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! 🙏❤️🥰

A Wonderful Winter Tour!

A look behind the scenes of our recent Arts Council funded tour of
London hospitals, cancer centres and care homes with my adaptation of A Christmas Carol!
Featuring Victoria Adler, Amy Floyd, Emma King-Farlow, Belle Quinlan, Sarah Robinson & Alice Hope Wilson. 

This Christmas, our theatre company embarked on a heartwarming tour of London hospitals, cancer centres, and care homes with our production of A Christmas Carol (which I first adapted back in 2019,a few months before the pandemic), thanks to the generous support of a grant from Arts Council England. 

Over the festive season, we brought live theatre, music, and storytelling to those who needed a little extra cheer, visiting places like Charing Cross Hospital (elderly care, neuro-rehab, stroke, and other wards), The Mulberry Centre, Maggie's Cancer Support Centre, the Teenage Cancer Trust, Viera Gray House, Lynde House, the Royal Variety Charity’s Brinsworth House, and local charities such as FiSH and Age UK in Barnes. 

Our tour didn’t stop at Christmas - after a hectic run of eight shows in six days leading up to the holiday, we then returned for more performances after Christmas, starting again on December 27th, and wrapping up at Maggie's on January 6th, Epiphany.

It has always been important to Shadow Road to bring theatre to those who might not otherwise have the chance to experience it - and never has that been more important than at Christmas, a time when it’s especially easy to feel left out or forgotten if you’re ill, living alone, or in hospital. Live theatre has a unique ability to create moments of connection and joy - and we were privileged to share that magic with so many incredible people this winter.

One particularly touching moment happened at Charing Cross Hospital, where we met Peter, a dementia patient who had spent six months in hospital, rarely engaging in activities (according to the staff who looked after him), and often appearing quite withdrawn.

Yet as soon as the show began, Peter lit up! He sang along with the carols, immersed himself in the story (even providing a bit of running commentary, to everyone’s delight! 😂😍), and couldn’t stop smiling. His transformation was so remarkable that numerous staff members gathered in the corridor outside to watch him watching us and marvel!

At the end of the performance, Peter posed for photos on our set, wearing one of our top hats - and when we returned to the hospital the following week, the staff brought him up to the 8th floor just so that he could watch the show again. 

There were numerous other moments like these throughout the tour - each of which reminded us why we do what we do, and underlined just how powerful the Arts can be in bringing people together and lifting spirits. 🎭

With the tour itself over and all our own match funding now raised, there is only a feedback session with the cast, and a lengthy report for the Arts Council, left to go! 

We cannot thank the Arts Council, all our wonderful supporters, and our fabulous cast enough for making this whole tour possible. THIS is why we do what we do. It was very hard work, but couldn't have been more worth it. An utter joy and a privilege. 

Here's to doing it all again for Christmas 2025...

#StoryGivesBack Winners Announced!

I am absolutely delighted that my tiny theatre company, Shadow Road Productions, has just been announced as one of the two winners of this year's #StoryGivesBack initiative from Story Events!

Following the online vote, first by previous visitors to Story's renowned London Christmas Party Show and then by the wider public, we have been named as one of the two boutique suppliers they would most like to meet! As a result, our prize is the offer of a free stand at the 2021 show on the 7th and 8th September, so that they can do just that!

You can read more about the company and the show - and find out how to register to visit yourself - on the #StoryGivesBack page on their website.

As some of you may already be aware, Shadow Road is a small independent theatre company which specialises in bringing exciting pieces of theatre for all ages and occasions to unusual venues and spaces in creative new ways. Our work usually involves a charitable aspect of some kind – raising awareness or funds - or, as with Fireside Folktales in particular, taking live entertainment out to people who might not otherwise have the opportunity to enjoy it.

