What next for Winchester's tiniest theatre company?

NEWS RELEASE: 11 August 2020

2TimeTheatre keeps busy in these strange times

Like almost every theatre company around the world, we’ve been unable to stage any productions during 2020. In 2019 we had a hugely busy and successful year kicking off with a professional read-through of Tilly and the Spitfires by Rachel O’Neill at Nuffield Southampton City space, followed in June by A Fruitful Season: Keats in Winchester by Cecily O’Neill, celebrating the poet’s final creative flourish and the 200-year anniversary of his death.

Tilly returned as a fully-fledged production to Winchester Discovery Centre in September with actors Stacy Hart in the role of Beatrice Shilling and Francesca McCrohon as Muriel Shepherd, and directed by Dan O’Neill (movement director Humans, Wurzel Gummidge, The Crown, etc.).
First staged by seven performers in the 12th Century St Bartholomew’s Church in October, Cecily’s moving play Lewd Women and Female Felons used archive accounts of the Winchester Bridewell and folk music of the time to illuminate the harsh treatment of ‘lewd women’ for the ‘crime’ of bastardy. The atmosphere was heightened by the knowledge that several of these women and their babies were buried in the churchyard outside

Lewd Women and Female Felons had another outing in February 2020 alongside Rachel’s new play in development, The Fasting Girl. They had the dubious privilege of being amongst the last few productions to take place at the Nuffield Theatre before it went into receivership.

So that was then. But as Winchester’s tiniest theatre company we have kept busy; Rachel’s play specially written to commemorate the Battle of Britain, Eager for the Air, was shortlisted and down to the last five in the RAF Benevolent Fund Audio Drama competition. Her ten-minute short, Kit-Kats and Cider will be part of a Zoom play-reading on 11 August hosted by Writing Doesn't Have To Be Lonely as part of an evening of new drama and poetry. Sir Walter’s Women, written by Rachel in 2018 and staged in the Great Hall, will be performed on Zoom by the South Devon Players on 28 November.  Meanwhile, Cecily is busy with research for future projects, including a drama based on the life of 19th Century novelist Charlotte Yonge.

We hope that we can return next year with some more original and innovative dramas. Please keep an eye on our website and social media for further news and keep safe.
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