October 2019‘Yes, you squashed cabbage leaf, you disgrace to the noble architecture of these columns, you incarnate insult to the English language, I could pass you off as the Queen of Sheba’
Phonetician Henry Higgins has got a project: to transform cockney flower girl Eliza Doolittle into a duchess of high society. However, the one thing he doesn’t realise is that his ‘creation’ has a mind and a life of her own, and he can’t simply throw her back into the gutter when he's finished with his experiment.
A witty and slapstick reworking of the classical tale Pygmalion, this play is also a cutting attack against the treatment of women by men and the British class system.
Founded in 2017, we are a non-profit, student-run organisation representing some of the best theatrical, creative and technical talent the University of Cambridge has to offer. For the month of September we tour across the UK and East Asia performing and providing workshops in venues, schools and universities. It is our aim to open up cultural dialogues through lively performances and interactive workshops. We have the support of Oscar winning Emma Thompson (an ex Cambridge Footlight) as our patron and participants will be working with some of the most prestigious institutions in each of the countries.
It is a fantastic opportunity to put together a production that will be staged internationally, while exploring some incredible places on a highly subsidised tour. It's an unmissable project if you're interested in theatre beyond Cambridge, education or culture/cultural diplomacy.
September–October 2018‘We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.’
It’s 2018. Oscar Wilde died over a century ago. Does he still have a place in our hearts? In a bold modern production of the classic comedy-melodrama, Lady Windermere’s Fan, the play and its fin-de-siecle wit and sensibilities are lovingly interrogated, even as they are performed.
Lady Windermere’s Fan was first performed in 1892. Half-comic, half-serious, It tells the story of Lady Windermere, her husband, and a mysterious ‘other woman’, who may not be all that she appears.
The University of Cambridge Asia Theatre Tour, founded in 2017 is a student run theatre company that performs a British play to venues around the UK and East Asia: China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan. The tour takes place in September over a 3 week period with rehearsals/tour preparation in August. As well as performances, the tour has a big educational focus, engaging audiences directly with the play through workshops and classes. Workshops are not limited to the play and also encompass production, directing and other plays/writers (e.g Shakespeare).
It is a truly fantastic opportunity to put together a production that will be staged internationally whilst travelling around East Asia on a highly subsidised tour. We have the support of Emma Thompson as our patron and participants will be working with some awesome venues as well as people in each of these countries. We currently have the support of people from Cambridge Youth Summer Camp, the British Council and UNESCO to name a few organisations. It's an unmissable project if you're interested in theatre beyond Cambridge, education and culture/cultural diplomacy. As it is a relatively new tour, there is a lot of scope to bring in your own ideas that will influence the future of the tour. We also hope that it offers a chance for Cambridge students to mutually learn from the diversity of people encountered on tour.
