- November 2010
'Pure and dirty, innocent and vulgar, it all withers, washes away. Eighteen going on thirty-five, because they think they're got to, because they're forced to... I dunno.'
John Godber's 'Bouncers' is a fantastic play which balances insightful wit, crude humour bordering on the scatological and genuine, thought-provoking moral commentary into an energised piece that has widespread performance success from London to the Edinburgh Fringe. The play relies on fast-paced delivery from four flexible male actors who must seamlessly change between a plethora of characters which vary widely in personality, age and gender.
Four talented male actors guide you through a twisted scenario of lads on the pull, drunken girls, rave maniacs, DJs, pornstars and the titular Bouncers who stand trying to make sense of the whole mess in their own twisted, sardonic way. Bouncers promises an hilarious experience of visual and aural immersion whilst also posing the poignant question of why humanity will so willingly degrade itself for a cheap thrill.
- November 2010
"If they don't agree, then I will change their minds by whatever means I deem necessary. If you want to call it disease, or corruption, or whichever words seem appropriate, then go ahead." An empty, windowless room is where the human forms of Rape, Faith and Pain find themselves, cut off and without recollection of their arrival. In trying to escape, they find themselves going deeper into the isolation of their space, and their fruitless and disturbing efforts to learn about one another seems to draw the walls in as their predicament remains apparently without cause.
- November 2010
Have you ever told anyone what you really think of them? Have you ever had the courage to come out from behind the web of lies and false camaraderie that oils the wheels of the social world? Have you ever even asked yourself what you're really like? Stanley, a drab man in the drab 1950s certainly hasn't. Unfortunately for him, his myths about himself are about to be ripped away from him by a pair of mysterious strangers. The play explores the horrors that lie beneath the mundane surface of everyday life; and it watches as these horrors make madmen of those who gaze upon them. The question is, can Stanley cope? Can you?
- October 2010
The Beginner’s Guide to the Opera is a brand spanking new introduction to the world’s greatest, gaudiest and most ludicrous art form. Forget La Scala, forget The Met New York- the Corpus Christi Playroom is the only setting for a fast-paced heretical romp through the staves of musical history. Tracing opera’s unlikely journey from the verdant pastures of North Yorkshire to the ‘gator-filled swamps of New Orleans, this one-woman sketch show provides a refreshingly insolent insight into the elite yet all-encompassing world of opera. So, whether you’re a well-rehearsed libretto Lothario or a reluctant vibrato virgin, leave the evening gloves at the door, and prepare yourself for an evening of glass-smashing, spear-bashing entertainment.
- October 2010
- October 2010
A man finds himself inexplicably backstage one day. When confronted by the stage manager, it becomes apparent that he is mistaken as the understudy for a well-known actor and must perform in his stead. Literally forced on stage, he attempts to recall his lines; however, the play inconsistently shifts between scenes from 'Private Lives', 'Hamlet', 'Checkmate', and 'A Man for All Seasons'. In the final scene of 'A Man for all Seasons', he is alarmed to learn that he must play the part of Sir Thomas Moore - and the inevitable execution seems a bit too real for his liking ...
with the funding of Clare Actors and the Alcock Players
- October 2010
Lottie is depressed. She can’t continue with her cosy yet meaningless middle-class existence any longer. She has tried to commit suicide once before and is about to do so again when she is interrupted by Rachel, a door-to-door saleswoman. As they talk, each woman reveals her own secrets and Rachel attempts to persuade Lottie to tell Michael, her seemingly unsympathetic husband, that her depression is getting worse. Will Lottie make this bold move? And will it change anything?
- June 2010
- May 2010
Entertaining Mr. Sloane, arguably Joe Orton’s funniest play, depicts what happens when Sloane, an amoral, manipulative, young man with no qualms about surrendering his body, goes to live with Kath as a lodger. Kath, a sexually repressed middle-aged frump, can hardly contain her desire to bed Sloane, however, complications arise when it becomes clear that neither can her closet-homosexual brother, Ed. The situation becomes yet further complicated when Kath and Ed’s father, Kemp, recognises Sloane as the ruthless murderer of his former boss. Written and set in the 1960s, Sloane follows the actions of those who we assume would know better; their rapacious needs, their ignorance, and their unwitting violence. It promises to be both an unsettling and wickedly amusing distraction from the stale boredom of Week 3 revision.
- March 2010
--"Nothing can rival the power of art." --"Not even sex?"
Fra Filippo Lippi is born lucky. He has a talent beyond any of his peers. He is set to be one of his generation's greatest artists.
