From Monday to Friday about a dozen one act plays were performed by local acting groups at the Unicorn Theatre, in Abingdon, as part of the Oxford Drama Festival of One Act Plays. On Saturday, at the finale, the winner of the Colin Dextor Rose Bowl, awarded by Colin Dextor, was World Without Memory, performed by Henley Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society. Henley can usually be counted on to be good but this year they were excellent.

In this play, through a number of short episodes, the audience experienced how scary it could be to live in a world without memory. The scary thing is how many of us will end our days in a world without memory.

(Thanks to @HAODS on twitter for the picture. If my memory serves me right, the evening of the finale was 60 years to the day since the first ever performance at the Unicorn Theatre – 8th June 1953.)

A small group of children from Abingdon (aged 7-12) are staging a production of The Snow Queen fairy tale on February 9th, 4pm at Christchurch, Northcourt Road, Abingdon.

Here they are during rehearsals acting a script they have adapted themselves. They will also be playing instruments

and using shadow puppets that they made.

All proceeds will be shared between the RSPB and VIVA (a charity working with street children around the world).

The Comedy of Errors is on next week: from Wednesday to Saturday (with a Saturday matinee), performed by The Studio Theatre Club at The Unicorn Theatre. The picture shows one of the two pairs of long-lost identical twins (Dromio x 2). You will have to go to a performance to see the other pair (Antipholus x 2) in this William Shakespeare play of mistaken identities, and farce…

Dromio 1 to Dromio 2 …

“methinks you are my glass, and not my brother:
I see by you I am a sweet-faced youth.” (Act 5, scene 1)