We are now aiming to branch out into events, corporate entertainment, and private parties – offering something original and exciting to these markets and, in turn, enabling us to fund more of our voluntary and charity work elsewhere. Winning this competition is a wonderful opportunity for us to meet many of the people who could help us take those next steps into the future and we can't wait to show everyone the fantastic entertainment – festive and otherwise – that we have to offer!

Shadow Road Productions' New Brochure!

My small independent theatre company, Shadow Road Productions, specialises in bringing exciting works of theatre, for all ages and occasions, to unusual spaces in creative new ways.

As well as continuing that tradition with Fireside Folktales, retelling myths, legends and classic stories from around the world as original short plays performed by a company of four professional actors, we also offer much more, including the UNBROKEN Festival & Short Film Prize, a variety of murder mystery events, full-scale theatre   productions, and our soon-to-be-launched cross-platform venture, Secret Storytellers.

This fantastic new project will see us producing some exciting online content based in a new, immersive story-world, in order to enhance the impressive work of our two-person teams, who will be busy delivering a range of thrilling live performances. In common with Fireside Folktales, and in keeping with the world in which the overall project is set, all music and sound effects are performed live by the cast, so no electricity or technical equipment is required, once again allowing us to be extremely flexible in terms of venue.

Finally, whether for team-building purposes, school visits, or those with a simple interest, we also offer several creative and educational workshops. Some of these are designed to accompany a particular production, so that you might watch the play and then take part in the workshop afterwards, while others - such as the general Drama Workshop, An Introduction to Playwriting, and An Introduction to Stage Combat, etc - can be delivered as standalone events. 

So that we have all the information in one place, we have put together a shiny, new PDF brochure outlining everything that Shadow Road has to offer theatre lovers, schools, events organisers and private clients with parties to throw! We hope you will find it both interesting and helpful. If, after reading, you have any questions, please feel free to get in touch - we would love to hear from you.

Anyone interested in finding out more can download the brochure HERE.

We look forward to working with you!

Fireside Folktales

An ongoing project begun in 2019, Fireside Folktales sees the Shadow Road team retelling a growing collection of myths, legends, and classic stories from around the world. Each is presented as an original short play (see the Playscripts page for more information) performed by a company of four actors. In keeping with the back-to-basics philosophy of this particular storytelling project, all music and sound effects are performed live by the cast, with no electricity or technical equipment necessary.

Having previously staged Fireside Folktales productions in Shadow Road's own beautiful 8m bell tent, in the open air, and at a wide variety of indoor venues, we know they work in almost all imaginable settings.

We were delighted to launch Fireside Folktales at the Barnes Children’s Literature Festival over the weekend of 11th-12th May 2019, where we delivered no fewer than six performances of Aesop's Fables, Persephone & the Pomegranate Seeds, and A Tale of Robin Hood in our superb Story Tent, each to a packed out audience!

After the BCLF, we moved on to other venues - including the magnificent National Trust property, Ham House, and Horace Walpole's gothic wonder Strawberry Hill House - before moving indoors for the winter to Southside House and other venues with our new production of A Christmas Carol. 

The return of these productions in 2020 - and our new shows, Macbeth and The Musicians of Bremen - has been postponed by the outbreak of Covid-19 but we will still be back later in the year...

We are also now available for private bookings for parties and events for both children and adults, or for school visits - including optional workshops and Q&A sessions, alongside the performances.  

As well as our usual selection of tales for all ages and occasions, we are able to create a bespoke event, writing a new piece of work specifically for your celebration, if we are given sufficient notice.  Should you wish to discuss a private booking of any sort, please don't hesitate to get in touch with us at firesidefolktales@gmail.com!

We look forward to hearing from you - and perhaps to seeing you at one of the public events we will be appearing at throughout the year, bringing the magic of myths and legends to life on your very own doorstep!

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For more information, please visit the Fireside Folktales website, follow us on social media (Instagram:@firesidefolktales & Twitter: @firesidefolks), like our Facebook page, or have a listen to the Fireside Folktales podcast!