Performances - Forthcoming Events

"...San Francisco is gone. Nothing remains of it but memories ..." Jack London, 1906

The Italian opera singer Enrico Caruso was at the height of his fame when he performed Carmen at the San Francisco Opera House in April 1906. He woke-up the next morning to find his hotel room collapsing on top of him. The Quake tells of Caruso's escape through the earthquake, the fires and the army guns powdering the city. But can he shake off the ghosts from his past and the terrible choices he has to make to survive?

Beautiful storytelling and live opera singing combine to reveal the heart behind a legend featuring live music from Puccini, Rossini, Leoncavallo, Tosti and the immortal song that Caruso introduced to the World: "O Sole mio".

A Prodigal Theatre collaboration with Andrew G Marshall in association with Richard Jordan Productions.

Developed with The Nightingale Theatre, supported by The National Lottery through the Arts Council England.

Opera singing with a pure fresh quality - The Scotsman

Compelling - The Stage

A good sympathetic actor - British Theatre Guide

Enormous warmth - East Anglian Daily Times

Written and directed by Dario Fo

Translated & performed by Mario Pirovano

A celebration of life, liberty, truth and devotion - the story of Saint Francis of Assisi.

Italy's most important living playwright shows us some remarkable episodes from the life of one of the world's best-loved saints.

Performed by Mario Pirovano, Fo's great friend and collaborator, the play is a delightful slice of life in medieval Italy and full of relevance for our lives today.

A tale of courtiers, Popes, Cardinals, generals and peasants, Saints and sinners - even Jesus himself; a great pageant of characters brought to life through a remarkable performance that sparks the imagination and delights the soul.

This production is the most entertaining and funny history lesson you could hope to see, given a captivating performance by the charismatic Pirovano - David Chadderton ***** British Theatre Guide

Fresh from the 2010 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Ginny Davis returns to The Stahl by popular demand with another cleverly observed and witty one woman show.

Ruth Rich, modern "sandwich generation" mother of day-school teenagers can cope with school detentions, driving lessons and her own mother's confusion but lands in trouble when she spares the truth in an effort to keep up appearances with the socially ambitious mother of her son's public school friend. Where there are sex, lies and videotape, the truth will always out ... and she discovers that what others have been hiding is much more interesting ...

Bridget Jones meets Outnumbered in this funny and sharply written family comedy - BBC Radio

All profit from this performance will go to the Thommy Purbrook General Scholarship Fund established in memory of Oundle School pupil Thommy Purbrook whose tragic death from meningitis in December 2008 has led to a Fund designed to offer pupils whose parents would otherwise not be able to afford it the chance of an education at Oundle School.

Christopher Wren loved him; Isaac Newton loathed him. Robert Hooke, genius of the 17th century, provoked intense loyalty, jealousy and hatred. An ingenious man, a true polymath and yet somehow "England's' Leonardo" was written out of History. Was he buried by another Da Vinci plot?

Like Da Vinci, Hooke was a fine artist, an extraordinary engineer and an accomplished architect, largely responsible for rebuilding London after the
Great Fire - significantly the Monument, St Paul's and the Greenwich Royal Observatory.

Moreover, as Curator of Experiments for the Royal Society, Hooke poured out a stream of brilliant concepts on universal gravity, the evolution of species and atomic theory - even anticipating modern wave theory. Robert Hooke was one of the fathers of modern science but he had powerful enemies - after his death, even his portrait strangely disappeared.

And then, in 2006, a three hundred year old manuscript was mysteriously discovered in a cupboard in a country house in Hampshire ... the long lost folio of Robert Hooke.

In hot-blooded times, passions explode!

A sudden storm shipwrecks a pair of twins on the coast of Illyria and they are thrown, each believing the other to be dead, into a mad world of obsessed love, suppressed desire and repressed appetite. How will Viola and Sebastian survive and through what tangled web must they manoeuvre to be reunited? The plot unfolds in the houses and grounds of neighbouring estates and the drama is populated by such larger than life characters as the drunken Sir Toby Belch, the hypocritical Malvolio and the fool Feste. Shakespeare's comedy still strikes at the heart of what love is and the despair and joy to which it can lead.

The rain it raineth ev'ry day.

Oundle School pupils present a new production of Shakespeare's most musical play set in the immediate aftermath of World War I and directed by Ali Boag with designs by Ali Dean.

Cuckolded, worn-out and feared, Andrew Crocker-Harris is a senior classics teacher at a prominent English public school who is being forced into semi-retirement because of illness. He is disliked by pupils and fellow teachers alike and harassed by both his vicious wife and a condescending Headmaster. The Browning Version is the story of how 'The Crock' finds redemption in one small act of kindness. His relationship with one pupil changes the way that he thinks about his fellow human beings and allows him to find the determination to stand up to those who would belittle him.

Directed by Samuel Taylor and performed by members of Laxton House, the play not only examines relationships between teachers and pupils, but also those
between adults in a school environment. A darkly amusing, tense and inspiring drama, this production will leave an impression on all who see it.

Ex-pro rugby league player Arthur's passions in life are his wife and his beloved game. When he hears about the Cobblers Arms pub team and their corrupt manager, Arthur makes a bet with Reg that he can train any team to beat them. At stake are his life savings.

However, the Wheatsheaf Arms can only muster a side of four whose pride lies in their unbroken record of defeat. The pitifully unfit set of men has to accept the help of a coach ... who just happens to be a woman.

Grafton House presents a new production of this popular comedy under the direction of Julius Carrell.

Will the team come together in time? ...

This emotionally charged double-bill of dance-inspired physical theatre has been capturing audiences since the premières in Sweden and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The first piece, Enough, features a female duet struggling to deal with suppressed desire. The title piece, The Chair, uses theatrical narrative with fluid dance and movement work to tell the story of a man who is forced to face his past.

Emotions searing through their bodies and flying out through the looks on their faces is absolutely beautiful to watch ***** Fringe Review 2009

A new Pantomime by Phillippa Smith (loosely based on the tale by Hans Christian Andersen).

The story tells of two weavers who promise an Emperor a new suit of clothes. They declare that they could make the most magnificent cloth that one could
imagine - cloth of the most beautiful colours and elaborate patterns. Not only was the material so beautiful, but the clothes made from it had the special power of being invisible to everyone who was stupid or not fit for his post. When the Emperor parades before his subjects in his new clothes, a child cries out, "But he isn't wearing anything at all!"

The Emperor's New Clothes is one of Andersen's best known tales and this new version offers the chance to enhance the real themes of the story;
pretentiousness, pomposity and social hypocrisy - but with a pantomime cow!

The Emperor's New Clothes is a whole school production directed by Kathryn Francis.

A 21st century tale of teenage angst