The Pentameters Theatre was founded in 1968 and is still run by artistic director Leonie Scott-Matthews, a well known Hampstead

Hampstead

Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...

 resident. It is a 60-seat venue and is a fringe theatre in the London Borough of Camden

London Borough of Camden

In 1801, the civil parishes that form the modern borough were already developed and had a total population of 96,795. This continued to rise swiftly throughout the 19th century, as the district became built up; reaching 270,197 in the middle of the century...

, located above the Three Horseshoes public house

Public house

A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...

 in Hampstead

Hampstead

Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...

. The theatre has a reputation for producing revivals, poetry, music events and cutting-edge new plays in particular.

History of the Theatre

The theatre began in a disused skittle alley in the basement of the Freemason's Arms, Hampstead

Hampstead

Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...

, in August 1968. It moved to an open air site and also to the Haverstock Arms before moving to its present location in October 1971. It was founded to present poets reading their work in an informal theatrical pub setting. The many authors to appear at Pentameters include Dannie Abse

Dannie Abse

Daniel Abse, better known as Dannie Abse , is a Welsh poet.-Early years:Abse was born in Cardiff, Wales to a Jewish family. He is the younger brother of politician and reformer Leo Abse and the eminent psychoanalyst, Wilfred Abse...

, Fleur Adcock

Fleur Adcock

Kareen Fleur Adcock , CNZM, OBE is a poet and an editor of English and Northern Irish ancestry, who has lived much of her life in England.-Life and career:...

, Kingsley Amis

Kingsley Amis

Sir Kingsley William Amis, CBE was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, various short stories, radio and television scripts, along with works of social and literary criticism...

, George Barker

George Barker (poet)

George Granville Barker was an English poet and author.-Life and work:Barker was born in Loughton, near Epping Forest in Essex, England, elder brother of Kit Barker [painter] George Barker was raised by his Irish mother and English father in Battersea, London. He was educated at an L.C.C. school...

, Ivor Cutler

Ivor Cutler

Ivor Cutler was a Scottish poet, songwriter and humorist. He became known for his regular performances on BBC radio, and in particular his numerous sessions recorded for John Peel's influential radio programme, and later for Andy Kershaw's programme...

, Margaret Drabble, William Empson

William Empson

Sir William Empson was an English literary critic and poet.He was known as "燕卜荪" in Chinese.He was widely influential for his practice of closely reading literary works, fundamental to the New Critics...

, Ruth Fainlight

Ruth Fainlight

Ruth Fainlight , is a poet, short story writer, translator and librettist.-Life and career:Fainlight was born in New York, but has mainly lived in England since she was fifteen, having also spent some years living in France and Spain. She studied for two years at the Birmingham and Brighton...

, Elaine Feinstein

Elaine Feinstein

Elaine Feinstein is a poet, novelist, short-story writer, playwright, biographer and translator.-Biography:...

, John Heath-Stubbs

John Heath-Stubbs

John Francis Alexander Heath-Stubbs OBE was an English poet and translator, known for his verse influenced by classical myths, and the long Arthurian poem Artorius .- Biography :...

, Adrian Henri

Adrian Henri

Adrian Henri was a British poet and painter best remembered as the founder of poetry-rock group The Liverpool Scene and as one of three poets in the best-selling anthology The Mersey Sound, along with Brian Patten and Roger McGough. The trio of Liverpool poets came to prominence in that city's...

, Michael Hamburger

Michael Hamburger

Michael Hamburger OBE was a noted British translator, poet, critic, memoirist, and academic. He was known in particular for his translations of Friedrich Hölderlin, Paul Celan, Gottfried Benn and W. G. Sebald from German, and his work in literary criticism...

, John Horder, Michael Horovitz

Michael Horovitz

Michael Horovitz is an English poet, artist and translator.-Life and career:Michael Horovitz was the youngest of ten children who were brought to England from Nazi Germany by their parents, both of whom were part of a network of European-rabbinical families...

, Libby Houston, Black Gallagher, Ted Hughes

Ted Hughes

Edward James Hughes OM , more commonly known as Ted Hughes, was an English poet and children's writer. Critics routinely rank him as one of the best poets of his generation. Hughes was British Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death.Hughes was married to American poet Sylvia Plath, from 1956 until...

, James Kirkup

James Kirkup

James Falconer Kirkup, FRSL was a prolific English poet, translator and travel writer. He was brought up in South Shields, and educated at South Shields Secondary School and Durham University. He wrote over 30 books, including autobiographies, novels and plays...

, Fran Landesman

Fran Landesman

Fran Landesman was an American lyricist and poet.-Early life:Born Frances Deitsch in New York City, her father was a dress manufacturer, her mother was a journalist...

