Camden People’s Theatre’s SPRINT Festival returns with a packed programme throughout March. London’s “best-established carnival of new and unusual theatre” features artists with bold ideas, artists who don’t play by the rules, and artists, in many instances, making their first professional work.
This is the eighth of a series of interviews highlighting artists and work within the Festival, as I chat with Samuel Masters, who brings a newly reimagined version of The Man Who Was Thursday to SPRINT following last summer’s Brighton Fringe run (our review of that show).
Sword fights, car chases, and conspiracies collide as poet Rosamund Gregory is recruited by a secret police agency to go undercover and seek revenge on the mysterious organisation of anarchists who destroyed her home.
Brighton-based theatre company, The Department of Ulterior Motives (DUM) presents a daring adaptation of G.K. Chesterton’s classic metaphysical comedy thriller, The Man Who Was Thursday, following its acclaimed debut at Brighton Fringe 2025. This explosive re-imagining features plenty of low-budget high-octane action amidst an absurdist anarchic adventure!
Your show, The Man Who Was Thursday, has turned up in SPRINT – what’s changed since it was in Brighton Fringe last year?
We’ve refined the show into a lean, hour-long, frantically farcical comedy-thriller. We’ve merged some separate roles into a single character so that our villainous Sunday is truly omnipresent, and upgraded our glamorous stage assistant to a speaking role.
We’ve also brought Ella Palmer in as Movement Director, helping us heighten the physical-theatre set pieces and making the action bigger and bolder than before.
How did you get started in the business?
I co-founded the award-winning Relish Theatre in 2015 with Rob Ellis, before taking an extended hiatus from stagecraft. In 2022, I dived back in by getting involved in amateur productions across Brighton.
Since then, I’ve been lucky enough to continue connecting with brilliant actors and creatives. After directing The Real Inspector Hound for Brighton Little Theatre,
I founded The Department of Ulterior Motives to write, direct, and produce my own work with a group of incredibly talented and devoted performers I’m honoured to also call friends.
How did you develop and plan the show, and what should audiences expect from it?
I first had the idea of adapting GK Chesterton’s metaphysical adventure for the stage over a decade ago, while studying Scriptwriting at university. When we were deciding on DUM’s debut production, we dusted off the old draft and realised it was the perfect fit (with some reworking).
Audiences can expect an ample amount of silliness alongside high-concept, low-budget action, including sword fights and car chases. Underneath the ridiculousness, there’s also politically charged commentary on authoritarianism, hypernormalisation, and the overreach of police powers.
What do you like about chaotic and absurdist shows?
I struggle to take myself or my work too seriously, so chaotic comedy is the perfect way to explore big ideas and topical subjects without sacrificing the fun at the core of the show. The absurdity gives the audience permission to laugh, but it also creates space for meaning to sneak up on you.
We’ve found audiences often take even more depth from The Man Who Was Thursday than we consciously set out to put in, because the surreal, fever-dream logic of the premise invites people to find their own interpretation.
What’s next for you and the show?
Two months after SPRINT, we’re returning to Brighton Fringe with our next production: Sherlock Holmes vs Arsène Lupin: A Drag Crime Caper at Brighton Open Air Theatre and Ironworks Studios in May.
We’re treating it as a spiritual successor, upping the ante with twice as much of everything audiences loved about The Man Who Was Thursday, expanded into a full-length, two-act showdown between these literary legends. Beyond that, we would love to find further festival and touring opportunities for both productions.