The Festival Theatre at Hever Castle 2022

In our 2022 excitement, we have booked more shows of a wider variety than in any previous year; you can see the full schedule on our Performances page. We begin the season at the end of May with a week packed with events including our glorious celebration of Her Majesty the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee on Sat 4 June with the Guildhall Strings. Bring your picnic with porcelain plates and best silver cutlery as well as your flags – the National Anthem will not be the same without them! Several performances are to move out of the Two Sisters’ Theatre: Shakespeare on the Loggia (Tues 31 May and Tues 30 Aug) and performances on Anne Boleyn’s Ancient Woodland Walk where you will meet Peter Pan, an Awful Auntie and an unlikely family in a caravan. Joe Rooney kicks off our comedy programme with A Celebration of Father Ted followed by award-winning (East Grinstead based) Grinstock Comedy Club and Solve-Along-A- Murder-She-Wrote, with plenty of audience participation to enjoy. Festival favourites: Opera Brava, Brandenburg Sinfonia, Ronnie Scott’s All Stars, Charles Court Opera, First Knight Theatre, Illyria, Three Inch Fools, Immersion Theatre, Night Owls and Long Nose Puppets. We are very proud that they are all returning. Musical Tribute nights sparkle across the programme: Rule The World Celebrating 25 Years of Take That, Blurb and The Keiser Thiefs and Both Sides Now A Tribute to Joni Mitchell are all visiting for the first time alongside best-sellers The Simon and Garfunkel Story and Sinatra Sequins and Swing The Capitol Years Live! (Sat 6 Aug). The Four D’s on Sun 31 July, Q The Music The Music of James Bond with Madeline Smith (Fri 5 Aug) and No Town Like Motown – a brand new Motown show – a night of legendary Motown hits (Sat 27 Aug) are also making their festival debut; we are very excited. Post-performance Afternoon Tea can be booked with your theatre ticket for Posting Letters To The Moon with Lucy Fleming and Simon Williams (Wed 3 Aug 2.30pm) and Anne Boleyn by Howard Brenton on Fri 19 Aug 2pm (Don’t delay – afternoon tea sells out very quickly!). Pre-theatre suppers can be booked with most evening performance tickets and don’t forget, you can buy discounted joint garden and theatre tickets for all performances– full details are on each of the programme pages on the website. Royalty is celebrated in style with talks by popular festival speakers: Alison Weir and Hever Castle Historian Dr. Owen Emerson. Becoming Anne ties in with not only the launch of Owen and fellow historian Kate McCaffrey’s book but the Hever Castle 2022 Becoming Anne exhibition. Lauren Mackay joins us at St Peter’s Church for her talk on Thomas Boleyn, who is buried there. Have you ever heard a ‘satirical river of sound’? Double BAFTA winning broadcaster, comedian and writer Jon Holmes is bringing us the biggest current news stories as we’ve never heard them before (Fri 29 July). Why not try it out in advance? Search for The Skewer on BBC Sounds so you know what to expect from this ‘twisted comedy treat’. We very much look forward to welcoming you to the 39th (consecutive) year of Hever Festival Theatre. The box office is open 10am-2pm Mon– Fri, please call us if we can help with your booking. Do discuss group bookings (20+) with us at the box office either by phone or email. Please note the box office has a new phone number: 07379 488 477 email remains the same boxoffice@heverfestival.co.uk