- December 2005
The Footlights/ADC Pantomime is back, and this time it’s Epic! Set amongst the great pyramids of Egypt, the towering columns of Rome, the succulent olives of Greece, join Spartacus on his journey from zero to hero, from slavery to bravery, as he gladiates his way to freedom.
Featuring a smouldering Cleopatra, a well-meaning but insane Emperor and a loveable Pantomime Horse, this is a show for all ages.
Complete with original songs, this fantastic new production comes from the most exciting comedy writers in Cambridge, and features some of its leading performers.
www.spartacusthepanto.com
- November–December 2005
- November 2005
"A bittersweet and poignant drama set in a beautiful Victorian garden, 'Sweethearts' is a little jewel of a play that touches the heart."
- November 2005
Somewhere in America, manacled to a bed, is a man with a unique talent… the ability to dream winners.
Cody can foretell the outcome of horse races, and has been held captive by gangsters for years. But when he loses his magical talent, his fate is called into question – what use do his captors have for him now?
- November 2005
The ADC's Freshers' Plays showcase new Cambridge acting and backstage talent from the Freshers of 2005.
From restaurants to parks to village fetes, these plays deal riotously - and sharply - with human eccentricities and loneliness. As characters lurch from professional conflicts to marital infidelity, their cries for help are instantly recognisable.
Superb examples of Ayckbourn's black comedies of human behaviour, these four short plays are taken from his Confusions collection. In The Drinking Companion, an absentee husband attempts seduction without success; and a waiter oversees a fraught dinner encounter in Between Mouthfuls. A garden party gets out of hand in Gosforth’s Fete, whilst strangers sitting alone pester each other for A Talk in the Park.
A huge hit when it opened in the West End, this production full of witty humour shows Ayckbourn at his very best.
For more information about the show visit www.confusions.co.uk
- November 2005
The ADC's Freshers' Plays showcase new Cambridge acting and backstage talent from the Freshers of 2005.
Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1938, depicts New Hampshire village life, told through the everyday lives of two families. George and Emily grow up together as children, they fall in love and marry. But all too soon it seems that Emily must join the former inhabitants of Grover’s Corner in the village cemetery.
This gentle play celebrates all aspects of the human experience; from the small events and interactions of day to day life, to the peace which can never be understood by the living.
When first produced, the play was considered a remarkable theatrical innovation. It has a universality that does not date, as this team of eager Freshers will display.
- November 2005
"You're a public school boy, Harry. You live on secrets" Winner of the RSC's Other Prize in Cambridge, Camera Obscura is new writing at its finest. Harry insults his fiancee's autistic sister at a party and is terrified it's been caught on film. He knows someone must have seen it - after all, he's the one responsible for London being overrun with CCTV cameras, a London where there's no space for secrets. But you can always rely on a friend to help you out, right? And Anthony pays good money for tapes that should never have been made of things that should never have taken place. Harry's easy moral convictions are put under pressure in the course of an drug-fuelled evening, exposing old school rivalries, sexual competition and horribly misjudged loyalties. CAMERA OBSCURA examines the flipside of a good education, where the Old Boys are tied together by secrets so nasty that they must never come out.
- November 2005
Things don’t always go to plan. Schedules don’t always run as intended. The world of theatre can be a tricky place. On Tuesday 8th November at 11pm, the audience at the ADC Theatre could have been watching something else. Something well written, lovingly rehearsed and impressively acted.
But that’s not happening. Instead, Cambridge’s top improvised comedy group have taken over and, with the help of their enthusiastic audience, they will guess what the original show would have been about, and put it on anyway!
Expect laughs, expect drama, expect dastardly plots and unconventional performances. Expect anything you like - it doesn’t really matter, it’s all made up on the spot. But expect a night at the theatre that’s literally like no other, because the Comedy Iceberg are taking over.
No scripts. No rehearsals. No idea.
- November 2005
It is the Age of Aquarius, a time of freedom, love and equality. But the dark cloud of the Vietnam War hangs over the tribe. As one of its members, Claude, receives his draft notice, he contemplates life without his two most precious possessions: his freedom and his HAIR. At its premiere in 1968, Hair sparked a theatrical revolution. Comprising of late 1960s rock music, spectacular staging and a serious political message, 'Hair' will give Cambridge performers and audience the chance to experience an utterly original piece of musical theatre.
