THE SELECTED PLAYS
Six nations were represented by 13 award-winning one-act plays and one full-length play.
The ‘cream of amateur theatre’
within Belgium, England, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Scotland and Switzerland this festival season
They had all gained their place at the National Drama Festival by having been awarded over 80 marks by at least one GoDA Adjudicator at an NDFA-affiliated festival.
The Aviary by Jamie Lakritz
One-act play performed by Brightlight Theatre,
Frimley, ENGLAND
Winner of the Henley Festival
Runner Up of the Welwyn Festival
In the cul-de-sac of The Aviary, the bird-people residents are trapped in the branches of the Parapara – a bird-catcher tree, whose sweet seeds and sticky sap bind its captives. Over the course of a single day, a peacock preens for invisible followers, a messenger bird trades in gossip, an ostrich drowns in a flood she refuses to acknowledge, and a timid parrot edges toward the cage door.
A choral verse-play in the tradition of Under Milk Wood, The Aviary is a dark comedy about performance, paralysis, and the trap that sings us to sleep.
Contains swearing
Brothers by Kerry Drumm
One-act play performed by Drum Machine Theatre, GUERNSEY
A top scorer at the Guernsey One Act Festival
‘Brothers’ is a forensic examination of both the strength and the crackling tension of fraternal bonds. By turns fiery and funny, it skips across decades of a family’s story, alighting upon the incidents that fuel each brother’s self-narrative.
Prompted by news of his brother Matt’s cancer diagnosis, Jay journeys back from his clubbing life in Ibiza with the aim of confronting the sins of the past – his own and others’.
What follows is a battle of memory, of perspective and of wills, and an almighty struggle to forgive.
Contains swearing, adult themes and loud noises
Mop & Bucket by Ben Keyser
One-act play performed by Broadly Speaking Productions, ENGLAND
Winner of the LIGHTHORNE FESTIVAL OF ONE ACT PLAYS
Mr Bucket’s business is failing.
After the cleaner finds him sleeping in the office, can she help reignite the workplace ?
Contains swearing
A Murder of Crows by Mike Kenny
One-act play performed by IMPACT,
Tamworth, ENGLAND
Winner of the BFAME Festival
Open Festival Winner of the Hastilow Festival
Winner of the AETF CENTRAL AREA QUARTER FINAL and
CENTRAL AREA Semi Finalist.
A Murder of Crows is a mischievous and macabre twist on Hansel and Gretel, performed by a youth ensemble.
In a world gripped by scarcity and fear, difficult choices must be made — and not all of them kind.
With a blend of physical theatre, dark fairytale imagery, and a sly sense of humour, this production peels back the story we think we know to reveal something more unsettling beneath: what happens when survival comes at a cost, and who is left to pay the price?
Love in a Glass Jar by Nancy Harris
One-act play performed by
The Irish Theatre Group (ITG)
Brussels, BELGIUM
Runner up of the Festival of European Anglophone Theatrical Societies (FEATS)
A man and a woman meet in a hotel room. Their conversation is formal, tender, heated by
turns. But what has led them there and what is about to happen?
Contains swearing and adult themes
The House with the Lights Still On by Pete Watt
One-act play performed by Compton Players, Berkshire, ENGLAND
A top scorer at the Oxford Drama Network Festival
A one-act family drama set over a single day in the living room of an aging widower, Holden Grey.
When his children gather to pack up the house and prepare for his move into residential care, the practical task of sorting belongings becomes an emotional reckoning of memory, responsibility, and choice.
Contains references to gambling
Another Moon Called Earth by Tom Stoppard
One-act play performed by The Semi-Circle Basel, SWITZERLAND
A top scorer at the Festival of European Anglophone Theatrical Societies (FEATS)
Originally written for television in 1967, Stoppard’s piece imagines a world irrevocably altered after the first man sets foot on the moon and looks back at the Earth.
In the street below a London flat, celebrations are ongoing. Inside, our man Bone is no historian, yet he’s consumed in his attempt to write a complete history of the world; to join the dots, uncover patterns and connect everything back to some grand design.
His mercurial wife Penelope, plagued by a psychosomatic illness, receives daily treatments from her questionable doctor.
Meanwhile, the mysterious disappearance of Penelope’s nanny takes a backseat to philosophical musings on the nature of truth.
