- October–November 2017
Blimey! It’s 1958 and the Cold War is in full swing, Britain’s ladies are neatly tucked away in the kitchen, and Her Majesty’s finest assassins have gathered to celebrate topping off their prime target. There’s just a small spot of bother: she’s not actually dead.
“I may not have killed her,” says Kenneth, “but I got jolly close.” Et voila! You are served a scrumptious platter of messed-up murders, accompanied by oodles of intrigue and lashings of lols.
All based on genuinely fictional events; it’s going to be absolutely capital.
A comedy from the writers of 'Bad Habits' (formerly 'Love in a Maze’) - EdFringe Review, Varsity, CTR and ‘How to lie and get away with it - The Tab
- October–November 2017
“Out. Out. What does it mean? In the closet. Out of the closet” Into the ghetto”
It is 1992, Section 28 prohibits the "promotion" of homosexuality in schools, and the age of consent for gay men is twenty-one. Sixteen-year old Steven is suffering the horrors of being a desire-filled gay teen, while his only role models are anguished, closeted men who depend on furtive sex in public bathrooms.
His teacher, Simon Hutton, the one person who could help him and a teacher at his all-boys Catholic school, is determined not to let the same reticence that limited him force Steven to succumb to the paralysis of victimhood.
Yet, the love Steven dreams of seems as far off in Hutton’s world as in his own.
TCS: 10/10
https://www.tcs.cam.ac.uk/theatre/0037867-review-what-s-wrong-with-angry.html
The Tab: ★★★★
https://thetab.com/uk/cambridge/2017/11/01/review-whats-wrong-with-angry-2-101538
- October 2017
"Whah am I to do wud the farm, Isaac? Three hundred acre a the finest land this side a the Shannon and west a the Pale. And me only son and heir can't tell nigh from day, oak from ash, he'd milk a bull and drink ud in his tay and never know the differ."
'On Raftery's Hill' is Marina Carr's epic tragedy of rural life. Three generations of Rafterys live together - they're a farming family, but both family and farm have ben debased beyond recognition. The close knit fabric of their community hides horrible acts - the play is a shocking exposure of rural life, and the corruption to be found within the mundane.
- October 2017
Join us for this evening of new writing! The Fletcher Players bring you Smorgasbord: a festival showcasing some of the most exciting and original extracts from emerging student playwrights.
Hosted at the Corpus Playroom, this is a casual opportunity for writers to have their work performed on-stage, with the chance for the pieces to be discussed and critiqued afterwards by the audience.
Unlike many other writing festivals, there are no limits to the works being presented – they can be complete plays, extracts from a larger piece, or rough first drafts – as long as they are between 5 and 10 minutes in length.
- October 2017
Everyone who’s ever done a sketch show has those sketches that seem hilarious at the time but, upon reflection, can never see the light of day. FIRM NOSE stages these ‘creatures’, and shines the harsh light of day upon them, to watch them writhe and thrive on the Corpus Playroom stage. These ‘sketches’ go so far beyond funny that they swing back around and hit you in the face with how funny they are. Like big, friendly, non-offensive boomerang(s). Have no fear, these are not things that go beyond the line and OFFEND, but things that go beyond the line and beFRIEND!
Fresh from the dark regions of Google Drive and performed by a rag-tag team of failed legends and fading stars, these are ‘sketches’ that have been ‘put’ in the folder marked FIRM NO’s (get it???)
- October 2017
CN: sexual and physical violence, homophobia and racism
Miremba, a Ugandan woman forced to leave her girlfriend and marry. Izzuddin, a Malay man who’s scholarship is removed when his sexuality is revealed. Hamed, an Iranian man who is told by the British Home Office that he is not gay. In their countries they are defined and oppressed based on their sexuality, in England their identity is denied without evidence. They are all asylum seekers, they are all LGBT+, and their stories are all true.
