Tim Younger has performed with the Guild in the last four summer Shakespeare productions, most recently as Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Over the past year he has appeared as Demetrius in a touring production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Cakes & Ale; as Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls, and as Guiseppe in The Gondoliers, both with Oxford Operatic Society; and as Macduff in a sell-out production of Macbeth with Tomahawk, a new company. He also performed recently in a charity concert at St Hilda’s College, Music for MS, raising money for the Multiple Sclerosis Trust.Previous stage appearances in Oxford include Anything Goes and Kiss Me, Kate with Oxford Operatic Society, All’s Well That Ends Well and The Taming of the Shrew with Cakes & Ale, and The Rivals and The Winter’s Tale with ODT Productions. Future plans include Ferdinand in Love’s Labour’s Lost to tour in August, and Bernardo in West Side Story at the New Theatre in November.

Alistair Nunn is still brand bouncing new and fresh in Oxford, having moved here only since September. However he has already appeared with the Guild in Lady Windermere’s Fan (Mr. Dumby) and as Borghejm in Tomahawk Theatre’s recent production of Little Eyolf. Before then he was a fringe mover in the world of Cambridge University drama, spending a year as President of Christ’s College Drama Society, where he “executive” produced a number of successful shows, such as As You Like It, Volpone, Troilus and Cressida, The Crucible and Roberto Zucco. As an actor, he appeared with various Cambridge drama societies as Anthony Blunt in A Question of Attribution (Alan Bennett), Josef K in The Trial (Kafka/Stephen Berkoff), Henry in The Real Thing (Tom Stoppard), the eponymous lead in Titus Andronicus (Shakespeare), King Henry in The Massacre of Paris (Marlowe), Inspector Bertozzo in Accidental Death of an Anarchist (Dario Fo), and Sir Percy Shorter in Habeas Corpus (Bennett again) amongst others. He has one directing credit to his name with CADS – Richard II – in which he was also Duke of York. His next role is again with Tomahawk, as the Clown in The Winter’s Tale (December 11-16 OFS).

Edward Simpson Is in his first production with the Guild, and his first Shakespeare since playing Antigonus in The Winter’s Tale many years ago at school in Sheffield. Prior to his arrival in Oxfordshire in 2001, Edward was a student at Durham University for 5 glorious years, studying a BA in Spanish and Italian, and subsequently an MA in Theoretical Linguistics. He was greatly involved in student theatre, appearing on several of the university’s stages, and making his directing debut with a production of Julian Slade and Dorothy Reynolds’ Salad Days. He has been a member of Wallingford’s Sinodun Players for the last 4 years, and has played roles for them including Mr Praed in Mrs Warren’s Profession (G.B. Shaw), C.S. Lewis in Shadowlands (William Nicholson), Brinton Chalke in It Could Be Any One of Us (Alan Ayckbourn) and Fagin in Oliver! (Lionel Bart). The SP’s have also introduced him to pantomime performing, and in the last 2 years he has played the eponymous "hero" in Humpty Dumpty (Norman Robbins et al) and Aunt Fatima in Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves (Peter Orton and Barbara Wood). Last year he was also lucky enough to co-direct Donald Harron and Norman Campbell’s Anne of Green Gables. As well as the Sinodun Players, Edward has worked with Oxford Operatic in recent years, for whom he reprised his role as Fagin. For them he has also played the Lord Chancellor in Gilbert & Sullivan’s operetta Iolanthe, and Voltaire/Pangloss in Leonard Bernstein’s magnificent Candide.  Probably Edward’s favourite role of recent years was Mr Collins in A.A. Milne’s Miss Elizabeth Bennet, for the Blewbury Players. Possibly a reason that Mr Collins is so dear to Edward (besides being the most glorious caricature role) is that it was playing him that convinced Edward finally to start applying to drama schools. Now, a mere 2 years or so later, he is in the fortunate position of having been accepted for membership of The Actors’ Company (London Centre for Theatre Studies, Hackney). He starts his training in October of this year, and cannot wait to begin!

Joseph Adams trained at Edinburgh and ALRA. He is relatively new to the Guild, and his previous roles include Professor Moriarty in Sherlock Holmes and the Limehouse Horror.

