Amateur theatre company Sedos presents a new production of Dale Wasserman’s play, based on Ken Kesey’s novel, about one inmate’s clash with the state mental institution that holds him in its power.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest is set in 1960s America. New inmate Randle P McMurphy, a loving, fighting, life-affirming brawler, swaggers into the hospital, rallies the other patients and challenges the dictatorial Nurse Ratched. McMurphy’s defiance, which starts as a sport, soon turns into an all out war between authority and free will, ending in a shocking climax.

Kesey’s novel was famously adapted into an Oscar-winning film in 1975, starring Jack Nicholson. Wasserman’s play, which originated some years before the movie, was last seen on the West End stage in 2004 and 2006, when Christian Slater played the defiant McMurphy. Hip hop dance company Bounce’s innovative version of the story returns to the Peacock theatre this month following its premiere last year.

Sedos is an amateur dramatics society founded in 1905 as the in-house drama society for members of the Stock Exchange.