“I say to hell with geniuses in the theatre. Let’s have the authors by all means, the Lorcas and the Brendan Behans, but let’s get them together with their equals, the actors, with all their wit and stupidity and insight. And this clash, this collaboration, this anti-collaboration will create an explosion more important than any bomb”. Joan Littlewood
APPROACH
Hinterland is a newly formed theatre company who as a collective are equipped with the fortitude and lived experience to have the courage to break the rules. We take our subject matter which is often political with a small ‘p’ seriously whilst not taking ourselves too seriously and aim to make bold irreverent challenging theatre that is not afraid to ask difficult questions.
Our focus is on new writing and we are democratic in the way in which we make work and the audiences we want to reach. At the core of our practice is a desire to reconnect with those that have paused or stepped out of the industry, and to engage a strong sense of complicité and resonance with our audiences.
Creatives working with Hinterland are predominantly female identifying performers in the mid phase of their lives, a demographic in the arts where women in particular have become increasingly ‘invisible’. 2025 kicked off with three contemporary plays ‘Am I Losing My Mind Or Just My Figure?’ at Camden Fringe and Women Writers Festival at the Etcetera Theatre in August in collaboration with Untethered Theatre, ‘Justine Stops Oil’ by Louis Catliff at The Glitch Theatre and ‘Eat’ by Kate Scott at The Lyric Theatre Bridport. All three will have a 2026 remounting in London and one in Edinburgh. Our 2026 devised production ‘Detiritus’ will open at Bloomsbury Festival in the Autumn and focus on a ’lost’ generation of women and their stories; stories that lie in a dusty corner or behind a broken-down wall somewhere currently hidden from view. Hinterland will tell these stories with grace, physical inventiveness, irreverence and healthy doses of humour.
FORM
All too often plays that are part of a rural touring programme, and/or which are driven by a political social agenda reduce their focus on production values. This is sometimes down to cost or to a want to move away from spectacle and encourage a more raw connection with the audience. Hinterland follows in the footsteps of Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop and acknowledges that whilst maintaining the spirit of agit-prop one of the things that makes theatre such an extraordinary art form is its ability to utilise light and sound in a contemporary expressionistic form that elevates the work produced by the actors to another level. At the same time our production values will combine a rough aesthetic that does not seek to hide the artifice of theatre and which feels accessible.
Physical ensemble work combined with Stanislavskian truth and a highly collaborative creative team ensures the audience are equally affected by the message of the play, the performances of the actors and the mise-en-scene of the creative team.
Whilst most of our work will take place in traditional theatre spaces we will also tour work to smaller more rural non theatre venues and are developing a number of systems which will enable the arrival into any non-traditional theatre space and the means to convert it by simple means and astutely thought out tech. In this way we remove a two-tiered approach to making theatre and empower the next generation of theatre makers and theatre goers to understand and take ownership of the tools that go into making a show.
We have a series of projects in development and are working collectively to create visceral theatre that emboldens and gives a sense of agency to our audiences and celebrates and uses humour to tackle difficult and urgent subjects.
Hinterland have been inspired by bold fearless companies such as Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop, Women’s Theatre Group, Monstrous Regiment, Spare Tyre, Joint Stock, Red Ladder, Clean Break, Shared Experience, and Complicité and will be forever grateful to them for building the foundations on which we hope to grow.
SAM HOLLAND-BUNYAN 