Contains adult themes and intimacy
The Weight of Small Things by Tilly Lane
One-act play performed by TACT,
Tamworth, ENGLAND
Winner of the Hastilow Festival
Winner of the AETF Central Area Quarter Final
Winner of the Central Area Semi Final
Winner of the AETF Final
Winner of the British Final
The Weight of Small Things by Tilly Lane is a contemporary folk response to The Caucasian Chalk Circle, set in a world fractured by war and displacement. At its heart is a simple but profound question: what makes someone belong to someone else? As lives are reduced to paperwork and survival demands impossible choices, the play explores care, sacrifice, and the quiet, daily acts that shape who we become to one another. In a landscape of loss and uncertainty, it asks what it really means to hold on—and what it costs not to let go.
Contains swearing
Tigers by Brian Hutchinson
One-act play performed by Red Onion, Liverpool, ENGLAND
Runner Up of the Cheshire Festival
Winner of the AETF Northern Semi AETF Finalist
Best Production at Manchester Drama Federation Festival
During a lucid dream, ROBERT, once an adorable child, meets someone he loved and cherished when he was eight years old – HIMSELF: His inner-self, BOB.
Both characters are the same person, the same age, with completely opposing personalities.
An experience caused ROBERT to endure decades of guilt, trauma and shame; haunted with nightmares of being hunted by, ‘The smiling tiger.’ The face of his abuser.
They both re-enact their past, present, hopes and aspirations; but above all else, ROBERT learns how to love himself once more.
This is a story of hope and compassion for survivors of sexual abuse.
Contains swearing, adult themes and references to substance & sexual abuse.
A Handbag by Anthony Horowitz
One-act play performed by Banbury Cross Players, Banbury, ENGLAND
A top scorer at the Oxford Drama Network Festival and Runner-Up at the Lighthorne Festival of One Act plays
A rehearsal is in place for The Importance of being Earnest.
As underlying tensions surface, it gradually becomes clear that the characters are not who they seem.
Contains swearing, adult themes and loud noises
THE WINNER!
I Dream Before I Take The Stand by Arlene Hutton
One-act Play performed by Broadsword Theatre,
Edinburgh, SCOTLAND
Winner of the SCDA Edinburgh District Festival
Winner of the SCDA Eastern Divisional Final
SCDA Finalist.
Set in an ambiguous, dream-like space, ‘I Dream Before I Take The Stand’ centres on an intense cross-examination between two equally ambiguous characters: She and He.
As the piece unfolds, He is gradually revealed to be a legal representative, while She is the victim of a crime. Written as a searing critique of the way the justice system can treat victims, the play was groundbreaking in 1995 and remains strikingly relevant today.
Contains adult themes
Bull by Mike Bartlett
One-act play performed by Nantwich Players, Nantwich, ENGLAND
Winner of the Cheshire Drama Festival
‘Bull’ strips away the professional veneer of the modern office to reveal the primal savagery lurking beneath.
The play, which won the 2013 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement, follows three ambitious colleagues as they wait to discover which one of them will be axed from the team.
Following in Mike Bartletts style of making the audience complicit in the behaviour of others, how far would you go?
Contains swearing and adult themes
A Hundred Words for Snow by Tatty Hennessy (adapted by Natalie Bonavia)
One-act play performed by Gibraltar Academy of Music and Performing Arts, GIBRALTAR
Winner of the of the Gibraltar International Play Festival
After the sudden death of her father, fifteen-year-old Rory sets out on an extraordinary journey to fulfil his dream of reaching the North Pole. Armed with little more than determination, a plastic compass and her dad’s ashes, Rory secretly travels across the Arctic battling freezing landscapes, loneliness and the realities of the world around her.
A Hundred Words for Snow is a coming-of-age story about loss, courage and discovering how far someone will go for the people they love.
Contains swearing and adult themes
Underdog: The Other Other Brontë by Sarah Gordon
A Full Length (two and a half hour) play performed by Harlequin Players, Cheshire, England
A top scorer in the Cheshire Theatre Guild full length play festival
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‘Underdog: The Other Other Brontë’ is the only full-length play in the festival and is eligible for certain awards. We’re showcasing it as an excellent example of award-winning, full-length theatre.
Everyone knows Charlotte Brontë. Many know Emily. But what of Anne—the youngest Brontë sister, whose remarkable talent has too often been overshadowed by her famous siblings?
The play re-examines the Brontë story through Anne’s eyes, revealing a fiercely intelligent, resilient and progressive woman whose achievements deserve to stand alongside those of her celebrated sisters. Through family rivalries, literary ambition, heartbreak and determination, Anne emerges from the shadows to claim her rightful place in history.
Rich in theatricality and packed with warmth, humour and emotional depth, Underdog: The Other Other Brontë offers audiences a fresh perspective on one of literature’s most famous families while celebrating the power of finding your own voice in a world determined to overlook it.
Contains swearing