- November 2005
One theatre. One stage. Four nights.
In celebration of one hundred and fifty years of drama, a kaleidoscopic assortment of scenes and monologues is brought to life by Amateur Dramatic Club talent past and present. Different generations of ADC Membership meet on stage and off in a cabaret-style project involving both students and alumni. These evening performances will celebrate the accomplishments of the past 150 years and look to the future with great hope and expectation.
- November 2005
Michael Frayn’s 1985 adaptation is a brilliant reworking of Anton Chekhov’s first play, Platonov. The characters re-assemble in the wake of the long harsh Russian winter which has finally given way to a 'summer of wild honey' and an atmosphere rife with sexual intrigue and the 'wayward sweetness of forbidden attraction'. Beneath the witty banter the characters lurch from one amorous disaster to the next chaotic affair, and the light humour of the opening scenes gives way to darker and more painful comedy as the play hurtles towards its climax.
Wild Honey forms the focal point of this term's theatrical programme as theADC'S 150th Anniversary MainShow. With an extremely talented cast and crew this is a production that promises to reflect the ingenuity and creativity of generations of Cambridge students, taking as its starting point the celebratory and vivacious nature of the play and its characters.
- October 2005
For one night only, the ADC Bar will be filled with the voices of the Cambridge University Musical Theatre Society.
Fast becoming one of the most important student musical theatre societies in the country, CUMTS has consistently wowed audiences with productions at the ADC Theatre, at the Cambridge Arts Theatre and at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Recent successes include Merrily We Roll Along (2004), Me and My Girl (2005) and The Threepenny Opera (2005).
Accompanied by a live band, members will be performing numbers from hit West End and Broadway shows right across the musical theatre spectrum: from Sondheim to Cole Porter, and from Rodgers and Hammerstein to Jason Robert Brown. Join Cambridge’s finest performers in the relaxed and friendly atmosphere of the ADC Bar for a perfect evening’s entertainment.
- October 2005
The Future is a new future-based fast-paced sketch show from Footlights regulars Jonny Sweet and Joe Thomas. Set in the imminent future, The Future features a world not far removed from our own, just a bit older. Or younger?
The Future is ahead of its time. It's the future of comedy. It’s coming soon.
"pick of the week" - Varsity
"magnificent... the next big thing to come out of Cambridge" - TCS
"would sit happily alongside the best contemporary examples of the genre" - chortle.co.uk
www.thefutureisfunny.com
- October 2005
"Only love can save me and love has destroyed me."
Crave presents four characters/aspects of human nature: A, B, C and M. They reveal fragments of speech to reveal a litany of rape, infidelity, loneliness, romantic rejection and childlessness. Crave explores the niggling truths we suppress within; the secrets we have, the lies we tell and the games we play... The truth hurts, doesn’t it?
- October 2005
Sir Isaac Newton: hero, genius and England’s leading scientific thinker. What will he do to keep it that way? When Newton accuses German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz of plagiarising his invention of calculus, he begins a bitter conflict over priority. Newton assembles a committee of eleven honourable men, all Fellows of the Royal Society, to adjudicate on the matter. But is their decision really their own? When reputations are at stake, what place do morals have in deciding who was first?
Calculus reveals a darker side of Newton, who was recently voted Man of the Millennium, examining whether his calculations went far beyond mathematics alone.
Free talks discussing the themes explored in Calculus will precede each performance. Talks are open to all and will begin at 6:30pm in the ADC bar. For further details of speakers please visit www.topquarkproductions.org.uk.
- October 2005
- October 2005
The world famous Footlights present their immensely popular Smokers – an hour of stand-up and sketches from the very best of Cambridge comedy talent.
- October 2005
When widower Charles Condomine and his second wife Ruth invite an eccentric local psychic to conduct a séance as research for Charles’ latest novel, they don’t expect much in the way of supernatural spectacle. Unfortunately for Charles, they are proved wrong by the materialization of his first wife, Elvira, who is determined to keep him under the thumb from six feet under.
