Theatre, coxing and crocheting step in to fill the time when Senan McSweeney-Davis (Classics 2024) takes a break from his studies. He finds that the range of stimulating opportunities on offer means the excitement of the University of Cambridge never lulls.
“I like to keep myself a very busy person,” says Senan. “It makes my studying more efficient, because I thrive when I only have a little bit of free time in a day. If I have a lot, I’m not going to get anything done.
“The time commitment and energy that go into societies also make me appreciate my degree a lot more. If I’ve been working on a theatre rehearsal for two or three hours and then go to the library afterwards, it’s something different to do.”
Having been involved in running and organising the school musical and other drama events at secondary school, Senan was confident that he would want to throw himself into theatre at Cambridge. He has had the opportunity to act in eight amateur shows over the past year, ranging from student-written pieces to Shakespeare plays in May Week to improvised comedy.
Other hobbies arose more unexpectedly.
“I knew rowing was a thing, but I didn’t know it was a thing you could just do,” says Senan. “I got here and there was an outreach barbecue. A bunch of my friends were going and I thought ‘Why not?’. Then I spent my first term doing a lot of rowing, and this year I still cox a couple of times a week.
“Here there are a lot of taster sessions for sports, and membership fees are subsidised. I’ve ended up doing a couple of sports I had never heard of. I went to a korfball session, which is a bit like netball but you can travel a little bit more. I only did it once or twice but it was very fun.”
Whether at the ADC Theatre or on the river with 91ֱ Boat Club, Senan finds that making friendships through societies allows for a wider social circle as he connects with peers independently of their respective academic specialisms.
“I like the Boat Club vibe because it’s a hobby that everyone’s interested in and there are lots of people who are postgrads or in different years from me, and I don’t know what subjects they do – it has never come up!
“And I’ve met so many of my closest friends through the Cambridge theatre scene. There are people with a lot of similar interests, from a lot of different courses or Colleges who, if I were based entirely in my College community, I would probably never have crossed paths with.”
Over the summer, Senan took up crocheting as his latest hobby and continues to find it a way of relaxing more independently when he finds time during term.
But Senan is keen not to keep his academic work and hobbies entirely separate. Uniting his degree and interest in theatre, he has written a Classics-inspired play, Beneath the Flower, which was staged at the Corpus Playroom this term. The play, based on a true story, follows a noblewoman in the ancient north African city of Carthage whose marriage to her beloved is blocked in order to give her to a rival king as a political arrangement.
Senan says: “I had just auditioned for the Cambridge American Stage Tour with an extract from Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra, I had got a part in a student-written show set in the Byzantine Empire, and I had started studying Greek tragedy. This was all swirling around in my head, and I was in the library very late doing some reading when I came across this excerpt of a story. The play started to write itself.”
Senan wearing a jumper he crocheted
