- November 2015
Experience the shiny new Peterhouse dramatic talent in the Heywood Society Freshers' Play, Alan Ayckbourn's 'Table Manners'.
This hilarious portrait of mid-life crisis explores ordinary family tensions in the context of a rather extraordinary love triangle... Or hexagon.
The show comprises a motley crew of frustratingly sympathetic characters sat around the kitchen table of a country retreat as claustrophobic and crumbling as their relationships. Each lacks tact in a way you probably didn't know was possible and will leave you begging them to say more at some times and, at others, much less.
- June 2015
Twelfth Night is a well-loved Shakespearean comedy with cross dressing, trickery and all of the wit necessary to delight your imagination. Eat, drink and be merry before suicide sunday by relaxing in our garden performance of this classic play. The story follows two identical twins who are shipwrecked on the island of Illyria. There is romance, confusion, humour and, of course, yellow stockings. We encourage the audience members to bring picnic blankets, alcohol and food and to relax in Peterhouse’s beautiful deer park, as term begins to wind down. Laughter is guaranteed.
- May 2015
Erik is a boy whose life has always been defined by violence. With an abusive stepfather at home, and his position as ringleader for a gang of abusive boys, it seems he cannot escape from it. After a heist gone wrong, his headmaster calls him in, accusing him of being the leader of a terror-regime, and states “You are evil, people like you must be destroyed…”
Erik is then shipped off to the exclusive, expensive Sveaborg boarding school, thinking he is given the change to reinvent himself, to lead a new way of life. But the Student Council and their regime of demeaning and degrading humiliation and principles of “responsibility for each others’ upbringing and discipline” soon test all of Erik’s patience and faith. Their cruelty seems to know no bounds, and seems to have no opposition.
Can you resist evil without resorting to evil yourself? Does doing evil things make you evil, or is it the other way around? This chilling production will make you question the very nature of “the evil”.
- May 2015
Maureen lives with her aged mother, Mag, in rural Galway, Ireland. The tensions in their damp kitchen simmer and sizzle like the porridge which rattles away on the stove. There are strange folk songs on the radio and a suspicious smell in the sink that might be related to Mag's urine infection.
A possible escape for Maureen means abandonment for Mag which she won't be accepting lying down. After twenty years in the old house, things are finally coming to a head.
Romantic, uproarious, and terrifying, The Beauty Queen of Leenane is a comedy of mothers, daughters, and lovers which has twisted and curdled.
- May 2015
Martin wants it all. A happy marriage to Antonia and a delightful affair with the much younger Georgie. Yet his comfortable existence is upset when his wife reveals she has been sleeping with her psychoanalyst Palmer, and wants a divorce. Lovers are swapped around shamelessly as a brilliantly funny story, which is mostly satirical, at times bordering on farcical, ensues.
Set in the homes of the middle class in 1960’s London, the adaptation by Iris Murdoch and JB Priestley is a witty, sharp and intelligent exploration of marriage, adultery and class.
- February 2015
What's this? The Peterhouse theatre society is holding a last-minute smoker, so secret and exclusive that even they didn't know about it until recently?
Come and see your favourite comedians in an intense and frantic atmosphere which will only heighten the comedy - if also the tension - of the evening.
LINE-UP
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- November 2014
The Peterhouse Freshers Play 2014
It's suburban London, the seventies, and Beverly has invited new neighbours Tony and Angela over.
Thrown into the mix is Beverly's long-suffering, olive-loving husband Laurence, and divorced neighbour Sue, whose daughter Abigail is having a party next door. As alcohol flows and conversation stagnates, the excruciating, Freshers' Week-level awkwardness reaches a devastating climax...
For three nights, Peterhouse's historic theatre will be hosting this most unusual party, and you're invited.
You will laugh, you will cringe, and you will cringe some more as Mike Leigh's classic comedy comes to Cambridge's classiest college.
"And you were enjoying yourself?"
"Yeah. We were all enjoying ourselves, weren't we?”
No character in 'Abigail's Party' could honestly answer "Yes" to that question, but you can.
- June 2014
‘You have always told me your name was Ernest. I have introduced you to everyone as Ernest. You answer to the name of Ernest. You look as if your name was Ernest. You are the most earnest looking person I ever saw in my life. It is perfectly absurd your saying that your name isn’t Ernest.’
Ernest is engaged to two different women, neither of whom are aware he doesn’t exist. High japes, cucumber sandwiches and live jazz music ensue as Oscar Wilde’s most dazzling comedy is brought to life in Cambridge’s biggest garden party. You are warmly invited to the event of the (late nineteenth) century, in which nothing is ever quite as it seems. Or maybe it is. You’ll have to come and see for yourself.
