- November 2022
“I was thinking last night, you know, you should make a film of Alice in Wonderland! I could play Alice. But we should make it terribly modern and - beautiful, sort of. About this city and us and everything. The city feels like a rabbit hole sometimes, don't you think? It's - It's easy to fall into.”
Al is an artist. He wants money and fame.
Bea is a writer. She wants artistic success.
Cee is a model. She just wants to dissolve.
The unusual death of an acquaintance shakes the lives of three artists struggling in the whirling dreamspace of 60s London. As they set out on individual but overlapping quests for fame, money and meaning, dreams and reality start to blur together, tumbling down the rabbit hole. Part Warhol's Factory, part Alice's Wonderland, the world of the play explores the imbalanced power dynamics between male artists and their female muses, set in the dreamy speedy velvety underground of the city, where art is everything and reality is an afterthought.
- November 2022
Do the words “Beep Test”, “Gifted and Talented programme” and “Show and Tell” evoke a visceral reaction in you? If so, take a trip with us Back To School! From sports day to pizza Fridays, this brand-new sketch show will teleport you back to the good old days of primary and secondary school, dredging up those all of those childhood and adolescent memories which have been buried… for good reason.
- October 2022
- October 2022
- December 2021
Pembroke Players are back with their first smoker of the year, featuring some of Cambridge's very best stand-up comics!
- March 2021
Left alone while her family searches for the missing herd, a Neolithic girl seeks comfort in imaginary friends. As she fills the cave with stories, the reality of isolation starts to take its toll, and The Thing Without a Face is drawing closer all the while...
This is an audio-immersive production that invites the audience to turn their own room into the cave in which this strange and beautiful story of loneliness and solidarity takes place.
- February 2021
NEVER SEEN BEFORE COMEDY.
Literally, they are attempting some comedy for the Very First Time. Comedy Virgins, if you will.
Anyway, come along, see how awesome these performers are and validate the weird way we've named this night! Thank you!
- November 2020
Why is the floor sticky?
Was jam involved?
Does it matter that the floor is sticky since it's an online show anyway?
Tune in for the annual Sticky Floor Smoker, where the comedy will be virtual, but the laughter will be real. This year featuring everyone's kitchen (or college-insurance-policy-compatible-gyp-room-alternative) floors as we broadcast to you live from many locations :o :o
- November 2020
“The Chairs” by famous French absurdist writer Eugène Ionesco is a tragi-comic farce about an elderly couple who host a dinner party for invisible guests. A 3 person play, this chair-induced fever dream of a play is looking for a creative and (dare I say it) “zany” prod team and cast to bring this weird and wonderful show to life.
A Week 6 show funded by Pembroke Players, this will run for three nights in the unique location of the Storey’s Field Centre and will be both performed for a real-life audience and live-streamed!
- October 2020
As part of Black History Month, we are working with the Pembroke College BAME officer to put together a showcase of Black artists ! We would love for people to get involved with anything they would like to perform – this could be poetry readings, monologues, spoken word, anecdotes, dance or anything you would like to bring to us!
- October 2020
Pembroke Smokers are back!
Get yourself some wine or other beverage, some snacks if you're hungry, some snacks if you're not hungry, and settle in for a night of comedy to welcome in the new academic rigour ahem I mean academic year. Sorry.
The smoker will now be online with a link sent to you to see our fabulous performers live from the comfort of your own room.
- July–August 2020
“When the sun burns warm above,
A maiden’s mind goes straight to love”
‘Madame Bovary’ follows Emma, a bookish young woman, from her engagement to accomplished - but ultimately uninteresting - doctor Charles Bovary and traumatic pregnancy to scandalous encounters with volatile lovers and an eventual, devastating bankruptcy.
This tragic tale of the loss of agency, of companionship, and ultimately of the self through marriage and motherhood in 19th century France speaks directly and importantly to our contemporary experiences of loneliness and isolation. Emma’s dry observation and shrewd commentary becomes our own - as Flaubert famously declared of his plucky protagonist: “C’est moi”.
