University College Players
Encyclopedia
University College, Oxford
.University College , is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2009 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £110m...
.
The first production was in May 1941 when Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's The Comedy of Errors
The Comedy of Errors
The Comedy of Errors is one of William Shakespeare's earliest plays. It is his shortest and one of his most farcical comedies, with a major part of the humour coming from slapstick and mistaken identity, in addition to puns and word play. The Comedy of Errors is one of only two of Shakespeare's...
was performed in cooperation with Merton College
Merton College, Oxford
Merton College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, chancellor to Henry III and later to Edward I, first drew up statutes for an independent academic community and established endowments to...
. Peter Bayley was the senior member from the start till the 1960s. After the Second World War, Univ Players was re-founded with a production of Measure for Measure
Measure for Measure
Measure for Measure is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603 or 1604. It was classified as comedy, but its mood defies those expectations. As a result and for a variety of reasons, some critics have labelled it as one of Shakespeare's problem plays...
in 1946.
In 1953, a young Maggie Smith
Maggie Smith
Dame Margaret Natalie Smith, DBE , better known as Maggie Smith, is an English film, stage, and television actress who made her stage debut in 1952 and is still performing after 59 years...
appeared in a production of He Who Gets Slapped
He Who Gets Slapped
He Who Gets Slapped is a 1924 film starring Lon Chaney, Norma Shearer, and John Gilbert. It was directed by Victor Sjöström. The film is based on the Russian play Тот, кто получает пощёчины by playwright Leonid Andreyev, which was published in 1914 and in English, as He Who Gets Slapped, in 1922...
by the Russian playwright Leonid Andreyev
Leonid Andreyev
Leonid Nikolaievich Andreyev was a Russian playwright, novelist and short-story writer. He is one of the most talented and prolific representatives of the Silver Age period in Russian history...
, after attending a theatrical training scheme at the Oxford Playhouse.
Michael York
Michael York (actor)
Michael York, OBE is an English actor.-Early life:York was born in Fulmer, Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, the son of Florence Edith May , a musician; and Joseph Gwynne Johnson, a Llandovery born Welsh ex-Royal Artillery British Army officer and executive with Marks and Spencer department stores...
was a Univ Players member in the early 1960s, before graduating with a degree in English in 1964. Peter Sissons
Peter Sissons
Peter George Sissons is a broadcast journalist in the United Kingdom. He was the presenter of the BBC Nine O'Clock News and the BBC News at Ten between 1993 and 2003, as earlier a newscaster for ITN, providing bulletins on ITV and Channel 4. He is also a former presenter of the BBC's Question Time...
, later to become a newscaster, was Treasurer of the Univ Players during his time studying at University College in the 1960s. John Albery
John Albery
Wyndham John Albery FRS is a British chemist and academic.John Albery was educated at Winchester College and Balliol College, Oxford. He undertook his D.Phil. with Ronnie Bell, starting in 1960...
took over from Peter Bayley as the senior member of the Players during the 1960s, after his appointment as a chemistry don at University College. He organized the Univ Revue for many years. The March 1963 production of A Man for All Seasons
A Man for All Seasons
A Man for All Seasons is a play by Robert Bolt. An early form of the play had been written for BBC Radio in 1954, and a one-hour live television version starring Bernard Hepton was produced in 1957 by the BBC, but after Bolt's success with The Flowering Cherry, he reworked it for the stage.It was...
at the Oxford Playhouse was especially successful.
In 1974, Jon Plowman
Jon Plowman
Jon Plowman has been a producer at the BBC since 1980, when he produced Russell Harty's chat show Harty...
directed a musical version of Zuleika Dobson
Zuleika Dobson
Zuleika Dobson, full title Zuleika Dobson, or, an Oxford love story, is a 1911 novel by Max Beerbohm, a satire of undergraduate life at Oxford. It was his only novel, but was nonetheless very successful...
at the Oxford Playhouse, with a script by Reggie Oliver
Reggie Oliver
Reggie Oliver is an English playwright, biographer and writer of ghost stories.-Life and career:Reggie Oliver was educated at Eton and University College, Oxford , and has been a professional playwright, actor, and theatre director since 1975.He has worked in radio, television, films, and...
and music by Michael Brand.
In the late 1970s, the Univ Players produced successful outdoor summer productions of The Seagull
The Seagull
The Seagull is the first of what are generally considered to be the four major plays by the Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. The Seagull was written in 1895 and first produced in 1896...
(1976, in St. Hilda's meadow), A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that was written by William Shakespeare. It is believed to have been written between 1590 and 1596. It portrays the events surrounding the marriage of the Duke of Athens, Theseus, and the Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta...
and an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures...
(1977 and 1978, in the grounds of Magdalen College School
Magdalen College School, Oxford
Magdalen College School is an independent school for boys aged 7 to 18 and girls in the sixth form, located on The Plain in Oxford, England. It was founded as part of Magdalen College, Oxford by William Waynflete in 1480....
by Magdalen Bridge).
More recently they have had annual outdoor summer productions in the garden of the Master's Lodgings. Recent Productions include Sheridan's
Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Richard Brinsley Butler Sheridan was an Irish-born playwright and poet and long-term owner of the London Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. For thirty-two years he was also a Whig Member of the British House of Commons for Stafford , Westminster and Ilchester...
The School for Scandal
The School for Scandal
The School for Scandal is a play written by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. It was first performed in London at Drury Lane Theatre on May 8, 1777.The prologue, written by David Garrick, commends the play, its subject, and its author to the audience...
in 2003, Stoppard's
Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...
