- May 2023
In a time where everything is recorded and pictures mark high significance in our day-to-day lives, our memories are slowly becoming less personal and increasingly digitised. An appreciation of our own history and of the people around us keep our worlds ticking on. In an attempt to breathe new-life into these memories, a once forgotten time-capsule of thoughts, emotions and songs explode onto the stage. This piece of newly devised theatre reflects on the interviews of real people about real memories. This show is being performed as part of the Part IB Education Tripos Theatre Production paper.
- January 2022
The Madingley Mad Hatters present: The Grey Area! A showcase of pieces written, directed and performed by the students of MSt Writing for Performance.
in order of performance
A COLD, COLD DISH
Written & Directed by Liz Pidoux
With Maria Messias Mendes, Su Tuncer, Elie Bouakaze-Khan, Georgie Wedge
SOMETHING INTRINSICALLY CRINGE ABOUT THEATRE
Written & Directed by Michal Vojtech With Linseigh Green, Andreana Chan
LE TOUR DE L'HOMME
Written by Thomas Mullen - Directed by Shola Lee With Rowan Hand, Thomas Mullen, Persephone Sioufi
CHELO INTERLUDE
Performed by Rowan Hand
SOLIFUGE
Written and Directed by Maria Messias Mendes With Su Tuncer, Patrick Bayele, Adei Bundy
FACT. ASSUMPTION. CONCLUSION.
Written and Performed by Rowan Hand
BEHIND THE SCENES
Maria Messias Mendes, Shola Lee, Persephone Sioufi, Upasana Kadam
- November 2018
“It’s been there two weeks.
Just sitting there.
In the middle of the pavement…”
Matthew is painfully average.
He lives in a featureless room in a high-rise flat. He has a job he doesn’t understand, neighbours he can hear through paper-thin walls and a little brother awaiting execution for murder.
But none of that matters to Matthew. He's too busy panicking over a table that has appeared on the street outside. No one will touch it. No one will take it away.
And he just can't understand why it's there.
I Need You To Be Quiet Now is an ambitious one-man show exploring obsession and the conversations we try to avoid.
- February 2016
“Do you believe in the afterlife?”
A young woman dies suddenly and unexpectedly. Her friends plan a cleansing trip to the seaside. All is not what it seems, and the mechanics of death aren’t quite what they should be. Who is Hurtle T., how did Adrianne really die, and why are there ghosts everywhere?
Meet jeering Adrian, absent-minded Romania, foppish Birch, the self-proclaimed Ex-Ghost, and, at the centre of it all, Susanne herself and her tragic decline.
A comic and unsettlingly dark film heavy with theatrical ambiance, Susanne is a twisted foray into some of humanity's deepest fears.
It can be watched on Youtube via the following link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGSUeDyjSwc
- November 2015
In return for aid in war, King Pandion of Athens gives his daughter in marriage to Tereus, King of Thrace. But once in Thrace, Procne misses her sister Philomele and sets out to fetch her from Athens. On the way back Tereus deceives and seduces Philomele, silencing her by tearing out her tongue.
An adaptation of the Ancient Greek legend of the rape of Philomela by her brother-in-law Tereus, and the gruesome revenge undertaken by Philomela and her sister Procne. The play takes a feminist look at the ancient tale.
Timberlake Wertenbaker combines elements from Greek myth and the history and drama of classical Greece to make a play that is as original as it is modern.
- June 2015
Trouble is brewing in London as Harry and Bill receives an anonymous phone call, followed by a visit from a young man who refuses to leave his name. The visitor turns out to be James, who confronts Bill with the accusation that Bill had a one-night affair with his wife Stella. Attraction, affairs and ambiguity soon fill this one-hour play. Don’t miss out on this Pinter classic that unravels the difficulties and delight of being “in” and “out” of love.
Check out the preview video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEpzWwcLka8&feature=youtu.be
Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/902904863083942/
TICKETS HERE: https://www.cambridgehats.org.uk/book-online/
- June 2015
When David Cameron finds out he hasn't won a majority in the 2010 election, one of the most turbulent terms in British politics ensues. His unlikely partnership with Nick Clegg witnesses riots on the streets of London, sexy scandals, and the Green Party's disillusionment culminating in a terrorist attack which irrevocably shakes the country. A satire of our perception of politics.
A once-in-a-Cambridge-lifetime opportunity to satirise and reflect on our political culture following an election!
- February 2015
The year is 1669 - a bawdy and troublesome time. The theatres have just reopened after seventeen years of suppression under the Puritans, encouraging a great surge in dramatic writing. Of vital importance to the development of drama was the entrance of the first actresses upon the English stage.
