- August 2025
Shortlisted for the Peter Shaffer Postgraduate Award for Playwriting
Finlay McGowan, consultant, is an unremarkable man, and he has woken up in Whitehall, tied to a chair. Being unable to leave and spiralling into mania, two civil servants enter and explain his capture: After years of research and development, HM Government has perfected “The System”, an electronic, economic Nostradamus whose word is law and always knows the path to economic growth. There’s just one problem - for the GDP to grow, according to The System, Finlay has to put his life on the line. He cannot be made to do it, and cannot be coerced. For the prediction to come true, the System says, Finlay must want to do it.
Gross Domestic Product is a dark comedy that asks us the question - in 21st century Britain, when push comes to shove, how much is a human life really worth?
This show shall be one of two productions that our independent theatre company - Pique Theatre - debuts with at Fringe. Our other production, Cockaigne Drinking Society, is similarly advertised on this site.
- August 2025
It's the week before the Cockaigne High School drinking society fundraiser and something's gone terribly wrong, if only everyone could agree on what that something was. Was it that the wrong band was booked? Was the escaped murderous convict stalking the place? Or was it the Tesco's meal deal on sale?
Cockaigne Drinking Society is a dark satirical farce that boils down the most despised aspects of the UK education system. Everyone’s got a bone to pick about how schools are run and who gets to do what, but not everyone thinks the same. This short-lecture length comedic play pits the most unbearable and relatable periods of school life - student politics, underaged drinking, and being hunted by a serial killer.
This show shall be one of two productions our independent theatre copmany - Pique Theatre - shall be debuting with at fringe. Our other production, Gross Domestic Product, is similarly advertised on this site.
- April 2025
The LMP are thrilled to be producing ‘Not For a Cat’, a recently-discovered play believed to have been written in the 1950s by a student at Cambridge. The play is thought-provoking, humorous and extremely engaging, discussing topical issues surrounding nuclear advancement and international politics.
- March 2025
Hear ye, hear ye, come watch a show so funny it'll go down in history!!
Come and see the figures of history: high and low, big and small, smelly and less smelly in this night of hilarious sketches, songs and good fun. There will be giggles galore, and you can nerd out to your heart’s content!
Get ready for a truly educational night as every thing in the show, every single thing, is definitely, 100% entirely True Historical Fact! (definitely)
- May 2024
A Devised Show!
A Working Progress is just as it sounds: a work in progress! This hour-long show is a devised piece created within one week by a company of talented Cambridge students. Themed on the idea of construction, we as a team have put together a new show from scratch! Come along for one night only to see where our minds lead us!
- April–May 2024
In Ben Jonson’s Epicoene, a rich man, Morose, sets out to find a wife and, in doing so, disinherits his nephew, Dauphine. This decision triggers Dauphine’s friends, a group of chauvinistic young men with a history of playing humiliating tricks on Morose, to hijack his uncle’s resolution by presenting him with the woman of his dreams. But is it too good to be true?
Thrillingly relocated to contemporary London, a culture of misogynistic masculinity influencers and oligarchical parties, Jonson’s rarely seen play comes to the ADC.
- November–December 2023
Calling all intellects! The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) is here, and simply aims to perform every single Shakespeare play (there’s 37 of them!) in 97 minutes.
This uproarious and highly physical sketch comedy takes the audience on a breath-taking and whiplash-inducing rollercoaster through all of the Bard’s magnificent plays, presenting them in a way you never have seen, or even imagined, them before. Importantly, the play is extremely spontaneous and appears to the audience as almost an improvisation. Mistakes are scripted, the fourth wall is demolished and there is fabulous audience participation. Wildly funny and with madcap actors running around, this show will be fantastic fun.
- October 2023
Be Happy. Be Angry. Be Sad. Be Apathetic. Be all four at once.
The Four Seasons of Tyler Branch shows the same day in the life of Tyler in four different versions, each with its own unique Tyler. In each version his life has gone a little different, but the people in his life remain the same. His sister still knows how to get under his skin, right when he’s busy elsewhere. His mother still interferes haphazardly on the most important days of his life. And his childhood friend is still hanging around, for reasons nobody can quite tell. Each version has different consequences, different outcomes, and one very big thing in common, something Tyler doesn’t want to talk about…
- June 2023
Set in the charming countryside of Hertfordshire, Jane Austen's most famous novel has stood the test of time by taking its readers on a delightful journey filled with love, wit, drama, pride, and.. well, prejudice.
