The Ellen Terry Barn Theatre

07/09/2026

Scrub in, folks - because this Saturday the Barn becomes Ward 10, and Company Gavin Robertson and Dyad Productions are wheeling in a one‑night‑only theatrical emergency. Expect sharp humour, big heart, and the kind of backstage hospital chaos that makes you laugh, wince, and lean forward all at once. It’s fast, it’s funny, it’s full of life - and it’s here for one night only.

Grab your tickets, grab your friends, and prepare for a dose of drama with absolutely no waiting time.

Photos by Peter Mould

Tickets: https://www.ticketsource.com/ellenterrybarntheatre/general-medical-emergency-ward-10/e-rbmkmr

01/09/2026

Next Up at the Barn:

Tickets are now available for General Medical Emergency Ward 10 at Ellen Terry Barn Theatre, Kent on Saturday 12th September 2026. Click the link for further information and to secure your tickets now!

30/08/2026

30/08/2026

What an absolute honour it was to have the heartbreakingly talented and glowingly humorous ‘Paul Jesson’ grace our stage. Not only was he mesmerising to watch but the beautiful writing by Richard Nelson, delicate direction by Clarissa Brown and then hearing Paul perform the immortal ‘The quality of mercy is not strained’ lines in this wonderful one man show, is something we will treasure for a long time to come. Thank you all at the ‘An Actor convalescing in Devon’ team. 🎭 ❤️ 🪲 🍷 📖 🚂 (please come back and visit us again)

28/08/2026

A few photos of Paul from yesterday's rehearsal taken by Peter Mould. Last chance to buy tickets for this evening's performance - only a handful left!

https://www.ticketsource.com/ellenterrybarntheatre/an-actor-convalescing-in-devon/e-rpopgr

AN ACTOR CONVALESCING IN DEVON
by RICHARD NELSON

THE ACTOR Paul Jesson
Directed by Clarissa Brown
A Hampstead Theatre production first performed in April 2024,
designed by Rob Howell with lighting by Rick Fisher and sound by Mike Walker
The play is published by Faber & Faber

RICHARD NELSON is an Honorary Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company and recipient of the PEN/Laura Pels Master Playwright Award. He has also received two Tony Awards, an Olivier Award and many other nominations. His more than fifty plays and screenplays include When the Hurlyburly's Done and More Beauty than Sorrow both written and directed by him for the Theatre on
Podil, Kyiv, Ukraine. Springwood, which he also directed, opened at Hampstead Theatre in June this year. We'll See, a play about the US midterm elections, will premiere at the Public Theater, New York in November.

PAUL JESSON is an Associate Artist of the RSC and twice winner of an Olivier Award. Last year he played Adam in the Bath Theatre Royal production of As You Like It and earlier this year appeared as Gonzalo in The Tempest at the RSC. His most recent television appearance was as Sir Geoffrey Howe in The Crown. He is
a frequent collaborator with Mike Leigh, notably as William Turner in Mr Turner and in Leigh's latest film Tender Loving Care, due for UK release in February.

CLARISSA BROWN is a director and writer. This summer she was Richard Nelson's assistant on the world premiere of his play Springwood at Hampstead Theatre. She was resident staff director at the RSC where she ran new writing projects and was associate director on Best New Play of the Year Pentecost by David Edgar. With Claque Theatre she collaborated with writer Jon Oram and
the Kent miners on The Fightback Tour. Other work includes journalism and documentary film-making. She was awarded a British Council grant to tour her play Shrimp Paste and Pearls in China.

An Actor Convalescing in Devon was specially written for Paul Jesson in response to his recovery from oral surgery. The play is a gathering of life stories, anecdotes and quotations, all of them true, as told by the writer, actor and director. They all first worked together on Nelson's play Two Shakespearean Actors at the RSC in 1990.

26/08/2026

THIS FRIDAY - LAST FEW TICKETS REMAINING!

