- March 2024
On a quiet afternoon in the Bluebell Hill Development neighbourhood, Martin and his sister Hilda decide to open their doors for a house-warming party. Before they even get a chance to offer the first cup of tea their peace is disturbed by a trespasser on their back lawn. Concerned with the safety and security of their community a newly formed Neighbourhood Watch takes matters into its own hands, fences are installed and neighbourhood patrols start roaming the streets. However, what started as an innocent committee rapidly escalates when a dispute culminate in the first casualty… Monty, Martin’s favourite garden gnome.
With ‘Neighbourhood Watch’ Alan Ayckbourn once again expertly ties comedic genius with carefully embedded social critique. This is not one to miss!
- February 2024
- November 2023
A young Nigel describes childhood in Wolverhampton, existing between his father's untreated rage and his mother's crap cooking - wrecked meals are often replaced (lovingly) with wedges of black, burnt toast. From Pyrex plates, to Bisto, to Terry's All Gold and Caramac, Nigel takes on culinary preparation (and a ‘girlish’ home economics class) in the face of teenage calamity: preferring ‘gay’ sweets, his mother’s death, his father's remarriage to the insidious Joan Potter, and the sourness that ensues between them as they fight knife and fork for Mr Slater's affections. A striking young chef at Nigel’s pub job sparks confidence in his queer exploration - when all comes to a head after his father’s passing, Nigel abandons the nightmarish Clayford home, as we leave him on the brink of a very different life at the steps of the Savoy.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/may/03/nigel-slater-meringue-recipes
- October 2023
‘She is a nasty, stupid, wicked wretch, and I mean to save her life.’
Rural Suffolk, 1759. As the country waits for Halley's Comet, Sally Poppy is sentenced to hang for a heinous murder. When she claims to be pregnant, a jury of twelve women are snatched from their housework to decide whether she's telling the truth, or simply 'pleading the belly' to escape the noose.
With only midwife Lizzy Luke prepared to defend the girl, and a mob baying for blood outside, the women wrestle with their new authority, and the devil in their midst.
The women of The Welkin are often unlikeable, rude, hilarious, impatient, gossipy, airheaded, witty, nurturing and physically and emotionally strong. Think Twelve Angry Men meets the Vagina Monologues, with a sprinkling of The Crucible.
- October 2023
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
‘Gray’s production of Summer and Smoke portrayed these unstable modes of breathing with a serene sense of dignity fully realised by the complex and compelling characters of Williams’ underrated play.’ Varsity
‘The acting shines in an excellent production of Tennessee Williams’ complex and tender work.’ The Cambridge Student
“The girl who said 'no' — she doesn't exist anymore, she died last summer — suffocated in smoke from something on fire inside her.”
In a rural town, in the heat of the summer, Alma Winemiller meets Dr. John Buchanan. Set against the backdrop of a conservative society that values propriety and conformity, Alma and John are forced to confront their deepest fears and desires as they navigate their relationship. Summer and Smoke is a timeless masterpiece that showcases Tennessee Williams' unparalleled skill at crafting complex and compelling characters.
- August 2023
Alix is in their mid-twenties and, at first sight, full of the joys of life with flatmate Jan. But the cracks quickly start to show, and they get wider, and darker. A turbulent relationship with a beautiful stranger frames 6 months of their life, triggering drastic career changes and relapses into depression and substance abuse. ‘Undoubtedly tragic, [...] but so joyous in its raw depiction of emotion’ (The Tab), it’s a portrait of a modern, queer woman’s descent into despair. Dazzling premiered in March to a sold-out run in Cambridge. ‘A stunning production that I could not recommend enough’ ***** (The Tab)
- May 2023
secreting is a series of duologues documenting the intimate conversations that take place between a group of teenagers in the peripheries of a house party as they flail through to the early hours. Trying so hard to surpass the bubble boundaries of selfhood and connect with others, these characters shoot and miss miserably, creating cringe-worthy, heart-warming, and chilling drama out of the—seemingly—most basic human interactions.
