- April 2019
If you missed Viva's hit production of Brassed Off back in 2017, or perhaps you just want to relive the experience- then good news! Brassed Off will return to the ADC theatre in Cambridge this April!
- April 2019
Can science advance without ego? A fast paced and moving, award winning, play dramatising Rosalind Franklin's part in the discovery of the structure of DNA.
- April 2019
A dramatic reconstruction of the assassination of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, by henchmen of King Henry II in 1170.
- March 2019
- March 2019
Worried about graduation? Getting on the housing ladder? Global warming? AI? The bees?? Self-driving cars eating you alive? Or just plain old nuclear annihilation? There’s plenty of things to be stressed about over the next decade. Why not find out how terrible (or non-terrible) things are going to be in advance? Come see 2030, the only druid-certified soothsaying sketch show! The cast and crew have travelled back in time 11 years to present to you a series of light vignettes/grim warnings all set in the near-future. With a script so responsive to developing news stories you’d swear the show had an improv component (rather than being genuinely clairvoyant), 2030 showcases the best of the Cambridge comedy scene’s writers and performers, working closely together to put together a vision of the future that’s so “uproariously funny” you’ll wish you were a decade older!
- March 2019
The comedy sketch show is a genre that has grown incredibly popular in Cambridge over time as we all love to see our favourite student comedians combine to act out the absurd and the hilarious for our entertainment. However, with such a diverse field of talent we're always left asking for more...
So, more is exactly what you're going to get. Following the success of this concept by the founders of Eggbox Comedy in 2016, under a strict time-limit of 23 hours, 30 of the finest student comedians in Cambridge will come together to produce not just one but FIVE sketch shows for your entertainment. From Stand-up and song, to improvisation and mime, come and see comedians of all genres combine to produce and perform jokes fresh from a frantic day of writing.
30 comedians, 23 hours and at the end of it all 60 minutes of glistening new comedy sketch show for you all to enjoy.
- March 2019
Following the success of 'The Greatest Show', CU Show Choir are back and ready to take you on a journey through time! Expect sick choreography with slick harmonies to match, as we give you music from throughout the decades!
Darwin better watch his back, we're here to give you a real lesson on evolution.
One audience member said "it was quite literally the greatest show"... we'll take that.
See you there!
- March 2019
The international, award-winning musical Legally Blonde follows the story of Elle Woods, a sorority girl whose life is turned upside down when her boyfriend, Warner, dumps her to 'get serious' and go to Harvard Law. Refusing to let her dream life slip away, Elle becomes determined to show him how serious she can be. She charms her way into Harvard but when she arrives she struggles to gain the respect of her peers, professors, and most importantly, Warner. With the help of a few good friends, she quickly realises her potential and sets out to prove herself in this new world.
This laugh-out-loud musical will take you from the lavish golf-courses of Malibu to the hallowed halls of Harvard Law as we follow Elle on her journey to discover you don't need to conform to other people's idea of 'serious' to win a murder case.
- March 2019
Hail and hearken, gentle audience! Have you heard the ancient legends of King Arthur? Of Camelot, and the Knights of the Round Table? Of their Quest for the Holy Grail? Of Lancelot and Guinevere’s forbidden love? Of Morgan Le Fay, and Merlin the wizard? Well, there are many more stories still to be told - especially the ones we haven’t made up yet…
The Cambridge Impronauts present The Once and Improvised King, an all-new cycle of Arthurian legends made up each night based on audience suggestions. An entirely improvised retinue of knights, ladies, enchanters, trusty squires, wise elders, incognito noble youths raised in obscurity, champions, fools, hermits, marvels and monsters shall embark upon a quest of the audience’s choosing. Battles shall be fought, things shall be found, and loves shall be loved. And maybe we’ll fulfil one or two ancient prophecies along the way. That happens, apparently.
- March 2019
The Footlights bring you the funniest songs, sketches, monologues and stand-up in an hour of non-stop, back-to-back fun-filled hilarity. The material is always original and always varied. It can be soft and silly, rude and spiky, wordy and nerdy or a little surreal; whatever the style, it's always 'uproariously funny' (Varsity).
- March 2019
Like ‘The Doll’s House’, ‘Hedda Gabler’ explores the trope of the married woman stuck in a loveless and constricting marriage and social situation, but gives it a refreshingly new and darker twist. Hedda is a victim of patriarchal society but she is angered rather than subdued by that fact- she acts out on the world and people around her, whether they deserve it or not, in a perverse but horrifyingly empowering act of revenge. A feminist anti-hero, the remarkable (and realistic) complexity of her character and psychology allows the play to transcend its 19th century setting and to become a nightmarish cautionary tale for all oppressive societies - in each new context it is revived and revisited it forces us to reflect on aspects of our own world and selves, and, perhaps, the darker parts that we’d rather ignore.