The ghostly ménage à trois descends from confusion to chaos to carnage as Charles’ dreams of a quiet life come crashing down around him, along with much of his furniture...
Blithe Spirit is a hugely entertaining play from one of Britain’s best-loved dramatists. Brimming with Coward’s trademark wit and panache, it remains an enduring and classic comedy.
- October 2005
‘WHEN CAN I STOP RUNNING DOWN THAT STEEP WHITE STREET IN CABEZA DE LOBO?’ Catharine, fresh out of the asylum, has a story to tell. The viperous Mrs. Venables, who snaked an umbilical cord of pearls around the memory of Sebastian is intent on denying the truth about her son and his death. Suddenly Last Summer builds to a climactic revelation of what happened to Sebastian in Cabeza de Lobo. But the true cannibalistic horror lies far closer to home… In the garden district of New Orleans, where massive tree flowers suggest organs of a body, still glistening with undried blood, Williams’ darkest examination of emotional violence screams, hisses and thrashes its way towards a bloody conclusion where ‘truth’ is a weapon and survival hangs by a spider’s thread. Emotional myth-making, desire and corruption strike an iconic balance between dignity and hysteria in this most theatrical of productions.
- October 2005
"The night air is thick as molasses. Maggie doesn't notice the strap of her slip as it slides down one shoulder. The ice clinks softly in Brick's glass as he pours himself yet another drink. She's sick of the routine; he's sick of her. And tonight they've both reached boiling point. In Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, a southern family's simmering secrets rise to the surface as the family gathers to bid a final happy birthday to their ailing Big Daddy.
Tennessee William’s Pulitzer Prize winning play about the lies and distance that are part of our nature comes to the ADC in its 50th anniversary year."
- October 2005
In a world of beggars and whores lust, crime and corruption thrive. An
elegant yet bitter indictment of base society, Brecht's Threepenny Opera is
a darkly fascinating work. A seductive drama blending seamlessly with the
jazzy syncopation of Kurt Weill's inventive score. This ensemble production
picks you up by the hair, spins you round, makes love to you then slaps you
for the privilege. Come to a world of danger, jazz, illicit sex and
booze...
- October 2005
“Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.”
In a barren, disordered world, Macbeth’s fateful encounter with the witches tempts him into a spiral of murder, deception and death. Returning from a critically acclaimed run at the Edinburgh Fringe with CUADC, Blank Theatre presents a spellbinding new interpretation of Shakespeare’s tragedy. Fusing the original verse with a battery of music, rhythm and dance, this vibrant young company creates a unique form of ensemble ‘total theatre’; in one hour Macbeth is re- imagined through a visual language of physical theatre and multimedia, enhancing the clear and entertaining telling of the story. Pace and energy characterises this compelling hour of theatre, combining the ‘sound and fury’ of an original score with exhilarating choreography. Following the success of The Tempest (November, 2004) Blank continues to break new ground in the performance of Shakespeare.
"Breathing new and dynamic life into familiar Shakespearean territory." (Steve Waters, Playwright)
- July 2005
- June 2005
The students at the dance college are making the most of their lives and talents, as they demonstrate in this exciting performance.
You will be engulfed in a feast of Dance talent ranging from Classical Ballet to Hip Hop, Jazz to Contemporary and Tap to Singing. The audience will be transported to foreign lands in through a celebration of national Dance, and will be able to sample some of our talent and enthusiasm generated by The dance Collegein the training programme for our ‘Teacher of Tomorrow’.
Whether you indulge and appreciate these art forms as an alternative to a night in; or whether you are considering this as a career path yourself, you're guaranteed to enjoy this performance.
- June 2005
Footlights' Nick Mohammed returns to the ADC stage with his debut solo show 'Back in Town Again: - “Waltzing Out of Town;'. With a host of zany characters in his repertoire, Mohammed has a lot to say, and is a lot of people to say it. Mohammed performed in last year’s Cambridge Footlights’ National Tour, 'Beyond A Joke', in which he was described by the Cambridge Evening News as ‘without doubt a star of the future’.
