About Us

Our Story

1966…. It was a momentous year; England won the world cup. The Severn Bridge was opened to the public, Michael Caine was in Alfie and in sleepy Churchdown, a small amateur dramatics Society burst onto the scene, when the new Vicar, the Reverend Alec Smith, arrived from the Forest of Dean and announced that the Church was to start a new Drama Group with a course of instruction from a Miss Daisy Bell.

Dorothea Jones and her son Martin then aged 13, decided to give it a go with a few other members of St. John’s Church. Miss Bell taught them the difference between stage right and stage left, how to make an entrance and an exit, and how to project the voice and breathe from the diaphragm.

The first production took place at the Harvest Supper in 1966, it was a one act comedy by Colin Cooper called “The Diamond Tooth”.

The group continued with several one act plays (we have no record of the titles) and the first full length play was “A Lady Mislaid” in 1968 which ran for 2 nights. This was directed by Pam Stock our longest serving member and was the 1^st of the 56 productions she has directed for us over the years.

Initial membership was 1 shilling a week, with Dorothea providing tea and biscuits. In today’s money 52 shillings a year, would be the equivalent of paying subs of over £32. So, it is still cheaper to be a member now than it was when we started, you are all getting a bargain, even with paying 50p each time for tea and biscuits.

1970s

The Players continued throughout the seventies with 2 full length productions a year and increased the performances to 3 nights.

1980s

The 1980’s saw performances gradually increase to 5 nights, we did our first “Old time Music Hall” and October 1983 saw the last production at the old hall in Parton Road of “Charley’s Aunt” Then in February 1984 we continued here in our new location, with an aptly named play called “Moving”

1990s

In 1991 St John’s Players celebrated their Silver Jubilee, with “Happy as a Sandbag” and having put on 50 productions and occupied two halls it was still going strong. The 1990’s also saw us move on to doing three productions a year.

2000s

Into the 2000’s we did our first Pantomime “Sing a song a sixpence” and our first bit of Shakespeare a Farndale Avenue version of Macbeth and a potted version of Twelfth Night interspersed amongst the dramatic productions.

2007 saw several of our ladies and one man learn to tap dance for a very successful production of Stepping out.

2010s

During the 2010’s we changed the production’s back to two a year, as it became difficult to keep up with casting and putting on three.

2013 gave us the privilege of being the first amateur group to put on a new play “A Piece of Cake” successfully transforming the stage into a cake shop before the audience’s eyes.

2014 saw a change of show dates to May and November to split the productions more evenly.

50th anniversary

2016 our 50th  year we celebrated our golden anniversary with a production of “Solid Gold Cadillac”.

2020s

2019 saw a classic 70’s production of “Abigail’s Party” before sadly, like many societies we became dark during 2020-2021 due to Covid.

but we came back with a vengeance in 2023 with our postponed production of Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None”.

To date we have done over 130 productions since we started in 1966.

We are celebrating our Diamond Anniversary in 2026. Therefore are revisiting some classic plays we did in the past, to show to new audiences.