This year’s Rye Arts Festival offers a range of professional theatre performances to enjoy. There really is something for everyone.
For the sake of drama, let’s start at the end. And on the very last day, Sunday September 30, the wonderful Theatre Rotto puppet company are coming to Rye Community Centre at 11am. They will be preforming Han Christian Anderson’s Little Ida fairy story in which puppet, puppet shadows and flowers come to life before the eyes of the audience. Andersen’s fairy tale is brought to you by Theatre Rotto’s puppeteers and musicians
This wondrous show, for children and adults alike transports you to a magic world and will keep you spellbound.
On Sunday September 23 at 4pm in Rye Community Centre, Rye resident Martin Wimbush will present his latest single-hander – Shakespeare and Me
Martin will take the audience on a personal journey, baring his soul as where he rediscovers the parts he’s played and explores those he hasn’t from the Bard’s canon, with lots of funny stories and jokes along the way to lighten the mood.
And while it is ostensibly a one-man-show, Martin has a collaborator – the Rye-based composers and songwriter Michel Duvoisin – who has written and will play music on the piano to complement the thespian action!
St Mary’s church is the venue for a moving World War I drama at 7:30pm on Tuesday September 25. Flying Bridge Theatre Company are bringing Stephen MacDonald’s acclaimed (and Fringe First winning) play about the friendship between celebrated First World War poets Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon. They met at Craiglockhart Hospital in 1917 and bonded over a mutual hatred of war and love of poetry. Daniel Llewellyn Williams and Owain Gwynn play the poets whose lives are so ruined by the Great War.
Dad’s Army Radio Hour on Sunday September 16 at 4pm in Rye Community Centre is not to be missed.
The show is based on the classic BBC sitcom by Jimmy Perry and David Croft. Rye Community Centre, a pitch-perfect recreation of the church hall in Walmington-on-Sea, hosts a fabulous show in which two actors play 25 characters in three half-hour scripts based on favourite episodes from the original TV series.
An hour and a half of good, old-fashioned fun and laughter is assured!
Edinburgh Festival 2017
For the full list of events, and to book tickets, go to www.ryeartsfestival.org.uk . Otherwise ring the box office on 01797 224442 or pop into Phillips & Stubbs in the mornings Monday to Friday. Brochures are available from the box office plus dozens of shops, hotels, hostelries in and around Rye.
Image Credits: RAF , Simon Kershaw .