When considering the role of women and their position in theatre 'Playhouse Creatures' is a fascinating look back at the routes of the ‘actress’ as we know her. This tragicomedy is undoubtedly one that will showcase the importance of female acting in Cambridge and will subsequently evoke thoughts about the relevance of the modern actress.
- December 2014
This version of Frank Wedekind's extraordinary play Spring Awakening was specially commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company. The themes it addresses and the sheer energy of the writing make this masterpiece of German symbolism startlingly relevant today.
With its scenes of pubescent angst and sexual outspokenness, the play still, more than one hundred years after it was first staged, has the power to shock. Ted Hughes's rendition lends the dialogue a particularly modern terseness and bite, drawing out all the erotic energy of the original.
- March 2014
"I ofen looked up at the sky an' assed meself the question - what is the moon, what is the stars?"
Dublin 1922. The bitter civil war between the Die-hard Republicans and the Free-Staters continues. Amidst the chaos, in an overcrowded tenement flat, the long suffering Juno Boyle desperately tries to keep the family together. Unemployed, 'Captain' Jack Boyle drinks his way through life with his side-kick Joxer Daly. Their daughter, Mary, is on strike. Their son, Johnny, injured fighting in the IRA cowers in doors, petrified.
A visit from an English solicitor changes everything. A distant relative has died and the family have come into an inheritance. An escape from a world that's falling apart.
A comedy, a tragedy, a story of survival and human will, Sean O' Casey's Juno and the Paycock is one of the greatest plays of the 20th century.
'Searing, sobering, devastating and beautiful.' Sunday Independent
‘Intensely moving.' Sunday Independent
'A mesmerising mix of comedy and tragedy.' Daily Mail
- February 2014
Orwell’s ‘Animal Farm', originally subtitled 'A Fairy Story' is arguably one of the most significant pieces of fictional political satire ever written. Adapted for the stage by Guy Materson in 1994, this production will adopt a modern, abstract approach.
"A brilliant adaptation which delights with its physical grace and artistry. It's complex and entirely theatrical; a combination of bravura acting and poetic storytelling which milks new nuance and meaning!" – THE SCOTSMAN
"ANIMAL MAGIC! This famous tale is ignited, bringing both humour and a sinister aspect to the rhetoric of the upwardly mobile pigs" – THE HERALD
Originally written in 1945, the performance will re-establish the central issues of the novel placing them in the context of the twenty first century. The adaptation toys with the 'dog eat dog' nature of our society and the cruelty of mankind. This particular production focuses on multi-role play, caricatures and stylized movement. Orwell's allegorical cult tale is brought to the stage in this harrowing adaptation which integrates powerful acting with movement and music.
"Man serves the interests of no creature except himself. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy. Whatever goes upon four legs or has wings is a friend. All the habits of Man are evil."
- December 2013
HATStands is Homerton's termly talent show and this year it's undergoing a thrilling enthralling all singing all dancing revamp: we're going to be sending you all off home for Christmas with a (metaphorical) glittering confetti-filled bang. We will be providing our audience with an array of performance treats including improv sketches and group drama sketches, dances, singers and musicians, comedy monologues and new writing! Chill out with your friends nibbling on sweeties and snacks while we entertain you, and join us for a few in the Homerton bar afterwards. It's going to be a night to remember!
- November–December 2013
The HATS Freshers Play 2013 offers a performance platform for all new students across the University, and provides the opportunity to take part in an exciting performance entirely created by freshers. Our freshers' play 2013 is Tom Stoppard's 'Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead'.
Heads... Heads... Heads... A game of heads or tails takes us into the world of Shakespeare's Hamlet, in which Rosencrantz and Guildenstern find themselves caught up in the world of court diplomacy. Tom Stoppard's tragicomedy follows the befuddled journey of these two comic characters through a literary classic, raising questions from the profoundly philosophical to the humorously trivial.
- November 2013
How could it happen?
Doesn't God hear our agony?
During World War 2 in Auschwitz Concentration Camp a group of male prisoners waiting to discover their faith of either hard labour or death decide to put God on Trial. The charge is that God has broken his covenant he made with the Jewish people by allowing the Nazis to commit Genocide. With the knowledge that their death is almost certainly imminent, the prisoners put forward their arguments, raising fundamental questions concerning religion, morality and the purpose of human existence. The journey to a verdict leads us through the Jewish faith and the personal experiences of the prisoners. Preconceptions are consistently challenged by each argument presented. This is a play where reason and emotion collide in an atmosphere of desperation.