Experience the beloved realist classic like never before in this new, student-written radio play. Adapted from a script first performed in Pembroke New Cellars in 2019, this production reworks Flaubert's narrative, with a distinct focus on the value and power of the female voice.
- June 2020
A virtual musical revue about relationships, isolation, and longing.
- March 2020
Live from Pembroke New Cellars, it's Saturday night...! From the team behind the five-star, sell-out production of Doctor Whom comes a brand-new-for-one-night-only panel show of games, quizzes and calamitous comedy featuring some of Cambridge Theatre's finest new performers.
- March 2020
For the final smoker of the term, we're throwing a big ol' party!
When: Friday 6th March, doors open at 9:30pm
Where: Pembroke Old Library
What: Comedy, wine, other soft drinks, music, laughter
Who: You!
Why: It'll be fun! I promise!
Dress code: black tie with a 1920's twist ;)
So Charleston your way down to the Old Library for a night of music, colour, wine and comedy!
- March 2020
Chance, we've got to go on.
Go on to where? I couldn't go past my youth, but I've gone past it
Alexandra Del Lago, ageing actress of the Silver Screen, and her escort, Chance Wayne, end their month-long bender in St Cloud, Missouri. While the actress has been fleeing from her suspected failed comeback to the screen, Chance is returning to his hometown. He seeks the glory, the fame and the girl he knew from his youth, however, time and corruption threaten him from every angle.
- March 2020
1896. Girton College, Cambridge, the first college in Britain to admit women. The Girton girls study ferociously and match their male peers grade for grade. Yet, when the men graduate, the women leave with nothing but the stigma of being a ‘blue stocking’ – an unnatural, educated woman. They are denied degrees and go home unqualified and unmarriageable.
Blue Stockings follows Tess, Carolyn, Maeve, and Celia through their tumultuous first year at Girton College where they are not only faced with the systematic barriers of misogyny and the cruelty of the class divide that further dictates their right to learn, but also fall in love with the very same boys that brand them as inferior.
- February 2020
Keep good Gawain and ready for the test; be prepared to play the lethal game but for now take your rest.
The mysterious Green Knight arrives at Camelot and lays forth a challenge: any may take the Green Knight's axe and strike him provided he may return the blow in one years time. Gawain accepts and beheads the Green Knight with a single stroke. Gawain does not fear reprisal until the Green Knight stands, picks up his head and reminds Gawain of the promise he made. One year later as he goes into the wilderness of nature, Gawain enters a world wonders and strangeness.
- February 2020
Climb aboard a scarlet steam engine and travel to a haunted castle in the Scottish Highlands for an enchanting and legally safe sketch show which may or may not be parodying a certain book and movie franchise about a certain boy wizard.
- February 2020
"I can't know you in one hundred and forty."
"Try."
How do you communicate under a law which limits your speech to 140 words a day? Bernadette and Olive meet at a cat's funeral and steadily move towards the realisation that, for all their attempts at Morse code, contractions and telling stories with their eyes, something was already lost in translation between them long before the Hush Law was passed.
- February 2020
First time performers, first rate comedy. After 2 sell out shows last term join us for our first smoker of the new year!
- February 2020
Join DOCTOR WHOM for a wibbly-wobbly adventure across time and space as they traverse the cosmos with their impressionable sidekick and talking robot dog. However, disaster strikes from an unexpected place when Doctor Whom defeats all their enemies for good, ridding the universe of all evil. Facing an identity crisis and long-long-long-term retirement, the Doctor must reckon with their greatest enemy: themselves.
