2026

WADS' first production of the year was Alan Ayckbourn’s Neighbourhood Watch, where brother and sister Martin and Hilda live together and have just moved into a house in the Bluebell Hill Development. Just as they are preparing for a housewarming gathering, their peace is shattered by a young clarinet-wielding trespasser in their garden. This leads to an alarming escalation of events as the residents of the development take extreme measures to protect themselves, becoming an authoritarian force controlling the lives of the people they are supposed to protect.

The summer show was an open-air production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, which had Oberon and Titania swap parts. It also had a 90s vibe; sort of Shakespeare meets the Spice Girls. A Midsummer Spice Dream, perhaps:

One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;
One heart, one bed, two bosoms and one troth.
Be a little bit wiser baby. Put it on, put it on,
'Cause tonight is the night when two become one.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream was performed at Bere Mill in Whitchurch by kind permission of Rupert and Elizabeth Nabarro from 16 to 18 July 2026.

“Meet me in the palace wood, a mile without the town, by moonlight; there will we rehearse…  
In the meantime I will draw a bill of properties, such as our play wants, what it really, REALLY wants.”

Check out pictures from the three nights on Flickr.