Auditions for Educating Rita

Our autumn 2024 production will be Educating Rita by Willy Russell, and open auditions are taking place soon!

There will be an audition at 7.30pm on Tuesday 21st May 2024 at St Mary Le Wigford church hall, next to Lincoln railway station.  Everyone is welcome to attend and you don’t need to prepare anything in advance.  Rehearsals will start as soon as possible, in central Lincoln.

There are only two characters, and acting ages are approximately as shown:

Frank is a tutor of English in his 50s whose disillusioned outlook on life drives him to seek refuge in bottles of whisky he hides on his bookshelves. 

Rita is a forthright 26-year old hairdresser who is hungry to ‘know everything’. With Frank as her tutor, Rita embarks on an Open University course and her education process begins.  The effects are both amusing and serious as her fresh, intuitive approach becomes clouded and stifled as she grapples with the problem of a formal education geared to the passing of exams.

The play was turned into a film in 1983 starring Michael Caine and Julie Walters.

Educating Rita will be directed by Su Toogood and will be staged from 19th to 21st September 2024 at the Broadbent Theatre in Wickenby.

For further information, or if you are unable to make that date but interested in auditioning, please contact Su on stoogood1946@gmail.com.

Play reading: Present Laughter

The first in our summer series of play readings (just for fun) will take place on Tuesday 7th May at 7.30pm in the function room upstairs at the Victoria pub, Union Road, Lincoln LN1 3BJ.

The first play will be Present Laughter by Noël Coward, which was recently staged at the National Theatre with Andrew Scott in the lead role as Gary Essendine.

Throughout the summer we will be reading a different play on the first Tuesday of each month, so put it in your diary and come along for an entertaining evening!

Everyone is welcome, whether you’re an existing member or not, so bring a friend or forward this email to anyone who might be interested in joining us. These are not auditions! Just a chance to read some different plays and see if we’d like to stage any of them in the future.

Auditions for The Father

Our autumn 2024 production will be The Father, translated by Christopher Hampton from the original by Florian Zeller.

Our Chairman Jez Ashberry will be directing for the first time in ten years!

We will be holding an open audition at 7.30pm on Tuesday 16th April 2024 at St Mary Le Wigford church hall, next to Lincoln railway station.

Everyone is welcome to attend and you don’t need to prepare anything in advance, although if you would like to see a copy of the script beforehand please email the director.

The Father depicts a man struggling with dementia as he gets older and the effects his illness has on his family members. Anthony Hopkins won the Best Actor Oscar playing André opposite Olivia Colman in the 2020 film adaptation of the play, and Christopher Hampton won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

We will be looking for actors to play the following parts:

Anne – André’s daughter, probably aged 30 – 40

André – The Father, probably aged 60 – 70

Pierre – Anne’s partner

Laura – a carer (20s or 30s)

Man – similar in age to Pierre

Woman – similar in age to Anne

We will be staging The Father from 19th to 21st September 2024 at the Broadbent Theatre in Wickenby.

Please do come along if you’d like to be involved in the production. If you’re not available on 16th April we can make alternative arrangements.

Company meeting – all welcome!

We’ll be holding a company meeting upstairs at the Victoria Pub in Lincoln on Monday 26th February 2024, starting at 7.30pm.

These meetings are an opportunity for members to discuss forthcoming productions and for newcomers to get to the know the company!

Items on the agenda this time around will include an update on our spring production of Dark Sublime and feedback on the summer series
of informal play readings we undertook last year.

Everyone is welcome, including new members – grab a drink at the bar before coming up to join us!

The Victoria pub can be found between The Lawn and the back of Lincoln Castle on Union Road.

Dark Sublime cast anounced

The cast for our next production – Dark Sublime by Michael Dennis – has been finalised. Thanks to everyone who gave their time to attend the auditions, and commiserations to those who didn’t get a part.

The cast is as follows:

Marianne / Ragana           Pamela Marnie

Kate / President              Anita Quigley

Oli / Vol                              Bianca Hutchings

Suzanne / Jaylin               Jemma De’ath

Bob Fraser / Vykar           James Ross

Voice of Kosley              Martyn Skeates

We are well known for giving opportunities to new members and this time we’ve chosen four newcomers out of a cast of seven!

Rehearsals will begin in earnest in January and we will be performing Dark Sublime at the Broadbent Theatre in Wickenby on 11th, 12th and 13th April 2024.

Auditions for Dark Sublime

Auditions for our next production, Dark Sublime by Michael Dennis, will take place at 7.30pm on Tuesday 10th October and on Wednesday 18th October at St Mary Le Wigford Church, Lincoln LN5 7EQ.

When Oli arrives at now-forgotten sci-fi icon Marianne’s door, they are looking for an autograph – and maybe a friend.  Marianne’s hoping for her phone to ring, for her best friend to see her differently, for her turn at something more substantial than a half-remembered role on a cult TV show.

As the actor and the fan start to explore each other’s worlds, they begin to discover what every good friendship needs: time and space.

Dark Sublime explores the complexities of relationships across the generations and is a love letter to British TV sci-fi (think Blake’s 7) with scenes from the real world intercut with scenes from a lost last episode that connect to what is happening in the real lives of the characters on stage. 

Exploring the world of television and fandom, the lives of those who make it and adore it, the play is about joy and heartbreak and, most of all, friendship.

We will be performing Dark Sublime at the Broadbent Theatre in Wickenby on 11th, 12th and 13th April 2024.

We are auditioning for the following roles:


Real World          Sci-fi world                   Sex         Age
Marianne             Ragana                        F             50s/60s
Oli                        Vol                                M/F          20s
Kate                     President of Earth        F             50s
Suzanne              Jaylin                            F             30s/40s
Bob Fraser          Vykar                          M            60s
Voice only          Kosley                        M/F

Everyone is welcome to audition, even if you are not a member. If you would like to audition but can’t make the date, please contact the director Vicky Ashberry – snickers.speedway@outlook.com.