Colin Burnie remembers his stage debut as a daffodil at the age of four, although nearly five years earlier he had appeared as an embryo (with his mother) in a deservedly forgotten play called "Saloon Bar". These experiences gave him an appetite for acting and led him to train (much later) at the New College of Speech and Drama in Hampstead. After several years teaching Drama and English in London, Milan and finally Oxford, he turned into a tax inspector. However, he has satisfied his love of acting by appearing regularly on the stage.  His many past performances include Cassius in Julius Caesar, Eisenring in The Fire Raisers, Ratty in Toad of Toad Hall (twice), Iachimo in Cymbeline, Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, the Duke in Measure for Measure, Tom Jones in Tom Jones, Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing (twice), Nicholas in Nicholas Nickleby, Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, Andrew Wyke in Sleuth (twice), Gloucester in King Lear, Leontes in The Winter’s Tale, Sir John Brute in The Provoked Wife, Neils Bohr in Copenhagen, Malvolio in Twelfth Night, the Player in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (twice), and the First Voice in Under Milk Wood. His performances during the last twelve months have included Dr Caius in The Merry Wives of Windsor in Merton College garden, Badger in Toad of Toad Hall at Pangbourne College, Duncan in Macbeth in the Burton Taylor Theatre and Lord Augustus Lorton in Lady Windermere’s Fan at the Oxford Playhouse. Next month he will be playing Gremio in The Taming of the Shrew for the Riverside Players at Pangbourne College. Although Colin is now entering his fourth decade as a member of the Oxford Theatre Guild, this will only be his 18^th production for them, but since 1952 he has notched up 151 productions in all. Forty-four of those have been Shakespeare, thirty-nine have been open air productions, and twenty-two of them have been productions of Shakespeare in the open air. This is his third open air Tempest and the third time he has played Prospero; he hopes this time to get it right.

Estelle Buckridge  is a stalwart of the Guild, serving on committee and supporting most of the productions of the past 4 years in a variety of roles. Her acting roles for the Guild include Tweedledee, the Lion, the Red Knight and many other characters in Alice Through the Looking Glass, and Mary Magdalene in The Mysteries. She is Artistic Director of the Thame Youth Theatre, for whom she has directed Peter Pan, The Boy Who Fell Into A Book (which also toured Western Australia), A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Guys and Dolls, The Beginner’s Guide to Murder and a number of cabarets, in which she also had singing roles. At Lancaster University her acting roles included Mrs Fairfax and Mrs Reed in Jane Eyre, Big Mama in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Major General Cartwright in Guys and Dolls, and the Thane of Ross in Macbeth She has also been involved in a large number of other productions in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Edinburgh for youth theatre and workshops, including singing with the Oxford Student Chorus.

Rowena Lennon has been involved in amateur theatre since she was 13. Between the ages of 13 and 18 she attended the Young Theatre (at Beaconsfield), performing regularly in productions such as Teechers, Township Plays, Phoenician Women, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Permission to Cry. At university she was a member of the Exeter University Theatre Company, and was lucky enough to perform in the Northcott Theatre on two occasions, once as part of the ensemble cast for Cyrano de Bergerac, and the other as Miss Prism in The Importance of Being Earnest. Other roles included Alison in Look Back in Anger, Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Alethea in The Country Wife.

Joe Kenneway

Alexander Rogers' Shakespeare experience includes: Prince Escalus in Romeo and Juliet, Don John in Much Ado About Nothing, Orsino in Twelfth Night, Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Pendley Manor Shakespeare Festival); Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night (Corn Exchange, Wallingford); Orlando in As You Like It (Blewbury Players); Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing (Lincoln College, Oxford). Other recent roles include: Felix Humble in Humble Boy, Bertie Wooster in Indian Summer of an Uncle, Konstantin in The Seagull, Lucifer/Jesus in The Mysteries, Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, Roland Maule in Present Laughter, Septimus Hodge in Arcadia, and Branwell Brontë in Branwell. Later this summer, Alex plays Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew for the Riverside Players at Pangbourne (15-19 August).

Alex Reid has been in many Guild productions, including The Merry Wives of Windsor (Mistress Page), Lady Windermere’s Fan, Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Widows and She Stoops to Conquer. She played Elizabeth Bennet in Miss Elizabeth Bennet, and Rosalind in As You Like It, both for the Blewbury Players, and the Princess of France in Love’s Labour’s Lost for The Cotswold Arcadians. She performed in the award-winning The Critic at the Windsor Literary Fringe Festival 2005. Other plays include Present Laughter, Steaming, A Servant of Two Masters, Joseph Andrews and Sweet Ladies.

