Arts Richmond November Literature Festival 2025
5th November: Justin Webb, the long-time Radio 4 Today presenter, will be talking to journalist York Membery about early starts, his life as a broadcaster and his frank, widely-acclaimed childhood memoir, The Gift of a Radio, about growing up in 1970s Britain.
12th November: The former Labour MP and minister, novelist and celebrated diarist Chris Mullin, who famously led a campaign that resulted in the release of the Birmingham Six, talks to York Membery about his latest volume of diaries, Didn’t You Use to Be Chris Mullin?.
17th November: The historian Tracy Borman, Chief Historian at the Historic Royal Palaces and the author of several acclaimed books about Tudor England, talks about her new book, The Stolen Crown, which looks at ‘treachery, deceit and the death of the Tudor dynasty’.
26th November Broadcaster Reeta Chakrabarti is best known for being a BBC television news presenter, but will be talking about both her 30-plus years with ‘The Beeb’, as well her debut novel, Finding Belle, in a wide-ranging talk with journalist York Membery.
Arts Richmond Young Writers Festival 2025/26
ARTS RICHMOND YOUNG WRITERS FESTIVAL 2025/26
Arts Richmond’s annual writing competition for all young people in Richmond.
Deadline for entries: Friday 5th December 2025.
Arts Richmond Young Writers Festival is open to all young people who either live or attend schools or clubs in the London Borough of Richmond Upon Thames. It is a chance to demonstrate writing skills, specifically short stories or poems.
Entries are judged in four age groups with prizes for all winning entries. In addition the shortlisted entrants from all the age groups are invited to a gala awards event at The Exchange Theatre in Twickenham on Sunday 15th March 2026 where their work is performed on the stage by a group of young drama students. This involves the poetry and short stories written by around 40 pupils.
We also produce and sell a professionally printed anthology of all the shortlisted pieces of work.
Entry Rules:
We have two themes this year – ‘My World’ and ‘Something Extraordinary’. You can choose either of these themes to write a short story which can be any length up to 500 words, or a poem with a maximum of 25 lines. We are very happy to receive shorter pieces of work. One entry per pupil.
All work must be original and exclusively the entrant’s own work – no AI please!
Please do not write your name on the work entries with names identified will be disqualified.
Entries must be in typed format. Hand-written entries will be disqualified.
Entries will be judged in the following categories:
School Years 4 and under
School Years 5 and 6
School Years 7 to 9
School Years 10 and above
Entries to be sent by the pupil’s school or club to:
Arts Richmond Young Writers Festival
ETNA Community Centre Room 21
13 Rosslyn Road
Twickenham TW1 2AR
Or email: YWentries@artsrichmond.org.uk
We are delighted to be supported by distinguished author Anthony Horowitz.
I am very happy to be working with Arts Richmond and their Young Writers
Festival. I have recently moved to Richmond and love the area... in fact my recent
book is set here.
More to the point, I'm always keen to encourage young people
to develop their creative skills and if they're living in this area,
there's plenty to inspire them. Just walking along the river, in
the park or on the green, we're surrounded by history and
enchantment and there are stories everywhere. Good luck. And get writing!
Anthony Horowitz
Arts Richmond DRAMA PARTY SWAN AWARDS 2025 RESULTS AND IMAGE
Arts Richmond SWAN Awards 2025 Results
Best Male Child Performer (aged 16 and under at time of performance, any genre) Sakima Peterson as Jean Valjean in ‘Les Misérables’ (The British Theatre Academy – Boublil Cast)
Best Female Child Performer (aged 16 and under at time of performance, any genre) Eden West as Madame Thenardier in ‘Les Misérables’ (The British Theatre Academy – Schönberg Cast)
Best Set Design‘Hangmen’ (TTC) – Fiona Auty, Set Design & Construction
Best Costume Design‘While the Sun Shines’ (RSS) – Ellie Quick, Costume Designer
Best Lighting Design‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ (TTC) – Gary Stevenson, Lighting Design
Best Design Element‘The Great Gatsby’ (TTC) – Emma Knight, Choreographer
Best Leading Performer in a Play in a Male Role William Tillett as Christopher Boone in ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time’ (TTC)
Best Leading Performer in a Play in a Female Role: Juanita Al-Dahhan as Alice Wade in ‘Hangmen’ (TTC)
Best Supporting Performer in a Play in a Male Role Matt Tester as Peter Mooney in
Best Supporting Performer in a Play in a Female Role Sarah Sharpe as Mabel Crum in ‘While the Sun Shines’ (RSS)
Best Leading Performer in a Musical in a Male Role Guillaume Borkhataria as Bobby in ‘Company’ (BROS)
Best Leading Performer in a Musical in a Female Role Harriet Law as Ulla in ‘The Producers’ (TOPS)
Best Supporting Performer in a Musical in a Male Role Julian Briscoe as Franz Liebkind in ‘The Producers’ (TOPS)
Best Supporting Performer in a Musical in a Female Role Rachael Nolan as Peron's Mistress in ‘Evita’ (HLO)
Best Ensemble(for a cast where work is shared fairly equally, any genre) ‘Weird Women’ (TTC)
Best Youth Production (where the entire cast is aged 19 years and under at time of performance, any genre) ‘Les Misérables School Edition’ (The British Theatre Academy – Boublil Cast) Matthew Chandler, Producer; TJ Lloyd, Director; Daniel Loosely, Musical Director
Best Production in a Non-Theatre Space (where the society does not have exclusive use during the run) ‘Laburnum Grove’ (Q2) in The National Archives, Kew – Terry Oakes, Director; Bob Gingell, Set Design & Construction; Harriet Muir, Set Design & Construction, Lighting, Costumes, Props
Best Musical Production (any musical, pantomime or play where music is integral to the plot) ‘Company’ (BROS) – Griffin Godsick, Director; Tom Chippendale, Musical Director; Emma Knight, Choreographer.
Best Production of a Play ‘The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time’ (TTC) – Nigel Cole, Director
The Wild Swan (a novel moment in a production of particularly atmospheric & memorable theatre — a coup de theatre)
Les Misérables - Barricade scene (The British Theatre Academy) – TJ Lloyd, Director
The Arts Richmond Swan Award Accolade went to Michelle Hood.
This year, the accolade has been awarded to someone who, over the years, has been prolific in amateur theatre in the Borough, particularly with RSS and TTC.
She trained at drama school and was a professional actress for many years before her life was taken over by motherhood. Her love of theatre subsequently drove her to “am-dram”, starting in 1988: acting in The Wind in the Willows and La Ronde, back in the old TTC theatre in Hampton Court House.
Since then, she’s been involved with both TTC and RSS: acting, directing, stage managing, and front-of-house, working the bar, and duty managing.
At the Mary Wallace Theatre, with RSS, she’s directed Tom and Viv, The Children, Kindertransport, Larkin with Women, and The Flint Street Nativity.
At TTC, she made her debut as a director back in 2004 with a Christmas musical production of The Wizard of Oz. This was followed by directing two further Christmas shows: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in, 2006 and The Secret Garden in 2007. She has also directed a wide range of straight plays including Private Lives, The Winter’s Tale, We Happy Few, After Mrs Rochester, The Mercy Seat and When We Were Married. As well as directing and acting, she was the Artistic Director at TTC for 3 years, from 2010 to 2013. Finally, bringing us full circle to tonight’s event, we should mention that she has been a judge for the Swan Awards for several years.