'Pride and Prejudice' tells the story of Elizabeth Bennet as she navigates the challenges of societal norms and expectations, all while trying to find true love. Alongside her sisters, Jane, Mary, Kitty, and Lydia, Elizabeth meets a range of interesting characters, including the aloof Mr. Darcy and the charming Mr. Bingley.
This stage adaptation of 'Pride and Prejudice' seeks to merge the timeless, classic, Austenesque sense of romance and wonder with modern-day romantic storyteller Taylor Swift's love songs that will be adapted for a string quartet.
The production will take place in St Edmund's College Orchard-- yes, it is an outdoor play-- between the 16th and the 19th of June 2023.
- May 2023
Channel 4 Squared is an exciting new sketch show following a day's programming of a (slightly scuffed) TV channel!
In the age of streaming services, who can resist a refreshing, good old fashioned day of TV programing! Here at Channel Squared, we broadcast a wide variety of programmes catering to all your television needs- in the form of comedy sketches! From day time talk shows with a twist to a satirical look at the evening news, we’ve got the lot!
- February 2023
Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s A Little Night Music (based on Ingmar Bergman's Smiles on a Summer Night) is a passionate story of intertwined love affairs, regret and longing centred on the renowned actress Desirée Armfeldt, and her family and flirtations.
When Desirée performs in the town of her former lover, old passions rekindle and during a weekend in the country, the entangled romances of four couples are laid bare with excruciating awkwardness. With the magic of music on a moonless summer’s night, love’s joys and complications play out in triple time.
Filled with beautiful iconic numbers including Send in the Clowns and Every Day a Little Death, this award-winning romantic musical by one of musical theatre’s all-time greats will be performed in the Lecture Theatre at Trinity Hall Central Site.
Funding for this performance is generously provided by the Trinity Hall Arts Festival and the Lady Margaret Players.
- February 2023
Macroevolution, Variant B is a feel-good comedy/drama about a longlasting three-way friendship.
Three shy freshers meet at a board games night in the university of York, and agree to play the fiendish Macroevolution, Variant B together. This meeting blossoms into a close friendship, over which the group keep playing Macroevolution on and off, for many years, until their lives start moving along different tracks.
Can they help each other navigate the choppy seas of their twenties? Can any of them understand the game’s opaque, pretentious rules enough to win it? Can they keep in touch, or are things coming to a natural close? This original play documents the highs, lows, arguments, and stupid-yet-hilarious banter that you get when three introverts join forces against the world.
- March 2022
What should I wrap in silence, what should I not wrap in silence?...how miserably does my body recline, my back stretched out on its hard bed! Alas for the temples of my head and for my sides! How I long to roll my back and spine about, listing now to this side of my body, now to that…’
Branches grow from sleeves, the mafia attend a crucifixion, a horse births human bodies. In this adaptation of Euripides we embody the Trojan Women, exploring displacement, ancestry and prophecy. Approaching text, choreography, soundscape and puppetry through the framework of the four elements, and the four corners of a single room, the disparate stories of the women merge into a single substance. We mediate the hinterland between ancient mythology and personal memory. Driven by the force of Dionysian tragedy, creation and destruction, warfare is transmuted by forgiveness.
Wringing Metamorphosis is a dance theatre company launched by Charis Taplin and Blue Pieta, with musical direction and performance from Elinor Arden and Jessica Raja Brown. We combine dance, theatre and performance art with live music moving between genres and languages; alongside disciplines from cinema to puppetry. We devise original work through a combination of contemporary and ancient dance- theatre techniques, and deep physical research into personal dreamscape and familial history, with imagery ranging from medieval religious iconography to Mesopotamian myth, to film noir. The multidisciplinary dimensions of our work join in the fulcrum of the body, turning the stage - be it a theatre, field, studio, or shower cubicle - into a limitless space, where the threads of performance are woven into the audience to create an immersive fabric.
