- March 2004
Ambition, murder and treachery come to the ADC. “Now is the winter of our discontent” to “A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!”; from end to end a classic. Watch as English drama’s original and most magnetic villain takes over the stage and the world around him in his path to the crown by blood and by deceit. An imaginatively staged and powerful new interpretation of Shakespeare’s astonishing play.
- February 2004
Predatory, violent, immoral, angry, frustrated and comic lads Mike and Les want some easy cash, and a quick leg-over. Their target, Sylv, is an unhappy, unconscious collaborator in her own sexual exploitation; their Dad is a filthy slob; then there is poor put-upon Mum. This savage, witty and repellent play presents 1950s London: Berkoff described it simply as ‘frontal assault’.
- February 2004
- February 2004
The Challenge: to write, rehearse and perform a play in 24 hours. The Venue: the ADC Bar.
The last time 24-hour plays were undertaken, the audience were left wondering why weeks of rehearsal are ever necessary
- February 2004
"So I try to tell them about Richard Branson’s evil plans, but he won’t listen, so instead my good-looking boyfriend decides to serenade me with 'When A Man Loves A Woman'. The police block also consisted of a grand piano, which a rather butch-looking policewoman proceeded to play with extreme skill"
Do you ever lose the connection between reality and imagination? It’s not difficult, given the right catalyst. Become lost in your imagination. But Kitty’s bored with her own imagination, so she takes it upon herself to invade the lives of former school friend James and his womanising flatmate Colin. What unfolds is an exploration of Kitty’s eccentric, often drug-induced, thoughts and their impact on those around her.
- February 2004
Millions of pounds, nine husbands, two eunuchs, a butler, two thugs and one ex-boyfriend – you could be forgiven for thinking that Claire Zachanassian has it all. But she wants one more thing: revenge. Just how far will the people of the small town of Gullen go for the reward that she has to offer? By the author of The Physicists, this is a tragi-comedy revolving around money, power, revenge and greed.
- February 2004
"Out Of Order" is a modern farce which matches witty dialogue with fast paced action.
- February 2004
Facing moments of crisis and finding the courage to go on – hitting a wall and having to make a choice: Jason Robert Brown delivers in ‘Songs for a New World’ a freewheeling exploration of the human soul, addressing the fundamental issues of faith, love, regret and devotion.
In sixteen songs ranging from broad comedy and full-voiced anthem to touching love song, and from a single mother's hymn of praise for the gift of her child-to-be, to a bored and sexually frustrated Mrs Santa Claus, Brown has created a piece of musical drama that above all deals with the struggle for personal fulfilment.
- February 2004
He is named Gwarra. The Lost One. And the Owl cries for him. And he will not listen.
A mother's search for a son. A man's search for identity, born to one world, brought up in another - and alien to both. A boy's question - why am I different? A poignant story of intertwined lives, crushed in the aftermath of the clash of Australian Aboriginal and European cultures.
Based on a true story, this intense piece of new writing comes to the ADC for a one-night rehearsed reading, following a highly successful performance at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre.
- February 2004
‘Cripple Billy’ lives with his two aunts on the island of Inishmaan. The pattern of life on Inishmaan is disrupted when local gossip Jonnypateenmike brings word that a Hollywood movie is to be filmed on the neighbouring island. Martin McDonagh’s meteoric rise to fame on both sides of the Atlantic is fully justified in this superbly funny, dark, and moving tale. McDonagh is unrelenting, unafraid, irreverent, politically incorrect and, most disturbingly, horribly astute.
- January 2004
Chritie in Love is based on the story of John Reginald Christie, one of the most notorious and disturbing serial killers of the past century. Seen as one of Brenton’s masterpieces, it is a gritty play with an intimate cast that retells a timeless story of sexuality and criminality set against the role of the media. Christie’s tale is a corrupted love story, one of intense honesty and utter atrocity.
- January 2004
A bird-catcher, an investment banker, a captured princess, three sassy ladies, two lions and the Queen of the Night all come together for Mozart’s masterpiece, which mixes inspired silliness with a passionate plea for the importance of music and love. It’s zany, fast, funny, tuneful, silly, profound and extremely moving.
Prince Tamino, bogged down with work and worries, is experiencing a mid-life crises. He is rescued by the Three Ladies and finds himself in a surreal world of fairy-tales, dancing and beauty. And… he finds himself in love. However, as always, it’s not quite that simple and Tamino is forced to embark on a quest for his Lady in a world where nothing is certain and everything is possible…
Young professionals join the best of Cambridge’s singers, dancers, actors and instrumentalists, bringing to life some of Mozart’s most popular music. This fully staged production, sung in modern English, promises to be visually stunning and appeal to opera-buffs and opera-phobics alike.
