Productions
Between November 1938 and September 1939, some 10,000 children, mostly Jewish, travelled to Britain from Germany to escape persecution. Diane Samuels’ play charts the story of nine year old Eva who begins a new life in Manchester. When her parents fail to join her, Eva begins a process of adopting a new culture and denying her roots. The play also explores the complexity of mother/daughter relationships and the pain of letting go.
Stumble down Llaregyb Hill towards the sea and you will discover a village fast and slow asleep; a village whose history is poetry and dreams; a village populated by gossips, poisoners, lovers and ghosts.
Sometimes funny, sometimes sad, but always beautiful, Under Milk Wood invites the audience to explore the innermost thoughts and desires of over sixty unforgettable characters, including time-obsessed Lord Cut-Glass, Bessie Bighead and her cows, Jack Black with his religious trousers, and blind old Captain Cat who communes with the dead.
Canterbury Players adaptation of The Wind in the Willows is a well loved story about friendship, resilience and defiance. This contemporary production sees the friends struggling in a modern world of the vanishing countryside. Fast paced and exciting, this is a story about Rat, Mole and Badger who endeavour to save their friend Toad from ruin and Toad Hall from the Weasels!
Hedda and George are home from their honeymoon. She knows she has made a big mistake and is bored, so very bored. Brack the lawyer offers to relieve her boredom just as Eilert Lovborg comes back into her life after several years of absence. And so Hedda begins the manipulations that fail to go to plan and lead to her dramatic downfall.
"The play's the thing..." Shakespeare's iconic drama, Hamlet, unfolds around two of its minor characters, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who unwittingly lead the bewildering action from behind the scenes. Through the bizarre encounters and episodes they witness, these hapless heroes try to make sense of everything from the meaning of life and free will to who they really are, before they shuffle off this mortal coil...
Tom Stoppard's absurdly hilarious modern classic unfolds with infamous wit, wonderfully weird characters and razor sharp dialogue.
Just in time for Halloween, The Canterbury Players are delighted to present our spookiest production yet.
The blood curdling tale of the Headless Hessian has always been a favourite of the residents of Sleepy Hollow but it isn't until the arrival of the new schoolmaster that things take a spooky turn. Can Ichabod enjoy a contented life in this little village full of strangeness and wonder? Or will the forces of darkness ultimately lead him down a very different path........
“Hell must be a heart filled with unheard stories…”
Bethlem Royal Hospital, the Criminal Wing for the Insane. 1854. Two Doctors, Charles Hood and George Haydon, are angered by the cruel, inhumane treatment of patients. They struggle to reform old fashioned attitudes with more a progressive outlook.
What The Butler Saw is a side-splitting frantic farce written by the English playwright Joe Orton. It is set in a psychiatric clinic yet there isn't a madman in sight. The bizarre proceedings stem from Dr Prentice's efforts to conceal his attempted seduction of his prospective secretary. What follows is a hilarious spectacle of disintegration; normality crack and the characters descent into mental, physical and sexual confusion.
The Canterbury Players are delighted to be returning in spring 2017 to The Playhouse Theatre, Whitstable with this contemporary classic
After a long civil war England is enjoying a period of calm under Edward, leader of the Yorkist tribe. However, Edward’s younger sibling, Gloucester, who secretly resents the power and happiness of others, plots to seize the precarious throne. The tribe of Lancaster has other ideas. This is England then, now and in the future; a disjointed country where a political system has gone wrong, leading to extreme treachery, dogged loyalty, horrendous violence and the terrifying reign of Richard III.
When Sir Charles Baskerville is found dead on his estate, with a look of terror still etched on his face, and the paw prints of a gigantic hound beside his body, the great detective Sherlock Holmes is summoned from Baker Street, with Dr Watson in tow, to unravel the mysteries surrounding his death, and investigate the ancient curse of the Hound of the Baskervilles…