Colin Macnee directed Oxford Theatre Guild’s production of David Greig’s The Cosmonaut’s Last Message to the Woman He Once Loved in the Former Soviet Union at The O’Reilly Theatre in Keble College in November 2004. He previously directed Michael Snelgrove’s Bums on Seats at The Unicorn Theatre, Abingdon, and a pair of Tom Stoppard one-acts in Surrey and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. As an actor, he appeared most recently as Kirk in Pressgang’s production of David Greig’s Outlying Islands. Other recent roles include Tony in the premiere of Mike Coleman’s Truth or Dare, for the Guild, and Eddy Rowley in the premiere of Nick Thomas’s The Queen of King’s Cross, for Instinctive Theatre. For the Guild, he has also appeared as Keith in The Cosmonaut’s Last Message …, Sampson in Romeo and Juliet, Claudius in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Death and Judas in The Mysteries, and the Captain and a murderer in Macbeth. Other roles in Oxfordshire include Chorus in The Myth of Medea by Nick Thomas, Mr Justice Cuddeford and a prisoner in Murmuring Judges by David Hare, Vincentio in The Taming of the Shrew, Lionel Espy in Racing Demon by David Hare, Robert in The Break of Day by Timberlake Wertenbaker, The Quite Reverend Mightily Oats in Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett / Stephen Briggs, 71-hour Ahmed in Jingo by Terry Pratchett / Stephen Briggs, Ray in Ten Times Table by Alan Ayckbourn, Brian in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg by Peter Nichols, Arnolphe in The School for Wives by Molière, Orsino in Twelfth Night, Dermot in A Galway Girl by Geraldine Aron, and Roy in Visitor From Forest Hills, part of Plaza Suite by Neil Simon. In Scotland he played Curry in Cuttin’ a Rug by John Byrne, Creon in Antigone by Anouilh after Sophocles, Chapuys in A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt, Martin McKinley in Private View by Mhairi Grealis (summer touring production with financial support from the Scottish Arts Council), and Mi-Jean in Ti-Jean and his Brothers by Derek Walcott. In Surrey he played Sir Percy Shorter in Habeas Corpus by Alan Bennett, Moon in The Real Inspector Hound by Tom Stoppard, and Dr Emmett in The Curious Savage by John Patrick. His musical interests currently focus on the folk group Stillwater, with whom he sings and plays guitar and percussion.

Michelle Jordan read English at Oxford University where she directed and acted in lots of student theatre. She has been assistant director to Colin Macnee once before – on the Oxford Theatre Guild's 2004 production of The Cosmonaut's Last Message to the Woman He Once Loved in the Former Soviet Union. In April she was production manager on Lady Windermere's Fan at the Oxford Playhouse. At the moment, Michelle is applying for an MFA in Theatre Directing.

Kate Belcher has been involved in theatre, both amateur and professional, since her school days. She studied Drama at Hull University, and later took a Diploma in Acting at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama. She acted professionally for five years, working at the Mill Theatre in Guildford, the Strand Theatre in Charing Cross, for Central television and touring a one-woman show that was written for her, before motherhood took her by surprise. She is a new recruit to the OTG, co-directing Sherlock Holmes and the Limehouse Horror in 2005.

Steve Whitaker His contribution to the Guild is legendary, having been involved in almost every production over the last decade or so. As well as set and lighting design and construction, he has even been coaxed onto stage – as a Roman Soldier overseeing the Crucifixion in The Mysteries (OFS 2002). He has also worked with Shinfield Players and the Mushy Pea Theatre Company, and provided one of the more unique cast members for The Guild’s Silas Marner (OFS 1997) – his (then) baby daughter, Esther…

Brian Plater -Stage Construction

Bill Moulford Bill’s fascination with theatrically-inclined noise has recently elbowed his day-job out of the window, and he is now embarking on a 180 degree career change, from rocket scientist to professional composer. Whether this happens will be evidenced by his appearance (or not) in various dole queues about the country. Please give generously.

Angela Braithwaite After stepping out of school, Angela completed a GNVQ Advanced in Art & Design at Kingston College London, then a Foundation in Art at Chelsea College London. She then graduated from University of the Arts London in 2004 reading a BA Hons in Costume, Make-up & Technical Effects for the Performing Arts. Throughout and after university she worked on a children’s programme called Jamboree, and films The Mummy Returns and Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire.The Tempest is her first production with the Oxford Theatre Guild, and she says: “It has been a great experience as sculpting, painting and make-up effects are all interests of mine…”

Catherine McNeill - Costumes