DDF 2025 will be a week long celebration of new student writing from February 16th to February 23rd.
Join Durham Student Theatre for the 50th Anniversary of the Durham Drama Festival. Featuring nine new plays across three venues, explore the wealth of emerging talent at the UK's largest and most prolific student theatre scene.
Book tickets to all three ram-packed programmes below.
£7 Standard
£6.50 Concessions
£6 Durham Student Theatre Members
Opening Night
This Opening Night is particularly special as it marks the beginning of DDF’s 50th birthday, so get ready to celebrate with a brilliant line up of the Durham Revue, Shellshock! Improv, StandSoc and last but certainly not least Durham University’s Musical Theatre Troupe. A fabulous evening not to be missed before a week of extraordinary theatre from some of Durham’s most talented students as part of the UK’s largest and most prolific student theatre scene.
Sir Thomas Allen Assembly Rooms Programme
Secret Admirers
In this musical comedy, ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ meets espionage and bureaucracy, as two FBI agents help their awkward subjects to romantically end up together, only to gradually catch feelings for each other.
Jordan is Not Present
A mother, a sister and a teacher navigate governmental red tape and prejudices to get correct care provisions for Jordan. A little boy with high needs autism and increasingly distressing behaviour, it's a race to get provisions in place before it's too late.
Believers
“Do you believe in the Loch Ness Monster?” Before she leaves, cryptozoologist Rosamund Saint-Frances leaves behind an eccentric request - to hide and destroy all her research six months after her death.
Mark Hillery Arts Centre Programme
The Magical MacGuffin
Inspired by Dungeons and Dragons and complete with a brand-new score, this feelgood musical encapsulates the emotional rollercoaster of fantasy roleplay games, celebrating the quirky and ragtag bunch of misfits that make tabletop gaming such a special pasttime.
Strange Young Girls
Based on the real life friendship of Michelle Phillips of The Mammas and The Pappas, and Sue Lyon, star of Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 Lolita, Strange Young Girls catapults the audience to just before the explosion of counter-culture, before liberation meant safety, and just before the loss of childhood innocence.
Iceman
“Palude Manor… It always has been, and shall remain, a mystery to me…” By day, the estate is a place of wonderment, but, by night, the corridors and contents of the manor- including a 5000-year old corpse- shed unwanted light on the family’s past, present and future.
Mount Oswald Hub Programme
Blood Upon the Dry Land
A grieving father and son move from the city to the Wild West in search of a new life. Through unsettling interactions with strange and eccentric characters, the father and son begin to catch glimpses of a growing mania that grips the town.
Soror
The play follows Lauren, who, having returned to her small town from a trip away, finds her half-brother missing. When she is called into the police station, everything worsens when she finds out that the lead detective on the case is her ex-best friend from high school.
Aftertaste
Following a recent breakup, Juniper lives a single and lonesome twenty-something existence in the city. She spends her wine-fuelled evenings pouring her heart out to strangers.