A tragicomedy, the play vacillates between naturalism—largely in dialogue—and grotesque physicality. Nostalgia meets abjection.
As our characters try so hard to have fun and impress, mundanity spills imperceptibly into danger.
- May 2023
Chiltern is in dire straits: his livelihood, his public image, and his marriage are all on the line all because the wounds of his scandalous past have been reopened by the sly, conniving Cheveley. Oscar Wilde's classic play enraptures the audience with quick-wit, sharp-tongues, and scandalous corruption but in this adaption, the play is transported from the aristocratic manors of 19th century Britain to the tense and vibrant parties of 1970s America in a changing world, where every turn is broadcasted every minute to hungry eyes and ears.
- March 2023
Charley’s rich Aunt, Donna Lucia, is visiting from Brazil and the timing couldn’t be better. Her presence as a chaperone will allow him and his friend Jack to ask their respective true loves, Amy and Kitty, for their hands in marriage. But time is ticking, and where is Charley’s Aunt? On learning she will be delayed by several days, they blackmail their eccentric friend, Lord Fancourt Babberley, to save their romantic plans and pose as Donna Lucia.
A wild afternoon of mistaken identity, young love, angry uncles, and trickery ensues.
- February 2023
Colin must be comforted in his grief over the death of his fiancee so his friends, who never met the girl, arrange a tea party for him.
- February 2023
"I wanted you to have opportunities I couldn't ever have given you".
"No, you didn't. You wanted your own life more than you wanted mine!"
Against the backdrop of the huge social changes of twentieth century England, four generations of women navigate the incredibly complex and difficult relationships between mothers and daughters. Doris, Margaret, Jackie and Rosie are forced to try and reconcile their varying social roles, responsibilities, and the generational burdens they have placed on one another, as they all struggle against impossible societal expectations across the century.
Keatley’s incredibly powerful, emotive and captivating piece is the most performed English play written by a woman. Delving into themes such as teenage pregnancy, familial guilt, duty and above all, sacrifice, it asks us to think about how the decisions and emotional entanglements of family affect generations, and fundamentally what it means to be a mother.
- November 2022
Bored and bitter married couple George and Martha invite fresh faced Nick and Honey to an after-faculty-party-drinks. Exacerbated by the alcohol and resentment the night quickly unravels to expose both couples’ dysfunctions, George and Martha verbally spar with each other seemingly reaching no palpable limit and in doing so manage to unravel their carefully built irreality.
- October 2022
N.B. this show has been cancelled
A new, student-written horror, ‘Edward’ tackles questions of democracy, our histories, and guilt. John and Billy happen upon each other at an Old Boys event for their college; John’s an admiral and Billy a politician but how exactly the country should be governed is a point of contention. As they reconnect, the spectre of their past begins to haunt them. Their guilt begins to bubble up, as do homoerotic tensions, and they are forced to relive their darkest days of university. Experimenting with the boundary between theatre and performance art, this play aims to unsettle whilst questioning on what kind of men have we built the foundation of our country.
- August 2022
The show will concern itself with the porn industry, including those who work within it and those who consume it. The play deals with the death of a porn actress on set; the whole thing is seemingly a complete accident, a slip of fate. And yet there might be something more to it. The play concerns itself with what happens both immediately before and immediately after the event and its implications.
Really, it’s all about porn and its problems, as well as how it functions within, and is perhaps inseparable from, the way we relate to each other and see the world. And so on, and so on.
- June 2022
Peterhouse's 2022 May Week production is Henrik Ibsen's 'A Doll's House'. Loving wife Nora Helmer's world is turned upside-down when she is blackmailed by an unexpected visitor. However, through this, she begins to see her marriage for what it really is. The subject of widespread controversy during its opening run, Ibsen's drama is now considered a classic of realist theatre.
