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22-27 JUNE 2026 Book Tickets
Playhouse Creatures
by April De Angelis
The year is 1669, a bawdy and troublesome time. Theatres have just reopened after seventeen years of Puritan suppression. There is a huge surge in dramatic writing and the first English actresses appear on stage!
Playhouse Creatures focuses on five of these women - Nell Gwyn, Elizabeth Farley, Rebecca Marshall, Doll Common and Mary Betterton - to provide a moving and often comic account of the precarious lives of these pioneering actresses.
An incredible ensemble piece with 5 powerhouse female roles!
“With deliciously absurd extracts from the heroic repertory and frantic dressing-room scenes, the prevailing tone is comic but you are not allowed to forget the gutter waiting to reclaim these glittering figures." - Independent on Sunday
Next Jazz 
3 JULY 2026 Book Tickets
Matt Skelton presents The Blackhawk Quintet: Celebrating Shelly Manne
- James Davison trumpet
- Mark Crooks tenor saxophone
- Leon Greening piano
- Conor Chaplin bass
- Matt Skelton drums
This will be a night of ‘cool jazz’ and a tribute to multi-poll winning drummer, Shelly Manne, one of the greats of the West Coast scene of the 1950s. An extraordinary and selfless artist, Shelley (1920-1984) – band leader, Contemporary Jazz record label house musician, studio orchestra drummer for countless films and television and owner of ‘Shelley’s Manne Hole’ jazz club – has left an immense legacy of collaborations and recordings, which have enriched the lexicon of jazz percussion with virtuosic alacrity.
This project, masterminded by Matt Skelton, celebrates Shelley’s Quintet – Joe Gordon, trumpet; Richie Kamuca, tenor sax; Victor Felman, piano; Monty Budwig, bass and Shelley Manne, drums – and their particular contribution to the Manne canon, inspired by a clutch of golden performances, captured live at the Blackhawk Jazz club in San Francisco between September 22-24 1959.
Tonight’s ‘stellar’ line-up has been hand-picked for the way they connect with, and are inspired by their corresponding original artists. They will aim to express the band’s own originality and collective inspiration with the Manne Blackhawk quintet as their DNA framework.
Our Open Air Production
15-25 JULY 2026 Book Tickets
HAMLET
by William Shakespeare
Progress brings a fresh and fast-paced interpretation of Shakespeare’s greatest play, Hamlet in the atmosperic setting of Reading Abbey Ruins.
Aged just 20, Prince Hamlet is clever and funny, yet tormented. His father has died in suspicious circumstances, his widowed mother has remarried his uncle, who has seized the Danish throne, and the woman he loves, Ophelia, is heading towards a tragedy of her own. Their two families are bound together in a relentless descent from which no one will escape unscathed. It's a world of spies, lies, and pretences. Dark humour intermingles with grief, betrayal, and madness, culminating in a conclusion as devastating as any in theatre.
Next Art Exhibition
Part of the Whiteknights Studio Trail 2026
Available for viewing during events throughout June 2026
Liz Chaderton: Imagine, wonder, embrace...
We often take the beauty around us for granted and our sense of wonder dims a little. Liz paints to capture a moment of awe and bring it to you in a joyful watercolour. A common reaction when people see her work is, they smile. Her art can remind you to appreciate life no matter busy your day gets. She shares her love of watercolour through workshops, YouTube and has authored five practical watercolour books.
“I create art to remind us of the wonder in the world—the quiet resilience of nature, the deep connection we share with animals, and the endless possibilities for renewal.”