Suffolk's acclaimed INK Festival, the UK's best showcase for original new plays, is bigger and better than ever - four days, eight venues, 50 plays. Here's what you can expect
With many claiming we’re currently enjoying ‘a golden age’ of quality drama on our television screens, it’s encouraging to know that here in Suffolk we’re nurturing the writing talent of the future. This April, in a variety of venues throughout Halesworth, 50 new short plays will be showcased to appreciative audiences as the acclaimed INK Festival returns, bigger and better than ever.
Even an enforced absence due to the pandemic hasn't slowed the creative drive of INK. “We haven’t stopped during the past two years,” says artistic director Julia Sowerbutts. “We’ve had lots of activity online and on BBC Radio Suffolk, and we've still been inviting new writing. This year we’ve selected the plays from 2,000 submissions.”
The growing popularity of the festival since its launch in 2015 has meant that this year it will take place over four days in eight venues, all over the east Suffolk town. In addition to The Cut arts centre, INK’s first home, plays will be performed, back-to-back over a long weekend at the Rifle Hall, the museum, The White Swan pub, The Angel hotel and MR King & Sons' car showroom. “We want to put the town on the map, just like the Hay Festival or the Edinburgh Festival does,” says Julia. “We’ve got great support from the council. There are more than 100 shops in Halesworth and I hope they all see that this is a very positive thing for the town.”
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Part of the thrill of INK has been moving from one stage to another to see each new performance and now people will be walking between the different venues. Each location will have hour-long performances of three or more short new plays, taking place several times during the day. “I hope there will be a buzz in the high street,” says Julia, “as people pass by, meeting and chatting about all they’ve just seen.” Day tickets provide the opportunity to see a multitude of plays and sample a programme which includes performance poetry, children’s activities, a community stage of locally written plays, talks, stand-up comedy and an art exhibition.
As well as introducing new talent, there are also original short plays contributed by well-known names. This year Miranda Hart, Will Gompertz and actor Elliot Cowan will have their plays staged by INK. In addition, John Morton, the writer of the English version of the Netflix drama success Call My Agent, which launches in 2022, will be in conversation, as will Peter Fincham, previously controller of BBC One who most recently produced the popular Clarkson’s Farm series.
INK was conceived in 2014 by UEA playwriting graduate Emma Struthers, with Julia Sowerbutts and James Holloway. The festival provides a platform for emerging writers, enabling them to see their work staged by professional actors and directors, and for audiences to sample 'little gems' of theatre. These bitesize productions are less daunting than writing something full length, and encourage writers to try out their ideas. Audiences are willing to try something new and different because they pay a modest fee to attend and the plays are anything from five minutes to 30 minutes long.
“We need places like this for writers to learn their craft,” says Julia, who is an actor and director. “Everyone has to practise their art, their skill. We have great writers in this country but they need somewhere to showcase their talent. Every performance is different.
"And seeing a play is a shared experience. You have all these people around you and the actors in front of you. You’re laughing together, or you’re moved by what you see. The plays that are written for INK are so immediate, so current. I think you come away changed by what you’ve seen.”
INK Festival 2022, Halesworth, April 21-24 . Day tickets from £20 at inkfestival.org
Comedy shows take place each evening of the festival, with Arthur Smith, Mark Steel, Arabella Weir and Shappi Khorsandi.
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Art@INK
The upper floor of The Cut arts centre in Halesworth will be dedicated to Art@INK, an exhibition of work contributed by local artists, friends and supporters of the festival, among them actors and directors including Barbara Peirard. “I've always combined painting with acting," says Barbara. "I initially trained as an actor and then later studied fine art. There can be stretches of empty time on tour or on location, so sketching and painting offers a great opportunity to capture new sights, new stories.
"There are many commonalities in both art forms. Theatre and painting both offer an invitation to journey into unknown places, both are an enquiry into the human condition, both require improvisation and playfulness and the making of something new, so intertwining them makes absolute sense to me.
"When I paint, my starting point is usually the paint itself. With theatre the starting point is most often the script. With both, out of the initial broad brushstrokes of colour and shapes, or the first encounters of text and language places appear, characters arrive, stories emerge. With both, the process combines craft and skill with memory and imagination. With both, there's a sense of setting the scene and waiting for the characters to make their entrance, then exploring to find out who they are - how they feel, how they stand, how they move, how they interact.
"I have come to love the East Anglian countryside and coast, and have been drawn to paint it again and again, and it is a pleasure to be supporting INK and live theatre with the sale of my paintings.”
