Event Description

The Hand of Sarah Nelmes by Martin Lytton is the Three Counties Talent Hub winning play for 2026

This bold, witty, sometimes irreverent, time-shifting drama reclaims the forgotten story behind one of the greatest medical breakthroughs in history: Edward Jenner and the Smallpox vaccine. Moving fluidly between rural Gloucestershire in the 1790s and a world locked down by a modern pandemic, the play weaves together past and present to ask urgent questions about science, sacrifice, memory and who gets written into history.

At its heart is the milkmaid Sarah Nelmes – observant, curious, and uncredited – whose courage and insight helps lay the foundations for vaccination, while others take the fame.

This is the premiere of Martin Lytton’s thought-provoking play, winner of the Three Counties Talent Hub playwriting competition 2026, a collaboration between Malvern Theatres, Everyman Theatre (Cheltenham) and Worcester Theatres.

Show times

Wednesday 22 April 2026, 7.30pm
Thursday 23 April 2026, 2.30pm & 7.30pm

Thursday 23 April 2026

2:30pm

Malvern Theatres

Website

Location

Malvern Theatres

WR14 3HB

01684 892277

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