Durham Drama Festival is back for 2026 with a week-long celebration of the best new plays and musicals from across the University scene.

In the Sir Thomas Allen Assembly Rooms Theatre, we are welcoming three new productions:

19 Hour Dog Fight

'19 Hour Dog Fight' covers one day: open to close at an all day, all night pool and snooker bar, bartended by Felicity, and containing four regulars; Jerome, Silas, Harry, and Liam. The story revolves around Harry and Liam's psycho-sexual relationship, and works into themes of masculinity, mortality, purpose, and ego as they explore themselves and each other, leading to confrontations with Jerome and Silas (the older regulars), manic-depressive breakdowns, love, frenzy and tragedy as the sun rises.

The Dangers of Being Earnest

The Ainsely Theatre company is an amateur university theatre company, whose two directors - Frankie and Karly, have elected to put on the importance of being Earnest. Unfortunately, with miscommunications, feuds and a general lack of organization, their production goes from amateur to awful.

To Capture the Wildlife  - MUSICAL  

A boy grieving the loss of his mother meets an unusual girl each week in a graveyard. Navigating the pains of life and death, they find comfort in one another, but can their strange, transient friendship survive this tumultuous time?

£10 Standard

£9 Concession

£8 Performing Arts Members

This show is taking place at the Sir Thomas Allen Assembly Rooms Theatre, 40 N Bailey, Durham, DH1 3ET.

The performances will last approximately 3 hours total (approx 50 minutes per play, with an interval after each performance).

Durham Drama Festival is back for 2026 with a week-long celebration of the best new plays and musicals from across the University scene.

In the Collingwood Arts Centre, we are welcoming three new productions:

Infested

Set in WW1 November 1916, the wife is at home in England when during the Battle of the Somme the husband gets sent home because of an arm lesion and with extreme shell shock. The wife starts to question whether the person who has come home is really her husband that she loves or whether it's a mimic (due to shell shock and the mental effects of the war) that's infesting her home with malicious disease which manifests in the form of a deformed rat.

Part of Me

Jamie is a teenager – young, free, and on top of the world. Surrounded by his family and friends, things should be carefree and easy, but not everything is as it seems. Teenage life is confusing and we never know the full story of what goes on inside someone’s head. ‘Part of Me’ is a play about the teenage experience, mental health, growth, and most importantly, recovery.

Poetry Club  

When Martin’s wife passes away, he’s left at a loose end that he intends to tie up by starting a poetry discussion group. Playing out over the first meeting, 'Poetry Club' (working title) brings together a group of unusual people who readily make assumptions about one another.

You’ve met them all before, and you might even have been one of them. How do our first impressions of people guide the way in which we interact with them? What causes us to change our minds?

£10 Standard

£9 Concession

£8 Performing Arts Members

This show is taking place at the Collingwood Arts Centre, Collingwood College Durham

The performances will last approximately 3 hours total (approx 50 minutes per play, with an interval after each performance).

DOE is proud to present Will Todd's musical reimagining of the classic story 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland', an opera for new and old fans alike.

11-year-old Alice is jolted out of her mundane daydreams during the school holidays when she encounters a talking rabbit who insists that she follow him to the mysterious Wonderland. In this fantastical place, Alice meets a host of peculiar characters who foster a sense of wonder and curiosity. However, she soon learns that all is not well in Wonderland; a mysterious and very cross Queen of Hearts seems distressingly eager to chop off everyone’s heads.  

£12.50 Standard

£9 Concession

£7 Performing Arts Members

This event is taking place at the Sir Thomas Allen Assembly Rooms Theatre, 40 North Bailey, Durham, DH1 3ET.

The performances begin at 7pm or 2pm and run for approximately 3 hours with interval. Doors open 30 minutes before the performance begins.

Julius Caesar, one of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies, navigates conspiracy, tyranny and morality - and the death and violence that follows it.

DUCT presents Shakespeare's infamous tragedy, 'Julius Caesar.' After Caesar's victorious return from war, his growing ambition begins to invoke fear and suspicion from those around him. Conspiracy grows, and as the shadows grow longer, alliances, betrayals and death flicker in the moonlight.

Presented against the backdrop of 1970's outlaw culture, 'Julius Caesar' questions morality, honour and the cost of violence - raising an important question: Who can you really trust?

£10 Standard

£9 Concession

£8 Performing Arts Members

This performance is taking place at the Sir Thomas Allen Assembly Rooms Theate, 40 N Bailey, DH1 3ET.

This performance will begin at 7.30pm (2.30pm also on Saturday), and last for approximately 135 mins with interval. Doors open 30 minutes before the show begins.