Join us for Day One of this years National Theatre Connections Festival.

Performing will be Rainham Mark Grammar School with their production of Macbeth Macbeth Macbeth, and also FSG with their production of Cloud Busting.

Please note that this may not be the order the shows will be performed in. Your ticket will cover the entire evening.

The evening will begin at 6pm and will finish by 9pm. There will be an interval between the two performances where we ask audiences to leave the auditorium.

We have a special ticket offer for schools and community groups, for more information please email boxoffice@kent.ac.uk

Macbeth Macbeth Macbeth Macbeth Macbeth by Kirsty Housley – Performed by Rainham Mark Grammar School

When an alarm is deliberately set off during their GCSE drama exam, a group of students find themselves in detention. As they struggle to navigate the seemingly endless tasks they’ve been set as punishment, questions are raised. Who set off the alarm and why? Will they ever get out of this detention? Will it cost them their GCSE? And why is Shakespeare still so popular?

So begins a meta deconstruction of the play as we move from classroom to theatre, artifice to reality. The performers switch between their characters and their real selves as they interrogate Shakespeare, the canon, the education system, the nature of theatre, and the world itself. They begin to wonder whether the classics really are that classic, or whether we might need to tell a different story altogether….

• Recommended for ages: 14+

• Content guidance:
o Themes exploring the climate emergency
o Themes exploring the cost of living crisis
o Depictions of anxiety
o References to colonialism

Cloud Busting by Helen Blakeman (based on the novel by Malorie Blackman)

When Sam wakes up, he fully believes that today will just be another ordinary day – but that’s before Mr Mackie tells Class 8M to write a poem about someone they care about. Unexpectedly, Sam volunteers to write about Davey… Davey was Sam’s friend – not that Sam wanted anyone to know that. While the cool girls in the class thought Davey was ‘well cute in a sad dog sort of way’, the tough boys – Morgan and his crew – just saw Davey as different.

Davey liked to dance. Davey liked to look at the clouds and see the shapes they made. Davey liked looking at the world in a
different way to everybody else. But no matter how much Sam liked being with Davey, he always denied their friendship. Then one day, the bullying goes a step too far… but will Sam step in to help his friend? It’s not the ordinary day Sam thought it was going to be.

• Recommended for ages 13+
• Content guidance:
  o Themes of bullying throughout
  o On-stage violence
  o References to anxiety and poverty
  o One sexual reference