Two brand-new plays by mother and daughter playwrights and Winchester residents, Cecily and Rachel O’Neill, will be presented as part of this year’s Make It SO season, a festival designed to support emerging writers and artists.

Cecily and Rachel co-founded Winchester’s 2TimeTheatre in 2016 and quickly built a reputation for bringing original and historical stories to dramatic life.

Lewd Women and Female Felons is a play for voices, based on local research on the lives of many unfortunate women who were sentenced to twelve months of hard labour in the County Bridewell, Hyde, as punishment for having illegitimate babies.

Enlivened by songs and ballads of the period, the play offers an insight into lives of the women who suffered such harsh conditions.

The Fasting Girl is an original drama that looks at the sacrifice one woman is prepared to make to save the planet at whatever the cost to herself.

This three-hander draws on the supernatural and the psychological to create a tense and ambiguous drama.

Cecily and Rachel said: “It’s so exciting to have our work presented at the same time in the same place. A first for us professionally!”

Cecily’s previous project was A Fruitful Season: Keats in Winchester was staged in July as part of the Winchester Festival, and Rachel’s most recent play, Tilly and the Spitfires, was staged as part of last year’s Make It SO and went on to have a full production as part of Winchester Heritage Open Days.

2TimeTheatre: New Projects 2020 will present both plays as script-in-hand productions on the same night at Nuffield Theatres Southampton City Space.

Performances February 17 and 18, 6.30pm and 8pm.

Tickets are £5 for each show and available from the box office on 02380 671771 or online.