The show is a preview for Mohammed's run at the Edinburgh Fringe this August, and is one of four productions being previewed by Footlights alumni in May Week.
"Genuinely funny" - Metro
"Exhilarating...clever and surreal" - Varsity
"Without doubt a star of the future" - Cambridge Evening News
- June 2005
One of the most talked-about British stand-ups to emerge in recent years, former Footlight Mark Watson (winner of four awards in the past three years, published novelist, and international star after the world's first solo 24-hour comedy performance last summer) performs a brand-new show for two nights only. In this rare preview show before a month at the Edinburgh Fringe 2005, Watson faces up to his mortality by attempting to cram his remaining 50 years into one frantic hour of stand-up. A blistering comic assault can be expected.
This production is one of four shows being previewed by Footlights alumni in May Week.
'magnificent, achingly funny' Daily Telegraph
'a scholar, a gentleman and a brilliant stand-up' Evening Standard
'sublime talent and glorious wit' The Scotsman
'the Daddy of young comedians' Maxim
www.markwatsoncomedy.com
- June 2005
"We've reached 'They all lived happily ever after' and we’ve gone past it. Nobody’s ever written that bit before. This is the happy world."
From the author of 'Shopping and F***ing' comes a high-octane slice of violent, sexy, and drug-fuelled theatre. Some Explicit Polaroids explores revenge, love, reconciliation, acceptance, death, sex, and identity, all filtered through the prism of six characters searching for them. Barely a line goes by without a character facing up to their past or their immediate futures.
Take six people: a Glaswegian and a Russian good-time boy addicted to trash culture; a Labour councillor and an ex-con; a lap-dancer and a pinstriped capitalist. Let them meet in a series of snapshot scenes linked by loneliness. Some explicit polaroids are taken. After 15 years inside, political activist Nick emerges to find that the old causes of the 80s have become the lost causes of the 90s. As he struggles to get to grips with this new world, he collides with the new generation. Bonded by a love of pills, parties and therapy-speak, Nadia, Tim, and Victor take Nick on a search for the happy-ever-after.
Journeying through airports, hospitals, homes, lap-dancing clubs, and Parliament, it is a play that will shock and excite its spectators, confronting them with the reality of the past and hopes for the future. As Nick returns from a spell in prison, and Tim buys himself a gay lover from Russia, the pinstripe capitalist and the lap-dancer carry on with their everyday lives, but a series of twists and turns bring them closer than they had ever expected...
- June 2005
An adventure into the hearts and minds of the misfits of our world and the next, taking in fantastic catburglars, garrulous angels and daydreaming aquarium attendants, all bound up in a quest for the forgotten, the mislaid and the yearned-for missing piece of their particular puzzle. Join the Cambridge Footlights as they weave their mysterious way through the afterlife, the lowlife and the good life, in search of the things we often want, but rarely get...
The tour will begin and end with a Cambridge run, taking in the Edinburgh Fringe and a National Tour. Visit the website at www.underthebluebluemoon.co.uk
- May 2005
This show promises a beautiful display of ballet from local dance academy, The Russian Ballet School. Classical dance is set to both traditional and modern music, making for an innovative and interesting performance.
The first act will be a classical ballet, with original story and choreography by Karen Stringer. The Prince Wants a Wife is a fairy tale of love and longing; unable to find a suitable wife at court or in the local village, a prince searches among the local fairy band. He is distraught to find that even among these magical creatures most have fallen into decadent and lazy ways - until he finds one beautiful nymph, both good and beautiful. At the wedding of the happy couple the bride's bouquet comes to life and dances for the happy couple.
The second act, entitled The Modern Age, is danced to music from the 20th and 21st centuries. From Scott Joplin to Jamiroquai and the Spice Girls, this will be a joyous celebration of the versatility of this classical art form.
- May 2005
"There's nothing like mixing with women to bring out all the foolishness in a man of sense."
Rich (and sensible) Horace Vandergelder is planning to get married. After many years of caution and hard work, he feels he has the right to a little risk and adventure. So he employs a matchmaker, one Dolly Levi, who is more than a match for this man of sense. For Dolly knows that the one way to keep human beings from harm is to fill their lives with the small human pleasures that are our right in the world. However, this takes money, and Dolly doesn't have any.
