- June 2019
"We stand and serve, we grin and smile,
We serve to please, and all the while
We do, we burn up deep inside
With all the pain we're meant to hide."
Yorkshire. It's the height of the Thatcherite era and cocktail bars are opening in every town across the country.
Welcome to Shakers! That trendy bar in the main street where the neon light shines out tempting passers-by. That place where dreams come true. Where time stands still, where everyone wants to be seen, from the checkout girls to the chinless yuppies, from the newlyweds to the local lads.
Then there's Carol, Adele, Niki and Mel.
Shakers gives a wickedly funny glimpse of this familiar world as seen through the eyes of these four long-suffering waitresses, offering a fascinating view of the harsh reality that lurks behind the glitzy decor and Piña Coladas.
- June 2019
- May–June 2019
Two comedic/romantic/bizarre solo shows back to back; ‘Lanky Olive’ and ‘Broken Flowers’ create ‘Love, Cats and Bill Murray’
- May 2019
- May 2019
'Bicameral' is a split-hour of stand-up from graduating Cambridge Footlight Isambard Dexter and Computer Science PhD candidate Jovan Singh Powar. As 2 young brown boys growing up in the early 2000s, unsurprisingly they have a lot in common. However, their comedy styles are strikingly different! They've joined forces to take on the one thing they're both concerned about: brands using Twitter. Or rather, how we need to be aware of the level to which technology is ingrained in our social lives (for better or worse). Far from being the old man down the pub who maintains that The World Wide Web increases fecklessness and idolatry in the youth, 'Bicameral' advocates for a sensible look at the virtual world in which we all live and how it is constructed.
- May 2019
Doctor Faustus is irreverent, chaotic and riotous fun. In a post-theistic age, the play ask questions of the modern conception of humanism: is immortality an achievable goal in the 21st century? What constitutes personal fulfilment, and to what lengths will one go – and should one go – to achieve it?
Faustus experiences hallucinogenic highs, balanced against moments of personal crisis and breakdown. With original compositions and jazz funk choreography, this show recollects something of the spectacular quality of the ‘Marlowe effect’ experienced by the play’s original audience.
Embrace the chaotic world of Faustus’ creation - and all its implications.
- May 2019
Star of BBC Radio 4’s Chinese Comedian and E4’s The Hangover Games, Ken Cheng returns to Cambridge with a preview of his next Edinburgh show “To All the Racists I've Blocked Before”.
Using racism he’s received from Twitter trolls as a jumping-off point, Ken explores racism in all its forms from the unique position of a British-born Chinese, ex-Cambridge mathematician dropout and professional poker player.
Accolades include:
BBC Radio 4’s The Now Show
Comedy Central at the Comedy Store
Dave Joke of the Fringe 2017 winner
Amused Moose Best Show Nominee 2018
One of The Guardian’s Best Edinburgh Shows 2018
- May 2019
Abstract, tenuously connected scenes related in some-way-shape-or-form to the word "party". Party conferences, house parties, dinner parties, big organized parties (BOPs), you name it, and we'll throw it. Featuring sketches, stand-up routines and short-odd-musical numbers, from the perspectives of the politician to the table-lamp, the party never stops (at least until the hour's up). A show made by freshers for everyone - grab those limited tickets, avoid the FOMO, and join the party.
- May 2019
“The plague bacillus never actually dies. It never disappears - not entirely”. From Camus’ novel, in an unnamed city, it has reared its head and sent forth its rats. The screaming becomes normal, the gates are locked, families and lovers have been cut off; now all there is to do is identify, diagnose, condemn and file. Faced with inevitable doom, humanity chooses to fight or resign, asking what we all want to - ‘can there be hope without meaning?’.
We bear witness to the retrospective inquiry into these events. Our protagonist, Dr Rieux, is torn between the personal and the official, bureaucracy ultimately hindering the inquiry and his healing. Camus’ original may have been a response to Nazi invasion, but now this electrifying adaptation makes it applicable to our personal and societal descent into chaos.
“What it is that you learn when you live through a time of plague… there is more to admire about people than to despise or despair of”.
- May 2019
Wowee! The Middle Child is a sketch show about the FAMILY. We are looking for a small cast of comedians to audition for this extra-super-fun sketch show expose into what can be ridiculous about family life - the mundane, the ordinary, the sometimes extraordinary, your grandma's whiskey habit (no? just me?) ANYWAYS
A five-man sketch comedy show that will focus on the ‘nuclear’ family. The show will centre on the middle child and the trope of what it means to be compared constantly, overlooked, and lacking attention. make some funny funnies, ridiculing what the perfect family looks like and how they deal with the issues of kids growing up.