- January 2004
- January 2004
- January 2004
Prometheus Unbound in association with the ADC return to Cambridge this Edinburgh Fringe success about the quartet of free-thinking radicals: Byron, Shelley, Mary Shelley and Claire Clairemont. "An amazing play...witty, acerbic and accurate" – Three Weeks "Strong ... moving ... genuinely affecting... speckled with humour... a production of which the ADC should be proud" – Varsity. Proceeds will be donated to the ADC Theatre Appeal.
- December 2003
Ten years have passed and the inhabitants of Wonderland have called Alice back through the looking glass one last time to save their world from destruction. Join Alice, the Mad Hatter, the much maligned Jabberwock and the little known Furious Bandersnatch for a lively evening of song, dance, comedy and extremely cross dressing.
- December 2003
- November 2003
Have you ever tried to protest and become frustrated when nobody listens to your voice? Have you ever wondered what would happen if you just gave up trying to be heard and stopped speaking altogether? Would anyone notice?
When Gemma, a young lady living in London, decides to give up speaking and to lose herself in Bach’s St Matthew Passion, her partner and friends are completely thrown. In this unique play Anthony Minghella parodies the superfluous conversations and the triviality of cosmopolitan social life through the voices of Gemma’s friends.
- November 2003
Albert paints the bridge. Hampered by the cost-cutting policies of the Chairman and his team of adept bureaucrats, Albert is engaged in a constant battle to defend the beauty of his beloved bridge. But he doesn’t really mind the struggle: life up on the bridge gives him time to think. Until it all goes wrong, that is, and Albert’s bridge and his life begin to fall apart.
- November 2003
The young and ambitious Charles Lang has designed and built an engine that uses only distilled water as its fuel – and tries to obtain a patent for his groundbreaking invention. But in the dog-eat-dog world of 1930s America, the lawyers from whom he seeks advice quickly turn on him, desperately seeking to steal his designs.
- November 2003
In the months since Whose Iceberg Is It Anyway?, the Comedy Iceberg has made a lot of enemies. Pirates, barmen, local radio DJs, government ministries, televangelists, the makers of MacGyver and the entire Amish community - they're all out for blood. But none of our foes are as implacable, or as inventive, as Cambridge's other improvised comedy groups. In May we took on the Amazing Spectacles for a one-night Town vs Gown improv showdown. But now we've staked out the ADC stage for a week of lateshows, and the heavy artillery's coming out...
Join us on a mission into unknown territory as we encounter old foes and new, and be prepared for sniping, guerrilla tactics and the occasional pitched battle as improv goes to war. This time, even the games are unknown in advance. This time, anything could happen.
- November 2003
CUMTS returns to the ADC stage, after the sell-out successes of West Side Story (Cambridge Arts Theatre) Into the Woods and Company (ADC Theatre) with Broadway's outrageously entertaining jazz, rock and swing version of the G&S favourite.
The Japanese town of Titi-pu is transported to a smoky jazz club, where the establishment comes up against the wrath of torch-song diva Katisha, executioner Koko, and the powerful zoot-suited Mikado. As the Three Little Maids pay close-harmony homage to the Andrews Sisters, heads are about to roll when the club's delectable doo-wah singer Yum-Yum decides she wants to marry Nanki-Poo, a trumpet player in a travelling swing band - or so he seems...
Rocking the rafters with joyful harmony, flashy kimonos and a song about a depressed bluetit, Hot Mikado is a glamorous and jazzy Japanese feel-good feast of all that is swinging, sequined and sizzling hot.
- November 2003
Under Milk Wood is the extraordinary story of apparently ordinary people. As we are drawn into the world of the inhabitants of Llareggub Hill, we discover a dream-like landscape of characters who are by turns hilarious, quirky, dark and brooding.
This production is about the madness of everyday people, how dreams and reality fade into one another and the creation of a unique world by one imagination.
- November 2003
Pygmalion remains today a classic of the English stage. Having had audiences in fits of laughter since its premier in 1914, the play charts how Eliza Doolittle, the common flower-girl of Covent Garden, is transformed by Henry Higgins into a consort fit for a king.
Yet it is more than a modern fairy-tale. It is part of Shaw’s greatness that he can make us laugh while also making us think.
The inspiration for Lerner and Lowe's magical My Fair Lady, this production is a chance to re-discover afresh the myth that has fascinated generations, in all its Shavian complexity, vitality and comic ingenuity.
- October–November 2003
Cross Road Blues retells the story of legendary Delta Blues guitarist Robert Johnson. In a stark and poignant dialogue with a stranger one night, Robert must confront his fate. ‘The blues’ he pleads, ‘is almost everything.’ God, the devil and the desperate calls of a soul displaced by the pain of living fall together in one life changing crash. ‘And then what?’ replies the stranger, ‘and then what?’
Cross Road Blues has been written and directed by David Hall and stars Calvin Smith and James Purdon.
