A Gelligaer amateur dramatics group are hoping to defend their title at a national festival on May 18 to 23.
The Players’ Theatre will defend their winners’ cup when they perform the final one-act play, Embodiment, at Welwyn Drama Festival in Hertfordshire.
Established in 1980, the group has a formidable reputation on the amateur theatre scene.
Three-time British Champions, they won the Welwyn Cup in last year’s festival with their performance of A Universal Sorrow, which told the story of the 1913 Senghenydd colliery disaster.
Embodiment, written by Jeremy Hylton-Davies and directed by Gareth Gibbs, is a comedy about the state of Welsh rugby in the 1990s.
Rugby fanatics Ifor (Gabe Torrens) and Franklyn (Phill Loveless) can stand it no more and decide that ‘something must be done’ to restore the fortunes of the national game.
Gareth Gibbs said: “It’s a funny, uplifting play and we’re all really looking forward to taking it to the festival audience.”