The Performing Arts

The Performing Arts at King’s find their home in The Malthouse, a beautifully converted Victorian building. It boasts a 334-seat theatre with an orchestra pit and retractable seating as well as drama and dance studios and state-of-the-art dressing rooms. Newly opened by Joanna Lumley OBE, FRGS in 2019, the facility is described as better than those in professional environments by the Absolutely Fabulous actress, and allows King’s pupils to grow their confidence and fully explore the Performing Arts.

A space shared with the local community, the Malthouse has already hosted a number of professional productions including Othello, A Christmas Carol, and An Evening with Pam Ferris. School productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and a return to musical theatre with Little Shop of Horrors have seen the Malthouse packed to capacity.

The School has a distinguished history when it comes to the Performing Arts. Playwright Christopher Marlowe, thought by some to be at least partly responsible for the works attributed to William Shakespeare, was educated at King’s in the 1500s. A day house at the School is named in his honour. Famous English novelist and playwright Somerset Maugham was a King’s boy in the late 1800s. He later left his works to the School and his ashes were scattered in a garden in the school grounds. In more recent years former pupil Anna Pinnock received an Academy Award in 2014 for set decoration on the film The Grand Budapest Hotel and has received five further nominations.

Headmaster Peter Roberts puts creative pursuits at the heart of the school’s ethos, and it is most evident during King’s Week, the school’s own arts festival held at the end of the Summer Term every year since 1952. Attracting thousands of parents, friends and visitors, the week provides a relaxing focus in the period after public examinations and provides a glorious conclusion to the academic year. Over one hundred events presented in beautiful locations around the school and the idyllic Precincts of Canterbury Cathedral provide opportunities for all to be involved, whether it be on stage performing or working behind the scenes.

Watch the School’s Performing Arts film below:

Learn more about King's School in Canterbury: https://www.kings-school.co.uk/