Quieter times for Drip Action Theatre company at the Arundel Festival

Pre-pandemic, the company used to offer eight different plays in eight different venues which you could see on eight different days. This year artistic director Bill Brennan is offering just the four – and just for this year he is dropping the theatre trail title.

Bill says he aims to be back with a bang for next year: “But this year is what I think they call regrouping.”

Under the title Four Plays, that’s what they are offering, four new one-act plays in four different venues in Arundel, running from Saturday, August 19 to Saturday, August 26th each day. For the first time, Stuart Smithers’s annual short play for the Arundel Players at the Priory Playhouse becomes one of them.

Drip Action are staging: 11am Unfinished by Simon Brett. Arundel Town Hall, Maltravers Street, BN18 9AP; 12pm Tomboy by Stuart Smithers. Priory Playhouse, London Road, BN18 9AT in association with The Arundel Players; 1pm. All of a Quandary by Jacqueline Puchtler, The Victoria Institute, BN18 9DG and 3pm Kevins Above! by Claire Scott, 15 Maltravers Street, BN18 9AP. Tickets £6 from www.ticketsource.co.uk/drip-action-theatre-company.

“We didn't run the competition for entries this year thinking we had so many left over from previous years that we were not able to do for various reasons. We got 500 submissions last time and we thought that we'd have enough but when it came to it we couldn't find the ones that felt right. But also we just found that we couldn't match the actors. The actors seem to be harder to find this year. It has been a real struggle. We hope to be back again.

“But I am disappointed. I am disappointed in myself for not organising it but I certainly tried early enough and hard enough. It is just such a struggle to find the actors. The fact that we did it before the pandemic for all those years very successfully was quite miraculous really when you look back on it. Sometimes we had about 18 actors but for various reasons they just don't seem to be around anymore. It's difficult to say why. I don't really know. Perhaps more people are getting away for summer holidays. We used to have a lot of teachers or students or retired people. I just don’t know, but we will be back next year and we will run the competition.

“It was always a giant jigsaw to put together. I will have a closing date for submissions at the end of November which will give three months to people who are keen to take part. We used to stop at the end of December but by that time people are getting into the Christmas festivities. The important thing is to leave time to read the plays and that takes a lot of time. We had about four readers last year.

“And we haven't got an evening play this year. It's all very quiet for us this year. It's called regrouping. We've got some good new people coming in. Come October I'll be into my 80th year and I'm wanting new people to take over some of the things. We will do a collection of short plays in December and then we'll have a main production in March and then we'll be back at South Stoke and then the festival will come around go again. We just want to be back with a bang.”

In the meantime if anyone wants to be involved in the company in any way, either backstage or on stage, then Bill will be delighted to hear from you on [email protected].