- May 2019
King Agamemnon is long dead. His wife and her new boyfriend were his murderers. But his children are starting to come of age- children who grew up surrounded by death and conflict. Electra who grieves, bloodthirsty Orestes, and Chrysothemis, who has moved on too quickly.
With a score of original electronic music, and a chorus of slam poets, this brand new adaptation of Sophocles' tragedy injects an urgent profundity into Electra's fraught psyche.
This is the tale of a young girl, floored by the crosswinds of her feuding family, grappling with loneliness, abandon, and a debilitating desire for revenge.
"Blood might be thicker than water, but it's got nothing on dust."
- May 2019
Sir Trevor Brierly — writer, director, philanthropist, plasterer — was many things to many people. But to his colleagues Michaelmas Crouch and Patio Horse, he was a friend above all.
Patio and Michaelmas host a memorial service in tribute to the life and works of their late companion, featuring an array of guests, from family members to former lovers, each of whom has a story to tell.
‘Masterful character comedy from two of Cambridge’s premier Footlights’ (Varsity)
- April–May 2019
Join Gen, Rohan and Harry for a night of delicious shepherd’s pie!
Unfortunately their beef mince has been in the freezer since 2010 and will take 45-60 minutes to defrost. In the meantime, they’ve written some sketches and songs to entertain you, your friends, and, most importantly, themselves. Come on down to the Corpus Playroom as they try and simultaneously warm up the meat for their dinner and the meat of your heart.
- April–May 2019
“In the quantum multiverse, every choice, every decision you've ever and never made exists in an unimaginably vast ensemble of parallel universes.”
Marianne and Roland meet at a barbecue. It's overcast but not raining. They don't hit it off. In the next scene, they are at the same barbecue, it is raining, and they become friends.
'Constellations' by Nick Payne is a thoughtful and tender two-hand drama which demonstrates various iterations of what a relationship could be if small details change. Tracking the two characters as they fall in love in different circumstances, this play encourages us to think about the choices we make, the choices the universe makes for us, and what is inevitable in a relationship regardless of our decisions.
- April 2019
A scream rings out, a body is found. So why is everyone laughing? Find out at Cambridge Improv Factory's made-up murder mystery, where your suggestions decide who dies - and who killed them.
- April 2019
- March 2019
An innocent sharing of the Junior Stage Academy’s stage production is suddenly derailed when the leading-lady falls down a rabbit hole.
- March 2019
Everyone is hearing strange things about April. Surely it can't be that simple. Can it?
This is a new show about climate change, rumour, choices, parenting, and nothing else.
- March 2019
Yerma will never bear a child. The world cannot accept this, and nor can she. Turning to dark methods in her desperation, stigma and grief leads Yerma hurtling towards a tragic conclusion.
What does it take to break a woman?
Yerma and her husband, living happily married, must suddenly face the fact that they are unable to have a child. Their tragic situation quickly leads Yerma in ultimate desperation to a dark climax in which everything will change, forever. Federico Garcia Lorca's searing tale of a woman battling the stigma of infertility in a small community bristles with urgency and injustice. Translated into a semi-modern setting, this production presents a wild rendering of Lorca's claustrophobic original, drawing in the elements to create a visual spectacle that brings to the fore the pagan undertones of his script. An essential piece of theatre exploring cultural expectations, the gender binary and what it means to search for new life as a woman and as a human, Yerma promises to be both a harrowing and an inspiring watch.
- March 2019
Friday Evening. Manhattan. 1969.
Nicholas Payne returns home from a long day on Wall Street. He tries to liberate himself from his unexplained anguish, but what ails him so? All options seem exhausted until his best friend Gino arrives and convinces a frustrated Nicholas to host a party.
Nicholas changes to greet the guests, but those arriving are in fact the demons of his mind. One by one, they renew the crisis. The inebriated night spirals beyond his control. Hell is empty. The devils are here.
Conversations with Myself is an innovative piece of new writing devised by the Cambridge Mask Collective: plunge into the depths of the mind of Nicholas Payne.
- March 2019
Bombs, bombs, bombs! Mary has been recruited for a top-secret national project in Malaysia by the ambitious General Zulkifli. The mission: building Southeast Asia's first atomic bomb.
There is a catch: there is no legal way for them to obtain uranium. Join Mary as she collides with one wacky character after another, from a shady uranium smuggler to an army general with a Napoleon complex. This political satire takes on racial issues, national hubris, the tenuous relationship between the East and the West, and the post-colonial hangover.
- March 2019
Joy Hunter is fine. No really. She’s totally fine. SHE’S FINE OK! Jesus Christ! CAN YOU GET OFF HER BACK FOR ONE SECOND? Fucks sake. Ok. Alright. She may not be totally fine all the time. Is Joy just fine, or more or less than fine? Or hella fiiiine? Honestly who knows anymore. I am her and I certainly don’t. I mean is anyone who writes about themselves in the third person really fine? Possibly? Probably not. Join her/me, stand-up comic and footlight on an hour long journey through the finer things in life; mainly depression, adventures into the world of romance and other general life disasters. Come in fine, leave fine, but very possibly more than! Now isn’t that a tantalising offer. No?! OKAY FINE.
