- March 2024
Brought to you by 'BATS - The Company', Patrick Marber's 'Closer' is a beautiful four-hander, which at its heart, asks us why, who and at what cost we can love.
‘I’m grateful to her. She changed my life. She’s completely lovable and completely unleavable.’
Set in the blaring, woven streets of London, Closer follows the lives of four individuals, as their desires intersect, run in parallel, and ultimately annihilate one another. Closer makes us question, what is desire? What is jealousy? Where do we draw the boundaries between need and want, between cruelty and honesty.
‘It’s the only way to leave: ‘I don’t love you anymore, good-bye.’
- March 2024
miracle on w. 50th street explores the details and intricacies of leaving one's home, and coming back again. It ponders questions of freedom, belonging, and connection as its characters intersect and part ways across the globe.
This workshop production of the play will marry rehearsal with performance, creating a unique opportunity for its audience to be a part of the creative process of a new play.
- March 2024
In a unique double-bill, BATS brings you David Mamet’s Prairie du Chien and Stephen Jeffreys’ Bugles at the Gates of Jalalabad. On a 3AM train passing though Wisconsin a traveller tells a tale of jealousy, murder and the supernatural; at night, outside the gates of the last British fort in Afghanistan, four buglers stand guard, awaiting their fate, sounding the advance. These plays present us with charged moments of fear and uncertainty, and the sudden catastrophes that can spring out of them.
- February 2024
“You’re not my type. You’re not particularly funny and you’re a bit too intense for me. But I think you have the potential to be marvellous.”
- February 2024
In 1996, the renowned auteur-translator Giovanni Pontiero has been diagnosed with AIDS — and it’s fatal. Staving off medication, his sole ambition is to translate the last great work of Portuguese novelist Saramago: a blistering dystopia called Blindness. Yet, whilst Pontiero himself loses his sight, the question of his life’s work hangs in the balance: will he be able to finish his translation before the time runs out?
A heartfelt portrayal of the grave particulars of one man’s final days during the AIDS crisis, this remarkable, true story of queer expression asks us to question our responsibilities to our art, work and each other, posing the question: how far would we go for what we believe is true to us?
- November–December 2023
‘I will always love you.
I will never lie to you.
I will never betray you.
On my life.’
What is it to desire? To express desire? To prevent desire? Cleansed engages with these questions and more, mediated through a vocabulary of violence. There are betrayals and dismemberments, hopes and communions, as each character struggles to come to terms with how the love they require damages those around them
- November 2023
Being in your twenties is the best! If you stop acting like you’re having fun all of the time. (Or, like, at all.)
It’s Tibby’s twenty-fifth birthday and she is throwing a big party: after years, her friends from uni are coming together — and they are all doing better than her. All except Ginevra, Tibby’s best friend; too bad the two have barely kept in touch since Gin moved back to Italy. When she finally decides to visit the shabby flat she and Tibby used to share, tensions between the two friends become impossible to hide. Especially from Anika, Tibby’s new housemate with the perfect job, the perfect girlfriend, the perfect yoga outfits. As the three prepare for Tibby’s party, feelings get untangled, secrets revealed, and rejection emails — inevitably, relentlessly — opened.
What do you mean, So what? So I’m rapidly decomposing. So I’m running out of youth. So the radiant expectations of my early years have come to no fruition —
- November 2023
The Concert Performance of a new, original musical: Foresight
In 1996, the renowned auteur-translator Giovanni Pontiero has been diagnosed with AIDS — and it’s fatal. Staving off medication, his sole ambition is to translate the last great work of Portuguese novelist Saramago: a blistering dystopia called Blindness. Yet, whilst Pontiero himself loses his sight, the question of his life’s work hangs in the balance: will he be able to finish his translation before the time runs out?
A heartfelt portrayal of the grave particulars of one man’s final days during the AIDS crisis, this remarkable, true story of queer expression asks us to question our responsibilities to our art, work and each other, posing the question: how far would we go for what we believe is true to us?
- June 2023
Prepare to be transported into a world of wonder and magic as BATS proudly presents Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Ensconced amongst the greenery of Queens' Cloister Court and amidst the captivating surroundings of the oldest buildings standing on the River Cam, our outdoor performance promises to immerse you in the mystical realm of Shakespeare's beloved comedy. Join us for a night of enchantment, laughter, and mischievous fairies as we bring to life this timeless classic. With a rich history of renowned alumni and special guest appearances, the May Week Shakespeare play is a beloved tradition and a highlight of the BATS calendar. Don't miss out on this truly magical experience!
