- January–February 2006
'We've got the scenery, we've got the costumes, we could put on proper shows - history's always popular, and there's enough stuff in Henry IV for several tragedies.'
An old man falls from his horse during a pageant. When he comes round, he believes he's the medieval German Emperor, King Henry IV. For twenty years, he lives royally in a castle in the air, the characters onstage playing parts in the fantasy.
But today, a plan is being hatched to shock him out of this 'insanity' and into the twenty-first century. However, just like the Doctor, we start to question how mad this king really is: where does illusion end and delusion begin?
- January 2006
It's all over. Jerry's five-year affair with his best friend's wife has been discovered and his life lies in ruins. But what made him start on the road to self-destruction? In Betrayal, Nobel-laureate Harold Pinter takes us from the end of the affair to its beginning, chronicling the petty deceptions that accumulate to destroy three lives. Beneath their conversation lies a dark subtext that is always threatening to break the surface and shatter their complacency.
Visit www.robertandme.co.uk
- December 2005
101 years after their first publication, the ghost stories of M R James can still send a shiver down the spine. Now Nunkie Theatre Company are bringing two of the eeriest and most entertaining back to life - hard by the very places where they were originally conceived and performed.
In 'Canon Alberic's Scrap-book', a Cambridge antiquary discovers the dark sie of the manuscript illumination, in a medieval town in the French Pyrenees....
In 'The Mezzotint' a ghoulish revenge is enacted within a work of art, before the helpless eyes of a museum curator....
'A Pleasing Terror' will be performed in two venues closely associated with the author. The beautiful and atmospheric Founder's Library of the Fitzwilliam would have been James' office when he was Director of the Musuem. The public will have a rare chance to judge for themselves how fr the dark corners and book-lined walls of this marvellous interior may have influenced his supernatural fiction.
The Corpus Playroom is within sight of King's College, where James spent much of his life and where he first performed the stories to friends at Christmas - friends who doubtless smiled, but who also perhaps shifted a little uneasily in their seats as the strange don pursued his singular hobby of 'inspiring a pleasing terror....'
- November–December 2005
'PAPER FLOWERS' is a tight two-hander, written in 1969 (the year the Communist leader Allende, came to power) by one of Chile’s greatest living playwrights explores the gulf between ‘Los Rotos’ (the broken ones) and the repetitive life of the affluent middle classes. The play is constructed with exceptional skill and is a sophisticated fusion of magical realism, absurdism and black comedy. I’m looking for two committed and open minded actors who wish to challenge themselves and enjoy exploring these two complicated and intriguing characters. Together we will make creative use the rehearsal process to produce a piece of theatre which does justice to the play’s unique and exciting explosion of longing, power games, silence, humour and desperation.
ROLES:
EVA: A lonely middle class widow who paints flowers alone in the botanical gardens. She tries with all her might to reach out and offer her love to Beto, a man whom she finds both socially and sexually threatening and compelling. When we first meet her, her life is ordered, repetitive and empty:
“That’s what my life is, eating and more eating, morning noon and night. I sometimes think that life is nothing more than a permanent meal, with pauses in between to get bored again”
BETO: An enigmatic figure from the slums by the river; dressed in rags, prone to severe fits of shaking and a disarming ability to evade questions about his past. He is a forceful presence, often fluctuating between monotonous utterances, brutality, childlike pathos and intensely poetic speeches:
“Love is broken bridge, with a broken tooth, with a broken crank. It flies within the world’s four walls, cracking skulls. Love is a three legged dog! A tramp with one hand and two bananas!”
The action is set in Eva’s ordered and neat living room, beginning as she enters with Beto carrying her shopping. What unfolds spans a tense few days in the house where we see Beto gradually colonise Eva’s world and impose disorder and havoc: rearranging, reconstructing and destroying the furniture and gradually filling the room with his dark, enormous, ragged paper flowers.
- November 2005
Down in Flames Theatre Company and Clare Actors present LOST FOR WORDS 22nd - 26th November, Corpus Playroom, 9.30pm. Box Office: 01223 503 333
‘The books he keeps are old now, and too tired to be anything other than domesticated. He runs his fingers down their spines, lavishing each with love…’
Warren Pale is a writer who does not write; either he cannot, or does not, or prefers not to. ‘Lost for Words’ is a symphony of moods and moments captured in Warren’s intense reflection, departing from the methods of the Stanislavskian stage in order to capture and distil instants as they happen. Assailed by the attentions of a paying audience, Warren will be taken apart and studied for significance.
