The Bonnington Playwrights

About the Bonnington Playwrights

In 2005, having concentrated for three years on the creative process, the first rehearsed reading of our work was at the Arcola Theatre under the direction of Karen Tomlin. In January 2007 Three by Three dovetailing three of these short plays by three of our writers was staged at the The Hen and Chickens in Islington.

In between the preparations for Three by Three, we wrote and produced a modern take on a set of fairy tales for the Bonnington Square Garden Festival in June 2006.

In July 2007 Bonnington Playwrights in association with the National Trust and with a grant from Ashford Borough Council, produced The Quite Peculiar and Irresistible Charm of Ellen Terry at Smallhythe Place in Kent. The play was staged in the Barn Theatre – originally established by Ellen’s daughter Edy in the garden at Smallhythe. This, like our other productions, was a resounding sell-out success.

April 2009 saw us organising our third fund-raising dinner and staging 'The Quite Peculiar and Irresistible Charm of Ellen Terry' at the Actors' Church, St. Paul's, in Covent Garden in October. This was followed in April 2010 by an all-day literary convention, 'The Ellen Terry Effect', at Crown Court, Covent Garden, which ended with a performance of 'Painting with Light', written by Scilla Fernandez and Ros Cornford, and directed by another Bonnington Playwright, Richard White, and featuring Scilla's daughter, Karina Fernandez (and Wikipedia).

The Night of the Umbrella, produced at the Lion and Unicorn in 2015, was so well received that we were offered a revival the next year. However we decided to embark on a new project, an unusual and demanding collaboration between us, and after readings and a charming fund raising garden party, this has developed into The Line Up.

Rob McIndoe, who directed our St. Paul's production, has become an enthusiastic and visionary supporter of The Bonnington Playwrights, and it is due very largely to his inspiration and mentoring that the present production has come about.

Our goals are:

  • High quality
  • A true collaboration between ourselves as writers and other theatre professionals.
  • A variety of new work reflecting our individual enthusiasms and collective skills.
  • A distinctive exploration of aspects of theatre history which may be fading from memory but which deserve to be re-examined as living elements in dramatic and social history.
  • An inclusive approach, working across disciplines and generational boundaries, harnessing what is new to what remains valuable in theatrical tradition.

The current Bonnington Playwrights are: