2012 was the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 50th birthday and to celebrate they were running a project called OPEN STAGES which invited amateur groups to put on a production with a Shakespeare connection. Some of us thought it might be fun and a development of our pantomime-based activities if we were to join the scheme, and as a result we performed our newly written drama The Darke Years in summer 2012. The play explored Shakespeare’s “lost” years, during which the young (but already married) Will left Stratford and became a force on the London theatrical scene. It drew on Shakespeare’s own plots and featured real personalities from the time to provide a fictional narrative for those early years.

Along with the support of the RSC, local celebrity Philip Pullman introduced Saturday night’s performance.