On Thursday June 14th the 35 Drama GCSE Students in the LVth crossed the road to the Prep School in…
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Drama News
Beasts and Beauties
Squeezed in the midst of exams, the Junior Play is annually charged with lifting everyone’s spirits and Nikki Lockwood’s exceptional…
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Student Playwriting Competition
On Friday 11th May 2012 the Vivian Cox Theatre became the site of Will Stocks’ (LVI, North) playwriting debut. The…
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National Youth Theatre and International Student Drama Festival successes for Cranleighans
Each year a number of Cranleigh students audition for a place with the prestigious National Youth Theatre (NYT). All auditionees…
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The Infant
The eponymous infant looms large in the Cherry Tree’s latest production, though the child never makes it on-stage. Instead, Cranleigh…
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The Producers
There is only one place to start this review: with Bialystock and Bloom. As with Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder…
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“The Happiest Days of Your Life”: A Student’s View
The demon headmaster has not graced the television sets of the nation for a number of years, however from the…
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The Happiest Play of Their Lives
North House brought a light cheer to the cold evenings before Long Leave (7th-9th February) with ‘The Happiest Days of…
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Cubitt House Play: “The Shoemaker’s Wife”
The hubbub of the audience slowly receded to reveal the soft melodies of Ben Cox and Oscar Reeve whose mellow…
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‘Lovesong’ – a show by Frantic Assembly
On Tuesday 24th January the LVth, accompanied by JLC, NIL, IMA and LJB, travelled to the Lyric Hammersmith theatre to…
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Frantic Assembly Workshop
The LVIth have to prepare a piece of theatre in the style of a chosen practitioner for their A-Level Coursework,…
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A Midsummer Night’s Dream
You might have seen it done in another theatre. You might have studied it, just read it, or seen a…
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The Rum Doodlers
Cranleigh has some pedigree in producing playwrights, with OCs Al Smith and Patrick Marber still active. It is a new…
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East House Plays, part 1: Trammel
The first play in the East House double-bill was ‘Trammel’ (2009) by Michael Lesslie, a hard-hitting play about the public…
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Pupil’s Own Play Produced to Amuse
Cranleigh School can boast at least two living professional playwrights among its former pupils: Al Smith and Patrick Marber. But…
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Ibsen’s ‘Ghosts’
There has always been room for truly serious drama at Cranleigh and it doesn’t get more serious than ‘Ghosts’. It…
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Short Plays by Samuel Beckett
Trying to describe the effect his own unique brand of theatre had on its audience, the author of En Attendant…
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Cubitt House Play
The Cubitt play in the VCT was a collection of comedy sketches ingeniously compiled, slightly touched-up (ooh, Matron!) and co-directed…
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West House Play
The West Play ‘It’s Not You It’s Me’ took over the VCT for three nights, directed by Sophia Ambrose, Milly…
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Rhinoceros
Another play of Ionesco, ‘La Cantatrice Chauve’, can still be seen in its original production in Paris today at La…
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South House Play: “Arsenic and Old Lace”
Chelsea, World War Two, a genteel boarding house run by three charming elderly sisters. Doilies and “old lace” were much…
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Loveday House Play: “The dog it was that died”
Tom Stoppard’s radio play “The dog it was that died” was given a fresh outing in the VCT this term,…
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John Ford’s Classic Carolean Play: “‘Tis Pity”
Che morte piu dolche morire per amore? The audience for the first night of Martin Allison’s adaptation of Ford’s 1629…
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‘By Jeeves’
Jeeves and Wooster stand alone in the pantheon of England’s comic literary heroes. For generations of Wodehouse aficionados the amiable,…
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Common Room Play
The Common Room Play, Terrence Rattigan’s ‘The Browning Version’, was a rare opportunity for Cranleighans to witness first-hand the skills…
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Satire Double Bill
It was an inspired concept of director Martin Allison to couple Dario Fo’s ‘Accidental Death of an Anarchist’ with a…
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Actors from North and East on Show
This term’s North House plays was a series of short sketches and they unveiled some hidden acting talent within the…
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The Magic and Enchantment of Into the Woods
“Into the Woods” genuinely transformed the Cranleigh School Speech Hall into the fairy-tale world which the over-arching slogan in the…
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Cubittians Tread the Boards!
The History Boys Alan Bennett’s play is an ambitious and interesting choice for a house play. It asks some important…
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West Wows the Teechers!
‘Teechers’ has now become something of a period piece: I rather suspect the actors I saw in Cranleigh’s last house…
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Spotlight on Junior Thespians
What a difference a play makes…in refreshing an audience during examination season. From the opening song (made a hit by…
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LVth Drama Workshop & Performance
20 LVth Drama students were involved in a physical theatre storytelling workshop this week from acclaimed theatre company ‘Les Enfants…
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House Play Reviews
The Loveday House Play filled the VCT with raucous laughter, giving the audiences an experience to remember. The whole play…
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Noises Off!
