\n Around 100 writers and a host of familiar names from stage and screen will descend on Dorchester as a free festival of new writing returns to the town.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Script’s The Thing Festival will take place on Saturday, October 10 and Sunday, October 11, with organisers promising its biggest programme since the event began three years ago.\n<\/p>\n
\n Celebrating writing for stage, screen, audio and performance, the festival will showcase work from around 100 writers.\n<\/p>\n
\n Extracts from their scripts will be presented across nine performance spaces at five Dorchester venues: the Corn Exchange, The Sleeping Bear Hotel, Dorset Museum, The King’s Arms and Tom Browns.\n<\/p>\n
\n The eclectic programme ranges from stories inspired by Dorset’s landscape, myths and folklore to contemporary writing tackling subjects including artificial intelligence, seagulls and speed dating.\n<\/p>\n
\n Visitors can expect everything from dark comedy and tragedy to family shows and new musicals.\n<\/p>\n
\n A number of established figures from television, film and theatre will also take part.\n<\/p>\n
\n Writers appearing include Chris Chibnall, known for Doctor Who, and Ashley Pharoah, whose credits include Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes.\n<\/p>\n
\n Oriane Messina and Fay Rusling, known for their work on shows including Green Wing and Breeders, will also feature.\n<\/p>\n
\n Special guests will include Alison Steadman, whose many credits include Gavin & Stacey and Abigail’s Party, alongside Ellie Wallwork of Doctor Who and Call the Midwife and Michelle Collins, known to millions of soap viewers from EastEnders and Coronation Street.\n<\/p>\n
\n As well as giving audiences the chance to discover new work, organisers say the weekend will offer writers and creators practical advice and opportunities to make connections within the industry.\n<\/p>\n
\n Festival director Ed Viney said: \u201cFor our third Festival we\u2019ve expanded to a whole weekend and packed it full of imaginative, brilliant writing and events.”\n<\/p>\n
\n \u201cYou can plan your own route through the Festival and try and see as many scripts as you can. It really is a fantastic celebration of new work.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\n He added that support from local businesses, the Backstage Trust and Maria Bj\u00f6rnson Memorial Fund had allowed the festival to remain free.\n<\/p>\n
\n Mr Viney said the event was aimed both at writers and people who were simply interested in discovering how drama for stage, television and radio is created.\n<\/p>\n
\n Live music will add to the weekend, with The Flaming Cactus Band performing from 6pm until 8pm on Saturday.\n<\/p>\n
\n East of Santos will perform at Dorchester Corn Exchange from 11am on Sunday.\n<\/p>\n
\n Saturday’s programme runs from 10am until 8pm, while events on Sunday run from 10am until 4pm.\n<\/p>\n
\n All events are free and non-ticketed, meaning visitors can simply turn up and choose which parts of the programme they would like to see.\n<\/p>\n
\n See dorchesterarts.org.uk for the full programme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Around 100 writers and a host of familiar names from stage and screen will descend on Dorchester as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":796895,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-796894","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796894","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=796894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796894\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/796895"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}