Drama fans are spoilt for choice with two powerful plays put on by Malmesbury and Sherston amateur dramatic groups this week.

The Athlestan Players will tell the true tale of villagers in Eyam, Derbyshire, during the plague, who isolated themselves to protect nearby settlements after a bundle of clothes carrying the disease arrived, killing more than two-thirds of its population.

Sherston Drama Group’s Fish Out Of Water, by Derek Benfield, is staged tonight and will be on stage at the village hall nightly, at 7.30pm, until Saturday.

Tickets are £6.50 from the post office or email sherstondramagroup@gmail.com

The Athelstan Players put on Isolation of Eyam, by Joyce Dennys, at the Arts Theatre, Swindon, tomorrow at 7.15pm, as part of the Harold Joliffe One Act Play Festival. Tickets are £10.50.

Players’ chairman Christine Mace said: “It’s a true story of the different people and how the families were affected and wiped out.

“It has affected some people in the play, but you have to keep the emotion for the performance.”