FORTHCOMING PRODUCTION
The English Theatre Workshop will be performing Our Country’s Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker
at 7.30pm on
Tuesday 27 January
Wednesday 28 January
Friday 30 January
Saturday 31 January
at the Theater in der List, Spichernstr. 13, 30161 Hannover.
Tickets are available online: theaterinderlist.jimdoweb.com/januar-2026/
AUDIO PLAYS PRODUCED DURING THE CORONA PERIOD
Winter 2020/21: MACBETH by William Shakespeare
Summer 2020: UNDER MILK WOOD by Dylan Thomas
Summer 2021: THE COMPANY OF WOLVES by Angela Carter
Dr. Peter Bennett is now retired as a lecturer at the University of Hannover. He founded the theatre group in 1988 and has been directing it since then. So far, he has directed and supervised one new play almost each semester.
Introduction
Although based in the English department, the group is open to all students of the university. It is not a club. There is no fixed membership. One play is normally presented every semester, the group consisting of all those who have an acting role in the current production. In practice, each production’s cast consists of roughly a third who have played in two or more productions, a third who have already been in one production, and a third who are entirely new. The director has been there since the beginning.
The production style is economical, with emphasis on voice, body and movement. Staging tends to be minimalistic and basic with regard to scenery, sound and lighting. A decisive influence on production style and choice of play is the fact that there are usually at least fifteen people eager to participate, the majority of them women. Most modern plays in English have relatively small (and predominantly male) casts and are more or less naturalistic in that they do not work well if women play male parts. The group therefore tends to favour non-naturalistic drama, as can be seen from the production history.
The university has no theatre of its own, but the English Theatre Group has a good working relationship with the Theater in der List e. V. where the performances are held.
Production History
The three radio plays (Jan 2020 – Feb 2021) were produced during the theatre blackout of the
Corona pandemic. You can listen to them or download them using the links near the top of the
homepage.
- June 2025 Much Ado About Nothing (W. Shakespeare)
- Jan 2025 A Midsummer Night’s Dream (W. Shakespeare)
- June 2024 Beauty and the Beast
- Jan 2024 Hamlet (W. Shakespeare)
- July 2023 Alice (the group's own dramatization of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass)
- Jan 2023 Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth (Tom Stoppard)
- July 2022 As You Like It (W. Shakespeare)
- July 2021 The Company of Wolves (a radio play byAngela Carter)
- Feb 2021 Macbeth (W. Shakespeare) – our own adaptation as a radio play
- July 2020 Under Milk Wood (a radio play by Dylan Thomas)
- Jan 2020 Lysistrata (Aristophanes)
- July 2019 Romanoff and Juliet (Peter Ustinov)
- Jan 2019 Twelfth Night (W. Shakespeare)
- July 2018 The Love of the Nightingale (Timberlake Wertenbaker)
- Jan 2018 The Real Inspector Hound (Tom Stoppard) plus the group’s stage adaptation of the TV comedy Murder at Moorstones Manor by Michael Palin and Terry Jones
- July 2017 A Midsummer Night’s Dream (W. Shakespeare)
- Feb. 2017 The Rivals (R.B. Sheridan)
- July 2016 Much Ado About Nothing (W. Shakespeare)
- Jan. 2016 Arcadia (Tom Stoppard)
- July 2015 The Merchant of Venice (W. Shakespeare)
- Feb. 2015 Orestes und Helen (Euripides)
- July 2014 The Beggar's Opera (John Gay)
- Jan. 2014 Romeo and Juliet (W. Shakespeare)
- July 2013 Murder in the Cathedral (T.S. Eliot), performed in the Kreuzkirche, Hannover
- Feb. 2013 Our Country's Good (Timberlake Wertenbaker)
- July 2012 Salomé (Oscar Wilde) plus the group’s own dramatization of Wilde’s fairy tale, The Fisherman and his Soul
- Jan. 2012 As You Like It (W. Shakespeare)
- July 2011 Under Milk Wood (Dylan Thomas)
- Feb. 2011 The Royal Hunt of the Sun (Peter Shaffer)
- July 2010 Alice the group's own dramatization of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
- Feb. 2010 Dogg´s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth (Tom Stoppard)
- July 2009 Lysistrata (Aristophanes)
- Feb. 2009 The Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer)
- July 2008 Romanoff and Juliet (Peter Ustinov)
- Feb. 2008 Hecuba and Helen (Euripides)
- July 2007 She Stoops to Conquer (Oliver Goldsmith)
- Feb. 2007 King Lear (W. Shakespeare)
- July 2006 The Dog beneath the Skin (Christopher Isherwood & W.H. Auden)
- Feb. 2006 The Winter's Tale (W. Shakespeare)
- July 2005 Beauty and the Beast (Laurence Boswell)
- Feb. 2005 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Tom Stoppard)
- July 2004 A Midsummer Night’s Dream (W. Shakespeare)
- Feb. 2004 Antigone and Medea (Liz Lochhead)
- July 2003 A Mad World, My Masters (Thomas Middleton)
- Feb. 2003 The School for Scandal (R.B. Sheridan)
- July 2002 Our Country's Good (Timberlake Wertenbaker)
- Feb. 2002 Much Ado About Nothing (W. Shakespeare)
- July 2001 The Playboy of the Western World (J.M. Synge)
- Feb. 2001 Play, Come and Go, Footfalls, Rockaby, Ohio Impromptu, Catastrophe, What Where (dramaticules by Samuel Beckett)
- June 2000 The Love of the Nightingale (Timberlake Wertenbaker)
- Feb. 2000 Mr A's Amazing Maze Plays (Alan Ayckbourn)
- April 1999 Macbeth (W. Shakespeare)
- July 1998 The Two Gentlemen of Verona (W. Shakespeare)
- Feb. 1998 Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth (Tom Stoppard)
- July 1997 Salomé (Oscar Wilde) in a double bill with the group's own dramatisation of Wilde’s fairy story, The Fisherman and his Soul
- Feb. 1997 Love's Labour's Lost (W. Shakespeare)
- July 1996 Under Milk Wood (Dylan Thomas), adapted from the radio play.
- Feb. 1996 Pericles (W. Shakespeare)
- July 1995 Alice - the group's own dramatization of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
- Feb. 1995 On the Frontier (Auden and Isherwood)
- July 1994 The Canterbury Tales (Geoffrey Chaucer) - the group’s own dramatization
- Feb. 1994 As You Like It (W. Shakespeare)
- July 1993 The Rover (Aphra Behn)
- Feb. 1993 The Dog Beneath the Skin (Auden and Isherwood)
- July 1992 The Birthday Party (Harold Pinter)
- Feb. 1992 The Beggar's Opera (John Gay)
- July 1991 What the Butler Saw (Joe Orton)
- Feb. 1991 Twelfth Night (W. Shakespeare)
- July 1990 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - an adaptation by M. Vieregge and M. Kaiser based on the Douglas Adams novels
- Feb.1990 A Midsummer Night's Dream (W. Shakespeare)
- July 1989 The Dumb Waiter (Harold Pinter)
- Feb. 1989 A Chaste Maid in Cheapside (Thomas Middleton)
- May 1988 The Real Inspector Hound (Tom Stoppard)