SHAKE Festival

The Suffolk-based SHAKE Festival CIC. which began life at The Cut in Halesworth in May 2019, has produced three multi-dimensional weekend festivals of Shakespeare to date, welcoming theatre industry leaders such as Lucy Bailey, Geraldine James, Harriet Walter, Janet Suzman, Ed Hall, Steve Unwin, Stanley Wells, and Lucy Bailey, alongside local performers and young people from Alde Valley Academy, Thomas Mills and Woodbridge School. 

In the past few years, SHAKE has been developing a new definition of ‘Festival' - to now encompass one-off readings and theatrical performances of all kinds. 

Since 2020 SHAKE has performed fully rehearsed live-streamed readings of The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Winter’s Tale, and The Sonnets by Shakespeare. IRL it has produced rehearsed readings of The Scapegoat by Lucy Hughes-Hallett, The Horse in The Furrow by George Ewart Evans, and Akenfield by Ronald Blythe, in London, Saxmundham, Charsfield and Theberton respectively.

Most of 2024 was spent in R&D for a new play of Akenfield by Glenn Wilhide, adapted from Blythe’s masterpiece. 

In 2025 SHAKE performed nine sell-out previews of the fabulous new play of Akenfield, in five venues across Suffolk, which garnered five-star reviews in EADT and The Ipswich Star. 

The cast of local performers were Dean Sore, Beth Keys-Holloway, James Crawley, Helen Shand, Andrew Stannard, Quinn Richards, Cathy Churchill and Steve Peck. On stage alongside them were Suffolk musicians, Finn Collinson and Rowan Collinson. 

The set was created by Laurence Edwards, the costumes by Constance Mackenzie, the lighting by Paul Cook and choreography by Caroline Mummery.  Production Management was by LX Pro, Bawdsey. The show was directed by SHAKE’s artistic director Jenny Hall, and produced by Jenny Hall with Liz Cook.