, Laurie Lee

Laurie Lee

Laurence Edward Alan "Laurie" Lee, MBE was an English poet, novelist, and screenwriter, raised in the village of Slad, and went to Marling School, Gloucestershire. His most famous work was an autobiographical trilogy which consisted of Cider with Rosie , As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning and...

, Christopher Logue

Christopher Logue

Christopher Logue, CBE is an English poet associated with the British Poetry Revival. He has also written for the theatre and cinema as well as acting in a number of films. His two screenplays are Savage Messiah and The End of Arthur's Marriage...

, Edward Lucie-Smith

Edward Lucie-Smith

John Edward McKenzie Lucie-Smith is a British writer, poet, art critic, curator, broadcaster and author of exhibition catalogues.-Biography:Lucie-Smith was born in Kingston, Jamaica, moving to the United Kingdom in 1946...

, George Macbeth, Roger McGough

Roger McGough

Roger Joseph McGough CBE is a well-known English performance poet. He presents the BBC Radio 4 programme Poetry Please and records voice-overs for commercials, as well as performing his own poetry regularly...

, Adrian Mitchell

Adrian Mitchell

Adrian Mitchell FRSL was an English poet, novelist and playwright. A former journalist, he became a noted figure on the British anti-authoritarian Left. For almost half a century he was the foremost poet of the country's anti-Bomb movement...

, Edna O'Brien

Edna O'Brien

Edna O'Brien is an Irish novelist and short story writer whose works often revolve around the inner feelings of women, and their problems in relating to men and to society as a whole.-Life and career:...

, Brian Patten

Brian Patten

-Background:Born near Liverpool's docks, he attended Sefton Park School in the Smithdown Road area of Liverpool, where he was noted for his essays and greatly encouraged in his work by Harry Sutcliffe his form teacher. He left school at fifteen and began work for The Bootle Times writing a column...

, Peter Porter

Peter Porter

Peter Porter is the name of:* Peter Buell Porter , U.S. political figure and soldier* Peter A. Porter , U.S. political figure and grandson of Peter Buell Porter* Peter Porter , Australian-born British poet...

, Vernon Scannell

Vernon Scannell

Vernon Scannell was a British poet and author. He was at one time a professional boxer, and wrote novels about the sport.-Personal life:Vernon Scannell was born in 1922 in Spilsby, Lincolnshire...

, Stevie Smith

Stevie Smith

Florence Margaret Smith, known as Stevie Smith was an English poet and novelist.-Life:Stevie Smith, born Florence Margaret Smith in Kingston upon Hull, was the second daughter of Ethel and Charles Smith. Contemporary Women Poets...

, Stephen Spender

Stephen Spender

Sir Stephen Harold Spender CBE was an English poet, novelist and essayist who concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle in his work...

, Jon Stallworthy

Jon Stallworthy

Jon Stallworthy FBA FRSL is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Oxford. He is also a Fellow and Acting President of Wolfson College, a poet, and literary critic....

, John Wain

John Wain

John Barrington Wain was an English poet, novelist, and critic, associated with the literary group "The Movement". For most of his life, Wain worked as a freelance journalist and author, writing and reviewing for newspapers and the radio. He seems to have married in 1947, since C. S...

, Heathcote Williams

Heathcote Williams

Heathcote Williams is an English poet, actor and award-winning playwright. He is also an intermittent painter, sculptor and long-time conjuror...

 and the psychologist R. D. Laing.

The theatre has also played host to many performers at the start of their careers, including Robyn Archer, Joanna Dunham, Adrian Edmundson, French and Saunders

French and Saunders

French and Saunders is a British sketch comedy television show written by and starring comic duo Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders. It is also the name by which the performers are known on the occasions when they appear elsewhere as a double act....

, Nigel Havers

Nigel Havers

Nigel Allan Havers is an English actor. He is probably best known for his BAFTA-nominated role as Lord Andrew Lindsay in the 1981 British film Chariots of Fire, and for his role as Dr. Tom Latimer in the British TV comedy series Don't Wait Up...

, Celia Imrie, Cheryl Kennedy, Rik Mayall

Rik Mayall

Richard Michael "Rik" Mayall is an English comedian, writer, and actor. He is known for his comedy partnership with Ade Edmondson, his over-the-top, energetic portrayal of characters, and as a pioneer of alternative comedy in the early 1980s...

, Nigel Planer

Nigel Planer

Nigel George Planer is an English actor, comedian, novelist and playwright.Planer is perhaps best known for his role as Neil Pye in the cult BBC comedy The Young Ones. He has appeared in many West End musicals, including Evita, Chicago, We Will Rock You, Wicked and Hairspray...

, Jenny Seagrove, Pamela Stephenson

Pamela Stephenson

Pamela Helen Stephenson Connolly is a New Zealand-born Australian clinical psychologist and writer now resident in the United Kingdom. She is best known for her work as an actress and comedian during the 1980s...

 and Alexei Sayle.