Using the intimate stagespace of the Corpus Playroom, Down in Flames Theatre Company have created a threadbare mesh of worlds, brought to life through the efforts of the actors. ‘Lost for Words’ promises to be a work entirely different to anything else in Cambridge: lit by anglepoise lamps, actors are annihilated and characters let loose in their place.
If you want a show that’s original and trying new things in an exciting and unpretentious way, give this a try. ‘Lost for Words’ will be appearing at the Corpus Playroom 22nd-26th November, 9.30pm. Tickets £5.50, £4 concessions.
http://downinflamestheatre.com
- November 2005
Marlene hosts a dinner part in a London restaurant to celebrate her promotion to managing director of 'Top Girls' employment agency. Her guests are five women from the past: Isabella Bird - the adventurous traveller; Lady Nijo - the mediaeval courtesan who became a Buddhist nun and travelled on foot through Japan; Dull Gret, who as Dulle Griet in a Bruegel painting, led a crowd of women on a charge through hell; Pope Joan - the ninth-century female pope; and Patient Griselda, the obedient wife from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. As the evening unfolds we become intimately involved with the stories of these five women and begin to see the impending crisis in Marlene's own life. A classic piece of twentieth century theatre, Churchill's play explores the idea of what it is to be a woman – and a successful one at that – in a man’s world.
- November 2005
A 2002 Tony award winner for best play, 'The Goat' is Albee's most daring and provocative play since 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?'. It tells the story of Martin, a world-famous architect whose seemingly ideal life is left in tatters following the revelation that he's having an affair....with a goat. Shocking, moving and hysterically funny, 'The Goat' makes the audience re-examine their notions of acceptable love.
'Every civilisation sets quite arbitrary limits to its tolerances... It is my hope that people will think afresh about whether or not all the values they hold are valid' Edward Albee
- November 2005
Set in 19th Century Russia, THE CHERRY ORCHARD is both a searching social drama and an affectionate family portrait. It depicts the life of a once-rich land-owning family in a changing world. The cherry orchard itself becomes a symbol of the past that the family continue to cling to: once beautiful and distinguished, but now redundant and sacrificed to the forces of the social and economic change.
- November 2005
Terry is waiting. Always waiting. But what is he waiting for? Happiness? Satisfaction? Death? Trapped in the 'perspex purgatory' of an airport waiting lounge he waits, confronted by strangers who stop him from doing what he wants to do - be alone. This new play seeks to examine what we mean by fear and loss through a series of seemingly meaningless conversations. Everyone discovers a secret, but only the audience know the truth.
- November 2005
A very black comedy about comedy, and the people who watch it. A comedian dies. Two marriages collapse. There's a massive food fight.
An exhilarating, award-winning custard-pie tragedy from the author of The Graduate and Hitchcock Blonde, Dead Funny pushes the frontiers of farce into areas of real pain.
And it's dead funny.
- November 2005
'Orgy' is a shocking masterpiece by Italian filmmaker and playwright Pier Paolo Pasolini (Salo, the Gospel According to Matthew) that lays bare the seedy underside of middle-class existence.
- November 2005
Entering an empty house after an extended honeymoon with her mediocre husband, Hedda Gabler struggles with a life that is devoid of excitement and beauty. Unfulfilled by her marriage, she strives to find an escape from the conventional, stifling domesticity in which she finds herself. Her manipulation of men and disdain for traditional feminine values only lead Hedda to violence and tragedy.
- October 2005
Forget all the other Shakespeare shows you’ll see this term – the Fletcher Players are proud to present his finest female character, Lady Macbeth. Well, when we say Lady Macbeth we mean Lily Morgan. Plain old Lily doesn’t just want to audition for the role in her school play, she wants to be Lady Macbeth. Will her friends and family ever see Lily as anything other than quiet and uninspiring? And what will bringing her brother’s knife to the audition lead to? After all it’s only acting – isn’t it?
- October 2005
The play tells the story of Jack, a proud Yorkshire miner and his long-suffering wife Liz, who, every September go to Blackpool for their holidays. As they look back over their lives during their final holiday, Jack and Liz remember Blackpool’s heyday of the 1950’s and 60’s creating a nostalgic, bittersweet comedy which is sure to evoke happy memories of family holidays by the seaside in a celebration of donkey rides and deckchairs, sun cream and sandcastles and of course, the good old British weather!