God on Trial written by Frank Cottrell Boyce was originally aired on television and has now been adapted into a play. This is an intense, dramatic play that promises to be a challenging and powerful piece of theatre.
Reviews for God on Trial when aired:
"The nature and existence of God, the nature and necessity of faith, the role humans occupy in the universe and, most important, how to reconcile the idea of a loving deity with the ongoing tragedy of war and genocide. They are big topics addressed with a striking lack of sentimentality, quite a feat considering the setting. You will weep, but you will also think." Los Angeles Times
"It asks a profound and relevant question: how could a benign and loving God allow the Holocaust to happen?" Telegraph
"Surely the most beautiful thing ever written" The Guardian
- May 2013
Three young adults in a grown up world. Or are they? A drunken night of self-contemplation, Jessica's father and disruptive situations result in revelations of a different kind for the three flat-mates.
- May 2013
"I wish I could see some different colours. There must be some more behind that door. I know there are a lot more than this, more than just one type of green, one dark blue, a black that makes your eyes hurt and a horrible kind of yellow.
Because if you look outside you can see things… Big, green and brown and blue things, everywhere… it’s really nice, like a painting."
The audience become a fly on the wall inside a children’s care home, we grow familiar with six children, but no adults. Some are big kids, others are too young, all are ruined. Surreal, witty and disturbing.
- March 2013
Othello's Desdemona speaking from the underworld, a chance for her to finally have a voice. Through monologues, music and physical theatre she reveals the truths of 'Othello' and shows the forgiving nature of love and friendship.
- March 2013
In Wicked, originally performed in 1990 by the women ex-prisoner's theatre group Clean Break, 'Bailey, a travelling showman, has a menagerie of wicked women he keeps in boxes for the delectation of audiences...very funny, it unlocks lives most of us don't know very much about' (Guardian).
- February 2013
Two pieces of new writing encouraging experimentation regarding characterisation, physicality and staging.
'Medea' by Rhianna Frost and Caitlin Derham
"This tainted filth, this broken doll. China on the floor at his feet, but the voice-box still in one piece, crying out for a love strong enough to heal."
An exploration of the inner psyche of one very complicated female, inspired by the works of Euripides, Tenessee Williams and Sarah Kane.
'Visiting' by Ciaran Chillingworth
A man arrives at an address written on a note he found on his desk. He assumes he is supposed to be looking for something or someone but all he finds is a brother and sister doing the washing, who, aside from a few references to an unknown crying girl, seem intent on making his job as difficult as possible...
‘Visiting’ is a new play that explores the tensions between characters caught up in the oddities and uncertainties of daily routine.
"Hollow. Empty. Thud. The voices call to me"
"On the basis of tonight’s deeply odd extract, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more of her [Frost's] work on the Corpus stage in future." - Hatch Round-up, The Cambridge Student
- March 2012
Dana, Ruth and Jess down shots to console the heart-broken, to comfort the anxious and just pass the time. Kicked out from the family home Jess’s Dad, Jim, invades the party with just as much recklessness as the girls. As the night passes and vodka bottles are emptied, Friday night in becomes high drama. An unruly new comedy asking if age equals maturity.
- February 2012
'You've found out something secret. You know that don't you?'
A girl clutching a teddy bear. A homely kitchen. A comforting aunt.
Caryl Churchill's Far Away may seem perfectly benign at first glance. But this idyllic image soon descends into dystopia as we discover it's no nightmare that Joan (the girl) is suffering from. Churchill takes us into a world of chaos and confusion where Latvian dentists can't be trusted and the elephants have gone over to the Dutch. The words may seem surreal, but with its undertones of real-world atrocities is this world really as 'Far Away' from our own as we'd like to think?
You'll never be able to look at a hat the same way again...
- February 2012
One woman: 'Her Big Chance' from Allan Bennett's 'Talking Heads'
- March 2011
The protagonist of the play, a compelling woman of more than ninety years old, reflects on her life with a mixture of shame, pleasure, regret, and satisfaction. She recalls the fun of her childhood and her marriage, when she had an overwhelming optimism for her future. Yet she bitterly recalls the negative events that resulted in regret: her husband’s extramarital affairs, the death of her husband, and the estrangement of her gay son. The woman’s relationship with her son is the clearest indication that Albee was working through some troubled memories of his own in Three Tall Women. The playwright was raised by conservative New England foster parents who disapproved of his homosexuality. Like the son in his play, he left home at eighteen. Albee admitted to the Economist that the play ‘‘was a kind of exorcism. And I didn’t end up any more fond of the woman after I finished it than when I started it.’’