"Stylish, fact-paced, and genuinely funny ... beg, borrow, or use your sonic screwdriver to wrangle a ticket to this whimsical take on the classic series. You won’t be sorry. ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐" - The Tab
- November 2019
‘Mais la raison n’est pas ce qui règle l’amour/But reason does not govern love.’ Molière
The Cambridge Annual French Play: a radically avant-garde and minimalist modernization of one of the most influential French plays ever written. The first time Cambridge has ever done a truly bilingual play; simultaneously in French and English and with no subtitles.
Protagonist Alceste, member of the glitterati, despises his world’s insincerity and puts up an epic struggle against the calculating rules of the fame game. Disillusioned with humanity itself and increasingly unpopular, he ironically falls in love with the epitome of the world he detests: the flirtatious and flighty Célimène, a feisty gossip columnist/part-time feminist. Watch a hilarious debacle over a critical poetry review taken to Kafkaesque extremes when Alceste is put on trial for his cruel but honest criticism (in the form of a Facebook dislike). A play about reputation, and a satire of the 21st century media, journalism and Hollywood culture, putting Sartre's thesis that we only exist in the eyes of others to the test.
In short, a rattling good yarn.
- November 2019
Why is the floor sticky?
Is that a good thing?
Who's going to clean it later?
For the answers to these questions and, just as importantly, free wine(!) come down to Pembroke New Cellars on Sunday for the 2nd Smoker of the year!
- October–November 2019
Trurl and Klapaucius are two of the greatest inventors the galaxy has ever seen. However, unparalleled as they are, there often comes a point where their creations tend to get the better of them...
A new adaptation inspired by the short stories of Stanisław Lem, Fables for Robots is an assorted medley of nuts and bolts, presented in the shiniest chromium physical theatre format for your viewing pleasure. Join Trurl and Klapaucius as they set off on a genre-spanning journey, from sci-fi to philosophy to surrealist comedy, and race through the universe in series of self-edifying quests. Tremble before the rambunctious robotic monarch King Krool; gasp in awe at the intergalactic intransigence of Pirate Pugg; weep at the beatific musical stylings of Trurl's electronic bard; hearken back to a time when we still dreamed of a future full of promise, wonder, and tinfoil spaceships.
We present to you - Fables for Robots.
- October 2019
"Mum, mum, dad, PLEASE can we go to the FRESHER'S SMOKER?"
"Yeah please mum!"
"There's even FREE WINE!"
Fresher's week smoker is BACK, so buy your tickets and bring your kids down to New Cellars on Friday!
- March 2019
'Chewing Gum: A Sketch Show' is an hour of the freshest, mintiest, hubba hubba bubba bubbliest comedy around! Get ready to pop, lock and polka dot, as we go full Violet Beauregarde and chomp down on the things we love to love, or even love to hate.
- February 2019
‘How does it feel?’ presents an hour of perspectives that are not often heard. Written and performed by LGBTQ+ people who feel their identities and experiences are under-represented or not well-known, it promises to be be warm, funny, informative, emotional, fresh and -- most of all -- honest.
From stand-up and sketch comedy to personal stories, naturalism to absurdity, the show will be a space for people to express themselves in their own terms. We hope you come away laughing, thinking and feeling in ways you might not have expected.
- February 2019
"Well, in this age of medical technology, an old age pensioner is peeing into a Coca-Cola bottle using a Beano comic as a funnel."
The tense silence of a gynaecologist's waiting room is shattered as Rita waltzes in and starts solving everyone's problems. Her brash, funny, pragmatic, out-spoken, but ultimately brilliant advice takes charge in a whirlwind of noise and colour. Gin will be drunk, patient files read and complaints lodged...
Book your appointment with Dr Riley and step into 1979; this immersive theatre piece will transform New Cellars into a waiting room full of people... and their uteri.
- February 2019
“Welcome to the Dead Parents Society. Sign up on the sheet at the side and take a name tag. Sit, and talk, and realise that you are not alone: we are all grieving something”
A new play written by Finty Hunter: Dead Parents Society is a play about how we grieve, how we cope with trauma, and how we find community in the wreckage. Set over several weeks in a group therapy session, four young adults find themselves attempting to deal, in whatever way that means for them, with their loss.
