The return of Hightide Festival

Every year, HighTide brings stunning works of new theatre, comedy, exhibitions and readings to Suffolk over the course of a 6-day festival on The Suffolk Coast, including world premieres of plays by hand-picked playwrights. It’s billed as “adventurous theatre for adventurous people,” and doesn’t disappoint. Welcome to the twelfth annual HighTide Festival of live performance in Suffolk, located at its new festival hub at the Garage Gallery and the East Coast Restaurant in Aldeburgh between 11th and 16th September.

My first plays weren’t rooted to a particular place, they were set in other worlds: like magical forests or in outer space. There are so many writers making brilliant work you start to refine what story it is that you can tell, that no one else can tell. Last year my play Sea Fret was the first full length play I’d written set in Suffolk. It was about two teenage girls whose houses are falling into the sea. One girl can afford to move and the other girl can’t and it’s about the impact of that erosion on their friendship and their families. It was put on in London, we built a beach with a ton of pebbles and a pillbox in the middle of the stage. Bringing Suffolk to London felt important, especially in the wake of Brexit. One of the characters was a fisherman who didn’t go out to get fish anymore, blamed the lack of fish on the Spanish.

After Sea Fret finished I wanted to write again about Suffolk. I wanted to write a town mouse, country mouse love story and set it in and around Reydon. Set it somewhere that you’d have to get a bus to the nearest school, somewhere close enough to farms that the boy could have grown up on a farm and close enough to the sea so that the two of them could go and sit on the beach at Kessingland. Stan is a daydreamer and loves the stories and myths of Suffolk, he tells Stevie about Black Shuck when they first meet and when he takes her to Kessingland he tells her about the Viking settlement that they found just out to sea. Stevie has moved to Suffolk from London, she’s never felt this connection to a place before. She’s moved from house to house and she’s never met anyone like Stan before.

I grew up in Aldeburgh and went to Woodbridge School. My closest friends were from there and my parents still live there. Growing up as teenager in the countryside is so different to the cities: begging your parents to give you lifts to house parties while still being mortified when they drop you off! After University I came back to Suffolk and worked for Wonderful Beast Theatre Company who are based in Aldeburgh. I programmed the Pumphouse for the Aldeburgh Music Festival for three years. My band TRILLS, who feature in Songlines, played our first gig in the Pumphouse, now 10 years ago. It’ll be magically bizarre taking my play to HighTide where it’ll be on at the Pumphouse the TRILLS.

HighTide is a theatre company and charity based in East Anglia that has an unparalleled eleven-year history of successfully launching the careers of emerging British playwrights. They have staged productions with the highest quality theatres across the UK, discovering new talent, providing creative development opportunities for playwrights and other creatives, and staging high quality theatre productions both regionally and across the country.

For more on the festival of live performance, head here

This blog was created in partnership with HighTide Festival and The Corner Shop PR.

Here's our list of the best festivals in Suffolk, and perhaps anywhere in the country.