In Oxcam’s first venture in to Cambridge theatre, we bring you real stories from real asylum seekers. With much of the dialogue transcribed from interviews, ‘Rights of Passage’ provides an authentic and heart-breaking insight into the lives of refugees and the struggles they face. Persecuted in their countries, their oppression doesn’t end when they come to England. Their voices are taken away from them. Come, hear their stories.
- October 2017
‘Even if you don't think you can cook well, you can cook better than the food industry.’
Take a peek into the creamy, aromatic world that exists behind the kitchen doors. Featuring comedy monologues and sketches, ‘Edibles’ will take you on a taste sensation like you have never experienced before.*
*we do not take responsibility for any food poisoning that occurs as a result of this show
- October 2017
The rebel, the princess, the outcast, the brain, the jock.
Forced to endure each other's company for a Saturday detention, they must find fun ways to pass the time. Will they overcome their differences? Will the sketchy librarian stop sticking his nose in? Is this just the 80s cult classic The Breakfast Club?
Join Footlights Smoker regulars Leo, Kate, Laura, Stanley, Noah and Will as they take you on a sketch-based journey full of fresh-faced characters, shiny new jokes and at least one fake moustache.
- October 2017
"I waved the barge downstream, the dead boy and the ambulance still waiting in my head for me to turn round and look back at the lock and upstream to the weir and quarries. But I wouldn't."
In a pocket of South Yorkshire, Ruby, Lynette, and Jodie have each, unbeknownst to one another, suffered at the hands of one man. Their stories follow their most treasured memories, as well as ones they'd rather forget, in a gripping exploration of solidarity, survival, and storytelling.
- October 2017
Rufus McAlister likes to trim hedges into the shape of weeping llamas with Freudian undertones. He also likes to perform solo sketch shows, filled with props, kooky characters, mime and deep deep regret that he’s already this exhausted so early in term. Join this semi-charismatic, virtually-likeable Footlight for his debut hour of frenzied fun and madness, and the first ever human cannonball launch from the Corpus Playroom!
- October 2017
"I'm not saying he wasn't put in a dreadful position. But it's an inescapable fact he did it. He commanded those pilots to dive. To their deaths. Whatever the reasons."
Nikolai Koslov is a renowned architect about to open his biggest project yet, but when his family die in a plane crash on their way to see him, he resolves to see justice done. In his unwavering quest for answers he goes after those who he believes responsible for his loss and when an inquest fails to explain what truly happened to his family his grief turns him into the person he hates.
- September 2017
Alan and Julie, both with a past, are a successful husband and wife team working on a new play. While Alan is away on a secret mission, a mysterious visitor tells Julie that her husband is suspected of being as an agent for a hostile power. Who is deceiving who? What is the threat that Alan claims to have uncovered? What is the Riddle of the Sea?
- September 2017
Breaking ground and challenging audiences….
When prison is your world, how do you function within society? This gripping, and at times chilling, one-man physical theatre performance tells the story of how prison can define a man.
Prison Game is a contemporary take on the Kitchen Sink Drama, themes stem from socialist realism of the Black community in inner city UK. Prison Game depicts the realities of working class Britain for First, Second and Third Windrush Generations.
Sold Out Runs performed at:
PUSH festival at Home 2016
Talawa First Festival 2016
The Studio at the Royal Exchange
“Sharp, funny, skilful and moving.” – The Observer
- September 2017
One-act play exploring relationship between two people.
- September 2017
Tom, mid-twenties Zoologist, lover of words and bird watching comes across a ukulele-holding runaway bride, Kitty, stuck in a tree.
- July 2017
Don your lederhosen, grab a lonely goatherd and make your way to the Austrian alps.
- July 2017
An historical play by Canadian writer Vern Thiessen, touching on the little know life of William Shakespeare's wife, Anne Hathaway.
Performed by Sally Hyde Lomax, the play starts immediately after Will's funeral. Anne has been handed Shakespeare's last will and testament by one of her least favourite people, his sister Joan. She initially ignores the will itself and instead spends an hour reminiscing about her life with, or as it turns out, largely without, Will. After an hour, she finally reads the will and finds some unexpected surprises.