- March 2023
N.B. this show has been cancelled
i read books about women who nurse men back to life and i want to be moving about the sick room like a saint.
i want to be the hero who stands up in parliament and makes a momentous speech
i want to be lady mary who rides like the wind and shocks everyone with her nerve
they know what they want from life and they make sure they get it
why cant my story be like that?
Anna Karenina is beautiful and admired but empty – until a chance meeting throws her into emotional turmoil and a scandalous affair. Contrasting with this tale of destructive love is the story of Levin, an idealistic man striving to find meaning in life – and a self-portrait of Tolstoy himself.
Helen Edmundson's celebrated and 'exemplary' (The Times) adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's enduring classic is a vibrant and deeply moving meditation on the nature of love. Staged in the Fitzpatrick Hall, Queen's College, this stripped back production interrogates the core themes of the novel, updating them for a modern audience.
- November 2022
In the backdrop of an unnamed, impassive mental institution, three characters – Alpha, Beta and Gamma – are plagued by their pasts and conflicting desires to live the life they can or escape the institution at any cost. Under the ever-watchful eye of the Doctor who supposedly treats them for their illnesses, the true reality of the institution is unveiled as the Doctor’s own sanity is called into question and the walls of reality break down around them.
Reflecting on the abhorrent treatment of patients that has happened in asylums throughout history, this abstract play is inspired by the writings of Sarah Kane, and Fox’s Legion. It will take you on a stylised, visceral, yet less explicit exploration into the interactions, thoughts and deepest secrets of the so-called ‘clinically insane’.
- November 2021
“If we are all eternal, and if Human Life is only the first mile in a billion, do you honestly believe that God could abandon any mothahfuckah so soon in the journey?”
In purgatory, a court case is being heard against Judas Iscariot, the notorious betrayer of Jesus Christ. Witnesses from across history are invited to give their testimonies. Was it a terrible crime, or was it a necessary part of God’s great plan?
Set in a time-bending, seriocomically imagined courtroom where saints talk streets slang and lawyers barter with Satan, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot is an ambitious philosophical meditation on religion. The play alternates between riotously funny and deeply thought-provoking, revealing at its heart profound reflections on human fallibility, guilt and forgiveness.
Regardless of your faith-or lack thereof-you may discover a new gem or two from a two-millennia-old story.
- November 2020
N.B. this show has been cancelled
It's a murder mystery... in space!
- March 2020
"The bonds of heaven are slipp'd, dissolved, and loosed."
Seven years into the Trojan War, the two sides are at a stalemate. Dissent is growing in the Greek camp, prompted by the hero Achilles' refusal to fight. Within Troy, King Priam and his generals are beginning to wonder whether keeping Helen - the Spartan queen who has eloped with Trojan prince Paris - is worth the toll the conflict is taking. Against this backdrop, two young Trojans, Troilus and Cressida, are taking tentative steps towards romance, aided by Cressida's boorish uncle Pandarus. Will they be able to carve out a place for their fledgling love amidst the violence and bloodshed, or will, as the clown Thersites puts it, 'war and lechery confound all'?
This production will be accompanied by a symposium bringing together professional theatre practitioners and literary academics to discuss Shakespeare’s play on the page and on the stage. More details to follow.
- February 2020
"Let me give you some advice. Number one - never mix music with politics..."
Alexander Ivanov is imprisoned in a Soviet mental hospital for statements against the government. He shares a cell with another Ivanov, who believes himself to be a conductor with a symphony orchestra under his command. Alexander's son Sacha is in a classroom with a teacher convinced of the genuineness of his father's illness, whilst inside the hospital, a doctor attempts to cure his patients by setting them lines. Ivanov's imaginary orchestra, on stage with the actors, surrounds them all, filling the spaces between their truths with music...
In this rarely performed one-act play with live music, playwright Tom Stoppard and composer André Previn interweave six actors and a chamber orchestra to create a strange and compelling world of authority, artistry and madness.
- June 2019
Rosalind loves Orlando. But thanks to a family feud, both must leave the court of Duke Frederick and enter the Forest of Arden, where romantic entanglements run wild.
