The Oakridge Players are one of the oldest amateur dramatics companies in the county, having formed in the early 20th century.

Based in Oakridge Lynch near Stroud, the group reformed in their current guise in 1993, and Chair Tim Toghill explains a little bit about how he got involved.

“The Players have been going since the early 1900s and nowadays we’ve got around 40 members from around the area,” he said.

“I’ve been acting for years and joined the Players about three or four years ago when I moved to Stroud.

“We do all sorts, usually two productions a year in the Spring and Winter including a panto in December.

“Our last production was Hi-De-Hi, which was all very colourful silly costumes and slapstick, it was great fun.”

The Players’ next production will be ‘Last Summer at Ferrars Court’, a radio play, something they have experience in.

“It’s a ‘whodunnit’ set in the Slad Valley in a big haunted house,” continued Tim, “bodies in the cellar, murder mystery that kind of thing.

“It’s a radio play – we did one a couple of years ago and the audience loved it – set up as if it’s behind the scenes in a radio studio.”

The aforementioned previous play – ‘Welcome to el Paradiso’ was written by longstanding member Elizabeth White, who is also the writer behind the latest play.

Tim added: “The good thing about a radio play is you don’t have to learn the lines, we just have the script in front of us. But we still need to know the story and characters.

“They’re great fun and we had a full house last time. We only did one night for that performance but this time we’re doing two nights at our local village hall.”

‘Last Summer at Ferrars Court’ will be at Oakridge Village Hall on Friday 17th and Saturday 18th May, with tickets available from Ollie’s Shop in Oakridge Lynch.