The play has been warmly welcomed in over twenty venues, with excellent reviews. It is a lively, poignant and fun piece with never a dull moment.
"A fantastic show, Sally brings not only Anne to life, but a whole array of characters within the story. I look forward to seeing it again and highly recommend it!"
"I can thoroughly recommend this one woman show which showcases Sally Hyde Lomax's talents. I took my two daughters aged 17 and 20 who also loved it."
"Wow a fabulous and powerful performance from
Sally Hyde Lomax in Shakespeare's Will. Over an hour on stage on her tod and held us enthralled. Well done!"
"Splendid and captivating"
www.shakespeareswill.co.uk
www.facebook.com/ShakespearesWill
@sallylomax
- July 2017
- July 2017
Following six very successful performances around the country, Jane Bower brings her remarkable solo show Daddy's Diaries back to Cambridge.
Throughout WWII Jane's father Leonard Bower kept a diary. Still a highly intelligent conversationalist at 97, his memoirs offer a mix of humour and poignancy; always a wit and a wordsmith, Len’s turns of phrase bring delight and pain, and his style has been likened to that of Alan Bennett. He was a highly gifted clarinettist and a trained illustrator, and there will be an exhibition of Len's work on display.
Daddy’s Diaries is inspired by the discovery of Len’s diaries in a box. The piece includes the inescapable legacy of WWI, an unexpected link with Germany, a love story, Len’s memories, illustrations and original recordings to create a picture of one man’s journey towards peace.
'What a stunning performance. I was both fascinated and emotional.'
The play is suitable for age 11 and over. https://www.snailtales.org/single-post/2017/07/03/How-a-fathers-diaries-inspired-a-truly-remarkable-one-woman-show
Jane's last play was a commission from the actress Maureen Lipman. www.janebower.com
- July 2017
Sheʼs a primary schoolteacher in her mid-twenties, living up North. Her relationship of three years is over, and she is trying to adjust to her new life without Adam.
With the help of her mum, her close friends and a large tub of Ben & Jerry’s, she is battling the harsh reality of winter to find the new hope of spring…
Heart of Winter is a new, one-woman song cycle by Tim Connor and Lia Buddle, which will warm your heart with laughter as you undoubtedly identify with our protagonist, Kate.
- July 2017
- June 2017
Welcome to the Pearly Gates, where all your actions are judged and your very essence tested.
Watch as our protagonists will be flung onto a carousel adventure through their past - sketches stitching together into an enveloping canvas of extraordinary lives, straddling the borderline between sketch, narrative and drama.
The audience will decide which of our protagonists will be allowed to pass the threshold into heaven; but as we delve deeper into the past, our judgements will falter - is anyone intrinsically evil?
- June 2017
“Take it back. If she couldn’t hear it, surely she must be able to see it - the words running like ticker tape through the whites of my eyes.”
George is a brilliant linguist who spends his days cataloguing and studying dying languages. Meanwhile, his marriage is crumbling and his wife Mary is leaving him. Yet despite being fluent in Greek, Latin, French, Cantonese, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese and Esperanto, he doesn’t have the words to ask her to stay.
Alta and Resten claim to have fallen out of love, despite being the last speakers of Elloway, they barely converse and only in English - 'the language of anger'. Emma is madly in love with George, she has been for a while now. For them, language is both excessive and inadequate.
As each character navigates the fault lines between communication and connection, we discover that love like language, must be learned and practiced, or else it too will falter and expire. But unlike language, it carries a universal and unspoken quotient.
Julia Cho’s 'The Language Archive' is a poignant meditation on love, loss and all that gets lost in translation.
- June 2017
It’s the opportunity every comedian pines for. Double act Will Hall and Leo Reich have been given an hour to record their very own TV pilot. Except, they’ve been given Studio 9, the smallest studio known to man.
