- July 2018
All office fire wardens Baxter, Lisa and Kirsty want is a little danger. They soon start to wonder... what if there was an actual fire?
- June 2018
A heist built from your suggestions. What will we steal? How will we steal it? It's all up to you!
- June 2018
Immigration, immigration, immigration. No, you haven’t stumbled across Nigel Farage having a stroke on Question Time. Instead we’re here to discuss the show that would induce said stroke: SECOND-GENERATION.
SECOND-GENERATION is a sketch show that will look at the trials and tribulations of living between multiple cultures in Modern Britannia.
This sketch-show will showcase the hilarity that ensues as cultures mix and showcase some fabulous Cambridge talent.
- June 2018
It's May 1997. Tony Blair has won the election and Katrina and the Waves have won Eurovision. Channel 5 is a month old. No one knows who Harry Potter is. Britain is the coolest place in the world.
At the local secondary school it's a different story. Miss Belltop-Doyle can't control her year 10s, Mr Pashley has been put in charge of a confiscated tamagotchi and Miss Turner is hoping that this muck-up day goes smoother than the last. Tobias, the German language assistant, watches on. Things can only get better.
Education, Education, Education is The Wardrobe Ensemble's love letter to the schools of the 90s and asks big questions about a country in special measures, exploring what we are taught and why, and where responsibility lies.
- June 2018
A parable of poetry from across history and around the world, all focused on one animal - the cat. Graceful, wondrous, wild, weird, vicious, cruel, kind - cats have a little of everything, which might explain why humanity is so ambivalent towards them! This performance of poetry and short fiction follows humanity's treatment of this animal from amoral innocence to experienced compassion. It's playful, it's silly - but watch out, it's got claws.
- June 2018
If you are reading this then I implore you to stop now and read no further. For if you are in a chipper mood, or even just mildly content, I fear there would be nothing more dampening to your happy life than to see this show. Our story follows a group of innocent children who have just lost their parents in a terrible accident. I wish I could tell you that these orphans were relocated to a new home with a loving guardian where they lived happily ever after, but I am afraid I cannot. For if you have ever lived in the real world, as I have, you would find it a most improvable place - A phrase which here means a place where Improvisers make up very funny drama on the spot from audience suggestions. Their scenes will tell the tale of poor orphans, quirky guardians, secret organisations, hidden conspiracies and dastardly villains. Oh no, do not go and see this show... for it is sure to be A Series of Improv-able Events.
- June 2018
“I dreamt about this last night. I dreamt that I was packing boxes in boxes in boxes.”
Dean is housebound, compelled by his severe obsessive compulsive disorder to repeat meticulous rituals and reach self-set targets. His sister, Tamsin, has her own unrealistic quotas to meet: working on a zero-hour contract in a warehouse, packing boxes for hours on end to provide for them both. When Dean is wrongly declared fit for work, the pressure increases as their benefits are cut. Suddenly their strength and relationships are tested to the absolute limit, as the demands put on them to keep their heads above water go from being almost unreachable to completely impossible.
Winner of the 2015 Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting, Katherine Soper's Wish List is ‘a quietly essential and moving play' that tenderly enforces the essentiality of love when you’re trapped in a system that’s seems to be set against you.
This production will be collecting donations for Mind CPLS, a local charity that provides services which offer support for those recovering from mental health challenges, promote positive mental health and tackle mental health-related stigma and discrimination within our communities.
- June 2018
Alex can talk to ants, he got to the semi-final of season 2 of CBBC's Bamzooki, and he knows the guy who wrote 'The Very Hungry Caterpillar' (shout out to you Eric). But no one knows any of these things, as Alex finds it hard to talk in social situations. Even worse, there seems to be a mysterious Narrator constantly pointing out his flaws and failures. Watch as Alex takes on surreal characters to express himself, battles The Narrator and struggles to find a voice of his own.
Join Footlight and Chortle Student Comedy Award 2018 finalist Alex Franklin in his debut one-man show for an hour of narrative comedy with a heart. Expect strange characters, sketch, dance, and Neil Buchanan from Art Attack.
“Light-hearted, gloriously silly and really very funny.” - ***** Varsity
'The second game was more one-sided than the first, with Oxford’s jungler wreaking havoc while Franklin, arguably Cambridge’s best player in the first was unable to stave off a number of two-on-one attacks early on.' - Varsity (4-1 loss)
"This prized Salmon himself is played by Alex Franklin. He excels in this role." - ****1/2 Sam Brown
- May 2018
Women. What are they good for? Creating an hour of hilarious character comedy for your enjoyment at the Corpus Playroom, of course! You saw The Man Presents: Women and The Man Presents: More Women. You loved them both. Now it's time for The Man Presents: Even More Women! If you like 'acerbic feminist comedy' (The Tab), you're in for a bloomin' treat!
