The history of WADS

WADS' first performance of 2019 was A Murder is announced, an Agatha Christie Miss Marple thriller adapted by Leslie Darbon. We followed this in the summer with As You like It, performed at The Lawn, with music composed specially for As You Like It by Paul Sartin (Belshazzar's Feast, Faustus and the late Bellowhead)

WADS staged Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle, the adventures of an eccentric family, the Mortmains, struggling to live in genteel poverty in a decaying castle during the 1930s

We were thwarted by Covid in 2021, although we did manage a Poetry and Prose evening via Zoom

WADS returned to the Discworld of the late Terry Pratchett with Men at Arms, adapted by Stephen Briggs

First up was a murder mystery, in which media movers and shakers were invited to attend the gala dinner launch of Max and Molly Burdock’s new TV channel MBC. That was followed by Silken Yarns, with four merchants, four stories, but one prize. WADS wrote thisseries of four short plays for all the family based on old folk tales that they performed outdoors at Whitchurch Silk Mill, in the pouring rain, in July.

So far this year, WADS has been concentrating on murder. By the end of February, the company had put on Simon Brett's Murder in Play - which features a play within a play - as well as a reprise of 2023's murder mystery, set during the launch of Max and Molly Burdock’s new TV channel MBC. Murder in Play was performed not just in Whitchurch but also to a sell-out audience in Longparish. WADS followed up its murderous start to the year with more bloodshed in July, when it staged Macbeth outside at Bere Mill.