Theatrical presentations began in 1969 with performances, plays and readings by John Arden

John Arden

John Arden is an award-winning English playwright from Barnsley . His works tend to expose social issues of personal concern. He is a member of the Royal Society of Literature....

 and Margaretta D'Arcy, Rosalinde Fuller, Ronald Hayman, Bernard Kops

Bernard Kops

Bernard Kops is a British Dramatist, poet and novelist, born in the East End of London in 1926.His first play, The Hamlet of Stepney Green, was produced at the Oxford Playhouse in 1957...

, David Pinner, Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...

, Clive Swift

Clive Swift

Clive Walter Swift is an English character comedy actor and songwriter. He is best known for his role as character Richard Bucket in the British television series Keeping Up Appearances. He is less known for his role as character Roy in the British television series The Old Guys...

, Anthony Thwaite, Miles Tredinnick

Miles Tredinnick

Miles Tredinnick, also known as Riff Regan, is a rock musician, songwriter and a stage and screen writer. In the 1970s, he was the lead singer with the British rock band London. Afterwards he went on to write comedy plays for the stage...

, Micheline Wandor, Henry Woolf, regular weekly appearances by Keith Johnstone's Theatre Machine (the precursor of TheatreSports) and productions including Richard Huggett's The First Night of Pygmalion; John Harding and John Burrows' For Sylvia; William Humble's Do It Yourself; Black Notes, Jon Silkin's play on Ivor Gurney; and the British premieres of Tristan Tzara's Handkerchief of Clouds

Handkerchief of Clouds

Handkerchief of Clouds: A Tragedy in Fifteen Acts is a French-language Dadaist play by Romanian-born author Tristan Tzara. Tzara described it as an "ironic tragedy" or a "tragic farce", composed of 15 short acts, each with an accompanying commentary, with a strong influence from "the serialized...

, and Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams

Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...

' Auto-Da-Fe

Auto-da-fé

An auto-da-fé was the ritual of public penance of condemned heretics and apostates that took place when the Spanish Inquisition or the Portuguese Inquisition had decided their punishment, followed by the execution by the civil authorities of the sentences imposed...

.

Transfers have included Royce Ryton's The Other Side of the Swamp, which transferred to the King's Head

The King's Head Theatre

The King's Head Theatre, founded in 1970 by Dan Crawford, is an Off-West End venue in London. It was the first pub theatre in the UK. Adam Spreadbury-Maher became Artistic Director in March 2010 .-Background:...

 and the Phoenix Theatre

Phoenix Theatre (London)

The Phoenix Theatre is a West End theatre in the London Borough of Camden, located on Charing Cross Road . The entrance is in Phoenix Street....

; Stewart Permutt's first professionally produced play When I Grow Too Old to Scream, which transferred to the New End Theatre

New End Theatre

The New End Theatre, Hampstead, was a 80-seat fringe theatre venue in London, England, located in the London Borough of Camden which operated from 1974 until 2011. It was listed widely on the internet, including with the New York Times....

 and subsequently for two special performances at the Dominion Theatre

Dominion Theatre

The Dominion Theatre is a West End theatre on Tottenham Court Road close to St Giles Circus and Centre Point Tower, in the London Borough of Camden.-History:...

; The Sensualist, which transferred to the Arts Theatre

Arts Theatre

The Arts Theatre is a theatre in Great Newport Street, in Westminster, Central London. It now operates as the West End's smallest commercial receiving house.-History:...

; and the American play 70 Scenes of Halloween to the BAC.

Recent years

In recent years, Pentameters theatre has become primarily known for its productions of classic revivals, mainly by the touring company Traffic of the Stage, including John Edmunds' sell-out new translation of Molière

Molière

Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...

's The Misanthrope

The Misanthrope

The Misanthrope is the first EP from metal band Darkest Hour. It was released in 1996 on the defunct label Death Truck Records. It is much more hardcore orientated metalcore unlike their later releases.- Track listing :# "Vise" - 5:30...

with Finty Williams

Finty Williams

Tara Cressida Frances Williams is an English actress who performs under the name Finty Williams....

, One Person with Michael Deacon

Michael Deacon

Michael Deacon was a Scottish actor.His many stage appearances included roles for venues such as the Hampstead Theatre, The Mercury Theatre, Colchester, Pentameters Theatre and the Finborough Theatre....

, the award-winning production of Yeats

Yeats

W. B. Yeats was an Irish poet and playwright.Yeats may also refer to:* Yeats ,* Yeats , an impact crater on Mercury* Yeats , an Irish thoroughbred racehorse-See also:...

' plays, and the award-winning new play Steinberg's Day of Atonement.