The Man Presents Even More Women is a showcase of Strong Female Characters who have a story to tell. This night of comedy monologues will exhibit some of Cambridge's finest talent and this time there's a twist - no man. We concluded that even one man on stage was One Too Many so this time the narrative is left up to The Women. Who knows what might happen? We certainly don't. But it will probably involve A LOT of laughs. And maybe an elk.
This is Good Girls, Written Bad(ly).
★★★★½ - The Tab
Got a bad case of boredom and misogyny? The women will see you now.
- May 2018
“Do you know, all the time you were away, I didn't have one telephone call. I consider that very frightening.”
In the office of a London University, lecturer Ben Butley is slowly destroying his relationships with everyone around him. Over the course of a day, he wriggles out of responsibility, both professional and personal, filling the ever-growing silence around him with childhood nursery rhymes.
Jealously. Bitterness. Beatrix Potter. Simon Gray’s dark comedy explores the real dangers of toxic masculinity through the study of one day in the life of a flailing academic.
- May 2018
Meatball is a brand new hour of brutally honest comedy from Footlights regular Emma Plowright covering growing up, FOMO and spherical meat. Blurring the line between what you should say outloud and what you should just think on a bus and then take to your grave, Meatball is an hour of SSRI-induced highs and anxiety-ridden lows.
Previous Praise for Plowright:
'singular ability to make the banal and bizarre bits that make up our everyday lives, and, in particular, adolescence, into something utterly hilarious.’ – (★★★★½, Varsity)
'characteristically and presciently hilarious' – (★★★★½, Varsity)
- May 2018
there is an instinctive revulsion against taking a human life
and that revulsion lies in our hearts
and that revulsion can be conquered
video game designer paul has created ‘Killology’ - a game where players are rewarded if they kill their opponents in the most tortuous and creative way possible.
when teenager Davey gets brutally murdered in ways not dissimilar to those in the game, who’s to blame?
flittering between three monologues, gary owen’s “deeply troubling” ‘killology’ examines the relationship between violence, masculinity, fatherhood, representation, and blame in the 21st century, and poses deeply challenging questions about desensitisation and technology
first performed at the royal court in 2017 to rave reviews, killology is a visceral and harrowing piece of new writing
- May 2018
‘I’ve got to try right? Because we’ve tried everything else.’
Young mum Kat is a woman on a mission, but when she kisses her daughter goodbye one morning no one could have anticipated the consequences - least of all herself. Unable to comprehend her actions, Tommy, Catherine and Jo each try to pick up the pieces - but, as the years go by, should Kat concede all her bridges have been burned?
Winner of a Bruntwood Prize Judges Award in 2015, Parliament Square is a dazzling exploration of family, fantasy, and what it takes to change the world - and how far one woman will go to light that spark.
- May 2018
‘University Challenged’ is a new quiz gameshow format taking elements of University Challenge, QI, Just A Minute, Mock the Week, Have I Got News For You to take a comical look at the nature of knowledge. Two teams battle it out over a series of rounds based on the impossibility for most people of answering the kind of questions on University Challenge. The humour is derived from the ignorance of specialist fields of the contestants versus the difficulty of the questions, forcing them to substitute humorous answers. The teams are comprised of four comedians, changing each night. A Jeremy Paxman-esque host oversees events and rips into people accordingly.
From the makers of Speechless and Pearly Gates, 'University Challenged' is the perfect antidote to the drudgery of revision term intellectualism.
- May 2018
GET IN LINE FOR…… QUEUE! A brand new freshers' sketch show.
Every day, millions of people around the world join a queue. Here in Britain, we’ll take any opportunity to form an orderly line, whether it be waiting for a ride, a new passport or as a fresher about to be given your first accommodation… queues are filled with wonderful, weird and wacky characters, just waiting to be explored.
Brought to you by a team of budding fresher comedians, it’s time to join the queue to end all queues! Please stay within the allotted area of the Corpus Playroom at 9.30pm, and wait your turn for a fabulous night of fresh, silly and surreal sketches and character comedy!
Cue Queue, where we celebrate the journeys, rather than the destinations and explore one of the funniest concepts in the world and ask burning questions like: seriously, why are 80% of the letters in queue redundant?!
- May 2018
In a campus of a small New England University, Martha and her husband George arrive home from a party at Martha’s father house. Despite it being 2 am the pair are expecting guests for a spot of after-party drinks; the new biology professor and his wife Honey.
As the alcohol flows, the stage is set for a night of drunken debauchery and revelations. George and Martha compete to find new ways to humiliate and fight with one another in front of Nick and Honey. Battle lines are drawn as these unsuspecting guests are dragged into a private hell of a marriage.
Let the games begin.
