The curtain falls tomorrow night on the annual one act play festival in Swindon that marks the 175th anniversary of the Great Western Railway this year.

At a glittering awards ceremony Swindon's top theatrical talent will be presented with a number of trophies and cups for categories such as Dramatic Endeavour, Technical Theatre, Best Youth Group, Best Actor and many others including the Swindon Advertiser award for Original Production and the top accolade of The Betty Peck Rose Bowl for the winning play.

One of Swindon's prestigious theatre companies, The Western Players, is to perform a dramatic reading of a short play about the founding of the GWR in the town.

Fenella Harrop, the Harold Jolliffe One-Act Play Festival director, said: "Everyone at H and J Act is delighted that a theatre company with its roots in that same railway history is performing in our celebration this year.''

The Western Players began as The GWR Mechanics Institute Amateur Theatrical Society in the early 1900s although recent research has traced their roots as a performing group back as far 1854.

Swindon's Arts Centre has played host to the festival for the past three days with a mix of drama, comedy and new plays from The Lechlade Players, Athenaeum Limelight Players, Pewsey Vale Amateur Dramatic Society, Royal Wootton Bassett Productions, Jackrill Theatre Company and Quirky Bird Theatre.

The theatre groups competing are a mix of the well established and the relatively new.

RWB Productions was formed to present an original script about The First World War in the 2014 festival.

Paula Clifford, who is part of the Swindon and District Theatre Guild, and co-founder of the company, said: "The group is run by myself and my husband Derek who wrote both this year's entry and our first play. We had firm ideas about how the play should be staged and decided to form our own group to perform the script at the festival. It was amazing to see something you had nurtured come to life. The cast and crew did us proud and to our delight the play won best original production.''

Quirky Bird Theatre was new to the drama festival last year and after winning five trophies as Marlborough Young Actors and Friendly Productions the group is back to defend their titles.

Anna Friend, director and founder, said: "My adapted version of A Midsummer Nights Dream won The Beryl Dene Cup for Best Youth Performance, the Charles Grace cup as Runners Up and Best Technical Theatre award in their 2nd round performance.''

The difficult job of judging the plays was undertaken by Michael Kaiser, a member of the Guild of Drama Adjudicators.

For more details of tomorrow's finale or to book tickets at £11 in the Old Town theatre from 7.15pm call 01793 524481. - Flicky Harrison