About Us

 United Players has been bringing pantomimes, classic drama as well as youth and medieval theatre to Walderslade since as far back as 1981!

Originally performing a 'Pierrot Show' in traditional costume and a 'Cockney Song Book' for the local community at the local Summer Fete in 1981, we soon found our home at St William's Church, Walderslade in 1982. It's here that we performed our first pantomime, Babes in the Wood, in the January of 1982 and soon began a tradition that continues to this day. Our annual pantomimes are by far our biggest event, warming the late January evenings with plenty of family friendly entertainment; performing to more than 1,000 people over two weekends.

Over the next few years, we started to build our youth section, providing local youth with the opportunity to take to the stage and build their confidence and skills. United Players Youth has continued to grow and develop, culminating in a variety of entries to Medway Little Theatre's Duncan Rand Theatre Festival, the creation of various original scripts and the broadcasting of their very own radio play. United Players Youth has welcomed many young actors aged 11-17 years, bringing them into the United Players family and giving them a chance to grow as people and actors in a safe and fun environment.

In 2010, we developed a penchant for medieval theatre, and have enjoyed performing to the visitors of England's Medieval Festival in Sussex, Rochester's Medieval Merriment and various local Summer Fetes; performing everything from the Tales of Chaucer to the tales of historical figures and legends such as England's King Richard III and the Norse God Thor. We have continued to develop our medieval theatre offer with the addition of Mud Theatre and Washer Wenches, both bringing traditional medieval entertainment to our modern audiences.

In 2016, United Players members decided to dabble in the world of murder and intrigue, writing and performing our very first murder mystery at Rochester Cathedral. Our murder mysteries continued to improve, and in 2021 we had the opportunity to work collaboratively with The Margate Caves to create an annual murder mystery evening. We continue to perform on this wonderful subterranean stage, and have even extended our murder mysteries to a bi-annual event.

During the Covid lockdowns of 2020 and 2021, we continued to entertain the local community with some wonderful original radio plays, bringing some theatre fun at a time when it was needed most. Creating our own scripts and adapting past productions for this new venture has proved to be successful, with various members taking part in writing, acting, and producing these wonderful plays.

Much like other small organisations, we had to get creative in order to survive the Covid lockdowns. Our members put on their creativity hats, and developed a wide range of exciting events to fill our calendar and create opportunities to raise some much needed funds. A Variety Show, Pantoland Sponsored Walk, and Summer Showcase were soon added to the our bow, enabling us to continue entertaining our local community. 

We are so proud of the fact that we've continued to build upon our roots, and celebrated our 40th anniversary in 2022 by performing 'Babes in the Wood' as an ode to our origins.

United Players has always worked to perform good quality, homespun family entertainment, through our annual pantomime, variety evenings, one and two act plays. Our future looks bright, and we are a young and vibrant group with lots of talent, so who knows what we will achieve in the next 40 years!