- June 2014
The team behind One By One (“Congratulations…whoever you may be” - Tab, “Put this on again” 9/10 – TCS) and Grey Matters (“Uplifting, eye opening” - Tab; “a superb dramatic experience” ***** - Varsity) return with a brand new immersive production on an unprecedented scale in Cambridge. For May Week, we will turn a college garden into a multi-area stage, telling many interwoven stories that unfold at a garden party like no other.
We’re looking for a large cast of enthusiastic actors who aren’t afraid of improvisation or audience interaction. The play will be developed and devised by the troupe as a whole, working closely with the production team, so come prepared to contribute your ideas. We’re also keen to find crossover cast/production team members. Creativity and quick wits will be just as important as acting ability for members of the troupe.
The rehearsal schedule is adapted to accommodate exams, with intensive rehearsals at the beginning of term and then towards showtime, so please don’t be distracted by your desire to succeed in life. We can also offer reduced-commitment roles that don’t mean reduced stage time – in an immersive show, there is no backstage. So there is really no good reason not to come along to auditions.
- March 2014
Dr. Diane Cassell is a leading academic in Earth Sciences, at a university where climate science is the new ‘hip’ degree on offer. She is also a denier of anthropogenic global warming, better known as climate change. For her lack of belief in the most attractive religion of the 21st century, she is vilified and threatened by those around her, and as the controversy becomes increasingly political, and personal, she must decide whether clinging to her own convictions is worth what they will cost her.
Juggling her job, an anorexic daughter, a baffling new student and multiple death threats, it will not be easy.
- November 2013
An evening of hilarity and bewilderment from Peterhouse's freshers. Three couples celebrate their anniversary by dining out. Two of them are gangsters, none of them are as sane as they pretend to be, and the restaurant's staff are unable to resist questioning the meaning of life, the universe, and everything - what could possibly go wrong?
- March 2013
A night of stand-up comedy in Cambridge's oldest college.
- February 2013
An evening of stand-up and sketches in Peterhouse.
- November 2012
"I put it to you! - Are you the real Inspector Hound!?"
Muldoon Manor, one morning in early spring. A dangerous madman is wandering the marshes, a mysterious but dashing stranger has arrived out of nowhere, and the fog is starting to roll in...
Moon and Birdboot, two theatre critics, are watching this country house mystery, hoping for their break on the reviewing scene. It's not long, however, before they become rather more involved in the play - and it's actors - than they may have counted on.
Both a farcical parody of the drawing room murder mystery genre, and a satire on the theatre critique industry, 'The Real Inspector Hound' is an absurdist comedy with a dark twist even the characters don't see coming.
- November 2012
The inaugural smoker held in the illustrious Friends of Peterhouse Theatre.
- June 2012
"It's what happened to the Enlightenment, isn't it? A century of intellectual rigour turned in on itself. A mind in chaos suspected of genius. In a setting of cheap thrills and fake beauty... The decline from thinking to feeling, you see."
In a large country house in 1809, the thirteen-year-old Thomasina Coverly and her young tutor Septimus Hodge discuss mathematics, metaphysics and ‘carnal embrace’, looking out over the idealised landscaped gardens about to give way to the ruins and waterfalls of the ‘picturesque’ Gothic style. 180 years later, Bernard Nightingale and garden historian Hannah Jarvis look through the same window as they attempt to uncover the scandal said to have taken place when Lord Byron stayed at Sidley Park.
"It is nature as God intended, and I can say with the painter, ‘Et in Arcadia ego!’ Here I am in Arcadia."
Tom Stoppard’s ‘beautiful and brilliant’ tale of two centuries unfolds within the idyllic refinement of Peterhouse’s Scholars' Garden.
- March 2012
Passport to Pimlico is a classic of British comic film. In adaption for stage it loses none of those qualities that made it great: it’s still patriotic but irreverent, still warm-hearted but cynical, still quaintly dated but, most of all, still staggeringly relevant.
When Pimlico (a small area of London) is declared part of Burgundy, what is initially a libertarian paradise becomes a chaotic free for all. Yet despite the wrangling for buried treasure, and a flourishing black-market, what the Burgundians are truly fighting for is their right to be English.
Flying cows, audience interrogation, buried treasure, and a sleazy Burgundian Duke: this is a huge leap away from standard Cambridge theatre.
- November 2011
Edward Chamberlayne is holding a cocktail party for his friends, mistress and an unknown guest - but where is his wife?
