Author's offer for Masques

It seems much too long till summer picnics and outdoor entertainments are back on our calendars, but the organisers of next year’s Boxford Masque are already hard at work raising the funds for next year’s extravaganza at Welford Park.
“We know there’s plenty of enthusiasm out there,” says Ade Morris, producer of the Masques since they began in 2000, “and not just for a great evening’s drama. Dozens of people have already been in touch to say they want to get involved. Last year saw everyone talking about A Little Drama at the Big House.”
Author Geraldine McCaughrean, who writes the scripts for the Masques, has come up with a way of raising funds. She is offering ‘author visits’ to local schools, with her usual fee going into the kitty.
“We are all thinking up ways to muster the necessary,” she says. “Talking to children in schools is part of the job when you write for children, and it’s hard luck if, just for a while, I can’t do it for love of the Masques. The plays are all about bringing people together for a good time, so the more people in Berkshire who have a hand – even indirectly – in making them happen, the more we’ve succeeded.
I don’t know how many visits I can squeeze on to the calendar between now and ‘curtain up’, but I’ll do my best.”
If your school would like a half-day visit from Geraldine – prizewinning author of countless books for all ages of readers – you can read about her at

or contact her at

Geraldine would not be drawn on the subject of next year’s Masque. “I’ve got some of the lyrics written – they came to me first this year - but a play shouldn’t be seen in public until it has been dignified with a title – and I don’t have a title yet. You’ll just have to watch this space.”