Message from our Festival Director for 2026

 A message from our Festival Director, Verity Mitchell

Well here we are again friends! January & February have come and gone and planning is well underway for the 2026 Hunstanton One-Act Drama Festival. 

I must start by thanking all the groups and a few local organisations for continuing to support this Festival and allowing it to happen in the face of some fairly stiff challenges.

Not only did we lose our funding from the Borough Council in 2024, but in 2025 the Princess Theatre, who have been stalwart supporters, told us that due to commercial pressures they could no longer give over a whole weekend in prime-time summer to an amateur Festival. Yikes!

Enter - stage right - our Town Councill who have generously allowed us to use their Theatre Stage in the Town Hall, Hunstanton Rotary who are sponsoring our Festival programme and KL1 Radio who are happy to promote the event for us. 

Great news too that we already have a full programme of plays from our talented amateur dramatic groups from around the region who, whilst disappointed not to be at the theatre, have nonetheless committed to the Festival and expressed their pleasure that we are going ahead in spite of the potential setbacks.

So with the support of our sponsors, we have been able to  keep tickets to 2025 prices; just £7.50 for a single session of three short plays, and £20 (season ticket) which gives you access to all 12 (or as many as you choose) sessions over the three days including Sunday evening’s Gala Award Ceremony. You can buy your tickets online here or if you prefer, just pay on the door on the night - either is fine.

I will quote from Steve Hayter's last address: "The Hunstanton One-Act Drama Festival is a competition, but it should also be fun - for the participating groups and the audience. We laugh together and we celebrate together; we celebrate and commiserate as a community. Our adjudicators give a short verbal overview at the end of each performing session to reconnect with the groups and the audience and praise the efforts of the performers. A written adjudication is provided to each group after the event, explaining what they liked and what they didn't and why they won something (and why they didn't!) but this is never shared with the public; it is simply a constructive justification of decisions made." 

I am pleased to report - nothing has changed in that respect and we're proud to continue in that fine tradition.

Finally, I will echo the sentiments of Sir Stephen Fry who opened the Festival last year, which is - in this day and age of AI when you're not sure what you're watching is real or fake, live theatre needs to be encouraged and supported wherever possible and the Hunstanton One-Act Drama Festival aims to do just that, wherever and whenever we can. Thank you for your support and we look forward to welcoming you to Hunstanton for this year's event.

Verity Mitchell

Festival Director 2026

Hunstanton One-Act Drama Festival