- May 2018
A night of musical theatre like no other to round off another fantastic year. It's like one of our ever-popular bar nights, only bigger and better! There will be solos, duets, group numbers, and a chance to say goodbye to any leaving CUMTS.
Complete with Corpus Pub, it's guaranteed to be an entertaining night for all!
- May 2018
- May 2018
'I used to have an imagination too, you know.
All it does is get you into trouble.'
Nineteen-year-old science genius Luke finally has some peace to work on the extraordinary box in her living room, holed up in a dingy flat on a near-abandoned Middlesbrough housing estate.
After her unbalanced brother Rob introduces her to a wealthy out-of-towner they're thrown into a dangerous world that threatens to tear the siblings apart and unleash the power inside her invention.
Brilliant Adventures is a fast paced tale of family, addiction and breaking the laws of physics.
- April 2018
Neural Notwerks is back from its alpha run, beta than ever! We've got an all-new set of sketches using more advanced technology than before - we present to you our second showcase of mismatched computerised malapropisms, generated and printed live, on stage, at the Corpus Playroom!
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Neural networks are computer algorithms that can learn from information you feed them, then spit out new material, be it Bible verses, Trump tweets, Star Wars scripts, or anything else with a large enough body of work and a consistent enough style. The problem is, artificial intelligence... isn't all that intelligent. The results are both uncannily right and tragically wrong. Don't worry about Skynet just yet.
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8/10 from TCS
"lively, well-paced, and unexpectedly hilarious"
"the cast was very good and displayed impressive improvisational talent"
"a veritable cornucopia of dirty jokes"
https://www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/theatre/0038212-review-neural-notwerks.html
- April 2018
Watch Cambridge's finest comedians blend stand up and improv, as they are given a never-before seen “set list” of bizarre, outrageous, and ridiculous topics which they must deliver stand up comedy about.
- April 2018
‘Abby From Primeval Made Me Gay’ is an hour of stories. A group of people will each share a true story about a person who had a real impact on their lives. This could be a relative, a friend, a celebrity, or even a fictional character. Interspersed among these personal insights will be extracts from teenage diaries, photographs, home videos, poems, and songs. A scrapbook of very human snapshots, this show promises to be warm, funny, and uplifting.
‘Abby From Primeval Made Me Gay’ will explore how we become the people we are today, and who helps us along the way.
- April 2018
What’s the musical magic formula?
On 13th November 2013, Archie Henderson accidentally reached number 98 in the UK Singles Chart. This time, he’s heading straight for number one.
Accompanied by an original soundtrack, NOW That’s Who I Call Archie Henderson is a heroic story of symphonic redemption – a last-gasp attempt to figure out what the hell makes a song a hit. In a tornado of musical theory, pop impressions and self-flagellation, Archie will re-attempt every night to find that secret ingredient that’ll take his song all the way to the top. Expect a comprehensive (read: obsessive) historical analysis of everything that has ever made pop music popular – from Bond themes to the Arctic Monkeys via some serious powerhouse opera vibrato.
They said a smash hit can’t be built in a day.
They said to express emotion, not obsess over minutiae.
They said you can’t fake artistic value.
Just watch me.
★★★★★ – EdFestMag
'Absolute, terrible genius' – Comedy Central UK
‘Radiated a delightfully daft energy’ – Chortle
- April 2018
'The Arm in the Cat Flap' is a new farce by Noah Geelan.
A group of students take a weekend trip to the Suffolk countryside. But when events don’t go entirely to plan, relationships start to unravel and things are not always entirely as they seem. Where is Mel’s other shoe? Is the mysterious latecomer really who he says he is? And where on earth is Jackson Buckley?
This story contains: board games, alcohol, Suffolk local radio, fallouts, mistaken identity, an industrial amount of pasta and more than one late arrival.
★★★★★ - TCS
"trod the lines of silliness, sharp wit and poignancy with nothing less than brilliance and flare"
"Noah Geelan’s superb script is so well-crafted, it would be easy to believe it was the latest piece of a seasoned playwright. "
★★★★½ - Varsity
"Geelan is an abundantly talented writer. He has an innate skill in finding the right balance of the bizarre without ever tipping it over the edge"
- April 2018
The Ministry of Unplanned Events presents The Penultimate Destiny of New Londinium, a steam-powered story inspired by the worlds created by Mervyn Peake, Jules Verne and Terry Gilliam.
- April 2018
A poignant comedy about four women serving community orders who have woven their own web of fantasy. However, the truth will out...
- March 2018
Set in the 1920s, this tale of London's criminal underbelly is based on real events and real members of the notorious female gang, the Forty Elephants.
- March 2018
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 will be hosting 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.
Footlights James Coward and John Tothill invite you to an evening of touching character comedy as they trace the life of this extraordinary man. Sad buffet provided.