Calvin Smith is a professional actor who has appeared many times on Broadway and has toured shows nationally in America. This is his first appearance at the ADC. James Purdon is studying at Emmanuel College, and last appeared at the ADC in Oedipus.
- October 2003
For the fourth year running, the ADC presents an improvised night of hilarity from its sharpest comedic minds. Audience participation encouraged...
- October–November 2003
When Teddy, a professor in an American university, brings his wife Ruth to visit his old home in London, he finds his family still living in the house. In the conflict that follows, it is Ruth who becomes the focus of the family’s struggle for supremacy. Bringing prostitution, pimping and Pinter to the ADC stage, The Homecoming is an immensely successful work from one of the most accomplished playwrights of the twentieth century.
- October 2003
A man falls asleep. He wakes up in the sea. It looks like magic. But it’s not magic, it’s comedy! One hour of concentrated, non-biological humour, this show will take you to places you never knew existed without resorting to time travel.
- October 2003
Andorra is the story of Andri, the adopted child of an Andorran school-teacher, whom everybody including himself believes is a Jew. Andri's life begins to fall apart when the Andorrans are invaded by their fiercely anti-Semitic neighbours, the Blacks; his countrymen, seeking a scapegoat, turn on him. In the conflict that follows, Andri is forced into confronting his own identity in a struggle with hatred, despair and love which is doomed to fail.
As Max Frisch insisted, Andorra is nothing to do with the state of the same name, nor with any country, but a vision of violence, bigotry and tragedy that could occur anywhere. This production stays faithful to his ideals, refusing to moralise and exposing the brutality that can lie so easily under a thin veneer of bourgeois respectability.
- October 2003
Top Draw Productions in association with the ADC return The Edinburgh Fringe hit to Cambridge. A rapid, revolutionary romp through 30 years of action-packed Commie history, featuring smash hits such as The Gulag Rag and Mrs Stalin Regrets.
"As post-pub entertainment goes, this is about as good as it gets" - Edinburgh Evening News.
"Witty and entertaining" - The Observer
Promises to be a sell out run – book now!
- October 2003
Vladimir and Estragon are waiting for someone. Fairly convinced that his name is Godot, they’re not entirely sure what they want from him or whether they’re even in the right place. Their wait is interrupted by the enigmatic whip-wielding Pozzo, and Lucky, his dancing slave. All of them are searching for comfort in the increasing absurdity of their situation. A black comedy which oscillates between the dark and the hilarious.
- October 2003
The 2003 Footlights tour show returns to the place where it all began, at the end of a nationwide tour visiting centres of culture from the Isle of Wight to Glasgow.
After sell-outs at the ADC and a month at the Edinburgh Festival, this really is your last chance to see the understated, dark and maliciously funny story of a lover cuckolded by his next-door neighbour, a girl who's celebrating losing her virginity to a farmhand, a man nearing the end of his days with a Pot Noodle and a kid bullied into conducting lightning for an experiment - and a lot more besides.
Directed by award-winning stand-up Mark Watson and BBC4 writer Tim Key and featuring the final Cambridge appearances of five of its most celebrated comedians, this is something you shouldn't miss.
- October 2003
Strange things are happening on the shortest night of the year. When a pair of young lovers flee from their parents and an arranged marriage, they stumble into a woodland world of moonlight and enchantment. A civil war has broken out in fairyland and, followed by rival suitors, these mortals find themselves trapped under the orchestrations of Oberon, King of the Fairies, and his mischievous sprite Puck. With the powers of a magic love juice, a midsummer madness befalls the lovers. The order of the woods is further shattered by the disastrous play rehearsals of a troupe of mechanics and when wild protestations of love spring from the Queen of the Fairies towards a donkey, it seems that only magical powers can end this, the longest night.
The acclaimed Cambridge University American Stage Tour(CAST) returns with Shakespeare’s sparkling comedy, set in a carnivalesque world where our dreams and reality meet. Let CAST transport you to the enchanted woods, as we present Shakespeare’s masterpiece in a production as funny, sexy, magical and scary as the course of true love itself.
All information for this Camdram Entry (excluding the description above) was added by the CAST 2018 Tour Managers and is based on archived documents provided by Beast. However, this actual Camdram entry was created at the time of the original show.
If you have any more information regarding this show or would like to know more, please get in touch.
- June 2003
- May 2003
Lance meets Percy on a train hurtling accross Europe. Percy is on a journey of discovery having realised his expensive university education has taught him pretty much nothing. Lance doesn't want to discover anything, he wants to live in his memories. Together the two men try to make sense of why they are there, aided by impromtu visits from Elvis and Richard Nixon among others. An original and thought-provoking piece of writing from one of Cambridge's finest new writers, the rehearsed reading of No Problems promises to be well worth seeing.
- May 2003
