A Brief History

Cottingham Little Theatre was founded in 1920 when a group of members and friends of the Congregational Church (now the Zion United Reformed Church) decided to give a reading of Dickens “A Christmas Carol”. From this was born the idea of what was then called “Cottingham Dramatic Society”. Meetings were held in a room above the Hallgate Pharmacy of Mr. George Exelby and the first public performance, “The Merchant of Venice” was held in the Hallgate Junior School in 1921.Since those early days we have performed around 200 plays, pantomimes and revues!

The first public performance, “The Merchant of Venice” was held in the Hallgate Junior School in 1921

In 1992 the Society changed its name to Cottingham Little Theatre and since 1996 performances have been held in the Darby & Joan Hall in Finkle Street, Cottingham. We put on two major productions each year, in May and November, with a varied programme – mainly comedies but also including mysteries, thrillers and dramas.

Around nine years ago, we started to perform our inimitable Murder Mysteries, written to Chris Martin.  These have proved to be perenially popular and are still going strong each February.

In 2010, our 90th Anniversary Year, we went right back to our roots and performed “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, adapted by Neil Duffield.

Our Centenary celebrations which were due to be held in 2020 were devastated by the pandemic.  However, we picked ourselves up with an adaptation of Christmas Carol which was greeted with delight by our audiences.  Since then we have continued to perform our plays within covid restrictions, which are now lifted and our productions are back to normal with our regular audiences supporting us as ever.  We continue to remain grateful for the continued support of our Friends (patrons) who have kept the faith during the last difficult years.

To view an archive of our productions please click here.