- February–March 2019
"No one would have believed, in the last years of the nineteenth century, that human affairs were being watched from the timeless worlds of space.
And slowly, but surely, they drew their plans against us."
Jeff Wayne's 1978 concept Album "The War of the Worlds", combining the iconic 1897 story of alien invasion with prog rock, orchestra and electronic music, was an instant success that remains a bestseller today.
This live version will combine ambitious music and tech with live song and performance, to recreate an alien invasion within the ADC auditorium.
- February 2019
This one night only event will showcase a range of pole dance performances from members of the Cambridge University Pole Society (CUPS). As a society, we are dedicated to removing the stigma that surrounds pole dancing, and showing its true colours as an expressive, beautiful sport and dance style. As well as solo performances, the showcase will include group dances, which will be used to tell stories and re-enact famous scenes from film. This showcase will present a highly eclectic and impressive demonstration of the talents of the CUPS performers.
- February–March 2019
The Ritz was fully booked. Claridge’s was condemned. You had to book five nights at the The Last Resort. Bad luck. But you’re here now. The concierge has… yep… he’s nicked your bag. Oh god. It’s going from bad to worse. But at least the Footlights are here to provide you with a two-act sketch bonanza - beat that, Travelodge.
The annual Footlights Spring Revue stands out as one of the biggest events on the Cambridge comedy calendar, and this year we’re shaking things up a tad. Written, performed and directed by finalist members of the Cambridge Footlights, check in to the ADC Theatre for this year’s Spring Revue - a mixture of brand new sketches and some of the best bits of from our performers’ writing.
The rooms are vacant, the students are vacant, but the seats are filling up! Remember your booking reference - and don’t leave a bad review on TripAdvisor - as you join the Cambridge Footlights for their 2019 Spring Revue “Last Resort”!
- February 2019
Just when you thought the Christmas and New Year parties were over, CUMTS presents you with the gift of Gala. For just two nights, CUMTS brings you an evening of pure musical theatre decadence. Dressed to the nines and accompanied by a full orchestra, the finest of Cambridge's musical theatre talent will be performing all of your favourite musical theatre classics alongside the latest Broadway hits, all dazzling with glitz and glamour...
- February 2019
WE’RE BACK BABY. AND BETTER THAN EVER.
After the overwhelming success of last year, Comic Sans Man 2.0 returns to grace the ADC stage with an hour of hilarity, without a script or a man in sight. Roman used to think that women couldn’t be funny. Roman doubted that comedy could be made up on the spot. Silly Roman. Now the time’s new, Roman.
- February 2019
The Footlights bring you the funniest songs, sketches, monologues and stand-up in an hour of non-stop, back-to-back fun-filled hilarity. The material is always original and always varied. It can be soft and silly, rude and spiky, wordy and nerdy or a little surreal; whatever the style, it's always 'uproariously funny' (Varsity).
- February 2019
"These are the offices of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - Dirk Gently, owner and proprietor, at your service. Thank you for asking; the term 'holistic' refers to my belief in the fundamental interconnectedness of all things"
Based on the novel by Douglas Adams, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency follows Dirk on the trail of a gruesome murderer who is somehow involved with the works of Coleridge, quantum physics, and the enigmatic study of the Cambridge Professor of Chronology. Ultimately, the stakes of the case are far greater than a single murder, but go to the fat of life on Earth. Confused? Don't be - everything is connected.
- February 2019
Kenny Shallows has always dreamt of being a poolside lifeguard. But when he wangles a place on the prestigious lifeguarding course at Hardwater Leisure Centre (largest in Britain if you count the car park!) he finds he is a small fish in a big pond.
Hardwater throws every conceivable obstacle Kenny’s way, from kiddies stuck in the big flume to a slush-puppie nozzle with a mind of its own, from the hunt for a fabled elixir to the pesky windmill obstacle on hole 9 of the crazy golf course. Can our underdog stay afloat when thrown in at the deep end? Or will he lose his trunks, get chlorine in his eyes and swim into the ladder?
It’s sink or swim; dunk or be dunked; splish or splash.
Join these three Footlights, “master of comic timing” (The Tab) Alex Franklin, “abundantly talented writer” (Varsity) Noah Geelan and soon-to-be Cambridge alumnus Will Bicknell-Found for an hour of narrative sketch comedy that promises to be “light-hearted, gloriously silly and really very funny” (★★★★★ - Varsity).
- February 2019
Cambridge's first and best student film night returns to the ADC Stage.
