Welcome to the home page of The Villagers Open Air Shakespeare Group.

'The Villagers are a group of friends who, every summer, accidentally put on a play.'

In 2024, we performed As You Like It

***STOP PRESS***

The Villagers are pleased to announce that we will be presenting an indoor, winter production of Macbeth from 6th to 8th February 2025. This will be an indoor performance at St John’s Church in Forton Road, Gosport and performances will be at 7.30. Save the date! See Next Year for further information.

All profits from our productions go to locally supported charities.

The Villagers are based in Gosport in Hampshire, and began life in 1986 with a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at Little Woodham ('The 17th Century Village').  Every year since we have put on an open air production of one of Shakespeare's plays, in Little Woodham and - in recent years - elsewhere across Southern England.

Our aim is to enjoy ourselves, and to share some of that enjoyment with our audiences; many of them come back every year, so we must be doing something right!  The quote below was kindly sent to us by a first-time member of our audience who watched Macbeth at the 'Village'...

"My husband and I both loved your production....but our two sons were absolutely gripped by it, especially our 13 year old who had never seen Shakespeare live. It couldn't have been a better introduction!"

As the quote at the top of this page shows, we're not a typical drama group, and these pages should hopefully give you an idea of how the Villagers do things. Whether you're a Shakespeare aficionado, looking for an interesting summer evening event, or just curious, the Villagers, and this website, should have something for you.

Register with our mailing list, criticise the website or suggest additions for it, or even join the Group - get in touch and we'll do our best to welcome you into the Villagers family!