Escaping his monastery, he is captured by pirates. Escaping imprisonment, he gains the patronage of the Florence's most powerful citizen, Cosimo de' Medici. Winning the favour of even the Pope himself, Filippo's uncontrollable lust sees him thrown into confinement. Escaping once again, he must flee from Florence to pursue his art - and his mischievous love affairs. All is well until, for once, love strikes true...
"You're dying for it - someone to knock the brains out of you till all the tatters of your wasted life are left spread across the floor, moist and glistening from the spoils of your body"
- March 2010
An Envelope. A Gilt Edged Invitation. Intricate Calligraphy. The Heady Scent of Fine Perfume.
Consider yourself cordially invited into the shimmering world of Cherry and Blossom, two bright young things with a penchant for glitz, glamour and garters.
For one week only, they take you on a whirlwind tour of musical delights from days gone by. Be transported to the fast paced fun of the twenties flappers; feel the heat and grit of the jazz clubs of the thirties; let your heart be stirred by the war torn forties; your eyes be dazzled by the mambo of the fifties; and lose every inhibition you once had during the psychedelic sixties.
This promises to be one evening you won't forget in a hurry.
Men, hold onto your hats. Women, hold onto your men.
You've been warned... 'The Girls Can't Help It!'
- March 2010
Tom and Kyra's affair ended years ago and she has reinvented herself. But when Tom forces his way back into her life one cold night, the unwanted memories resurface. David Hare's critically acclaimed script crackles with intensity as Tom and Kyra desperately try to come to terms with their past, and with each other... He may have the wealth, but who has the power?
"Kyra. Kyra, I'm back..."
- February 2010
The 2010 Fletcher Players' Freshers' Play.
'The Bald Prima Donna' welcomes its audience into a typical English living room with Mr and Mrs Smith expecting the arrival their dinner guests, the Martins. However, all is not quite as it seems - their conversation is filled with unrelated banalities and the English living room is not as typical as it first looked. Eugene Ionesco's first play, originally written in his mother tongue, Romanian, and then translated into French and English, is a hilarious 'parody of everything' which will have the audience laughing hysterically from start to finish.
- February 2010
"And death shall be no more, Death thou shalt die."
Vivian Bearing is a professor of 17th century poetry, specialising in the Holy Sonnets of John Donne. She is well used to exploring life and death, but now it's her life and death in question, and she's running out of time. Diagnosed with terminal cancer, Vivian talks us through her last days and weeks, sharing a wry smile at the world and seeking, always seeking, to unravel the mystery, explain the poem.
Emotional, amusing and ultimately uplifting, 'Wit' is a must-see for anyone who has ever asked the life/death question.
- February 2010
'Hell is other people'
In Jean-Paul Sartres one act play, three recently deceased individuals; Garcin, Inez and Estelle are brought to the same room in Hell by a mysterious Valet. Having all expected to be greeted by a variety of elaborate torture devices, they are surprised to find themselves in a plain drawing room. However, despite the perceived normality of the situation, it soon dawns on each character that their punishment is devilishly simple.
Their punishment is each other.
- February 2010
Fabulously rich and famously generous, Timon is a much-loved fixture of Athenian society. But when his lavish spending lands him deep in debt and he is forced to seek the aid of his companions, he discovers that their friendship extends only as far as his credit line. Furious, disillusioned, and impoverished, Timon curses mankind and flees Athens, becoming a seaside hermit and avoiding all human contact until one day he discovers buried treasure and suddenly finds himself the object of attention once again.
- February 2010
Will is a man. And a magician. A professional magician; an amateur man. This is Presto: a play in which several things happen. Once. Presented as a maelstrom of film and live action, Presto promises an evening of magic, comedy and fear from a 'show-stealing' talent (Varsity).
- February 2010
" Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under't "
When witches prophesy that Macbeth will be king, the choice lies in his hands: to follow his forceful wife and his own ambition, or to shun the evil deeds that he knows he must perform. As Scotland spirals further and further into wild degradation, where force fights force and purity is weak, Macbeth battles with himself, his friends, and what goodness remains around him while his world spins ever further into a chaos of bloodshed and madness.
- February 2010
Joe Orton's most satirical and autobiographical comedy follows Buchanan through his many trials and tribulations from his retirement to his death. Already struggling to cope with the realisation that his life reads like a list of "almost"s and "if only"s, Buchanan is foiled at every turn by the meddling Mrs Vealfoy, a company representative, who naturally considers the enhancement of Buchanan's superficial happiness her personal responsibility. The poor, world-weary Buchanan, trying to support his well-meaning but generally useless (and only recently rediscovered) family, is the man nobody wants to become: The Good and Faithful Servant.
- February 2010
‘Funny bloke, Charles. He’s a lovely man. One of the best. But you know the only trouble is he’s a nutter.’