A selection of the best student films of this term will be screened in one unforgettable night, in collaboration with Cambridge Film Association.
- February 2019
“Maybe we are free. To do whatever. Children of the new morning, criminal minds. Selfish and greedy and loveless and blind. Reagan's children. You're scared. So am I. Everybody is in the land of the free. God help us all.”
‘Angels in America’ is Tony Kushner’s Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning drama about the AIDS crisis in New York under the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Considering ideas of sexuality, betrayal, American identity and the supernatural, this piece of magical realist drama is a beautiful depiction of queer relationships, religion, and American politics.
“Mom. Momma. I’m a homosexual, momma.”
- February 2019
The Footlights Stand-up Showcase brings you the freshest new stand-up comedy from graduating members of one of the oldest and most famous comedy groups in the UK.
New for 2019, it is sure to be an unmissable night that will have you bent double with laughter. Don't miss your chance to see this brand new show from the group that launched many of the greatest names in comedy, including Peter Cook, Emma Thompson, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Sandi Toksvig, David Mitchell, Robert Webb, Sue Perkins and Richard Ayoade.
- February 2019
Steve is a friendly but ultimately performative guy who keeps his cards close. Tired of feeling lonely, he signs up to a backstreet medical experiment designed to ‘find yourself’. Using advanced technology, a suspect doctor hooks his mind up to a computer, meeting extreme personifications of all the disparate parts of his psyche: from playful to anger to loneliness, in an attempt to understand him. The doctor is revealed to be harvesting such complex personalities and with only one hour allowed in the mind by the technology (shown by a countdown looming on projection), the audience has to find out: Who is the real Steve? Can he escape his own mind? Will the qLab work?
‘Prang’ is the debut hour from Footlight and self-proclaimed qLad Comrie Saville-Ferguson. Be prepared for surreality, technology and energy in a stylised collection of comedic and serious monologues about the self we present, being lonely in a crowd, and the myriad characters we play everyday.
- February 2019
“But - strangely enough – you were right, Mr Nowack! – when you’d guessed I’d never met the man I was waiting for. He was just someone who’d been writing letters to me – such glorious letters.”
Set in a 1930's Budapest parfumerie, She Loves Me is a hilarious, heart-warming and Olivier Award winning musical that follows the love lives of its various employees.
Amalia Balash and Georg Nowack have not once seen eye to eye, with almost nothing in common except the fact that both have been writing anonymous love letters to a romantic stranger they met through a lonely-hearts ad. But when a date is finally set and identities are to be revealed, the two may find that true love is not without its surprises.
She Loves Me is an enchanting evening of love and laughter, based on the 1937 play Parfumerie that similarly inspired famous film classics such as Ernst Lubitsch’s The Shop Around The Corner and Nora Ephron’s You’ve Got Mail.
- January–February 2019
"Here, there’s lots of money to be made in the business of opening graves. I’m serious. Farmers should be forgetting about crops and moving into the graveyard trade. It’s all about prime real estate for the dead nowadays."
A cloudy day in West Belfast. It’s Dennis’s funeral. Everything seems normal. The priest is drones on, the crowd half-heartedly pat their eyes with hankies. Then Uncle John orders an Indian takeaway (at eleven in the morning) and hijacks the sermon. There are only two remaining vacant graves in the family plot – and he will not miss out on one. Cue a morbid dogfight with vindaloos, Belgian girlfriends, and handbag-wielding octogenarians.
This piece of new writing by Connor Rowlett treads the line between morbid farce and naked drama as it explores the lives of a Northern Irish family who just can’t seem to change the subject from death.
Writer/Director email: cr579@cam.ac.uk
- January 2019
The best and brightest women and non-binary comedians in Cambridge bring you the funniest songs, sketches, monologues and stand-up in an hour of non-stop, back-to-back fun-filled hilarity. The material is always original and always varied. It can be soft and silly, rude and spiky, wordy and nerdy or a little surreal; whatever the style, it's always 'uproariously funny' (Varsity).
- January–February 2019
'You funny creature! A woman who loves you - a woman you love - fine summer weather. What could be simpler than that?'
Charming, handsome, and with an opinion on everything, once upon a time Platonov seemed bound for greatness. Now he is a simple country schoolteacher and husband to a dutiful yet unimaginative wife. Arriving at the local estate one day for lunch with old friends, he is reunited with Sofya, a beautiful and recently married woman from his university days. Halfway between Hamlet and Don Juan, Platonov is desperate for a bit excitement and can't resist taking advantage of his one true gift: making himself utterly irresistible to women.
