Our history

Officially, Stage Two Downham was formed in 1989, under the chairmanship of Bob Cleeve, when our first production was Round And Round The Garden. Since then we have staged over 50 plays, collaborated with other societies, and participated in several community projects.

However, we can trace our roots much further back, to the 1960s, and a group of drama enthusiasts from the branch of the WI in the nearby village of Waddington. That group gained a name and a permanent home in 1970, when it became the Waddington Drama Group, based in St Helen’s School Room, Waddington.

The move to Downham Village Hall in 1989 brought with it a change of name. We have remained Stage Two Downham ever since.

A recent development has been our membership of Noda, a national society for amateur theatre groups. We are very proud to have received four regional awards to date.

Sadly, our founding chairman, Bob, passed away in late 2019, having remained an active member of the group. He gave a tour de force performance in A Bunch Of Amateurs in December of that year, our last play before the pandemic.

We kept ourselves busy during the pandemic, holding play readings on Zoom and remotely recording Under Milk Wood, which is now available to watch. We started to perform again as soon as we were able, with our production of The Winslow Boy, temporarily relocating to Hurst Green Memorial Hall while Downham Village Hall was refurbished.

We are now back in our normal home, fully in our stride, and have even started to expand our schedule to three events per year.