Faced with uncomfortable questions, Edward is forced to invent an excuse for Lavinia's absence in order to alleviate the curiosity of his friends. However, the unknown guest seems to know a great deal about the couple and quickly sets about analysing them.
But who is this mysterious man and how does he know so much about them? And is he truly unknown to them all?
- March 2011
'We do on stage the things that are supposed to happen off. Which is a sort of integrity, if you look on every exit being an entrance somewhere else.'
Two fringe characters steal the show in Stoppard's absurdist, metatheatrical take on Hamlet. And no one expects it any less than they do.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead sees Hamlet's two childhood friends thrown into a world that neither they nor the audience entirely understands: a world in which a coin comes down heads ninety-two consecutive times; a world in which they don't know which of them is which; a world in which it seems possible even to cheat death. Yet, propelled on by an exterior force, they make their way through the happenings of Shakespeare's tragedy towards an end that only they are unable to foresee.
Wit meets Beckettian bleakness meets neon yellow barrels in this new rendering of Stoppard's classic play.
- November 2010
Three adulterous couples. A case of mistaken identity. A revolving bed. Carry On meets Zola in a short, sharp farce set during Paris' Belle Epoque. Following the success of last term's 'A Murder in a Play', The Heywood Society invite you to view our latest light comedy, Georges' Feydeau's 'A Flea in Her Ear'. Let us whisk you away on an absinthe-scented journey to the surreal setting of Feydeau' fin de siècle, where the sublime and the ridiculous become entwined
- March 2010
'I've....been...murdered!' but 'The show must go on...' A (not very good) theatre company attempt to stage a production of Murder at Priorswell Manor, but, just before opening night, an actress is murdered and only one of the company could have done it. Bitchy, witty and murderous, the show is a murder mystery within a murder mystery with all the shocks, surprises and scandal you could ever want!
- November 2009
Set towards the end of the Trojan war, Troilus and Cressida is the story of the doomed romance between Troilus, an ineffectually passionate Trojan prince, and Cressida, the spirited daughter of a defected Trojan priest. Their love is facilitated by Cressida's scheming uncle, the voyeuristic Pandarus, only to be abruptly broken off by the cruel necessities of war. Hector, Paris, Helen and the prophetic Cassandra complete the cast of a war-weary Troy, where the very value-systems on which the conflict is founded are brought into question.
Disillusioned Troy is paralleled by the Greek camp, frustrated and factious after seven futile years of siege. Here the glorious Achilles of Homer is reduced to a petulant and effeminate idler, the mighty Agamemnon to a foolish and ineffectual old windbag; blustering Ajax finds himself humiliated by a dirty cynic called Thersites, and even the slippery trouble-maker, Ulysses, struggles to orchestrate the action as he wishes. The play's gritty and chaotic martial conclusion, more disturbing than it is comforting or cathartic, sums up a drama in which age-old ideals - ideals taken for granted in many of Shakespeare's other works - gradually lose their power to remake a world that is continuously being unmade by fate, circumstances and human fallibility.
Come on all you lazy English thesps- this is by far the best way to revise for your Shakespeare exam.
- November 2009
The play is based on the story of Saint Sir Thomas More, the 16th-century Lord Chancellor, who refuses to endorse Henry VIII's schism from Rome and subsequent divorce from his first wife. Robert Bolt portrays More as a man of principle, envied by rivals such as Thomas Cromwell and loved by the common people and by his family.
“It isn't difficult to keep alive, friends - just don't make trouble - or if you must make trouble, make the sort of trouble that's expected.”
In 1532, you either keep your head down or you lose it. Men that please the King live in splendour; those that displease him are sent to the tower. However, when the entire tapestry of England's religious tradition is ripped apart to solve the King's Great Matter, his courtiers have to make a huge decision. Do they consent to his divorce? Or do they remain loyal to Rome? Do they value the welfare of their necks, or of their souls? For Sir Thomas More, eminent academic, politician and lawyer, there really is no choice...
- June 2009
'This is Troy, but Troy and we, are perished.' Euripides gives voice to the unheard women of a fallen Troy; women widowed, enslaved and forced from their homeland. Hecuba loses herself in grief, Cassandra is driven mad and Helen is finally judged as the root of a ten year war. Trojan Women, the greatest of the classic tragedies, will be performed as originally intended: outdoors in the Peterhouse gardens, May Week 2009.