In 1948 the first BATS May Week Shakespeare production, As You Like It, was performed in the Cloister Court of Queens' College. This year, to coincide with the renaissance of the BATS society, As You Like It will return! Take the opportunity to be a part of this historic event in a beautiful outdoor venue, bringing to life Shakespeare's timeless comedy.
May or may not feature a live goat.
- November 2018
Test Batch Special is a semi-improvised comedy drama set in a cricket commentary booth featuring a whole cast of guest characters that nobody on stage knows anything about.
Its the long awaited England versus New Zealand Test Match - or the "Lashes" - and Beaver Bassenthwaite and Suzie Redmonds, are as ever here to provide you with ball by ball commentary. Every slip catch, every reverse sweep and every badly sung version of Sweet Caroline, they're here to soothe your radio airwaves. But with Beaver considering retirement, Suzie contemplating management consultancy and a ball-tampering scandal involving the CIA, will cricket ever be the same again?
Partly written, partly improvised, Test Batch Special is about what happens when a tightly written script dissolves into chaos in front of your eyes and still manages to seem more professional than an England batting collapse.
Praise for Test Batch Special:
"Everyone's got something to hide except me and my offshore tax return" - Beaver Bassenthwaite, 2018
"The bowler's Holding, the batsman's Willey" - Brian Johnston, 1976
"They think its all over, it is now" - Wrong Sport, 1966
- November 2018
“You do not avenge crimes unless you surpass them.”
“Scelera non ulcisceris nisi vincis.”
Thyestes and Atreus are twin brothers, kings of Argos.
His lands stolen, his wife seduced, cast out from his home, Atreus swears bloody vengeance on his brother. Now once again ruler of his land, he is determined to exact such revenge on Thyestes that the sun will avert its gaze, the stars will fall from the sky and people will talk of the horror forever after.
Inspired by the well-established Cambridge Greek Play, the very first Cambridge Latin Play will stage one of the most violent and heart-breaking tales from the Classical world. Exploring vengeance and pity, families and kingdoms, passion and desire, it lays bare man’s cruellest and most base instincts, culminating in a grotesque finale of cannibalism.
No less relevant or brilliant than Greek drama, Latin theatre has been sadly underrepresented – this production will bring to life not only the text but the language too, performed in Latin with English subtitles.
- August 2018
“When a man has lost all happiness, he’s not alive. Call him a breathing corpse.”
Amy, a hotel cleaner has found a body in one of the guest rooms. There’s a funny smell coming from one of Jim’s storage units. On a hot summer’s day, furious Kate takes her anger out on her lover Ben. There’s no going back after what they’ve seen.
At first “Breathing Corpses” seems like disparate and unconnected tales that all feature, at some point a corpse – but as the drama unfolds it becomes clear that the events are deeply and tragically intertwined. The character’s stories unfold in an unexpected and darkly humorous plot that will leave you guessing right till the end.
- May 2018
Artist. Prisoner. Murderer. Genius.
Locked up in Bedlam asylum for the vicious murder of his father, Richard Dadd is a shell of a man who has abandoned his painting. The arrival of an ambitious doctor and a strange new patient called Jane lead him out of his silence and into a world of dreams, fairies and madness. Dadd begins to paint again – but what buried horrors could it awaken in his mind?
Based on the life of an extraordinary artist, Master-Stroke tells a story of art and obsession, of people caught in the most alienating and dehumanising of circumstances. It is a meeting of fantasy and reality at a time of changing perceptions of art, illness and gender, a story of possession by devils and other forces outside our control.
- February 2018
‘I was happy, very happy. But I needed to come down to earth. The Fringe is over.’
Three actors, a director and a producer emerge from the last night of their show at the Edinburgh Fringe, worn out by their performance and each other. Now they only need to transport their one piece of set, a sofa, from the pavement on the Royal Mile back to their accommodation. But hiring a van on the final evening of the Fringe proves no easy matter, and so, to avoid prosecution for ‘littering on a major scale’, the group must stay on the street with each other, the experiences of the past month, and the sofa they never want to see again.
Sofa on the Mile is a sharp new tragicomedy about youth, hurt and endings, about the things that are gone by morning, and the things that refuse to be left behind.
- February 2018
Are there any cynics in paradise?
When two brothers join a cult, things turn for the worse as Michael and Liam question their mortality, their faith and whether or not they can trust each other.
The pater familias has his own suspicious intentions, the outcast is ostracized yet untouchable and the remainder of the denomination ring out their doctrine in unison.