TLDR; Joy Hunter is fine. Really. She’s totally fine. She’s Fine ok! JESUS! Here’s a show about it.
- February–March 2019
What does it mean to watch and be watched? In an age of reality television, this new play examines the human tendency towards voyeurism and our willingness to observe the suffering of others.
Ava has an ideal life. A prominent GP, she has a thriving practice, a loving husband, and a talented child.
Tensions arise upon the appointment of a new patient, triggering the disintegration of both her personal and professional lives. Within three months, Ava is giving evidence against her husband in a destructively public murder trial. As she constructs a narrative of the past three months to an investigator, her distraught daughter begins to piece together an alternative course of events that would exonerate her father.
As events spiral out of her control and the paranoia of being watched amplifies Ava’s anxiety and shame, these tragic events of Ava’s life play out in the most public of forums.
- February–March 2019
“I dream about you young. When I’m asleep you’re as young as the girl I met.”
Time passes. Roles Change. People become different versions of themselves.
From lover, to father, to husband, one man craves the past but knows his desire for it will destroy his family.
Harrogate is a two-hander about the intensity of parental love and its capacity to consume, how we perform versions of ourselves depending on the company we keep, and how we project onto others versions of the people we want to see, rather than accepting who stands in front of us.
Harroage is a darkly funny, tender and uncomfortable play. It “defies interpretation” and “has a kind word to say about everyone, yet spares no one”. (The Telegraph)
"You never know quite where you are with Al Smith’s Harrogate while never doubting that you are in the hands of a clever and gifted dramatist. Unfolding as a triptych of two-handers, it manages to be tricky, elusive, queasily comic and utterly gutting." (The Independent)
Reviews
★★★★★, TCS: https://www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/review-harrogate/
★★★★ 1/2, Varsity: https://www.varsity.co.uk/theatre/17192
★★★★ 1/2, The Tab:https://thetab.com/uk/cambridge/2019/02/27/review-harrogate-121484
- February 2019
A Plane Old Sketch Show is a show that is entirely gimmick free. It has grown bored of the usual tropes and tricks of sketch shows at the moment and aims to provide a show that is entirely free of artifice and silly stunts. Except it is entirely set on a plane. But beyond that the show promises to be a simple sketch show, combining irreverence and wit from the troupe described by Broadway Baby as “terrifying brilliant”. Cambridge Footlights Friso de Graaf and Gabriel Barton-Singer return to the Corpus Playroom following the success of their hit show No Funny Business to provide an hour of mirth, merriment and the world’s most ridiculous puns.
- February 2019
Charlie has spent his entire life followed by bad luck. It’s a part of his life that’s become all too easy to laugh at, and to blame things on when they go wrong.
But everything changes when he’s dumped and two weeks later his best friend dies in a freak car accident. Lonely, untethered, and desperately missing his past, Charlie attempts to reconnect with it the only way who knows how — through his ex-girlfriend Alex.
Both funny and sad, this piece of new writing explores grief, intimacy, and what it means to be vulnerable.
- February 2019
Smorgasbord is back for Lent!
The Fletcher Players present a fresh selection of brand new student writing at the Corpus Playroom. Running on and off since 1997, Smorgasbord provides writers a platform to test their writing on an audience, gives actors and the directors the chance to showcase their talents, and lets audiences engage with Cambridge's talents in a Q&A session.
Come along for a relaxed, interesting night which will unearth some previously unseen gems.
- February 2019
‘But you seem so… So human, so… alive. Truth is I’ve never stood this close to an android before. If I hadn’t known, I wouldn’t have been able to tell’.
Intelligent androids are slowly replacing vacuum cleaners, dishwashers and washing machines on the shelves of electronics shops all over the UK. They are now a common household item, just like a kettle or a toaster.
Curious what the whole AI craze is all about, Ian, a university student, purchases one of such androids for himself. When his new mechanical helper emerges from its refrigerator-sized box, Ian begins to question if the thing in front of him is really a machine. Can something so human-like really be made of metal and plastic? But if even he is having trouble believing it... will his friend Alice ever guess that his new ‘roommate’ is not what ‘he’ seems? And what will happen if she treats ‘him’ like a human for too long?
- February 2019
'How do you want to live here? I mean we could come and go and lead separate lives. Or we could really live together. What do you think?'
