Short Plays

New Venture Theatre is bringing back its Short Plays season this autumn, running from Friday 2 October to Saturday 10 October at the NVT Studio in Bedford Place. It's a long-standing end-of-season tradition for the theatre, and this year's bill brings together five different pieces in one evening.

The line-up opens with Alan Bennett's Say Something Happened, directed by Jason Lever, followed by David Ives' Sure Thing, directed by Oliver Canavan. Then comes Brent Holland's The Candidate, directed by Carolyn Chinn, an extract from James Fritz's The Fall, directed by Sarah Tansey, and Declan Feenan's Catherine Medbh, directed by Alice Healey. The evening moves from first encounters and chance meetings between reacquainted ex-lovers to strangers thrown together in mysterious circumstances, and closes with a tender Irish comedy about two former lovers.

There's a particular way this season comes together. New Venture is run entirely by its members on a voluntary basis and belongs to the Little Theatre Guild, and it doesn't hire its spaces to external organisations. The short play season doubles as a warm, supportive space for writers, directors and actors to test new material: the actors are mostly regulars, the writers emerge from NVT's own programme, and many directors, often well known as actors, make their debut here.

Performances are at 7.30pm, with a 2.30pm matinee on Sunday 4 October. Tickets are £14, or £12 for NVT members.