The Cranwell Amateur Theatrical Society (C.A.T.S), formerly the Cranwell Theatre Company and the Cranwell Little Theatre, was opened on Wednesday 21 May 1969 by Air Vice Marshall TN Stack CB CBO CBE AFC.
Throughout our 36-year history, the club has staged countless productions, but in the late-1990's membership dwindled as servicemen were posted away from the Station. This website is primarily a record of the club since it was reformed in 2002...
2002
In 2002, Flt Lt Matt Littecott helped resurrect the defunct club for new audiences, beginning with "Inspector Drake & The Perfekt Crime" in October.
2003
In February, we staged Alan Aykbourn's "Absurd Person Singular" in February, entered the RAFTA One-Act Festival in May with "The Wall" (winning two awards), held three evenings of One-Act Plays in July ("The Wall", "The Death Of Kings & Queens" and "Plaster"), and finished our comeback year with a successful Christmas pantomime - "The Fairies' Quest For Sleeping Beauty"!
2004
In 2004, Cranwell hosted the new prestigious RAFTA One-Act Festival in May, which we entered with "The Anniversary", after performing the piece at RAF Cottesmore. In June we staged two evenings of One-Act Plays ("The Anniversary", "Softy" and "Remains To Be Seen").
On 6 September, CATS hosted the Cambridge Footlights on their 2004 National Tour, before performing the comedy farce "We Found Love & An Exquisite Set Of Porcelain Figurines Aboard The S.S Farndale Avenue", on the 10th and 11th
Finally, from late-November into early-December, we performed the amazingly successful pantomime "Panto At The OK Corral" for Christmas.
2005
CATS hosted and entered the 2005 One-Act Festival in early-May with "The Death Artist", which unfortunately didn't win any awards but won praise for its "imaginative set".
At the same time, we were rehearsing the classic BBC comedy 'Allo 'Allo - which ran from 22-25 June and became one of our greatest triumphs - bring large audiences and our most polished production yet!
To round off the year, CATS staged another pantomime - "King Arthur" - from 2-10 December.
2006
Due to personal circumstances with one of our actresses, CATS were unable to enter the One-Act Festival at RAF Lyneham this year, but we hope to return to the festival in 2007.
We teamed up with the Cranwell Youth Theatre to stage the popular musical "Oliver!", and it ran for 3 nights from 31 August - 2 September. The show was particularly well-received by large audiences and won the club Second Place in a RAFTA drama competition!
2007
Owing to the lateness of "Oliver!", our annual pantomime slipped to late-Jan/early-Feb. We chose to perform "The Christmas Cavalier" and our performance earned us a very favourable review from a RAFTA adjudicator who came to see the show.
In May, we performed our one-act comedy "Moby Dick", as part of a special evening of plays with RAF Waddington and RAF Cottesmore. Later that month, at the RAFTA One-Act Festival, of which we were the host club, "Moby Dick" won two awards: The Audience Award (voted by the audience) and the Adjudicator's Runners-Up Trophy (Second Place).
We are currently about to start our run of Dracula: The Panto on 28 November till 2 December.
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