Adapted from Chekhov's untitled earliest complete work, Wild Honey is Michael Frayn's romp through the Russian countryside. A blending of the farcical and the tragic, this unique piece captures the combined absurdity and despair at the heart of Chekhov's scenario, creating the world of a gloriously bittersweet summer where none of the rules apply.
- January 2019
Steve, have you stapled and sorted through that paperwork, because we need to file it by 4pm today, and I’m not staying late again because if I do I swear to god you don’t wanna know what –
Oh, hello, didn’t see you there.
Just another day in the office. Pens clicking, printers printing, paper cutting... Jill’s finger, she’s a real klutz. Welcome to Human Resources, mind the water-cooler, inconveniently placed in the centre of the office, but what can you do! Public planning!
Nothing has changed in the last 32 years I’ve been here, and I was only born 27 years ago! Shocking. Each day is the same and – wait, what’s that.
“Do not fret, young one, it’s me COMEDee! Life doesn’t have to be dull, turn that mundaneness into insane-ness? Is that right? Let’s brighten up this office with a pinch of laughter, a half-cup of jokes, and maybe consider the Feng Shui of this office because quite frankly I’m sad just looking at it.”
- January 2019
The Footlights bring you the funniest songs, sketches, monologues and stand-up in an hour of non-stop, back-to-back fun-filled hilarity. The material is always original and always varied. It can be soft and silly, rude and spiky, wordy and nerdy or a little surreal; whatever the style, it's always 'uproariously funny' (Varsity).
- January 2019
‘How do I define history? It’s just one f*cking thing after another.’
Sheffield. 1982. Eight bright but rowdy upper sixth boys are aspiring for Oxbridge, and Hector is in charge of getting them there, but the Headmaster has insisted on providing some new blood to help polish them.
A story of sexuality, lust, and potential, Alan Bennett’s acclaimed and beloved ‘The History Boys’ looks at a world where education is becoming less about what you are taught, but where it can take you.
Opening at the Royal National Theatre in 2004, it has since become a worldwide hit, winning the 2004 Olivier and 2005 Tony Awards for Best Play.
- January 2019
For just four nights the circus has come to town, a circus that is quite unlike any other… Cambridge’s premiere student drag troupe invite you to enter a sparkling tent of mystical wonders for their most ambitious and obscure show to date. Drag kings, queens and in-betweens gather under the blinding lights of the circus for a whirling cabaret of dancing, singing, lip-sync, comedy and general oddity. Get ready to shake off the awful start-of-term blues and throw those gender roles out the window, as Dragtime take you for the ride of your life. Welcome to the Cirque du Slay…
- January 2019
In just 24 hours, CUMTS will create and perform a brand new musical. A theme will be announced to some of Cambridge's sparkiest new writers and composers, who will then put their heads together for 24 hours of creative madness. A troupe of CUMTS performers and musicians will be on hand to bring their work to life, in what will be a whirlwind celebration of new writing. There will be sleeplessness. There will be coffee. Who knows what the final product will be? All we know, is that it will be unmissable.
- December 2018
A story of love, jealousy, deceit and prejudice, "Othello" is one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies. This timeless play has been reinvented again and again, its warnings and lessons remaining resonant for every society that comes to it, and 2018 will see ETG reimagine the play in the vibrant and explosive 1960s London jazz era.
The Cambridge University European Theatre Group is a self-sufficient, entirely student-run theatrical company, which tours a Shakespeare play around Europe for two and a half weeks every December (and has been doing so for over 50 years now!). It is an ambitious coach-bound operation; a company of 25 or so tour with professional lighting and sound equipment, costumes and an experimental set, enabling us to put on a show absolutely anywhere.
Each year we typically visit twelve venues - ranging from professional theatres, to schools and universities, and even to churches and converted bread-ovens - and travel through five or six countries. In the past, we have performed in France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland, The Czech Republic, Italy and Hungary, before returning for a homerun in Cambridge the following January.
ETG’s rich history began in 1957 when a group of students, which included Sir Derek Jacobi and Sir Trevor Nunn, travelled across Switzerland with their production of Romeo and Juliet. Over time, ETG has developed a reputation at home and abroad for producing exciting, innovative, experimental and professional interpretations of classic texts, attracting the most ambitious actors, technicians and creative forces from within the university. We provide successive generations of company members and audiences with challenging experiences completely unimaginable elsewhere in British (let alone student) theatre.
- January 2019
Against the backdrop of civil war, aspiring writer Jo hides from life's difficulties in her attic and pens stories of adventure. This much-loved musical adaptation of Louisa May Alcott's classic novel is suitable for all the family and reminds us that sometimes when you dream, your dreams come true.
- December 2018
- December 2018
