English theatre trip: ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof’

On Wednesday, Miss Hitchens I took 28 Year 9 students to the Royal Exchange Theatre for a fantastic new production of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. The year group have lately studied dramatic realism and a play contemporary to Williams’: A View from the Bridge by Arthur Miller. Ostensibly, the plays seem very different; however on closer inspection they share the domestic setting, themes of marital and familial conflict and somewhat naturalistic dialogue (Williams’ style is more figurative).

We were all massively impressed by Ntombizodwa Ndlovu – who played Maggie the Cat. She delivered hundreds and hundreds of lines of rapid, vivacious dialogue! How she learnt them all was a mystery! For a play that asks “Why is it so damn hard for people to talk?” that Maggie, she talks a lot!

Whilst the trip ended with a bonus 40 minute wait for the bus, the children were brilliantly behaved and we couldn’t have been prouder.

Ms Spencer-Cruise