This year’s senior school production of Michael Frayn’s “Noises Off” epitomised farcical comedy, providing its audience with an evening filled…
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Les Enfants Terribles
This week the LVIth Drama students enjoyed a puppetry and physicality workshop from theatre company Les Enfants Terribles who last summer…
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The Spotlight for Arthur
Arthur Handscomb (North 4th form) has won a place in the National Youth Music Theatre’s 2015 Company. Rehearsals for this…
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Romeo and Juliet
The Lent term School play, Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’, runs for two more nights in the Speech Hall this week.…
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Junior Play: After Juliet
The Junior Play from 19th- 20th May (the first of two this summer) was the second Cranleigh production of Sharman MacDonald’s…
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The Canterbury Tales
One of the many good things about Cranleigh is the way that the community manages to maintain a sense of…
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Physical Theatre
LVIth Drama students visited the National Theatre Studio this week to take part in a workshop introducing them to Commedia dell’arte. Commedia…
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Creating wonderland!
This term’s production of Alice has been keeping students and staff very busy behind the scenes. It is an immersive…
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Alice in our own Wonderland
Cranleigh’s Speech Hall has been splendidly transformed into a world of fantasy and dreams for this week’s ground-breaking immersive-theatre production…
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One Girl, Two Nightmares.
Not for over five years has a student-written production graced the stage of the VCT, but it made an impressive return.…
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Loveday Delight With A Collection of One-Act Plays
The Loveday House play, as the name suggests, was a compilation of sketch shows from famous television sketches such as…
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“What a gem! What a pearl!”
To borrow a phrase from the musical’s smarmy and avaricious Innkeeper: “What a gem! What a pearl!” Under the loyal and affectionate…
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‘Treasure Island’ Treat
The first of two Junior Plays to be staged in the VCT this term – ‘Treasure Island’ – was not only…
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“Every centimetre alpha-plus”
Miss Seville and Miss Leach (with the able assistance of Adam Forrester) embarked on a brave and audacious effort in…
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Treading the Boards
During last summer term IVth form Drama students worked towards their Bronze Level Arts Award, a new initiative delivered by the…
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‘The Arsonists’
This year’s North House play – with members of West – was a well-produced and brilliantly acted staging of Max…
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East House Entertain
The East House Play – with members of South – filled the VCT with raucous laughter, giving the audience an…
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Riotous and Heart-Warming
‘A Flea in Her Ear’ follows Raymonde Chandebise, deftly portrayed with verve and energy by PJ Cunningham, who begins to…
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Audience Wowed by ‘Anna Karenina’
Anna Karenina’ is perhaps an unusual choice for a school play. Transferring the many layers of emotional complexity with the…
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Fourth Form drama students achieve Bronze Level Arts Award
During the summer term Fourth Form drama students worked towards their Bronze level Arts Award, a nationally recognised qualification which…
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‘Girls Like That’
The South House Play, “Girls Like That”, tackled a hugely prominent and contemporary topic, which is highly relevant to teenagers…
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Enron – ‘bursting the bubble’
A theatrical epic which sought to expose the shadowy mechanisms of the financial world, this term’s production of Lucy Prebble’s…
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Actors of Dionysus
Last night the Classics and Drama departments co-hosted a blistering new production of Sophocles’ Antigone, presented by the professional touring…
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AS Performance
On the 11th of May the Lower Sixth Form Drama students performed the first of their three Practical elements for…
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The Jungle Theatre Trip
The Redgrave Theatre Society enjoyed a weekend trip to see The Jungle, a powerful dramatic portrayal of life in the…
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Verbatim Workshop
On Wednesday 26th October our Sixth Form Drama students took part in a verbatim workshop run by The Paper Birds…
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Punk Rock opening night: A wake up call for our times?
At the end of the play, 17 year old Will Carlisle asks his psychologist, played by Annie Chrispin, what it…
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High School Musical Junior Production
Cranleigh School’s Junior Production merrily sprinkles some much-needed musical sweetness over school life at the perfect time of term, when…
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Narnia
Can you imagine a world without Christmas? Can you imagine a perpetual winter that never ends, a subjugated people forever…
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King Charles III: Review
Over the course of last week, Speech Hall was abuzz with the senior play; the culmination of months of hard…
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The Show Must Go On
Our Theatre Tech team has been hard at work preparing for upcoming shows in the Speech Hall. Pupils are learning…
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Black Comedy: Review
This term Cranleigh Drama presented us with two crowd-pleasing productions that had the audience riding wave upon wave of laughter,…
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The Musicians: Review
Presented against all odds as part of Cranleigh Drama’s comedy double bill for Michaelmas 2020 was The Musicians by OC…
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House Film Competition
Lockdown inevitably highlighted a need to focus on aspects of mental wellness. So, this term we’ve explored more film-based Drama…
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