Left: Rosemary Clunie with her two children’s books

ALAN Ayckbourn and Alan Bennett premiered plays there. Al Murray, Bill Bailey and Russell Brand made people laugh there. And now the Etcetera Theatre, an award-winning fringe venue for theatre and comedy in the heart of Camden Town, launches the fourth Women Writer’s Festival.

From February 27 to March 31, the Women Writer’s Festival celebrates bold, exciting new theatre by women and female-identifying writers.

The programme spans 60 solo shows: original plays, cabaret, spoken word, comedy, staged readings, discussion panels and live custom poetry written on demand – showcasing both emerging and established voices from across the UK.

Highlights include: Handala, a journey in Palestine, winner for Best Solo Performance Award at the 2024 Hollywood Fringe Festival (March 9, 1pm); Art, the award-winning, witty comedy by Yasmina Reza (March 11-14, 5pm and 7pm); Burn Baby Burn: LA Inferno, about climate change (March 13, 9pm); and the world premiere of Troubled Love, about the unlikely love affair between the Nazi academic Martin Heidegger and his later famous Jewish student Hannah Arendt (March 23-28, 7pm, and March 29, 6pm).

Children are also invited. Serena and the Little Blue Dog is a fun hour of interactive storytelling for children aged three to eight, at 3pm this Saturday (February 28, 3pm).

My events stimulate the imagination and creativity of young voices to give them the confidence to tell their own stories. Centred on a reading of my book, Serena and the Little Blue Dog (published by Bloomsbury, shortlisted for The Week Junior Book Awards), we will also investigate the elements of storytelling and make up stories together.

Launched in 2023, The Women Writer’s Festival, funded by the Arts Council England, has grown into a key platform for new writing. Each year the programme celebrates diversity, creativity and the power of women’s storytelling, championing voices that need to be heard and creating space for audiences to engage with new stories and perspectives.

Live theatre, new writing and comedy should be cherished and supported, especially in our own grassroots community, to counteract the increasing isolation and digitilisation of our lives.

Let us all join in, adults and children, and be ready to be surprised, and inspired – and let us laugh and cheer together.

• Tickets and full programme at www.etceteratheatrecamden.com/women-writers-festival-26
• Children’s workshops: rosemaryclunieart@gmail.com