It doesn’t help that Leo is drunk. Or that Will is in love with the runner. Or that the tech keeps malfunctioning. But they have a lot of sketches to get in the can, and only sixty minutes to do so. Well, fifty nine...
Studio 9 is a brand new, fast-paced sketch show from a pair of Cambridge Footlights Smoker Regulars that promises to be a slick hour of uproarious comedy.
This is your one chance to catch the show before it heads up to the Edinburgh Fringe this Summer
- June 2017
"Are you lonesome tonight? Do you miss me tonight? Are you sorry we drifted apart?"
A local pub. One night. Two actors. Fourteen parts. Lots of alcohol.
Jim Cartwright's intimate, 'two-handed' play explores the lives of fourteen very different people at the pub over the course of one night.
Hilarious and touching in equal measure, from the first round to last orders, the Landlord and Landlady invite you for a drink as you watch the Cambridge University premiere of Cartwright’s acclaimed play.
Varsity: ★★★★1/2
https://www.varsity.co.uk/theatre/13236
- June 2017
‘Night after night and couple by couple, the people would split down the middle and it wouldn’t always be by sex, it wouldn’t always be by age. But one or the other would say: ‘I think he’s right”, “I think she’s right”.’ (David Mamet)
In the stiflingly intimate setting of John’s office, Mamet’s electrifying drama unfolds between this university professor and his student Carol. Power battles escalate and communication breaks down, spiralling into untruth. Set in a claustrophobic bubble of academia, this production explores the devastating effects of secrecy and accusation, challenging us to recon with justice in the face of broken truths.
- June 2017
Every October, 3000 teenagers are carried south by the University of Cambridge Admissions Storks (U.C.A.S.), and deposited onto a fleet of punts stationed on the River Cam near the village of Grantchester. The triumphal procession then advances down the river into the Cambridge city centre, and the ‘freshers’ are carefully hand-picked by the various colleges. This birthing process is known as ‘the pool’.
This year’s dregs, the final five freshers to be picked, unified by collective outrage at their misfortune, have banded together in the silliest way imaginable. They’re taking things one little bit at a time in the big world of Cambridge, so come along to track their baby steps. Join bleary-eyed freshlings Emmeline, Will, Aimee, Alex and Tom as they learn how to walk and then perform comedy in quick succession.
- June 2017
Chance occurrences, fateful encounters, supernatural stirrings and lessons learned just too late… Three classic ghost tales unfold to set your spine tingling in this chilling new musical, No Sleep for the Haunted.
- May–June 2017
Mrs Icarus, Queen Herod, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mrs Quasimodo… A new one-woman play about wives through history, art and legend.
- May 2017
Ladies & gents, strap yourselves in because we’re in for a hell of a ride and the stakes have never been higher. Join the Cambridge Impronauts for an unforgettable interrogation as we pull back the curtain of mystery shrouding Britain’s most secret of organisations, and flush out the double agent lurking within. Of course, to a true spy master, this interrogation is merely a formality. You need look no further than the events of that morning and it’s clear as day who can’t be trusted…
Every story and secret is provided by you, the audience, to create a performance never seen before and never to be seen again. Shocking revelations will be made, stories will twist and crack under scrutiny, and the truth will be dragged, kicking and screaming into the light. Everyone has their own agenda, no-one is to be trusted, but justice will prevail before the night is out.
- May 2017
‘Remember Steve Irwin? Steve Irwin didn’t do any of that pussying around Attenborough shit. He just shoved his hand right in the crocodile’s mouth like he couldn’t give a fuck. That’s how I’d do it.’
Harry is homeless, reckless and overly invested in the documentaries of David Attenborough. Mia has everything he doesn’t, yet still feels like she’s suffocating. Claiming she wants to taste ‘real’ life, she runs away from home, and the play begins two weeks into their experiment of living together in a squat.
Described by Tim Price (The Radicalization of Bradley Manning, National Theatre Wales, Teh Internet is Serious Business, Royal Court) as a ‘fantastic… gripping, economical two-hander,’ Spiders was longlisted for the Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting in 2015. It is a witty and touching piece of new writing, and asks if your suffering is still valid, if another’s suffering is greater.