But Dolly does have competition, the millineress Irene Molloy who intends to marry Horace Vandergelder or break out like a fire-engine in the attempt.
Who will win Horace's heart (and wallet)? And who is Ernestina Simple? Find out, in the Robert Sayle Drama Group's hilarious production of The Matchmaker.
- May 2005
Where we are is hell, And where hell is there must we ever be’
Bound within his mind and bored by all the knowledge he has attained, Dr Faustus is a man struggling to break free. He sells his soul to the devil and flies around the world performing tricks, whilst the other characters struggle to keep up.
Time is running out: twenty-four years translates into the one hour that Faustus has to realise his dreams. The plot speeds up and the stage shrinks as Faustus moves towards the precipice of eternal damnation and the edge of the stage… where we sit, waiting in anticipation.
Dr Faustus is trapped, a prisoner in this world. And his fate is a reflection of our own...
- May 2005
Abby and Martha Brewster enjoy all the leisurely pursuits of the respectable old lady; tea parties, church, crocheting and biscuits - not to mention murder, if one has the time. Their nephew Mortimer, fazed by the stockpile of dead gentlemen inhabiting the cellar, attempts to shift the blame onto his conveniently insane brother Teddy. When the estranged third brother Jonathan, evil and ghastly, returns to his aunts' house with his slimy sidekick Dr. Einstein, the situation - and the body count - spirals out of control.
Set in 1940s Brooklyn in the elegant household of two loveable old darlings, this gory black comedy is as witty as it is unsettling. Combining old-fashioned elegance with sharp humour and shocking wickedness, Kesselring's classic play will make you fear your own grandmother.
- May 2005
Mr Blake kidnaps a family for his annual birthday and tries to swap places with the father. The daughters are angry; the mother doesn't seem to care; and we can't tell what the father thinks because he's bound, gagged and imprisoned somewhere. He’s probably quite annoyed though.
Familiar familial homilies are literally unwrapped and set on fire before your thighs in this new Tragi-comedy; which we prefer to call 'Comedy', taking the 'Com' from 'Comedy' and the '-edy' from 'Tragedy'. Edgy, dark and innovative, this runner-up to the Footlights' Harry Porter Prize was judged by Bill Oddie to be 'err...'. Find out if you agree.
For more information visit www.ourdarkerpurpose.com
- May 2005
'The past is what you remember, imagine you remember, convince yourself you remember, or pretend you remember.'
But then what is the present when all you have is a distant past?
Based on Oliver Sack's Awakenings, Pinter brings to life the tale of a woman awakening from a catatonic state, known as sleeping sickness, after 30 years. Sleeping as a child she awakes as an adult, terrified, confused and alone. This beautiful play offers a glimpse into a mind that has been suspended in time and space, examining a woman who has been dreaming a 16 year olds' dream for three decades.
For one night only, come explore memory and the human experience, and witness one of the most delightful and simply beautiful of Pinter's plays.
- May 2005
An exciting mixture of physical theatre, musical and thriller, La Passion d'Alexis (sur-titled in English), written by the renowned French Playwright Jean Gillibert, tells the story of a murder that took place in a playground in 1930. The play starts ten years later, during the period of French history called "The Phoney War". The murderous schoolmates and their fiancées meet again for a last party before the men leave for the front. They come to dance, to forget the evil inside them, but they are consumed by remorse. Alexis is waiting for them. His spectral presence haunts the place, ready to take any form. He drags his old friends into a fantastic and cruel "cops and robbers" game - a dancing and singing game in the vindictive style of an American musical...
- May 2005
"Clap hands for you and me and all of us whose voices count for nothing in this world." As a young boy awaits his release from prison after serving time for the murder of a child, a mother pushes her small daughter into a stage career in which the rule for success is "Talent, Teeth and Tits". Written at the time of the impending release of the Bulger killers, Peter Morris' controversial work was hailed by The Telegraph as "a brilliant play that begins by making you laugh and ends by making you shudder".