- October 2008
Camelot has been bewitched by Merlin. A kind of dramatic schizophrenia runs amok in Cocteau's ambiguously ironic, Belle Epoque fairyland of multiple realities, populated by a cast of Arthurian characters who have almost nothing to do with conventional Arthurian tradition at all. In this 'false' world hidden desires are let loose by fraudulent selves, while the 'real' selves recognise only their own innocence. As rumours and metamorphoses carry the plot through elegant contortions, life onstage continually threatens to collapse. Camelot waits in suspense, hoping that Galahad, the poet-knight, will be able to dissipate Merlin's opium-like charms, restoring the more dignified normality of 'Real Life'. 'The Knights of the Round Table' explores, with the author's usual stylish eccentricity and panache, the themes of art versus nature, illusion versus reality, and identity.
The script has been translated by W. H. Auden from the original French.
- June 2008
"I'll so offend to make offence a skill Redeeming time when men think least I will."
The threat of civil war rattles the kingdom. In arms against those who helped him to the throne not twelve months since, Henry sits unsure of his future. His son and heir, Harry (Hal), is idling away his time with the drunken Sir John Falstaff and it seems to Henry that nothing will recover him. As the shadow of war looms Henry faces capture and certain death at the hands of the Percy cland and the fearless Douglas. Time is running out for the prodigal son...
- March 2008
- November 2007
In his be-cobwebbed alchemist's workshop, Prince Rodeo plots his revenge upon his father, the king, Elvis, who recently deflowered the object of Rodeo's affection, Lady Danäe. But - unbeknownst to him - Jeremy Beadle (the king's jester) and his lover, the firebrand cleric Abu Hamza (Danäe's lady-in-waiting), have set in motion a terrible chain of events that culminate in the explosive birth of a zombie that might well annihilate everyone.
- June 2007
Shakespeare's Measure for Measure will be performed in the picturesque Peterhouse Deer Park during Mayweek. The Heywood Society's annual Shakespeare production has been very well received in previous years, and a similar response is expected this year.
- February 2007
Anna and Claire argue over Claire's new found "love" whilst their maid, Catherine, is brought to tears by her employer's harsh verbal rebukes. Things get tense as Anna, a mistress to a wealthy gentleman, tries to talk Claire out of her profession of love for a young girl. But Claire has already made plans with her young love to meet at Anna's house. When the young girl arrives, however, things begin to go awry...
Will Anna and Claire be able to find a way to hold on to both the young girl and her wealthy but unfaithful father?
- November 2006
- March 2006
"Taxidermy"
A dadaist farce of sorts, mixing Jacobean tragedy, musical comedy and satire. Taxidermy charts the fall of William Mayhew. From director, to murderer, to unwilling patsy in the 'artistic' experiments of his best friend Dylan. The action is set around an isolated country house populated by the detritus of the metropolitan theatrical scene. In an environment where commerce has replaced culture the only certainty is death.
"Perchance to Dream"
Set during the Second World War 'Perchance to Dream' presents the fate of Roger as he tries to piece together the events that brought him to the scene of the battle in the first place. Interweaving dreams, prophecy and reality 'Perchance to Dream' investigates our reliance on fantasy as a means of survival under duress.
- June 2005
The Heywood Society presents its annual show in the stunning surroundings of the Peterhouse Deer Park. An evening of champagne and strawberries in Cambridge's oldest college whilst watching one of Shakespeare's finest comedies is in store. Previous Heywood shows in the Park include A Midsummer Night's Dream and As You Like It, both sell out shows!
- November 2004
A revue of short pieces 5-10 minutes long. Any Freshers wishing to put together a piece, preferably original, should get in touch with Pete Davies
- March 2004
'In failure... all are equal.'
"Grandiloquence chronicles one long night in the lives of four city-dwelling twenty-somethings: the prophetic Cigar-man, the relentless and beautiful Washing-man, the desperate Other-man and the star-crossed Girl. Everyone has ideals but it is a lucky man that does not, at some point in his life, realise that his ideals are impossible to live up to. He can then either abandon them or render them useless by living in denial. Grandiloquence is set as its characters are forced to make this decision and live with their acceptance or rejection of imperfection. Grandiloquence is not a depressing play, it is a frank statement of what means to call yourself 'mature'.
- February 2004
The story resolves around two best friends from high school, Jonathan and Vince, and Amy, a woman they both dated. Over the course of one evening, in a Motel Six room, Vince finally gets Jonathan to confess on a tape that he date-raped Amy, ten years prior. Vince, as part of his elaborate plan, has also invited Amy to dinner that evening to either play the tape or have Jonathan confess, which ever comes first. Tape examines questions of motive, memory, truth and perception.