- May 2017
After two years of legal troubles involving his [REDACTED], family entertainer Stuart Brown is back on your screens with a brand new show that certainly promises to be “a format” (The Guardian) with “guests” (The Observer) and “attempts at comedy” (The Telegraph). This special pilot episode, featuring hilarious segments such as “Who In The Audience Will Date Me?”, “Brown Noise” and fan favourite ‘“Where Did I Put The Thimble?” will be an unforgettable return to form for one of the nation's most persistent broadcasters!
From the comic mind who brought you Dropouts!, Black Tie Smoker, Crow, Quinoa: A Middle-Class Sketch Show, 7 Steps to Becoming a Student Druglord and numerous Footlights Smokers, SBVH:LIC promises to be a tragicomic tour-de-force through the damaged psyche of a repressed man, and a showcase of Cambridge's finest character comedians!
Previous praise;
"Like the weird uncle at a family Christmas, Wright united and energised the audience as a whole – only occasionally traumatising individuals”- The Tab
“Elliott’s acting performance was outstanding throughout and although the nudity was a comic highlight of the show, the rest too was of equal caliber”- Varsity
"dimwitted self-parody"- The Tab
- May 2017
“Petersburg is not half what I expected – it is an amazingly quiet place; the people there seem more dead than alive…”
Three great authors. Three tall tales. Join us on this tour through an exhibition of apparitions, madness and ghosts, a gallery of human absurdity. This is a city of graveyards and asylums, where the dead hold court and where noses roam around unsupervised.
See a play that aims to thrill and entertain. See the works of Dostoevsky, Chekhov and Gogol brought to life as you’ve never seen them before.
- May 2017
‘I have holes in my shoes
I have holes now even in my feet
there are holes everywhere
even in this story.’
Layal is the only artist who can paint nudes. The Girl enjoys listening to N’Sync and can distinguish between different weapons by hearing them fired. Umm Ghada mourns for her family, who were killed in the 1991 Amiriyah shelter bombing by the United States.
Inspired by a trip to Baghdad in 2003, this play is a beautiful exploration of the lives of nine Iraqi women that span the decades between the first and second Gulf Wars and occupation. Raffo brings hundreds of interviews to life in this moving, raw and intimate examination of the effects of war on women living both in Iraq and elsewhere.
The Tab: ★★★★1/2
https://thetab.com/uk/cambridge/2017/05/18/review-nine-parts-desire-94458
Varsity: ★★★★★
https://www.varsity.co.uk/theatre/12997
- May 2017
Wow! The universe is mind-boggling!
If you like to hear about places, things and people, this is the show for you. Failed scientist Isa Bonachera will take you in a journey through the universe. You are guaranteed to learn nothing.
Previous praise:
"the best stand-up I have ever seen live" Will Maclean, The Cambridge Student
“had everyone beside themselves” Perdi Higgs, Varsity
“a continuous mixture of laughter and abdominal pain ensued” Eddie Spence, The Tab
“fresh, spontaneous humour” Hettie Blohm, The Tab
“will surely go far” Carl Wikeley, The Cambridge Student
- May 2017
Dowie’s best known ‘stand-up play’ is a fierce and subversive monologue about gender expectations and stereotypes, spoken by someone who doesn’t want to be a ‘girl’, doesn’t want to wear skirts, but just wants to be John Lennon. What begins as frustration at the impracticality of the compulsory school skirt – only good for showing off legs and absolutely no good for playing football – becomes an articulate and passionate invective against obligatory femininity. Why is John Lennon Wearing A Skirt? is a powerful condemnation of society’s aggressive reinforcement of gender constructs, and the difficulties of finding a way to be who you want to be.
With reviews as ‘sad, sane, serious and very funny’ (The Guardian) and ‘truly unforgettable and equally unmissable’ (Broadwaybaby Edinburgh Fringe), this show will be a must see this term.
