The Ghostly Gift of Miss Constance Couper (April, 2024)
'The Ghostly Gift of Miss Constance Couper' is inspired by a true story about two Oxford academics who claimed that, while on a visit to Versailles, they had travelled back in time and seen figures from the eighteenth century, including Marie Antoinette. Sean Lang has taken the bare bones of this story and created an intriguing and ghostly drama!
It is 1960s Oxford and two young women, Sheila Smart and Perdi Warrender, are meeting for the first time as students at St Hugh's College, sharing digs in the house that belonged to a former Principal of the college, Annie Martindale, and her great friend, Constance Couper, the Vice Principal. Although very different in character, the two young women gradually form a close bond, and their friendship is deepened as strange things begin to happen in their rooms. As the hauntings intensify, the two women begin to realise that the ghost is not content merely to frighten them but is intent on murder. Can they solve the mystery of who is haunting them - and why - in time? What is the real story behind the publication of the notorious book published by Martindale and Couper in 1910? And what have Marie Antoinette and the women of the French Revolution got to do with it? Above all, why did Constance Couper make such a generous gift to St Hugh's College?
Production team
- Playwright: Sean Lang
- Director: Sarah Ingram
- Sound Design: Nat Davies
- Lighting Design: David Byrne
- Set Design: Jonathan Spriggs
- Costume Designer: Chaja Verkerk
- Hair & Make-up: Hannah Curtis
- Properties: Beth White
- Master Carpenter: Martin Avery
- Stage Manager: Ed Booth
- Wig Stylist: Owen Angier
- Photographer: Paul Ashley
- Poster & Flyer: Jenny Scudamore
- Additional Crew: The Penguin Club
Cast list
- Miss Constance Couper: Kirsty Smith
- Miss Annie Martindale: Ania Crowther
- Perdi Warrender: Alicia Hussey
- Sheila Smart: Poppy Saunders
- Ada Smart: Beth Hughes
- Marie Antoinette: Jenny Scudamore
- Madame Roland: Kimberly Tongish
- Theroigne de Mericourt: Alex Priestley
- Jeanne/Hilda Beccles: Judy Curry
- Sandrine/Genevieve van der Meyer: Lucy Green
- Vigee le Brun/Millicent Forbes: Larissa Simpson
- Mathilde: Alice Baird
- Louise: Katie Edwards