Welcome
Pentameters Theatre FundraiserIf you would like to donate, please click on the link belowPentameters Fundraiser bespoke t-shirt.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2020 New Year HonoursAwarded a Medal of the Order of the British Empirefor services to British Theatre and to the community in HampsteadHampstonian of the Year Award, December 2019Lifetime Achievement Award, October 2019
The many authors to perform at Pentameters include Dannie Abse (1923-2014), Kingsley Amis, Margaret Drabble, Ted Hughes, Laurie Lee, Roger McGough, Edna O'Brien, Harold Pinter, John Wain and the psychiatrist R.D. Laing. The Theatre has also played host to many performers at the start of their careers, including Russell Brand, Adrian Edmundson, Ben Elton, French and Saunders, Nigel Havers, Celia lmrie, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer, Jenny Seagrove, Pamela Stephenson and Alexei Sayle.
To celebrate her commitment to the creative arts, Léonie was honoured as an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music and, as a Hampstead resident, received a Camden Good Citizen Award in 1998 in recognition of her outstanding work for the community.
Pentameters
a poem by Peter Woodcock
(for Léonie Scott-Mathews
founder of Pentameters Theatre)
Glittering stars pasted on to backdrop which
had once been blackout curtains in the old house,
climbing up the staircase
into a doll’s house, the inner theatre of imagination
with shamanistic brilliance
voices entwine, fugitives find themselves,
lost souls flourish, lives unlived
in bedsits and pubs, a secret alliance
woven by the times,
recovering from austerity and lack
suddenly in technicolor
fuelled by alcohol and smoke,
dangerous dreams of liberation,
metamorphosed on a stage,
illusion and madness,
rediscovering ourselves
in the drama of now
as yet unseen, burning passions
ebb and flow,
decades later with bruised memories,
secret pathways in starlit Hampstead
still lead to magical groves.
*** *** ***
Léonie beckons,
Pentameters siren sounds:
Come hither, my muse
by Chris Purdon
"Pentameters without virtue cannot endure."'Best Theatre, 2016'
by Hampstead Village Voice

Léonie Scott-Matthews with cast & crew of “House of Cowards” written by Dannie Abse (1923-2014)
Directed by Conrad Blakemore (November 2013)