Charles runs a bar in South London. He’s a man’s man, handsome, charismatic. But something’s not right: his wife is dead, grief isn’t easy and there’s a lot of rum that needs drinking. Science can’t help him. Religion can’t help him. Can Lucy, his new barmaid? Perhaps. But should he really be teaching a livewire like her to defend herself with a baseball bat? It can only be a matter of time before something, or someone, gets broken. Join these two hotheads on their erratic course through a loveless London full of shadowy characters and dodgy secrets, soaked in booze, violence and each other.
- January 2010
Rollo is a homeless millionaire. Le Douze Quatorze is a hopeless gambler. Missy and Clayton are incompatible. But widower Beethoven is on a labour of love...
These misplaced characters have to choose a new direction as they are diverted and diverting in their chance encounters. Moving on or staying put, clinging on to something or leaving it behind: they all must decide what to do next.
Quirky and fresh, Yo, My Man is a comedy about jazz, disappointment, self-delusion, and different kinds of hope.
- December 2009
An absurdist classic. A professor awaits a fresh pupil's arrival, brushing off the maid's warnings of the dark things that may come of yet another lesson. The pupil arrives, eager to learn, seemingly promising and bright, but as the pupil's limitations become evident, the professor's frustration grows, and the day's lesson takes its foreshadowed, perilous turn. This potent "comic drama" has the power to frighten and delight as only absurdist plays can. A cocktail of violence - psychological and physical - and comedy that ranges from screwball to inky black, the play is as fresh and relevant today as at its premier nearly 60 years ago.
- November 2009
1980s London. Four friends share a flat in Earl’s Court. The prospect of the property boom, however, brings the threat of separation, renovation and re-evaluation. While their landlord’s offer to buy out his tenants leaves Sherry giddy with excitement, Marion consults her biological clock, Paul becomes a DIY demon and Howard wishes everyone would just shut the hell up! Communal domestic ‘bliss’ is stretched to breaking point in a world where real estate affects individuals and property values are placed on friendship. Property isn’t the only thing at stake.
- November 2009
Scott McPherson’s dark and mordantly funny comedy is about one woman’s commitment to caring for her family first, even in the face of personal tragedy. Nominated in 1992 for the Drama Desk Awards Outstanding New Play, the title character, who is never seen onstage, has been dying for 20 years. Bessie, Marvin’s daughter, has been taking care of Marvin and her aunt all her adult life, and she will continue to do so until they drop or she does.
Her relationship with her sister is a different story...Estranged since their father's first stroke some 17 years earlier, Lee and Bessie lead separate lives in separate states. Lee has two sons, neither of whom are particularly normal: Charlie always has his nose in a book, and (in a more extreme example of abnormality) Hank was committed to a psychiatric hospital after setting fire to the house. Early in the play we discover Bessie has leukaemia and is in need of a bone marrow transplant. This necessitates a call to her sister...The impact that Bessie has on Lee and her sons, particularly Hank, is the underlying story of Marvin’s Room.
- November 2009
World War II is over and all over Europe, people are looking for their lost relatives. Elma has no memory. She is singing nightly in a seedy Berlin nightclub, going home to Salter and Mop, two people who are in love with her. She is being followed: a mysterious man tells her she is the missing wife of an Italian aristocrat. But Salter won't give her up without a fight...
- November 2009
Six of Cambridge's most punctual comedians unite for an evening of madcap hilarity, indescribable mirth and unbridled leisurefun. Have a shower, put some clothes on and see this term's most good sketch show.
- November 2009
For the Revd Pringle his reputation for honesty and piety is everything. To uphold it he would resort to deception, intimidation and even murder. But when the one thing better than killing your wife is making everyone think you have, the line between reality and public image begins to blur and morality goes entirely out of the window.
Orton's black comedy probes the shadowy world of cults, coal cellars and cake tins and finds some surprising contents.
How far would you go to keep up your reputation?
- October 2009
This will be the amateur premiere of Stenham's electrifying first play, written when she was just 19.
Mia is about to be kicked out of boarding school for sticking mummy's Valium down a younger girl's throat. Henry has dropped out of school in a desperate attempt to hold his screwed up family together. Martha will control and ruin both of their lives. Martha is addicted to prescription medication. Martha is their mother.
In his review in The Telegraph, Charles Spencer called THAT FACE "one of the most astonishing debuts I have seen in more than 30 years of theatre reviewing." This production, the first in the U.K. since its premiere at the Royal Court in 2007, will take place in an explosive world of fluorescent light, using the intimate confines of the Playroom to create the claustrophobic environment of Martha's squalid bedroom.