- March 2011
Set in an English country house, in the 1920’s, Judith Bliss, an incandescent star of the London Stage, is now sampling the mixed blessings of early retirement with her family. Best described as a cross between high farce and a comedy of bad manners, the play deals with the four eccentric members of the Bliss family and their outlandish behaviour when they each invite a guest to spend the weekend at the family home. The self-centred behaviour of the hosts finally drive their guests to flee while the Bliss’s are so engaged in a family row that they do not notice their guests' furtive departure!
‘With its wit, precision and sheer outrageousness, Noël Coward's Hay Fever is often seen as a quintessentially English comedy.’ (Guardian 2006)
- March 2011
Set in an English country home in the 1920s, 'Hay Fever' is a comedy of 'bad' manners about the Bliss family whose theatrical behaviour torments their guests. Judith, a recently retired stage actress, David, a self-absorbed novelist and their two equally bohemian children (who all live in their own world where the boundaries between reality and fiction are extremely blurred), repeatedly throw their unsuspecting guests into wildly melodramatic situations by their hosts.
- May 2010
- February 2010
Some people say God created humanity. Others say we evolved from monkeys. What if they were both right? Dawn of Man is the hilarious new comedy by David Stevenson that charts God’s quest to transform chimps into humans, with all the problems and pitfalls along the way. Join the self important Lord, his downtrodden assistant Cyril, and 4 loveable apes as they encounter the difficulties of walking, talking and run-ins with the Devil’s rival Neanderthal species and the results of “that night” with Mary to come out the other side as the fully modern humans we’ve come to know and love today. A nominee for the 2009 Footlights Harry Porter Prize, this show is guaranteed to tickle your God-evolved funny bones. Dawn of Man tries to merge the two conflicting theories of creationism and Darwinian evolution with a comic slant, with a mixture of physical theatre, subtle wordplay and good ol’ fashioned jokes. With a wide range of characters, from God himself to his evil sister the Devil through apes and scientists this is a show not to miss.
- November 2009
HATS Freshers' Play 2009
- October 2009
In this zany musical we meet Reverend Mother Regina, a former circus performer; Sister Mary Hubert, the Mistress of Novices; a streetwise nun from Brooklyn named Sister Robert Anne; Sister Mary Leo, a novice who is a wannabe ballerina; and the delightfully wacky Sister Mary Amnesia, the nun who lost her memory when a crucifix fell on her head. Featuring star turns,tap and ballet dancing, an audience quiz, and comic surprises, this show has become an international phenomenon.
- May 2009
- February–March 2009
HATS Freshers' Show 2009
‘We left our country for our country’s good’
Funny, poignant and thought-provoking, ‘Our Country’s Good’ is the true story of the first convicts transported to Australia: how, despite the dangers of hunger and disease and so-called justice, the criminals manage, with the help of Lieutenant Ralph Clark, to produce a play – showing the true universal power of theatre to connect, and to humanise.
‘Theatre is like a small republic, it requires private sacrifices for the good of the whole’
- May 2008
- March 2008
- November 2007
The scheming fraudster Tartuffe has weaselled his way into the house (and heart) of Orgon, a wealthy old man whose desire to emulate his 'saintly' friend has resulted in giving Tartuffe almost all of his possessions. Not content with Orgon's monetary gifts (and the offer of marrying his daughter Marianne) Tartuffe attempts to seduce Orgon's wife, Elmire, who is having none of it. With the entire household desperate to reveal Tartuffe's true nature to the deluded Orgon (and his even more deluded mother Mme Pernelle) they set up a trap to catch him out. Orgon finally sees things for what they truly are...but is it too late?
- March 2007
A Shakespearean masterpiece of the highest order, Romeo and Juliet know all about love, hate and passion. But two worlds exist: one of dignity and tradition, where appearance is everything and the family is king; and one of fantasy, overshadowed by the lovers’ morbid destiny. Don’t expect a mere portrayal of a classic; this new HATS production delivers a powerfully colourful spectacle, which entices both artistically and emotionally.
- November 2006
“Dear Diary, Since you and I will be great friends, I will start by telling you about myself…”
A dramatisation which successfully captures the spirit of a teenage girl pre-occupied with film stars and boys and the energy and enthusiasm for life so evident in the diary which immortalised Anne Frank.
Tense and poignant yet hopeful throughout, this account of the years Anne endured in hiding with her family and four others explores their day to day survival in a cramped and strained environment.
Despite cat allergies, cigarette cravings and rotting potatoes a tragically overwhelming sense of optimism prevails from a girl whose life was turned upside down yet still had the faith and maturity to believe “in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart".
Each show will be followed by a talk from a Holocaust survivor.