- February 2022
Come down to the Maypole for a scratch night of theatre and comedy from Cambridge's finest performers, presented by St John's theatre troupe, The Lady Margaret Players. Free entry so you can spend those precious savings on a pint (or several)!
- January 2022
- December 2021
That's right, the Lady Margaret Players are holding their inaugural college panto. And this year it's a panto adaptation of the Nativity!
This brand new production follows Mary and Joseph, as well as Joseph's mum Tracy and their pet donkey, as the birth of Jesus approaches. Mary and Joseph must face up against their long journey and the plots of the evil Herod in this unhinged version of the classic Nativity tale. It's the Christmas origin story like you've never seen it before, complete with sharks, family squabbles and a whole host of parody musical numbers that will stick in your head for days!
- November 2021
“If we are all eternal, and if Human Life is only the first mile in a billion, do you honestly believe that God could abandon any mothahfuckah so soon in the journey?”
In purgatory, a court case is being heard against Judas Iscariot, the notorious betrayer of Jesus Christ. Witnesses from across history are invited to give their testimonies. Was it a terrible crime, or was it a necessary part of God’s great plan?
Set in a time-bending, seriocomically imagined courtroom where saints talk streets slang and lawyers barter with Satan, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot is an ambitious philosophical meditation on religion. The play alternates between riotously funny and deeply thought-provoking, revealing at its heart profound reflections on human fallibility, guilt and forgiveness.
Regardless of your faith-or lack thereof-you may discover a new gem or two from a two-millennia-old story.
- November 2020
N.B. this show has been cancelled
After our sell-out-one-night run in Lent, The Great(ER) Cambridge Panel Show returns to storm the ADC Theatre!
- October 2020
We're back with another Scratch Night - for Freshers Week!
- February 2020
Scratch Night is back! Come on down to the Maypole for an evening of the best stand-up, sketches, theatre and more from Cambridge's female and non-binary performers - for free!
- February 2020
"Let me give you some advice. Number one - never mix music with politics..."
Alexander Ivanov is imprisoned in a Soviet mental hospital for statements against the government. He shares a cell with another Ivanov, who believes himself to be a conductor with a symphony orchestra under his command. Alexander's son Sacha is in a classroom with a teacher convinced of the genuineness of his father's illness, whilst inside the hospital, a doctor attempts to cure his patients by setting them lines. Ivanov's imaginary orchestra, on stage with the actors, surrounds them all, filling the spaces between their truths with music...
In this rarely performed one-act play with live music, playwright Tom Stoppard and composer André Previn interweave six actors and a chamber orchestra to create a strange and compelling world of authority, artistry and madness.
- January 2020
Come down to the Maypole for a scratch night of theatre and comedy from Cambridge's finest performers, presented by St John's theatre troupe, The Lady Margaret Players. Free entry so you can spend those precious savings on a pint (or several)!
- November 2019
‘Your grandfather, and his father, and all your family going back, they owned living souls. The dead are looking at you and whispering to you from every tree in the cherry orchard, from every leaf and every branch. The ownership of human beings! You’re all of you corrupted by it.’
Russia, late nineteenth century: Madame Ranevskaya returns home to the estate she grew up on as a child, bankrupt, impoverished, and surrounded by a disparate and self-obsessed group of family, dependants, neighbours and servants. There she receives an offer from an ex serf turned successful merchant: cut down the famous, huge cherry orchard, a place of incredible beauty and sentimental value, and turn nature into profit, or face having to sell up the entire estate, disband the community of the house, and lose their home for good. Chekhov’s masterful tragicomedy, brought to you here through Tom Stoppard’s translation, tells the story of a family in decline, and a society in change, illuminating themes of abusive relationships, environmentalism and class politics which remain as startlingly immediate today as they were in Chekhov’s time.
- April 2016
Acting The Goat: A 'Sketchumentary' by Emma Plowright and Guy Lewy.
Join the anthropomorphic adventure as we stumble through the murky and obnoxous depths of the animal kingdom with your endlessly profound (but slightly senile) host for the evening, Tobias Fiddlepint-Smythe!
