Hayley Canham is an actress, book writer, composer and singer-songwriter (under the name, cannibal). She was born in the UK in 2002 and has dual English/New Zealand roots. She is best known for playing Matilda in RSC’s Matilda The Musical and Cathy in NT’s The Hard Problem as well as roles on screen in Penny Dreadful (2014) and the Paramount+ series Halo (2022).
For her writing, Hayley was a spotlighted artist at BEAM 2025. Her first show ‘Medea The Musical’, written aged 16, had a successful run at Edinburgh Fringe in 2022 and has since been licensed internationally. Her musical ‘Sappho: The Poetess’ is currently in development with support from DEM Productions. She will be workshopping a new production with NYMT in 2026.
As a singer, she has appeared on The Voice Kids (2017) and has released 12 singles and an album under cannibal, amassing over a million streams on Spotify with multiple plays on BBC Radio.
This is the untold story of Sappho — poetess, queer icon, and history’s first great songwriter.
Torn from the woman she loves and forced into a marriage she never wanted, Sappho fights to reclaim her lost love, learning the heavy price the world demands of those who defy its rules. Celebrated in her own time but then silenced for centuries, she bursts from the fragments to sing again.
Guitar in hand and lyrics sharp as flames, Sappho returns – part oracle, part rock star — in a musical memoir illuminating the eternal struggle and triumph of women who dare to love, to dream, and to create in defiance of the world.
The Other Palace, 29th Oct – 1st Nov
from Sappho: The Poetess
