In four seasons nature completes its cycle. A girl can become a woman. A belly can swell and become a creature. One can lose the path that once led safely home, or cross seas toward unknown lands. In four seasons one can die and be reborn.

Vermiglio tells of the final year of the Second World War in a large family and how, with the arrival of a refugee soldier, by a paradox of fate they lose their peace at the very moment the world regains its own.

Italy, Drama,115minutes

REVIEW | TRAILER

From Academy Award–winning writer/director Chloé Zhao, Hamnet tells “the powerful love story that inspired the creation of Shakespeare’s timeless masterpiece, Hamlet.”

Starring Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Emily Watson, and Joe Alwyn, the film explores the emotional world of Shakespeare’s family and the grief surrounding the death of his son.

Drama, 126 min

Review | Trailer | Mark Kermode reviews Hamnet

The Playboy of the Western World

by John Millington Synge

directed by Caitríona McLaughlin

Nicola Coughlan (Bridgerton) joins Éanna Hardwicke (The Sixth Commandment) and Siobhán McSweeney (Derry Girls) in John Millington Synge’s riveting play of youth and self-discovery.

Pegeen Flaherty’s life is turned upside down when a young man walks into her pub claiming that he’s killed his father. Instead of being shunned, the killer becomes a local hero and begins to win hearts, that is until a second man unexpectedly arrives on the scene…

Filmed live on stage at the National Theatre, Caitríona McLaughlin directs this darkly funny tale full to the brim with secrets.

Backstairs Billy by Marcelo Dos Santos is a sharp, witty and surprisingly touching comedy that takes audiences behind the closed doors of Clarence House to reveal a side of royal life rarely seen.

At the centre of the story is William “Billy” Tallon, the Queen Mother’s devoted and fiercely protective page. Billy rules the royal backstairs with theatrical flair, razor-sharp wit and unwavering loyalty to the woman he serves.

Set during a time of great social change in Britain, the play explores loyalty, identity and the quiet power of those who live their lives in the shadows of the monarchy. With sparkling dialogue, moments of delicious camp humour and surprising emotional depth, Backstairs Billy offers a fascinating glimpse into the private world behind royal protocol.

Both hilarious and poignant, this critically acclaimed play shines a light on one of the royal household’s most intriguing characters and the complicated relationships that existed behind palace doors.

This production holds a special resonance for audiences at the Queen Mother Theatre. As the only theatre in the world to carry her title, it feels especially fitting that this story of her household is brought to life on our stage. In many ways, it feels as though the play is almost coming home.

This year the Polish School ln Hitchin celebrates its fifteenth birthday.

The film “Warsaw 44”, made in 2014, by Jan Komasa is a culturally important film in Poland and is on the Polish A-level curriculum in the UK.   It is about the uprising in Warsaw in 1944 but as a film it helped to re-align the national conversation about this historic event.

Jan Komasa is an award winning director.   His latest film “The Good Boy“ released this year stars Stephen Graham and is on our possibles list.

This is a modern war film with romance at its heart so expect some blood and violence but nothing more than you get on TV.

There will be an introductory talk to explain more about the historical context and the film’s significance.   Polish snacks will be served before the film and there will be time for Q&A at the end.   Approximate timings are

Doors and bar with snack from 6pm

Talk 6.40pm

Film 7pm

Q&A 9pm

written by Ron Hutchinson

directed by Yvonne Patterson

Hollywood 1939, semi-independent mogul David O. Selznick has shut down production on his mega budget version of Margaret Mitchell’s bestselling novel Gone with the Wind. He scraps the original script and sacks the director in the process. 

Determined to produce a rewrite in five days, he calls on the help of script doctor Ben Hecht, possibly the only person in America who has not read the novel and the movie’s new director Victor Fleming, poached straight from the set of The Wizard of Oz, where he had been dealing with squabbling Munchkins and coming to blows with Judy Garland. His reputation is on the line, Selznick locks himself and his two collaborators in his office with nothing but peanuts and bananas to sustain them and the creative session begins…  

Discover Lee Miller, the pioneering war photographer who documented the truth of the Nazi regime.  A Sky Original film starring Kate Winslet, Lee follows Miller’s extraordinary journey from model to frontline correspondent, capturing some of the most iconic and harrowing images of WWII.

Presented as part of The Hitchin Festival

Drama, war, 117m

REVIEW | TRAILER

A lively and thought provoking historical play, set in 1896 at Girton College, previously in Hitchin, but moved to none other than Cambridge - one of the first colleges in England to admit women.  

Blending humour, romance and moments of tension, the play explores themes of equality, ambition and the cost of challenging tradition.   It highlights the courage of women who pushed against restrictive norms to claim their place in academia - and helped pave the way for future generations.

Ticket prices: £13 & £11 (concessions)

Les Liaisons Dangereuses  

by Christopher Hampton

based on the novel by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

directed by Marianne Elliott

BAFTA Award-winner Lesley Manville (Phantom Thread) joins Aidan Turner (Rivals) in a striking new staging of Christopher Hampton’s celebrated adaptation of the classic novel, where among the glittering salons of the super-rich, one misstep can mean ruin.

Marquise de Merteuil is a master in the art of survival. Alongside the magnetic Vicomte de Valmont, they turn seduction into strategy and weaponise desire.  But when their alliance collapses into rivalry, the battle between them threatens to destroy everyone in their path.

Filmed live on stage at the National Theatre, Marianne Elliott (Angels in America) directs this thrilling game of love, lies, and social warfare.

Presented as part of The Hitchin Festival

This documentary is a portrait of Edna O’Brien, the groundbreaking Irish novelist whose life was marked by literary fame, controversy, exile, and artistic reinvention.

The film includes readings from her journals (voiced by Jessie Buckley) and contributions from writers such as Gabriel Byrne and Walter Mosley, tracing O’Brien’s journey from banned author to international icon.

Documentary, 100m

Presented as part of The Hitchin Festival

REVIEW | TRAILER

Under Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship, nothing will stop his mandatory birthday celebrations, including choosing a child from each school class across the land to bake a cake in his honour. Despite Lamia’s best efforts to avoid it, knowing how difficult it will be to source the ingredients, she is picked among her peers to produce the cake, which she must do, or face the consequences.  

Lamia’s quest for the ingredients allows us explore the gamut of Iraqi society, painting a moving portrait of the resilience of a people caught between authoritarian rule and injudicious American imperialism.

It was the first Iraqi film to feature at the Cannes Film Festival, where it premiered in the Directors' Fortnight and won both the section's Audience Award, as well as the festival's prestigious Camera d'Or.

Highly recommended