Coming to The Barn Theatre, Smallhythe Place – Friday 28 August, 7.30pm
AN ACTOR CONVALESCING IN DEVON
by Richard Nelson
Performed by Olivier Award–winner Paul Jesson

An intimate, funny and deeply moving play about an actor taking stock of life, friendship, Shakespeare, and the strange, stubborn art that keeps us all going. First seen at Hampstead Theatre and now arriving at Smallhythe for one special night, this beautifully crafted monologue explores the healing power of storytelling with warmth, wit and quiet brilliance.

Paul Jesson - Associate Artist of the RSC, familiar to many from The Crown - will also appear in Mike Leigh’s new (and final) film Tender Loving Care, set for UK release early next year. Catch him up close at The Barn before he’s back on the big screen.

🎟️ Tickets (£16) are now on sale:
https://www.ticketsource.com/ellenterrybarntheatre

Join us for an evening that celebrates resilience, craft, and the gentle magic of theatre.

22/08/2026

Saturday 12th September at the Barn Theatre:

The award-winning Dyad Productions and Company Gavin Robertson are joining forces!

It’s a pedigree of the first degree! Between them, Dyad’s recent productions – Austen’s Women: LADY SUSAN, A Christmas Carol, A Room of One’s Own, That Knave, Raleigh – and Gavin Robertson, with Done to Death by Jove!, The Ghost of a Smile andBOND – An Unauthorised Parody have toured both the UK and internationally, with resounding success over the last few years. Labouring away in secret, looking for the perfect co-production has taken time, but finally the answer has arrived!

Every hospital, medical-based, Doctors-and-Nurses cliché-ridden drama onstage in a comedy mash-up spoof!

It’ll have you in stitches!

It’s Dr Ann Fleming’s first day at St David’s, where her unfortunately-named mentor Dr Death, is determined to show her who’s boss. As medical emergencies overload the hapless staff, Dr Fleming has to juggle a complicated budding love affair, with a liver, and a nosey Hospital boss. Not literally.

Yes – Holby City, Casualty, E.R. and Doctors – not to mention movies galore, are re-imagined and invigorated by Rebecca Vaughan, Andrew Margerison and Gavin Robertson in a pacy, cliché-ridden comic homage to the intrigues and dramas of every hospital plotline on the big and small screen!

To be taken once a day (or twice if there’s a matinee).

Created in collaboration with the Old Town Hall, Hemel Hempstead.

★★★★★ ‘If you haven’t seen Dyad Productions’ work before, you simply must’ – British Theatre Guide
★★★★★ ’Robertson performs with a subtle conviction that’s compelling to watch’ – The Guardian

https://www.ticketsource.com/ellenterrybarntheatre/general-medical-emergency-ward-10/e-rbmkmr

19/08/2026

Wednesday 30th September 2026

Across The Square
A new play by Non Vaughan - O’Hagan
Directed by Alex Pearson

On a cold December day 1917, Lady Ottoline Morrell has crossed Bedford Square to the home of Millicent Fawcett to express her condolences for the loss of a beloved sister. As the patroness of the Bloomsbury Group, Ottoline’s vast circle of friends includes Prime Ministers and novelists, painters and philosophers Her world is tainted by the whiff of scandal, the whisper of notoriety. Millicent on the other hand has been unwavering in her dedication to the crusade for women’s suffrage. Each in their own way, Ottoline and Millicent have left an indelible legacy on our political and cultural landscape yet they have languished too long in the twilight of obscurity, overshadowed by others.

Full of drama and laughter, Across the Square is an imagined conversation between two sharply contrasting women.
Will they find common ground, shared values?

Two differing world views are about to collide over a glass of sherry.

14/08/2026

Oliver Award-winning actor Paul Jesson discusses his play 'An Actor Convalescing in Devon' which comes to the Ellen Terry Barn Theatre in only two weeks time!

https://theartsdesk.com/theatre/first-person-actor-paul-jesson-survival-strength-and-healing-potential-art

Tickets are now available for An Actor Convalescing in Devon at The Barn Theatre, Smallhythe Place, Tenterden on Friday 28th August 2026. Click the link for further information and to secure your tickets now!