It’s 1983. Di, Viv & Rose move into a university house and form the unlikeliest of friendships. From their living-room they navigate the many highs and lows of their new found adulthood, and roller-coaster through life encountering sex, loss and all kinds of love. In this daring exploration of friendship and womanhood, spanning 30 years, Di, Viv & Rose reveal the intricacies of relationships, and test their bond to the point of breaking.
- February 2019
After a sell out run last year, Cambridge's least impressive quiz teams are back!
‘University Challenged’ is a new quiz gameshow format taking elements of University Challenge, QI, Just A Minute, Mock the Week and Have I Got News For You to take a comical look at the nature of knowledge. Two teams battle for points handed out in a not entirely logical manner by a Jeremy Paxman-esque host, overseeing events like a deadpan overlord.
The teams are comprised of four comedians, changing each night. With no specialist subjects, and no right to ever even pretend to be on a quiz show, how will the teams of rag tag comedians fare when their wit is put to the test?
- February 2019
Gail Summerfield, one of Britain’s “most” loved and “least well known” personalities is back in the Corpus Playroom for her third Farewell Tour! She’s got a lot of stories to tell and you've got a lot of problems for her to solve! Put your listening ears on and get ready to learn from a thrice divorced and once annulled Tour-De-Force as she bestows upon you her top tips to a happy life. Voted “Milton Keynes’ Seventh Best Florist”, there isn’t much this energetic and VERY talented 47-year-old can’t do! I hope you’ve got that pinot chilling, girls, and you’ve left the men at home, because Gail’s here which only means one thing- it’s party time! You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and you’ll be touched, intimately, by Gail Summerfield.
- February 2019
Adapted from Virginia Woolf’s novel, 'The longest and most charming love letter in literature’ playfully constructs the figure of Orlando as the fictional embodiment of Woolf’s close friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West. Orlando, a beautiful charismatic nobleman, enjoys a lifetime of adventures, love and debauchery, spanning five centuries. At the midpoint of this period, whilst serving as ambassador to Constantinople, Orlando wakes from a seven-day sleep to find he has become a woman.
A dreamy adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s famous tale, Sarah Ruhl’s Orlando is a magical and poetic dance between gender and through time, a fantastical world in which courtly movement and biographical narration combine to tell the story of someone who lives outside of human expectations, and enjoys twice the experience that humanity has to offer.
- January–February 2019
'love me love me, you have to love me, you'
Hailed as ‘Britain’s ultimate playwright’, Caryl Churchill’s Drunk Enough to Say I Love You is a chilling examination of masculinity, imperialism, and foreign policy. First performed at the Royal Court, the play sees Guy leave his wife and kids for Sam. The two embark on an exciting rollercoaster of sex, power, and war. It’s chaotic, poetic, and exhilarating – but how long can it last?
- January–February 2019
'Martin, did you ever think you'd come back from your splendid life, walk into your living room and find you had no life left?'
Martin is turning 50 - as a celebration, his friend Ross is coming to interview him for a special TV feature. Awarded a top architecture prize, graced with the career opportunity of a lifetime, happily married with a son he loves, Martin's life is idyllic.
But over the course of their conversation, a distracted Martin slowly begins to reveal a sordid secret he's been keeping which threatens to tear it all apart.
Blurring lines between the animal and 'civilised' worlds, this classic Albee play explores the limits of desire, fidelity and taboo with his trademark linguistic athletics and family fireworks.
- January 2019
Self-diagnosed important young mind Leo Reich (who you may recognise from being destined for stardom) has never been romantically loved by anyone. The story of what led him to make this brave artistic decision has infamously never, in living memory, been told onstage. How could this potential cultural icon, having been described as 'irrepressibly magnetic' (by Varsity), and 'provably non-magnetic' (by modern science), not have been the subject of dozens of elegantly penned odes? Have people not seen his 'rockin bod' (modern science again)? Or is he, possibly, 'fundamentally unloveable'(weirdly, Varsity again)? The greatest minds of every era have grappled with these questions, and now it is Leo's turn.
Join the beautiful angel himself for an hour filled with funny standup, witty characters, humourless introspection, and potentially a song.
★★★★★ (Broadway Baby) ★★★★★ (ThreeWeeks) ★★★★★ (Varsity) ★★★★★ (EdFringe Review) ★★★★★ (Cherwell) ★★★★ (The Scotsman, clearly in an effort to be original, which NO ONE is buying).
- January 2019
"You breaker of mended things. You cruel cactus lover. You useless tangled slinky toy"
Another year, another string of disappointments for BirthdA Girl. Bored, bewildered and staring straight down the barrel of adolescence, she has little choice but to ponder out loud on the nature of friendship, grief, solitude and what it means to enter womanhood via the margins.
Comprising a series of short tragically-comical monologues told from the point of view of a young woman with Asperger's, 'BirthdA' provides a portrayal of the dilemmas of youth in equal parts familiar and bizarre.