- June 2021
- November 2019
Arthur Miller's 'A View from the Bridge' is timeless. Following the lives of Italian immigrants within 1950s Brooklyn, Miller raises the question of whether immigrants can ever feel truly at home in a country, or whether instead they will always be subject to feeling like an outsider. It is a play which feels particularly relevant given current discourse across the world about immigration.
Eddie Carbone is a working-class man longshoreman who lives with his wife Beatrice and niece Catherine, a young girl on the verge of womanhood and increasingly becoming the object of Eddie's affections. The family dynamic is disturbed the arrival of Beatrice's cousins Marco and Rodolpho, illegal immigrants from Sicily who are attempting to find work in the States. As Catherine and Rodolpho begin to have feelings for each other, Eddie grows more and more jealous and, narrated by lawyer Alfieri, the play reaches a dramatic climax.
- June 2019
Peterhouse's annual Shakespeare production during May Week. Set in the idyllic Peterhouse Deer Park.
Timon of Athens is a nobleman, a benefactor and a socialite, a man who throws extravagant parties and generously supports a wide network of friends, tradesmen and artists. But when the debts are called in, his ‘friends’ turn cold and his life spirals out of his control. Everything he thought he could count on is eroded beneath him.
One of Shakespeare’s lesser-known plays, this production hopes to revive a more unusual work and bring something fresh to the Cambridge Shakespeare scene.
- March 2019
Howl: An Odyssey is a theatrical reimagining of Homer's epic tale about a complicated king who is never still and always becoming. This new script by Emma Johnson and Evan Silver queers the Homeric text to explore the fluidity of gender and the multiplicity of identity. The story follows Odysseus’ journey of self-revelation across the vast uncharted sea, and his return home to an Ithaca he no longer recognises, to the Ithaca he has yet to become. This odyssey is a constellation of mythic and mundane encounters, a shroud woven between contested narratives, a plunge into the belly of a whale, a prophecy strung by the wings of birds, and an autopsy on the remains of an ancient beast washed up on the shore.
the big mammal theatre project is a fledgling devising organism creating multidisciplinary theatrical experiences about the creature-ness of being human and our place in the family of things. We are, all of us, mammals with spines, with warm blood coursing through our veins. We are interested in exploring the ways our defining mammal characteristics – spine, milk, blood, fur – inform our lives. Is the spine courageous or grounded? Does blood mean passion or rhythm? What is the strength of milkiness? Might re-connecting with our non-binary mammal selves constitute an urgent political act? We hunt canonical texts, the natural world, the weather, dreams and each other for clues, questions, and magic.
Presented with support from the Heywood Society and the Judith E Wilson Studio. Don't hesitate to reach out if you have any questions at ejs209@cam.ac.uk.
- November 2018
The 2018 Peterhouse Fresher's Play.
"Ten strangers are summoned to a remote island. All that the gusts have in common is a wicked past they're unwilling to reveal and a secret that will seal their fate. For each has been marked for murder. As the weather turns and the group is cut off from the mainland, the bloodbath begins and one by one they are brutally murdered in accordance with the lines of a sinister nursery rime".
- August 2018
The experimental multimedia sketch show for the ‘fake news’ era is back.
Set in a world where all comedic speech is banned, the performers start an illicit underground club where they must use physicality, projections, sound and the audience themselves to make you laugh.
Coming to the Fringe fresh from runs in Cambridge, Durham and London, this criminally good devised show with glowing reviews is about the importance of communication, the dangers of censorship and the universal appeal of comedy. Relaxed performances available.
- June 2018
"Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon 'em."
(Malvolio, Act 2 Scene 5)
The idyllic Illyria is home to the confusion, twin-swapping and frivolity of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and it's coming to the pretty Peterhouse Deer Park this May Week! A disastrous shipwreck separates Viola from her twin brother, Sebastian, so deciding to take on his identity seems like the obvious course of action, right? Feste is lined up to teach you how to make really funny jokes (and how to be a true fool), featuring tantalising music to immerse you in this topsy-turvy world of subverted gender roles and reversed identities.
