Stamford theatre director and cast from Oakham, Market Deeping and Peterborough invited to perform at the National Drama Festival

A local theatre production has been chosen to perform at a national festival after being judged as one of the UK’s best amateur plays this year.

Stamford director Matthew Clift will take his authorised adaptation of Howard Brenton’s play Warmind to the National Drama Festival next month after its run to the semi-finals of the All England Theatre Festival.

The cast of Market Deeping actor Ben Stroud, Oakham’s Ellie Dickinson, and Peterborough-based Nikki Amory will perform the one-act play for the fifth and final time at the Artrix Arts Centre, in Bromsgrove, on Thursday, July 31.

“It's to celebrate the end of the festival season and it's basically saying these are the 12 best pieces of theatre that were seen across the year,” Matthew explained.

“This is the icing on the cake really, and a nice way to end the whole experience.

“We started performing in March and we don't finish until the end of July, so that’s a very long run.”

He added: “I’d done some work with some local companies, but was at a bit of a loose end and wanted to put something on. I never thought it would go as far as it did.”

Their score of 82 out of 100 placed them in the top 12 in this year’s festival circuit to earn their place.

The production also won a string of awards through its run to the semi-final where it finished as runner-up, narrowly missing out on the final.

“I think they liked the originality because it was something a bit different,” Matthew said.

“But the actors are the ones that take the credit really because they really put their heart and soul into it.”

Having pulled the three actors together after an appeal in the Mercury, Matthew is surprised how far they have come.

“Of the three of them I’d only worked with Nikki before and the other two people I was going in blind,” he said.

“I put a shout out and they got in touch, so it was quite scary. I was just extremely lucky that all of them got on and worked so well together.

“It could have been a disaster, which can happen sometimes, when it doesn’t gel.

“The more it went on, the better it got and the more confident they got in it, so I was really lucky to have them.”

The group, which also included lighting director Jess Dalton, gelled so well that next month’s performance might not be the final curtain together.

“We're thinking we might do something next year because we had so much fun doing it,” said Matthew.

“It's such a positive experience we might find something else that we could do for the next festival. We'll see what happens.”