Content Warnings [may contain spoilers]
parent death, grief, brief mention of suicide, mention of rape.
- November 2018
Here on True Stories we've become concerned about the troubling trend of irresponsible, one sided news stories plaguing our country. Most media outlets publish these same fake stories, that just aren’t true, without checking facts first.
But don't worry, we're here to save Democracy - one True Story at a time.
True Stories is a brand-new Michaelmas current affairs sketch show, reporting from Pembroke New Cellars at 9.30pm (week 7). Come down for a night of journalistic expertise, reliability, integrity, and the absolute truth.
We are fighting fake news. It's fake, phony, and fake.
Fake news is enemy of the people.
Sad!
- November 2018
West Germany, 1971. Petra von Kant is a successful and self-absorbed fashion designer whose career is sustained by the toil of her devoted assistant Marlene. But her narcissistic world is shattered when the beautiful ingénue Karin enters her life, and Petra suddenly finds herself overcome with passion and in danger of losing the grip on power she has so carefully cultivated. This play, by one of the most important dramatists of post-war Europe, explores sadism, masochism, and the ways in which control, obsession and dependency masquerade as love, as well as the relationship between identity and artifice in a world dominated by elaborate dress and ravishing decoration.
- November 2018
It's back only bigger, better, and stickier.
If anyone's confused...
sticky
/ˈstɪki/
adjective
1.
tending or designed to stick to things on contact.
floor
/flɔː/
noun
1.
the lower surface of a room, on which one may walk.
Sticky Floor Smoker
/'stɪki flɔː ˈsməʊkə/
noun.
1.
A bloody brilliant line-up including top Footlights veterans and the hottest new talent alike. Known to induce pant wetting laughter.
Get down to the cellars and see for yourselves what is sure to be "A truly fantastic night of comedy"- The Tab.
- November 2018
"You understand that pornography-your pornography-is now the Great British sex education?"
How do you infiltrate the patriarchy? Through campaigns and activism? Playing the system? Or monetizing female sexuality? Women, Power and Politics presents a trio of cutting, insightful and darkly humorous plays that explore the dynamics of gender and authority. From united suffragettes to an MP struggling to be more than just one of 'Blair's Babes' the collection challenges who is liberated and just how far this emancipation goes. These three elegant and separate stories chronicle the development of British politics and questions its future showcasing love, friendship and bitter rivalry between those who take on the system....
- November 2018
Harry and Ella walk into a bar. They’ve been together a year now. It’s going well.
Until suddenly – after a not-so-quick trip to the Ladies – it’s not.
Watch the drama unfold, first from the corridor outside, and then from within THE most glamorous, the most mysterious, the most sacred of all locations: the ladies’ loos. During Act 1, lament the many impediments of being male – waiting for your girlfriend (seriously, how long does it take to put a tampon in?), neglected, powerless, and, as always, excluded from the action. During Act 2, see what you were missing – revel in the glory of being female, of being welcomed into this chapel of piss, poo and periods, where the gossip and the drama flows as readily as the sickly pink soap from the silver dispensers. And most importantly, find out what happened behind cubicle doors to rock this Perfect Couple.
New endings and old beginnings, frustration and embarrassment, humour and tenderness – this play examines the walls we build around gender and sexuality, and the difficulties of navigating a queer new world when these walls unexpectedly come down.
- October 2018
Genet’s absurdist masterpiece was inspired by a real-life scandal, the murder by two maids, sisters Christine and Léa Papin, of their mistress and her daughter. Genet’s maids – Solange and Claire – occupy themselves whenever their Madame is out by acting out ritualised fantasies of revenging their downtrodden status. As the lines between reality and the fantastical world of their game blur, the sisters descend further into a thrilling psychosexual melodrama that calls into question the nature of class, of gender, and of theatre itself.