- October 2009
Judith leaves her ex-boyfriend a desperate message on his answer-phone saying that she is not coping with their break-up, that she has brought some razor blades and some henna in order to either slash her wrists or dye her hair and she might be pregnant. However, it is his new partner, Ros, who hears the message and it is she that rushes to Judith's bedsit. An evening of emotion, combined with subtle humour, ensues that will conclude with the two women, despite their differences and rivalry, finding friendship and gaining something positive from each other.
- June 2009
The city of Thebes is trying to recover after a gruesome civil war, and the new-crowned king Creon will do everything to keep the state under control. But there is one person that will not conform. Drawn by the majesty of death and her uncompromising devotion to her family, Antigone buries her brother. Some call what follows a deserved punishment; others a path to glory. But who is right? And are the living always more fortunate than the dead? Seamus Heaney’s translation of Sophocles’ tragedy breathes new life into one of the most compelling dramatic pieces of all time.
- June 2009
In an airless basement room, two hitmen await details of their next assignment. They’re a team from way back, but today something has disturbed their normally efficient routine. Unseen forces bear down on them in their precarious and darkly funny world. While increasingly bizarre orders keep arriving via the dumbwaiter serving hatch, the tension mounts as the comedy unfolds.
Pinter’s taut dialogue, some of Cambridge’s finest performers, and the claustrophobia of the atmospheric Corpus Christi Playroom all collide to create a visceral piece of freshly funny and striking theatre. Starring Ben E Kavanagh and Oliver Soden. Directed by Patrick Garety.
- May 2009
Anthony Neilson’s critically acclaimed play The Wonderful World of Dissocia dramatises an acute experience of mental ill health. Lisa Jones’ life has been out-of-sync for a year now, impaired by a sense of hopelessness that will not abate. Luckily, the answer is simple. The answer lies in The Wonderful World of Dissocia. Act one follows Lisa’s spectacular and hilarious journey through Dissocia in pursuit of an hour of her life that she has lost. While the starkly counter-posed act two returns an audience to the upright position and depicts Lisa’s treatment on an ordinary psychiatric ward. By turns uproarious and arresting, Dissocia is an ecstatic, carnivalesque experience that is simultaneously politically profound.
- May 2009
The dead are back, and angry, and they can’t get back to where they came from. The living are fed up, and wish the dead would just give up and go quietly back to where they came from. The comedy mounts as Elvira begins plotting to get her husband back – once and for all – and to put an entirely new meaning on the phrase, ‘Til death do us part…’
Charles Condomine, a successful novelist, wishes to learn about the occult for a novel he is writing, and he arranges for an eccentric medium, Madame Arcati, to hold a séance at his house. At the séance, she inadvertently summons Charles's first wife, Elvira, who has been dead for seven years. Only Charles can see or hear Elvira, and his second wife, Ruth, does not believe that Elvira exists until a floating vase is handed to her out of thin air. The ghostly Elvira makes continued, and increasingly desperate, efforts to disrupt Charles's current marriage. She finally sabotages his car in the hope of killing him so that he will join her in the spirit world, but it is Ruth rather than Charles who drives off and is killed. This sets off a hilarious chain of events involving ectoplasm, incredulity and much laughter.
Set in the late 30s, the plays embodies the quintessence of the English summer: elegance, sophistication, and just a hint of something nasty…
- May 2009
Excerpts from the winners of the Marlowe Masterclass competition, honed in a Masterclass led by Rebecca Lenkiewicz, will be performed in a Showcase at Soho Theatre for an invited audience of theatre professionals.
Performances, each lasting 10 minutes, written by:
Jennifer Boon Luke Butcher Josh Coles-Riley Emma Hogan Jessica Hyslop Iain Maitland Freddy Syborn
Please contact the Marlowe Masterclass & Writers' Rep, Nausikaä, for more information at marlowemasterclass@gmail.com
See www.marlowemasterclass.co.uk for biographies. weblogs and much more!
- March 2009
Stoppard does Love.
Henry is a successful playwright trying to write a play about the true nature of love. Does he even know what that is? What if joy and love in art is best reflected in pop music?
Henry and his wife Charlotte, their friends Max and Annie, and a jailed political activist named Brodie collide and their lives will never be the same.
Stoppard’s crackling and hilarious dialogue frames this deep exploration of love, fidelity, art and joy. When does motivation matter? Does form affect the content’s impact? And most of all, what is real?
- March 2009
Corpus playroom will be transported back to a Gothic wilderness courtesy of 'The Vampire', J. R. Planché's melodramatic masterpiece. 'Something more than human' haunts the Scottish highlands in this exuberant, sometimes ridiculous drama, where a voracious vampire and a beautiful virgin take their places amongst the craggy cliffs and disembodied voices which animate Planche's creepy yet comic creation. As Lady Bridget exclaims, "Mercy preserve us! I tremble all over!"