The Real Inspector Hound
The Real Inspector Hound
The Real Inspector Hound is a short, one-act play by Tom Stoppard. The plot follows two theatre critics named Moon and Birdboot who are watching a ludicrous setup of a country house murder mystery, in the style of a whodunit...
in 2009, and Congreve's
William Congreve
William Congreve was an English playwright and poet.-Early life:Congreve was born in Bardsey, West Yorkshire, England . His parents were William Congreve and his wife, Mary ; a sister was buried in London in 1672...
The Way of the World
The Way of the World
The Way of the World is a play written by British playwright William Congreve. It premiered in 1700 in the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields in London...
in 2010. In May 2011, The Univ Players will stage Nikolai Gogol's
Nikolai Gogol
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol was a Ukrainian-born Russian dramatist and novelist.Considered by his contemporaries one of the preeminent figures of the natural school of Russian literary realism, later critics have found in Gogol's work a fundamentally romantic sensibility, with strains of Surrealism...
The Government Inspector.
Univ Revue
John Albery organized the Univ Revue in the college Hall for many years. It consisted of an irreverent series of sketches with some musical by both fellows and students of the college. Performers included John Albery, Leslie MitchellLeslie Mitchell
Dr Leslie Mitchell is a leading British authority on 18th century history.Mitchell is historian and Emeritus Fellow of University College and a member of the History Faculty at the University of Oxford, England. He has been Dean of the college, appeared in the Univ Revue, and was editor of the...
, Jean Maud, Colin Moynihan
Colin Moynihan
Colin Berkeley Moynihan, 4th Baron Moynihan PC is a former Olympic coxswain who became a businessman, politician and sports administrator.-Early life:...
, John Redcliffe-Maud
John Redcliffe-Maud
John Primatt Redcliffe-Maud, Baron Redcliffe-Maud, GCB, CBE was a British civil servant and diplomat.Born in Bristol, Maud was educated at Eton College and New College, Oxford. At Oxford he was a member of the Oxford University Dramatic Society . In 1928, he gained a one-year scholarship to...
and others.
Alumni
Here are a selection of former members:- John AlberyJohn AlberyWyndham John Albery FRS is a British chemist and academic.John Albery was educated at Winchester College and Balliol College, Oxford. He undertook his D.Phil. with Ronnie Bell, starting in 1960...
- Peter Bayley
- Jonathan BowenJonathan BowenJonathan P. Bowen FBCS FRSA is a British computer scientist. He is Chairman of Museophile Limited, an Emeritus Professor at London South Bank University where he has headed the Centre for Applied Formal Methods, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Westminster...
- Gordon HoneycombeGordon HoneycombeRonald Gordon Honeycombe is an author, playwright and stage actor, well known in the United Kingdom as a national television newscaster....
- Reggie OliverReggie OliverReggie Oliver is an English playwright, biographer and writer of ghost stories.-Life and career:Reggie Oliver was educated at Eton and University College, Oxford , and has been a professional playwright, actor, and theatre director since 1975.He has worked in radio, television, films, and...
- Jon PlowmanJon PlowmanJon Plowman has been a producer at the BBC since 1980, when he produced Russell Harty's chat show Harty...
- Andrew RobinsonW. Andrew RobinsonW. Andrew Robinson is a British author and former newspaper editor.Andrew Robinson was educated at the Dragon School, Eton College where he was a King's Scholar, University College, Oxford where he read Chemistry and finally the School of Oriental and African Studies in London...
- William George Q
- Tony SarchetTony SarchetTony Sarchet is a British television and radio writer for alternative comedy shows.Sarchet studied chemistry at University College Oxford, where he was a member of the University College Players and wrote a review called Gargoyles at the Oxford Playhouse with John Albery and Graham Wall in 1978.He...
- Desmond Shawe-TaylorDesmond Shawe-TaylorDesmond Philip Shawe-Taylor LVO became Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures in 2005. He succeeded Christopher Lloyd on Lloyd's retirement.Shawe-Taylor is the son of Brian Newton Shawe-Taylor and Jocelyn Cecilia Shawe-Taylor...
- Peter SissonsPeter SissonsPeter George Sissons is a broadcast journalist in the United Kingdom. He was the presenter of the BBC Nine O'Clock News and the BBC News at Ten between 1993 and 2003, as earlier a newscaster for ITN, providing bulletins on ITV and Channel 4. He is also a former presenter of the BBC's Question Time...
- Dame Maggie SmithMaggie SmithDame Margaret Natalie Smith, DBE , better known as Maggie Smith, is an English film, stage, and television actress who made her stage debut in 1952 and is still performing after 59 years...
- Michael YorkMichael York (actor)Michael York, OBE is an English actor.-Early life:York was born in Fulmer, Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, the son of Florence Edith May , a musician; and Joseph Gwynne Johnson, a Llandovery born Welsh ex-Royal Artillery British Army officer and executive with Marks and Spencer department stores...
- Sir James Carroll
See also
- Oxford University Dramatic SocietyOxford University Dramatic SocietyThe Oxford University Dramatic Society is the principal funding body and provider of theatrical services to the many independent student productions put on by students in Oxford, England...
- Magdalen PlayersMagdalen PlayersThe Magdalen Players is a theatrical production and funding body based at Magdalen College, Oxford, England. It is one of Oxford's richest theatrical organizations and assists with the funding of productions containing Magdalen students...
at Magdalen College, OxfordMagdalen College, OxfordMagdalen College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2006 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £153 million. Magdalen is currently top of the Norrington Table after over half of its 2010 finalists received first-class degrees, a record...