The Road to Nowhere is Alfred Leigh's debut play, promising to be an irreverent ideological examination.
https://bats.tessera.info/tickets/road-to-nowhere
https://www.adctheatre.com/whats-on/literary/the-road-to-nowhere/
'Darkly Seductive' - Varsity ★★★★
- November 2017
“Why don't we have a little game? Let's pretend that we're human beings, and that we're actually alive.”
The play that best captures the blistering rage felt by an unfulfilled, neglected generation, Look Back in Anger introduced the world to the ‘angry young man’, an archetype as relevant today as it was when the play burst onto the stage in 1956.
At once a study of isolation and engulfing, poisonous relationships, the play follows Jimmy Porter as he struggles to connect with those around him and rise above the callous monotony of his fledgling marriage. The issues of today’s youth, furiously voiced through those of the past.
- November 2017
'You see, he could see that I couldn't afford the car. Do you understand? It was visible on me.'
David and Jess have debts. Big debts. Debts that are crushing them. They think they're willing to do whatever it takes to pay them off - but how far will they really have to go?
Love and Money explores how our modern relationship with money affects our relationships with each other through the story of young married couple, David and Jess. As their debts spiral, they will turn to unconventional ways of earning money that they'd never even imagined. A dark examination of what lies behind the picture-perfect consumerist life, this play questions whether it is ever possible to connect to others when money will constantly get in the way.
Content warning: descriptions of suicide
- November 2017
Chuck Salmon has played it safe his whole life. He has a 9-5 office job, a mortgage and the latest iPhone. He likes his curries mild and his receipts filed, his sex vanilla and his ice-cream missionary.
But one stormy Saturday-Sunday night Chuck is visited by three ghosts, of past, present and future, who try to show him the error of his ways! Will Chuck turn over a new leaf and grab life by the knuckles? Or will he live the rest of his days as a crustless bread and butter sandwich?
Come and join Footlights Smoker regulars Will and Alex for an hour of sketches and songs in tHE RoUND(!?), featuring guest stars Derren Brown, The Gas Powered Gnome and the elephant in the room.
Don’t be like Chuck, step into the outside world! And then inside the Fitzpatrick Hall to see the show !
- August 2017
In 1950s Hazlehurst, Mississippi, the three Mcgrath sisters have returned home, awaiting news of the family patriarch - their grandfather - who is living out his final hours in hospital. Lenny, the oldest sister, is unmarried and facing dwindling marriage prospects; Meg, the middle sister, has returned after a failed stint in Hollywood, and the youngest sister, Babe, is out on bail after shooting her husband.
Their troubles, serious and yet hilarious, unravel throughout the play; as past resentments bubble to the surface, the sisters are forced to face the consequences of the various “crimes of the heart” that they have committed.
An example of black comedy at its finest, Crimes of the Heart is a comedic exploration of loneliness, deceit and ultimately what it means to be a family.
**** The Tab "It’s so catchy that you are humming retro tunes on the way home, planning to wear a dotted skirt the day after and have the strong impulse to drink a coke as soon as possible."
8/10 TCS "Any fool who believes that idiotic idea that women aren’t funny needs to see this, and spend an evening laughing at these fabulously dark comic performance."
- June 2017
And Then There Were None is one of Christie’s most successful murder mysteries and was adapted for stage by her in 1943. Ten strangers are invited by a mysterious host to a large holiday home on an island off the coast of Cornwall. All with unclean pasts they make their way to the house, still yet to meet the host when they arrive. Soon, one by one, they start to be killed off. All of them are victims, and all of them could be the murderer. It seems the host is playing games when he leaves a chilling voice recording condemning them all for various crimes and murders they have committed themselves. More sickening still is the nursery rhyme framed in every guest’s room listing the deaths of ‘Ten Little Soldiers’, and the ten little soldier figurines in the dining hall: every murdered guest sees another figurine go missing. When the last guest is murdered, who could the murderer possibly be?
- March 2017
Electra is the child of a broken family pretending it's still holding together. Her mother's lover has taken over the throne and become a tyrant, after her father's brutal murder at his hands. Her sister is weak and her brother has fled. She stands surrounded by blank smiling faces staring at her like masks. She hears the voices of strange people she isn't sure are real. One way or another, there's going to be blood.
- March 2017
Half past five on a Friday evening, and a school’s electronic door-locking system shuts down for the weekend… with four teachers still in the staff room.
