Britain's What's On Event Guide
INK Festival 2026
The INK Festival is the UK's largest new short play festival. Celebrating its 10th anniversary year in 2026, the extraordinary festival programme will see 70 new short plays over the course of the four-day festival.
Designed to showcase a variety of genres, these are performed in an eclectic variety of venues across the town, from traditional theatres to striking outdoor and pop-up locations across Halesworth such as the local Food Larder, Bowling Club, Scout Hut even a Community Bus. The plays have been hand-selected by INK from over 1000 script submissions and will be produced as stage plays, radio plays, and rehearsed readings. Highlights of the programme include special short playwriting commissions from renowned writers Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Blackadder, Bridget Jones’s Diary) and Esther Freud (Hideous Kinky, The Wild, The Sea House).
Alongside the short play festival, INK will also be running an exciting programme of headline events and talks with award-winning creatives, as well as free youth and community events, offering something fun for all the family.
Designed to showcase a variety of genres, these are performed in an eclectic variety of venues across the town, from traditional theatres to striking outdoor and pop-up locations across Halesworth such as the local Food Larder, Bowling Club, Scout Hut even a Community Bus. The plays have been hand-selected by INK from over 1000 script submissions and will be produced as stage plays, radio plays, and rehearsed readings. Highlights of the programme include special short playwriting commissions from renowned writers Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and a Funeral, Blackadder, Bridget Jones’s Diary) and Esther Freud (Hideous Kinky, The Wild, The Sea House).
Alongside the short play festival, INK will also be running an exciting programme of headline events and talks with award-winning creatives, as well as free youth and community events, offering something fun for all the family.
Thu 16 Apr to Sunday 19 April
Various locations around Halesworth, Suffolk IP19 8BY
16th April – 19th April 2026, 9:30am – 9:30pm Tickets from £40
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