Past, Present, Future Weekender

Shakespearean Tropes. Climate Breakdown. One Unpredictable Hour of Improv.

This isn't your standard lecture on climate change. This isn't your traditional play. This is something entirely different: a long-form improvised show where a collision of original characters, born from Shakespeare's most enduring archetypes and your very own contributions, must navigate the pressures of a rapidly changing world.

Join Oxford scholars and fellow audience members for a lively discussion on Shakespeare's hidden environmental wisdom. Your insights will not only inform the show, but become the show. You'll get to crown the performance with a title of your choosing, and even decide whether the events unfold as a comedy or a tragedy! After the performance, stick around to unpack what just happened. Did we find any resolutions to the conflicts we're wrestling? Did we spark new ways of thinking about collective agency, human identity, or our relationships with the more-than-human world? Most importantly, what insights might we take with us into our real lives?

Whether you're a Shakespearean scholar, climate activist, improv fan, or simply curious about participatory theatre, this event meets you where you are. No prior knowledge required. No participation demanded. All ages welcome. Your voice matters.

Claye Bowler is an artist based in the UK. He will present a collection of films, predominately performance to camera works from 2016-2021, he will explore themes of the body as archive, documenting lived experience of queerness, transness, and the process of getting top surgery.

Claye’s practice centres on collection and documentation of experience, memory and the traces of humanity, using sculptural practices to highlight stories that are not historically collected through institutional means, often working with narratives of queerness and disability.

Claye's recent work includes:

Solo Exhibitions: Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2025), Henry Moore Institute, Leeds (2022)
Performance: Tate (2023) Yorkshire Sculpture International (2021)
Group Exhibition: Haarlem Artspace (2025) Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2022), Attenborough Arts Centre (2022), Ugly Duck (2022)
Residency: Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2024), Porthmeor Studios (2024), Jerwood Arts, Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange (2023).
His work is held in public collections: Arts Council Collection, Wellcome Collection, Otherness Archive, and Leeds Art Gallery.

Collective Collage Making

Pick up some scissors and add your piece to a group artwork. We bring the materials, you bring your perspective. Watch as something unexpected emerges from the contributions of each person who arrives, layer by layer. No experience necessary. Stay for five minutes or an hour. Come leave your mark!

Blackout Poetry-Making

Find the poem in someone else's words. In this drop-in workshop, you will black out lines from old newspapers, book pages, and other found texts. The words that remain become yours. Come take part in a quiet act of reclaiming language that makes space for your own voice. No experience necessary. Just turn up, grab a marker, and see what speaks to you.

Fake exam. Real unprepared actors. What could go wrong?
An out-of-work actor and a trainee doctor walk into a featureless hospital room and make a discovery that changes the course of their lives. Guest starring actors who have never read the script before, what happens when the show does go wrong? And what does everyone else do about it?
Every Brilliant Thing meets This Is Going To Hurt in the second project from award-winning actor and playwright Becca Harper. Described as "intricate and thoughtful", GREYJOY explores grief, healthcare and being a young carer with sensitivity and comedic flair. No two performances are ever the same.

This excerpt of GREYJOY is a rehearsed reading of the play's first half. The play will be performed in full at The Libra Theatre, Camden Fringe from the 10th-14th August, with further dates to be announced.

Explore the diverse crew of the Mary Rose and other Tudor figures through shadow puppetry, exploring a range of materials and techniques to make a short video.

A vibrant showcase of Classical Chinese dance, a range of classical Indian styles, Bollywood dance and KPop.