The Fireside Folktales Fringe is Officially Open for Applications!

Exciting news - we’ve just taken another big step forward with The Fireside Folktales Fringe, which now has a full Participants’ Information Pack and Application Form both live!

If you’re a performer, storyteller, theatre-maker, or creative of any kind who loves myths, legends, folklore, or classic tales, this is your chance to be part of something special. The festival will take place in and around Barnes Pond, SW13, on 23rd & 24th May 2026, with a special launch event the weekend before on Saturday 16th May.

We’re looking for bold, imaginative work that celebrates the power of story - no big budgets or tech wizardry required, just creativity, connection, and heart.

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• If you are interested in bringing a show to the Fireside Folktales Barnes Fringe Festival you can find more information here: https://tinyurl.com/FiresideFolktalesFringeInfo 
  
  
• Applications are now open! To submit your show, workshop, or other event, for consideration please fill in this form: https://tinyurl.com/4p3tsfxm  

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The pack includes all the details about venues, registration, ticketing, and how to apply. We can’t wait to see what stories you’ll bring to Barnes next spring!

And to all our generous supporters and donors - a huge thank you, once again. 🙏 Your contributions are helping us turn this dream into reality and I'm so very grateful that our fundraising total continues to rise, with another extremely kind donation of £30 this very morning!

If you’d like to take part in the festival – as a performer, a volunteer, a sponsor, or in any other way – please get in touch via shadowroadproductions@gmx.com. We’d love to hear from you!

In the meantime, do stay tuned for more updates, as we continue building the festival and reaching out to performers, partners, and sponsors. This particular story is just beginning…✨

Shadow Road's First Author Events!

We had a full house for the first of our exclusive author events presented in association with Fairacre Freddie Events: an intimate literary afternoon with acclaimed novelist, broadcaster, photographer, and travel writer Sandra Howard, who discussed her powerful World War II novel Love at War. 

Based on a true story, this sweeping tale is set in 1940, and follows Laura’s perilous journey across the Mediterranean to Uganda and beyond in pursuit of love, courage, and survival. It is a moving portrayal of one exceptional young woman’s resilience in the face of war.

Hosted in the warm and welcoming Shadow Road Studio in July, this exciting event featured a conversation between Sandra and actor/historical researcher Jeremy Preston, offering a rare insight into her writing process and the real-life story that inspired her seventh novel. We also enjoyed dramatic readings from Love at War by writer and audiobook narrator Carolyn Boyes, followed by a Q&A and a book signing in the garden sunshine!

Following all the fabulous feedback we received after this first literary event, we were then delighted to welcome ticketholders to join us for our second one in early October: Tea with Sandra Hempel, who spoke about her own newly-published book Controlling Women: The Untold Story of Britain's First Female Police Force. 

Sandra Hempel, a former Times journalist, has also written for The Guardian, the Daily Mail and other national media. Following her award-winning The Medical Detective, and BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week, The Inheritor’s Powder, her latest work looks at the fascinating story of the first Women Police Volunteers...

Violence against women is out of control. Conviction rates for rape are so low that most survivors think it pointless to report, or later regret doing so. Ruthless trafficking gangs run the sex trade. Women have no confidence in the Metropolitan Police. The year is 1914.

As the First World War began, a group of British campaigners founded the Women Police Volunteers, hoping to protect the vulnerable both from crime and from patriarchal policing and justice. The movement’s pioneers included a militant suffragette who’d spent time behind bars, a moral purity activist, a blue-blooded radical, and a court reporter born in the workhouse to a single mother. Author Sandra Hempel follows their astonishing journey, through all of its troubling twists and turns.

Sandra, too, engaged in an animated conversation with Jeremy, and then answered questions from the audience, before signing books supplied by the fabulous (and independent!) Barnes Bookshop.

Huge thanks to both Sandras, to Jeremy, to Carolyn, to Sarah from Barnes Bookshop, and to my Dad, David King-Farlow, for running the refreshment stall so well! We're already looking forward to the next event...

Keep an eye on the Shadow Road TicketSource page to book & join us!

The Fireside Folktales Fringe: Barnes’ Brand New Theatre Festival!

After two wonderful summers performing at the Edinburgh Fringe, my small but perfectly formed theatre company, Shadow Road, has decided to stay closer to home next year - and create something magical of our own.

Introducing 'The Fireside Folktales Fringe': a brand-new, independent mini festival of storytelling and theatre, taking place in Barnes, South West London, on 23rd & 24th May 2026!

We're aiming for:

• 🌿 Intimate shows in unexpected spaces (no big stages, just big heart) 
• 📖 Classic stories reimagined for a modern audience 
• 🎟️ Affordable tickets and accessible venues
• 🌍 A celebration of community, creativity, and connection

It’s inspired by our own 'Fireside Folktales' series: a collection of small but mighty shows that bring powerful myths, legends, and classic tales to life in a wide variety of venues, with no fancy tech - just four actors, live sound and music, simple props and costumes, and a whole lot of imagination.

This time, we’re throwing open the doors and inviting other wonderful artists in too. And that’s where you come in.

• 🎭 Are you a performer or theatre company who might want to take part?
• 💛 Are you a long-time friend of Shadow Road, who believes in what we do?
• 🙌 Are you someone who wants to support independent theatre with soul?

We’ve just (this very hour!) launched our Crowdfunder campaign to make the festival a reality and we’d love your help in spreading the word.

Would you like to take part, as a performer or production company? Do you know someone who'd be interested in sponsoring a venue, or an individual show? Whether you donate, share the link, or just loudly cheer us on, you’ll be helping us create something really special from the ground up, and we would be so grateful.

Our campaign is taking part in the 'Built by Her, Backed by Us' initiative - a brilliant programme supporting female-led projects. If we raise a minimum total of £1,000 from at least 25 different backers, by 31st July, we’ll be eligible to enter their competition and be in with the chance of winning extra match funding and other opportunities that could totally transform the future of the festival. Whether you can give £5 or £50, your donation gets us one step closer - and sharing the campaign helps more than you know!

We'd absolutely love you to help us build a festival that puts people and stories first, concentrating on the simple, shared experience. No headsets. No holograms. No horrific overpricing, or awesome, spaceship-worthy technology. Just theatre, the way it began - and the way it still moves us most...

✨ The Fireside Folktales Fringe Crowdfunding Link ✨

Thank you SO much for any help you feel able to give! 🙏❤️🥰

The Shadow Road Writers’ Retreat: Now a Monthly Event!

We had a full house for our very first Shadow Road Writers’ Retreat on May 31st - and what a day it was! As you can see in the photo collage above, the studio was buzzing with creativity - from quiet writing sprints and character-building exercises, to an Inspiration Walk through the beautiful, sunlit churchyard, and some really wonderful shared work and reactions at the end of the day.

Everyone who attended brought something unique to the table, and it was a great joy to spend the day writing, reflecting, and connecting with fellow storytellers. It was, in fact, such a success that we are delighted to announce that the Retreat will now become a regular event, running on the last Saturday of each month (with the exception of July, when it will be on the final Sunday of the month instead), other than August and December! 🥳

There are only 5 places available for each Retreat, and with several participants already planning to return on different dates, you may wish to book soon - tickets for each Retreat until the end of 2025 are now available on our TicketSource page here: 

www.ticketsource.co.uk/shadowroad

Whether you're working on a novel, a play, a podcast script, children's book, or screenplay - or even if you're just craving some space to reconnect with your creativity - we'd love you to join us! 📚🎭🎬