Claustrophobia sets in. Tea turns into alcohol. Ties, jackets and the ceremonies of the school day are shed, giving way to messy power plays, grievances and the desire to behave badly. But they are still haunted by the ultimate threat in their job that keeps their behaviour in check. And it isn’t the headmaster.
This brand new comic drama asks where the boundaries of professionalism lie, and how much pressure it takes to reveal the petty, paranoid, impulsive teenagers inside even the most polished individuals.
‘I have practically run the English department for the last three years, and you have bought me a bottle of wine with a screw cap.’
- February 2017
"When you're between any kind of devil and the deep blue sea, the deep blue sea sometimes looks very inviting."
The play opens with Hester Collyer's first suicide attempt: originally written as a one-act play in which she was successful, Rattigan ultimately found it more appealing to explore the psyche of a person on the precipice of despair. Hester has left her well-off and kindly husband William in favour of the desirable yet emotionally reticent Freddie, and now finds herself trapped in a loveless relationship without an escape route. She cannot fathom going back to her husband but when Freddie forgets her birthday she can no longer cope with her current relationship. The only exit she sees is taking her own life but, after some bracing advice from the enigmatic and stoic Mr Miller, she finds herself willing to reconsider.
Rattigan's masterpiece and, in the words of Libby Purves, "a bit of a game-changer" when it is first seen or read, The Deep Blue Sea is a challenging and provocative play, encouraging social responsibility and taking an unsentimental but compassionate stance on mental health.
- January 2017
In 1950's Hazlehurst, Mississippi, the three Mcgrath sisters have returned home, awaiting news of the family patriarch - their grandfather - who is living out his final hours in hospital. Lenny, the oldest sister, is unmarried and facing dwindling marriage prospects; Meg, the middle sister, has returned after a failed stint in Hollywood, and the youngest sister, Babe, is out on bail after shooting her husband.
Their troubles, serious and yet hilarious, unravel throughout the play; as past resentments bubble to the surface, the sisters are forced to face the consequences of the various “crimes of the heart” that they have committed.
An example of black comedy at its finest, Crimes of the Heart is a comedic exploration of loneliness, deceit and ultimately what it means to be a family.
- November–December 2016
"You're my prize possession, why can't I watch you ?... You're mine"
Nora Helmer years earlier committed a forgery in order to save the life of her dictatorial husband Torvald. Now she is being blackmailed and lives in fear of her husband finding out and of the shame such a revelation would bring to his career. But when the truth comes out, Nora is shocked to learn where she really stands in her husband's esteem. A play that was once banned for daring to depict a woman defying her husband "A Doll's House is considered to be one of the first "feminist" plays, challenging the Victorian ideal of a woman's role in marriage and revolutionising the portrayal of women on the stage.
- November 2016
‘Merdre!’
The first performance of the first word of the first piece of absurdist theatre, when put on in Paris in 1896, resulted in a riot.
Before the start of the premiere Alfred Jarry walked onto the stage and said ‘You are free to see in M. Ubu however many allusions you care to, or else a simple puppet – a school boy’s caricature of one of his professors who personified for him all the ugliness in the world.’
The play tells the story of the rise of Ubu Pa to the throne of Baloney and his eventual fall, in absurd mockery of everything from the bourgeois to Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies.
A basement fever-dream, gutter rock, an anarchic farce, Berlin techno… This show really has it all. Wow.
- February 2016
Set in 1929 New York City, Bugsy Malone captures a flashy world of would-be hoodlums, showgirls, and dreamers. In this setting, two gangs prepare to take each other down, with Fat Sam and Dandy Dan competing to take control of the city. Bugsy Malone, a one-time boxer, is thrust not-so-willingly into the gangster limelight, when he becomes the last chance Fat Sam's gang has of surviving. All Bugsy really wants to do is spend time with his new love Blousey; but that just isn't on the cards for our hero just yet.
Great songs, amazing dances, flashing lights and cream-pie fights - what more could a musical have to offer?
- November 2015
'I've never understood
what it is I'm not supposed to feel
like a bird on the wing in a swollen sky my mind is torn by lightning
as it flies from the thunder behind'
This is not a play. This is a suicide note. This is the fragmented reality of a broken mind.
This is not the answer. This is the question. This is the opening line and the closing breath.
Sarah Kane's final and most personal work opens up the minds of three people suffering from depression, taking the audience on a journey into the deepest recesses of human suffering.
- August 2015