Come and enjoy one of Shakespeare's funnest comedies and unravel the tangled knots of romance and revelry, a perfect addition to your May week festivities!
- April 2018
"Words are cheap. The biggest thing you can say is elephant" - Charlie Chaplin
After a dictatorial decree, all comic speech has been banned and comedians branded in an attempt to secure power. In a ramshackle theatre, a group of intrepid performers stage a new rebellion: using their physicality, subtitles, projections, sound effects, overdub, recorded lines, audio description and the audience themselves to create laughter. Speechless is a devised comedy sketch show about the importance of communication, the dangers of censorship and the universal appeal of comedy.
Narrowly escaping the police after their Cambridge run, the rebel comedians take to the nation's capital for one night only.
- January 2018
"Words are cheap. The biggest thing you can say is elephant" - Charlie Chaplin
After a dictatorial decree, all comic speech has been banned and comedians branded in an attempt to secure power. In a ramshackle theatre, a group of intrepid performers stage a new rebellion: using their physicality, subtitles, projections, sound effects, overdub, recorded lines, audio description and the audience themselves to create laughter.
Speechless is a devised comedy sketch show about the importance of communication, the dangers of censorship and the universal appeal of comedy. It focuses on multimedia and is the first Cambridge comedy show to be BSL interpreted.
In association with the Relaxed Theatre Company.
- January 2018
..."The fantasies were easier because they helped me to avoid…all the things I couldn’t… I was hiding! Hiding from what I didn’t want to deal with. And we can’t do that. We can’t live fantasies"....
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It’s Mother’s Day and Mother is dead. Now her two sons gather into her home to argue about the truth of their childhood. But a storm is approaching...with a violent new truth all of its own.
...."BOOM! AWAKE! BOOM! AWAKE! BOOM! AWAKE! BOOM! AWAKE! ".....
- October 2017
“Imagine - not caring, aw just for a second - just imagine...."
Exams are over - the real world awaits.
One last party. Five chairs, four boys, countless mistakes.
At the dawn of graduation, Benny, Cam, Timp and Mack are confronted with the uncomfortable reality of their dissipating youth and freedom. Laura and Sophie are struggling with their paradoxical desire to grow up yet circumvent responsibility. Faced with an unfamiliar kind of time pressure, they must decide whether to resist or embrace a world that doesn’t seem to want or need them.
Drugs and denial provide the only comfort to all the real and imagined menace that linger beyond the window of their clustered Edinburgh flat. Within sight but safely out of reach.
The temperature rises, the rubbish starts to pile and the emotional cocktail of responsibility, frustration and guilt tips over.
Funny and bleak in equal measure, Ella Hickson’s Boys offers an honest glimpse into the joys and tribulations of growing up. The play cleverly probes and challenges masculine conventions to ask, what happens when the party is over?
- August 2017
It is 1725 and, in the convent of Saint Simeon, another sinner has arrived to repent. Little does this young lady expect to become the audience to one of the most scandalous stories eighteenth century England has to offer.
Bad Habits sees one woman’s struggle to capture the heart of a man who gets bored as soon as they have slept together. Fantomina is forced to don increasingly outlandish disguises in order to secure herself just one more night. With the help of a sarcastic vicar, beleaguered innkeeper and a handful of unconventional nuns, both of our heroines will learn that debauchery is really rather fun, and that perhaps happy endings can be reached without the need for wedding bells.
Bad Habits is the farcical tale of one woman's pursuit of love and sex. But mostly just the sex.
Bad Habits reimagines Godfrey and West's earlier work, Love in a Maze, which was described as "an absolute gem of a show" (CTR, 4 stars) and "astoundingly unconventional" (Varsity, 4 stars).
- June 2017
Claudio loves Hero and Hero loves Claudio, and nothing seems capable of tearing them apart. Claudio‘s friend Benedick loves Beatrice and Beatrice loves Benedick, but nothing seems capable of bringing them together. In this world, irony and sarcasm reign and everyone is dreadfully afraid of being uncool.
