ARU students to haunt the Guildhall in Cambridge
Immersive theatre production will feature ‘ghostly prisoners’ and ‘crooked judges’
The Guildhall in Cambridge
The Guildhall in Cambridge, the city’s former court, will provide the setting for an atmospheric piece of immersive theatre in December, when student actors from Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) conjure spirits and stories from its history of crime and punishment.
Audiences for ‘The Guildhall Haunting’ will need to keep their wits about them after sunset between 11-13 December, as they are led around the historic building by a cast of ghostly prisoners, wicked wardens and crooked judges.
The hour-long, tragi-comic show features folk tales and testimonies on themes of justice and injustice, travelling through time from ancient East Anglian witch trials to more recent cases of mayhem and murder.
Performers will haunt the Guildhall corridors before taking the audience into the wood-panelled Sessions Courtroom, built in 1939 on a site that has witnessed more than 700 years of trial and imprisonment.
The site-responsive show is devised by final-year students on the BA (Hons) Acting course at ARU as part of their Immersive Performance module, with support from the Allia Business Centre and Cambridge City Council Arts Team.
The students have been researching the history of the Guildhall site and responding creatively to the structure of the building, working with physical theatre, poetry, verbatim trial testimonies, lighting, projection and soundscape.
Dr Jonny Croose, Senior Lecturer in Acting at ARU, said the aim is to immerse the audience in the ghostly atmosphere of the historic Guildhall.
“It’s an amazing space to work in and we will be keeping the audience on the move, with performance coming at them from all sides.
“The students have devised the performance from scratch and the show has a great range of poetic moods: spooky, unsettling, challenging, moving and beautiful. Perfect for a winter’s night.”
‘The Guildhall Haunting’ runs at the Guildhall in Cambridge from 11-13 December, 7-8pm, with entry via the Peas Hill entrance, and is recommended for ages 16 and over. Some of the performance involves moving between locations and navigating steps, and therefore parts of ‘The Guildhall Haunting’ may not be suitable for people with reduced mobility, but the main performance space has a fully accessible viewing platform.
Tickets for the show are £5, and can be booked through Eventbrite at https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-guildhall-haunting-murder-judgement-victim-monster-tickets-1042658027227