- March 2018
Singapore, 2007: a city growing faster than its history can contain. Even the dead aren’t spared, as sprawling cemeteries make way for shiny skyscrapers. Amidst this, a reformed-gangster-turned-property-agent dreams of a better life while his ageing mother clings onto their family home as it is slated for redevelopment. As they face their past being swept away, it comes back to haunt them when Jeremiah, an idealistic civil servant with a gift for talking to corpses, unearths some memories…. Welcome to the surreal world of “Boom”.
In this quirky and poignant tale, Jean Tay skilfully conveys the sense of dislocation and loss felt in many Asian cities in the unrelenting march of development. A city dreams of progress, but what memories are lost on the way?
- March 2018
Declan Amphlett was born and raised in Worcestershire. Or as many people call it, 'Where's that? You mean like the sauce?' He also hates writing about himself in the third person. I genuinely do. I feel like I'm writing my own obituary.
A brand new stand-up show from one of the people behind the CUADC/Footlights Pantomime 2016: Rumpelstiltskin, Footlights Presents: Xylophone, Jet Lag and Disappointment, and the faint crying noise coming from Trinity College most Saturday nights.
'Faultless' – ★★★★★ Varsity
'The makings of a brilliant stand-up comic" – ★★★★ The Cambridge Student
- March 2018
"Listen, Juliet.
Come here. Come close.
Press your ear to the earth
So I know you’re listening."
Verona. The heat simmering.
Sharman Macdonald’s blend of light lyricism and staccato colloquialism imagines a drama in the wake of Romeo and Juliet’s suicides.
Prince Escalus has ordered lasting peace, but the lives of the remaining young Capulets and Montagues are still governed by the same forces of love, fear, and hatred. Rosaline - once the object of Romeo’s swiftly forgotten passion - arrives on stage with venom. In the absence of Romeo, she must attempt to establish control within the Capulet family, reconciling her jealous resentment towards Juliet with the familial duty which is all that remains to her.
- March 2018
"I think heaven is a sea of untranslatable jokes, except everyone is laughing."
‘The Clean House’ is a whimsical romantic comedy centred on Matilde, a Brazilian cleaning woman who would rather be a comedian. She has come to America after the death of both her parents, but is too depressed to clean, and only dreams of creating the perfect joke. Surrounding Matilde is a cast of tenderly drawn, eccentric characters: her high-powered employers, the married doctors Lane and Charles; Virginia: compulsive cleaner, neurotic, and sister of Lane; and Ana, Charles’ Argentinian breast cancer patient, who he falls in love with and leaves his wife for. This trilingual play deals with questions of what makes for: the perfect joke, a fulfilling purpose, a soul mate, and a satisfactory death. Moreover, it addresses the struggles of being isolated from your own culture, and pursuing your dreams in an unsympathetic setting.
This is a fresh production of a play which incorporates elements of music, dance, projections and other media; creating spectacle, naturalising elements of the supernatural, without compromising the emotional or psychological integrity of the characters. We aim to celebrate the cultures of our Latin American characters through our multi-media and moments of Portuguese and Spanish dialogue, and use this as an opportunity for authentic representation.
- February–March 2018
Do you miss the 90s? YES YOU DO! Come see this improvised sitcom, then. It'll be like Friends, except without how insufferable Ross was.
- February–March 2018
‘What is the city but the people?’
In the midst of battle a Roman soldier of great renown defends his city from invasion by his sworn enemy. Yet as the dust settles on his herculean victory, Caius Martius Coriolanus must face the demands of a potential famine, a divided senate, and a restless citizenry.
In this electrified atmosphere, wounds speak like tongues, mothers quell battles like soldiers, and an entire populace is sucked into the psychological struggle of one strange, remarkable warrior.
Join us as six performers build one of Shakespeare’s biggest and most restless worlds.
- February 2018
Remember that thing? You know. That thing that keeps you up at night? That time you called your teacher 'mummy'? How about when the barista in Costa asked if you wanted a regular or a large and you accidentally snotted instead of answering? No? Patrick Wilson does. He remembers all the stupid, embarrassing, borderline-illegal things he's done in his otherwise well-meaning life, and is ready to lay them all out for you for one night only!
Come join Patrick for an hour-long exploration of what keeps him up at night (no, not that, the other thing. Like, the things we've covered so far. Get your mind out of the gutter.)
These are Patrick Wilson's Apologies.
- February 2018
“Are we right? What is right? And can we have a vote on it?”
The channel island of Bullwick is in the middle of an election, but the papers are empty, the polls haven't moved, and the result seems certain. Until one of the candidates start telling people not to vote for him.
A bleak new comedy, Beige promises to be equal parts absurd, nihilistic and hilarious.