Much Ado oozes raw, radical wit and almost begs to be relieved of some of its archaisms and formalities. It is coming to the Peterhouse Deer Park in a stripped-down, young translation; as a modern take on a timeless social dynamic, and a very weird wedding.
Expect new feminist readings of legendary couples, 90's subcultures, grimey dead ends, smokers' corners and some of the finest and most brutal Shakespearean insults.
- February 2017
“I’m in a wood. Before this I was in a city. In that city there were numbers. I cut them into whole numbers. I made chains of them, always the same, like paper dolls.”
Ivan lives in a state defined by whole integers, a state above which the noose of the ‘Hangman’ of village lore hangs, a state however that has realised the efficacy of his groundbreaking scientific work and is hunting him down in order to cut off the potential of his discoveries. Will Ivan be able to escape the clutches of the state, and even if he does, will the darker side of his discovery and the history of his society catch up with him?
Come join us for this exciting new piece of student-penned drama and delve into a world so defined by mechanical processes you'd be hard set to find an apple, let alone an orchard…
- February 2017
“I’m in a wood. Before this I was in a city. In that city there were numbers. I cut them into whole numbers. I made chains of them, always the same, like paper dolls.”
Ivan lives in a state defined by whole integers, a state above which the noose of the ‘Hangman’ of village lore hangs, a state however that has realised the efficacy of his groundbreaking scientific work and is hunting him down in order to cut off the potential of his discoveries. Will Ivan be able to escape the clutches of the state, and even if he does, will the darker side of his discovery and the history of his society catch up with him?
- November 2016
"Oh I have seen enough to torture me"
Peterhouse Fresher's Play Michaelmas 2016
- October 2016
‘This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen’
A mind disintegrates on an empty moor. A country descends into civil war. Power tears apart families and bodies. The world of King Lear, Shakespeare's bleakest and most existential tragedy, is a world stitched together from rags of meaningless cruelty, governed only by the organic strength of the elements. This production – staged outside late at night on bare earth – will use expansive space, open ground and a subconscious fear of the dark to claw your nerves to shreds.
Shiver through the bitter winter night as Ancient Britain meets the present in this oppressively agoraphobic vision of King Lear.
‘Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind’
- June 2016
‘All the world’s a stage…’
Duke Senior’s throne has been usurped by his brother Frederick, Oliver de Boys is conspiring against his brother Orlando’s life, the old duke’s daughter Rosalind has left the world of the court behind her and fled to the Forest of Arden, a wonderland of mistaken identities, doting lovers and new liberation.
Join us in Peterhouse Deer Park for an afternoon of heartbreak, hilarity, music, magic and wrestling. We encourage audience members to bring picnic blankets, food and drinks to soak up some sun and Shakespeare in this idyllic setting.
- March 2016
‘Where white is black and black is white, I won.’
Enter the world of Crow. This is a world of infinite blackness where tradition means nothing, where God has lost his power and where simply enduring is all that you can hope for. Crow’s ominous figure is woven into a tapestry of global mythology, folk-tale and religion, and through his observations of life he gradually deconstructs the legitimacy of social custom, unearthing the kernel of human truth that exists within us all.
This new adaptation of Ted Hughes’ remarkable poetry collection CROW is birthed in a stunning frenzy of light, sound, music and performance.
Come and hear the darkness sing.
- February 2016
Dee has not seen Mary for years. Dee has little to nothing in common with Mary. Dee is bailing Mary out of jail. Dee is Mary's daughter.
No matter how hard we try, and how far we go, our families always manage to pull us back in. Dee realises this whilst trying to unravel the mystery of her puritanical mother's jail time at the same time as confronting her beloved father’s recent death.
Over the course of three days – being forced to share the same house again after years of distance – Dee and Mary rediscover what they have always loved, and hated, about one another.
- 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.
