The Torrington Players were born in 1980 — a handful of enthusiasts in Great Torrington who shared a simple idea: that this market town perched above the River Torridge deserved its own theatre company. More than four decades later, that idea is still going strong.

In 1980 a former Taunton thespian, Stephanie Easton, gathered together a group of like‑minded friends to put on a play at The Plough Community Centre in Torrington. She persuaded her husband Tony to lend his business experience to the venture and, as a “reward”, he was promptly elected Chairman – a role he would return to in the group’s Silver Jubilee year. The first ever meeting was held in the canteen at Dartington Crystal on Monday 10th March 1980, where enough support and sponsorship were found to launch a brand new company.

There was only one problem: no one could decide what to perform. Determined to find “the” play, Stephanie travelled to the County Performing Arts Library in Exeter. After hours of searching the shelves without success, she noticed one script slipping forward. Tidying it back, she glanced at the title: Mad About Men by Peter Blackmore – a seaside comedy about a mermaid, with a good title, a cast she knew she could find, and family appeal for a small town. Her mission was complete. The Torrington Players staged Mad About Men on 20th and 21st November 1980, with scenery built by the Torrington Cavaliers, and the production was an outstanding success.

Great Torrington is a town with history in its bones, and the Players have always been part of it. Our earliest productions played at the Plough Arts Centre on Fore Street – a building with as much character as any script we have ever staged. Originally a Territorial Army drill hall, and before that a pub called The Plough Inn as far back as 1750, the Plough became the cultural heartbeat of the town from the mid‑1970s, and the Torrington Players grew up alongside it. Over the years the company has even helped support the venue directly, contributing funds for fixtures and fittings – including a sponsored day‑long reading of Charles Dickens by member Berenice Kendall‑Goodeve, which raised more than £800 towards an accessible toilet.

From that first modest production, our membership has grown more than tenfold. We have staged everything from Shakespeare and Chekhov to musicals, pantomimes, farce and brand new writing – well over a hundred productions in all. Past shows have included large‑scale pieces such as Oh! What A Lovely War and Oliver!, intimate evenings like Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads, and original plays by members including several works by Ray Ridgwell, most recently the thriller The Illusion. Along the way, some performers have gone on to larger companies and even the West End, while many “raw novices” have caught the bug and become confident, regular players.

Our work has often travelled beyond The Plough. Touring productions have visited village halls across North Devon, and in the mid‑2000s we added literary and festival events to the mix. We have presented dramatised readings of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in village halls, brought local writing to life in Tales from Torrington Folk at the 1646 auditorium, and taken original work such as Stephanie Easton’s backstage monologue piece Anyone Backstage? to the Exmouth One Act Play Festival and the North Devon Fringe. A special production of Talking Heads toured outlying villages to support the Mayor’s Appeal, underlining the group’s commitment to community as well as performance.

Over the years the Players’ efforts have been recognised with several awards. In 1994 our production of Oh! What A Lovely War received the NODA Regional Award for Excellence, as well as the Stage Electronics Trophy for Technical Achievement, and in 2004 the special fundraising performances of Talking Heads at The Plough won another NODA Regional Award for Excellence. 2005 then marked our Silver Anniversary – 25 years of making theatre in North Devon – celebrated with a garden party that brought together past and present members and underlined just how many people had been part of the story.

We are now well into our fifth decade, and the ambition that sparked that first meeting at Dartington Crystal in 1980 burns as brightly as it ever did. The Torrington Players have performed on The Plough’s main stage, toured village halls, appeared at South West fringe festivals and, most recently, made the magnificent Great Torrington Town Hall our home. Our acting strength continues to grow – we even have a choice of young men these days – and we always keep a welcome for anyone interested in acting, set building, make‑up, lighting, sound or any other aspect of live theatre.

The Torrington Players are affiliated to the National Operatic and Dramatic Association (NODA), the largest amateur theatre organisation in the world, and proud to be part of a tradition of community theatre that brings people together, tells stories that matter, and reminds us all why live performance is irreplaceable.

Ask any member what the Torrington Players are for, and you will get a slightly different answer — and that, frankly, is the point. We are a drama group, yes. But we are also a community, a creative workshop, a place to take risks, and somewhere you can always find a friendly face and a shared sense of purpose.

Over more than forty years we have staged an enormous variety of work. Shakespeare sits alongside Neil Simon. Agatha Christie shares a bill with Joan Littlewood. We have done Chekhov and we have done panto. We have staged classic British farce and we have premiered original scripts written by our own members. The thread running through all of it is the willingness to take something on — and the knowledge that whatever we attempt, we attempt it together.

Shows That Made Their Mark

In 2014, we staged Joan Littlewood's Oh What a Lovely War to mark the centenary of the First World War. This was not a standard production. We reached out across the community — to local schools, choirs, historians, and anyone who had a memory or a story connected to the war. The result was something bigger than theatre: it was Torrington telling its own story, on its own stage. It remains one of the productions our members talk about most.

In 2015 we tackled The Winter's Tale alongside Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in the same season — the range tells you something about who we are. In 2017, Arthur Miller's The Crucible followed by The Lady Killers showed the same appetite: serious drama and sharp comedy, often in the same year.

More recently, our 2025 production of When Arthur Met His Deadline broke new ground entirely — an original murder mystery written by our own Valerie Howes, set around a country house séance table with a dead journalist in the buffet and the audience invited to help solve it. It played to great response at Great Torrington Town Hall and showed exactly what this group is capable of when it backs its own talent.

On Stage, Off Stage — Everyone Is Welcome

A production is never just the cast. Behind every show is a small army of people who built the set, sourced the costumes, designed the lighting, wrote the programme, and made sure everything was in the right place at the right time. The Torrington Players have always needed — and welcomed — people who want to contribute in any of those ways, whether or not they ever step in front of an audience.

Our actors and directors have always been a genuinely mixed group: first-timers and experienced performers, teenagers and retirees, people who have never set foot on a stage and people who have spent their lives on one. If you have a talent, we can use it. If you have an interest but not yet a skill, we can help you develop it. Come for one show or come for the long haul — we will be delighted to have you.

Beyond full productions, we also run regular workshops open to anyone — no experience required, no commitment needed. These are a chance to try something new, meet people, and discover what live theatre feels like from the inside.