A comedy sketch show about what animals really get up to when BBC cameras aren't rolling. Experience the politically charged world of fish misrepresentation, get some kitchen tips from Fabio the scumbag raccoon and Quintin the bourgeois hummingbird, and find out once and for all what on earth your cat thinks he's doing.
- April–May 2015
‘Has anyone ever hidden money in a coffin?’
‘It never crossed anybody’s mind.’
‘It’s crossed mine.’
As so ensues a black comedy full of truths, lies and intrigue. Bank robbers Hal and Dennis are desperately trying to get away with their crime, whilst Hal’s father McLeavy mourns the death of his wife, unaware of the scheming advances of her nurse. As the Hal and Dennis start to feel the police closing in the coffin in the corner seems to look more and more convenient…
Orton’s comedy is entertaining and witty, but subtly mocks the law and the Englishman. This production will be staged in the Main Lecture hall of the Divinity School at St John’s.
Email lmploot2015@gmail.com to reserve tickets.
- February 2015
A new surreal and sophisticated sketch show. Expect some film, some settings, and definitely some styles. Written by two finalist Englings whose time has come.
- January 2015
Two men: a management consultant from Manchester; an Assistant Scout Leader who has an obsession with Ronan Keeting. L’Escargot is a two-man comedy play that follows the paths of these men stranded in Paris after their flights home are cancelled.
Forced to stick together, the two heroes set out to discover the city they always overlooked. But as they journey deeper on a winding exploration of famous (cliched) sites, they become embroiled in the lives of other characters (a Parisian show girl, a Dutch priest, a rather curious mime) and each other's.
Amidst the chaos and uproar wrought across the cultural capital of the world, one question remains: can you spot the snail?
- April 2014
14 of Cambridge's finest graduating and graduate actors directed by professional theatre director Lisa Blair, perform a showcase of monologues and duologues.
- November 2011
Dream, perhaps Shakespeare's best loved comedy play, returns to Cambridge this Michaelmas courtesy of the Lady Margaret Players. The modern world borders the carnivalesque in a bold and truly inventive interpretation of a fairyland haunted by surrealism, as a dream teeters on the edge of a nightmare. Have you ever seen the wreckage after the carnival shuts? With a Puck trying to stage-manage the cast of fairies, this is an opportunity not to be missed!
- June 2010
- March 2007
'Ghosts' is an extraordinary play, recently described by 'The Guardian' as being "a masterpiece." Ibsen described 'Ghosts' as the work he "had to write." Dealing with characters who are unable to escape their pasts, the 'ghosts' of duty and public opinion come to dominate and ruin the lives of the five characters of the Alving and Engstrand families. Touching, among other subjects, syphilis, prostitution, sibling incest, free love and euthanasia, through what one translator, Michael Meyer, called "double-density dialogue" in which characters say one thing while meaning another, 'Ghosts' is an attack on the extent that society invades personal lives.
- February 2006
Eclectica! A strange and wonderful mix of music, poetry, stand up and song.
For more information, look at the facebook.com event listing:
http://cambridge.facebook.com/eventprofile.php?id=894 or contact deborah grayson on deborah.grayson@gmail.com if you are interested in performing!
- November 2005
You are cordially invited to attend a banquet of Roman horror and tragedy.
A new staging of Seneca's grotesque tragedy, telling the story of two brothers' struggle for the throne. Thyestes seduced Atreus’ wife and siezed the throne, leaving Atreus unsure of his own children’s parentage. Atreus now plans to reverse the roles of victim and villain; he has regained the throne, casting his brother into exile, and is contemplating further revenge...
- May 2005
"Sex is all anyone ever thinks about... Until it's not. And that's when you know that you're married." ...Sparkling, sexy, and sometimes sinister, this long-antipated play charts the marriage of an upper-crust couple who find that two's company, but three is much more fun...
- May 2005
- March 2005
Affabulazione is a modern tragedy of politics, patriarchy and psychoanalysis that charts the descent into madness of one man, known only as the Father and the events leading up to his murder of his son. Through the prism of this one father-son relationship, the play examines the whole fabric of Western culture. Our production will make use of film to explore the Father's state of mind, with thoughts and dream sequences projected behind him and all of the characters as they speak.
