and funny plays about the human condition. The Strange Horseman is no exception. It is a tragi-comic gem that looks at the varied and various reactions of a group of people faced with imminent death. It doesn't sound too light-hearted, yet the treatment is anything but depressing.
In this early play of around 1920, de Ghelderode has chosen a group of people living out their last days in an ancient hospice for the destitute and confronts them with the arrival of Mounted Death, surely come for one – or perhaps more – of their number! The outcome is terrifying, chaotic and very funny. The play was originally written in French – de Ghelderode’s language of choice for his plays – under the title Le Cavalier bizarre, but a new translation will be used for this production. It has been adapted for modern audiences – without foregoing the medieval flavour. The old people have an uproarious time, mocking, bantering, cowering, panicking, rejoicing and outdoing each other. They are all country folk, superstitious and down-to-earth. Only the Seer, with her/his command of language, shows signs of learning.

Wildly satirical, visually stunning and deeply moving, it's the musical that revolutionised modern theatre; an exhilarating, no-holds-barred assault on the military incompetence and inconceivable disregard for human life the First World War has come to represent.

One starry night, Peter Pan and Tinker Bell lead the three Darling children over the rooftops of London and away to Neverland - the island where lost boys play, mermaids splash and fairies make mischief. But a villainous-looking gang of pirates lurk in the docks, led by the terrifying Captain James Hook.