Producing

As well as producing and presenting work at our home in Guildford, the Yvonne Arnaud also tours work to other regional theatres across the country.

In 2022 we launched two national tours, Sheila's Island and Ladies of Letters, visiting 16 venues across the country between them.

In 2023 we were associate producers of New Wolsey Theatre & Wiltshire Creative's Brief Encounter.

In the spring of 2024 we will be co-producing Houdini's Greatest Escape with New Old Friends before we produce and present Michael McManus' Party Games! in the summer.

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A Cartoon. A lot is going on in the Prime Minister's Office. His Deputy, Spin Doctor and his Wife are all angry and leaning over his desk as he cowers back in his chair. On his desk are various documents, procrastination documents in the In pile, ethics in the Out. He also has Twit-ter open and a speaker called Media-nne. On the edge of his desk are interfering letters from the king. Westminster can be seen outside his window and on his wall is a calendar for 2026

Party Games! | May 2024

A brand new Yvonne Arnaud production opens with us in Guildford in May 2024, before it embarks on a national tour.

Starring Matthew Cottle (The Windsors, Mrs Warren's Profession)

This hilariously acerbic new comedy by Michael McManus, the writer of Maggie & Ted, and directed by Joanna Read puts leadership on the ledge and goes inside the chaos of government to see whether advisers do advise and if ministers can decide.

Find out more & Book Now

A mysterious figure stares at a performer in chains being tempted by escape routes and other props

Houdini's Greatest Escape | February 2024

The world premiere of our new co-production will take place at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, before it embarks on a national tour.

A physical comedy thriller played out in New Old Friends’ (Crimes on Centre Court) inimitable, award-winning style of physical comedy, sparkling wit and just a touch of chaos.

Find out more

Brief Encounter Title Treatment in front of a smartly dressed couple covered in mist

Brief Encounter | April - June 2023

An Yvonne Arnaud Associate Production, by New Wolsey Theatre & Wiltshire Creative. Toured across 5 UK Venues in 2023.

Brief Encounter is adapted by award-winning theatre-maker Emma Rice, directed by the New Wolsey Theatre’s new Chief Executive Douglas Rintoul (Made in Dagenham, Private Lives and All My Sons) and brought to you by the producers behind The Ladykillers and The Worst Wedding Ever.

Two performers in smart outfits dancing together in front of blue backgorund

Performer looking worried at the ground while sat at table with teacup

Performer raising their arms with blue light projected on them

Two performers sit and smile at each other with red blanket over their legs and sunset in background

Perfromer is carried by one group while sticking on leg up in front of beautiful green background

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A group of four women in outdoor weather gear stand outside in a hilly area.

Sheila's Island - Feb to May 2022

A sparkling, sharp-witted new comedy from writer Tim Firth (Calendar Girls, Kinky Boots, The Band), starring Sara Crowe (Private Lives, Four Weddings and a Funeral), Rina Fatania, Judy Flynn (Dinnerladies, Call The Midwife), and Abigail Thaw (Endeavour), directed by the Yvonne Arnaud's director, Joanna Read.

Bonfire night 2019, Sheila, Denise, Julie, and Fay are Team C in Pennine Mineral Water Ltd.’s annual outward bound team-building weekend. Somehow, Sheila has been nominated team leader, and, using her cryptic crossword solving skills, has unwittingly stranded her team on an island in the Lake District.

Our intrepid heroines find themselves manufacturing weapons from cable ties and spatulas, and create a rescue flag with plastic plates and a toasting fork.

Questions are asked; truths are told; dirty washing is aired.

Intensely intimate comedy-drama

The Stage

The script is both sharp and warm and exceedingly, satisfyingly funny. The women who bring it to life are much the same.

Edinburgh Guide

An entertaining and funny play with a serious undertone

Salisbury Journal

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Two postage stamps, one yellow with a woman wearing a red jumper, and one blue with a woman wearing a blue top and cardigan. They float in the sky above clouds and a red post box which envelopes are flying into.

Ladies of Letters - Apr to Jul 2022

Starring Tessa Peake-Jones (Grantchester, Only Fools and Horses) and Gwyneth Strong (Only Fools and Horses, EastEnders), adapted by the acclaimed Jonathan Harvey (Coronation Street, Gimme Gimme Gimme) from the popular series by Lou Wakefield and Carole Hayman, and directed by Joanna Read.

Irene Spencer and Vera Small, two suburban women in their sixties, battle the big issues of the 21st century, from climate change protest and accidental imprisonment, to handy recipes for tasty petit fours and how to get stains out of slacks. They are best frenemies. Using the long lost artform of letter writing, they freely vent their views on their ungrateful children, how to find love at 60, and, on each other.

Ladies of Letters is a riotously funny, sharply observant comedy, packed with acidic detail that women navigating ungrateful families and M & S in an unforgiving world know so well.

They manage to keep the audience gripped with their charisma, stage presence and trademark comedic timing.

Malvern Observer

Ladies of Letters astonishes; it is a sit-back and be surprised production. I did and I was and I loved it.

Surrey Advertiser

Celebrates the meaning and warmth of women’s friendship, in all it’s gory glory. Irene and Vera’s tales of retirement and the adventures therein give hope for us all!

East Midlands Theatre