- October 2005
A story of two brothers and the tramp who comes to stay, The Caretaker is the most important play of one of the twentieth century's most important playwrights. This is a mysterious, obliquely comic and utterly unforgettable account of Aston, Mick, Davies, and the room that becomes their shelter and their prison.
The Caretaker perpetuated a theatrical revolution on its opening almost half a century ago and now three of Cambridge's finest actors make a fresh exploration into a modern masterpiece that terrifies, moves and delights all at the same time.
- September 2005
Returning victorious from war, Don Pedro and his officers arrive at the English country home of Leonato, totally unprepared for the scheming, sex and celebration to come. Their rest and relaxation is ruined by beautiful daughters, and jealous, wicked half-brothers, as new passions are born, old flames are re-ignited and plans are made for both marriage and mischief.
With an occasional cricket match, afternoon tea on the lawn and perhaps even jazz, Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing is a witty whirlwind of love and hate, tragedy and happy endings, teaching us that in the “merry war” of the sexes, no-one is safe from Cupid’s darts.
Hailing from the land of Shakespeare and cricket, this slick and professional true-to-life production is guaranteed to leave you mesmerized and yearning for those lazy sunny afternoons.
- June 2005
Cambridge Footlights alumnus, Alex Horne will be tackling one of light entertainment’s final taboos: the language of Latin! With his new interactive comedy show 'When in Rome: A Latin Adventure', Horne will build upon the success of his previous two innovative and semi-educational Edinburgh shows, 'Making Fish Laugh', which gained a Perrier nomination, and 'Everybody Talks', which earned him a Chortle Award. This year, Horne promises to teach his audience Latin in under an hour. If it comes down to a choice between an ablative absolute and a pun, you’ll probably get both.
The show is being previewed for a run at the Pleasance during this year's Edinburgh Festival, and is one of four productions being previewed by recent Footlights alumni in May Week.
"The most inventive show I have seen this year" - The Observer
"A winning blend of intellect and persistent playfulness" - The Times
www.alexhorne.com
- June 2005
Cowards (a group comprising recent alumni of the Cambridge Footlights) will present their strikingly innovative approach to the sketch-show format. In 2004, the group enjoyed a sell-out residency at the Hen and Chickens Theatre in Islington, and were twice Bruce Dessau’s ‘Choice of the Week’ in the London Evening Standard Metro. Cowards are led by double-Perrier nominated Tim Key, whose one-man show Luke & Stella triumphed in Edinburgh last year, and has recently been commissioned for a series by BBC Radio 4.
The show is a preview for their run at the Pleasance at this year's Edinbrugh Festival, and is one of four shows being previewed by Footlights alumni in May Week.
"Brilliant" - Esquire
"Exquisitely crafted comedy" - Chortle
"Marvellous" - Evening Standard
www.geocities.com/wearethecowards
- May 2005
Noon is the time when the devil and his demons are strongest in the world. Every good saint knows this. St. Eusebius certainly does. The trouble is, so does St. Pior. When the two meet in an Egyptian cave each is convinced the other is a demon sent to corrupt their immortal soul. The saints’ titanic struggle is brought to life with all of Peter Barnes’ characteristic humour and intensity. This is an intelligent and bizarre play from an often overlooked playwright. This is a fantastic two-hander. It's taut, razor sharp dialogue gives the actors the chance to really shine and the only prop is an age old pile of human excrement...
For Further details contact Donnacha Kirk (director) on dk307 or Claire Adcock (Producer) on cla31.
- March 2005
Khonon is a brilliant scholar in nineteenth-century Eastern Europe. He’s in love with Leah, the daughter of Sender, and she with him, but Sender won’t consent to the match. Khonon delves deeper and deeper into Jewish mysticism in order to force Sender to allow them to wed, but Sender still betroths her to someone else. Khonon wastes away and becomes a dybbuk, a wandering soul who can neither rest nor ascend to paradise. His soul in dire need of a harbour, Khonon possesses Leah. This is an unusual and compelling play, in its first-ever Cambridge production. Not to be missed!
- March 2005
A whole host of excited freshers, a brand new piece of comic script writing and some fresh new acting talent....the Corpus freshers present a play full of drama, mystery, intrigue, thrills, espionage, comedy and romance. Set in the familiar surroundings of an un-named Oxbridge college, the story of a professor's road of discovery will be entertainingly brought to life by our band of talented and enthusiastic actors. Combine this with the expert directing and producing skills of the first years, some adventurous and entertaining costumes and sets, and the intimate setting of the Corpus Playroom, and you have a spectacle not to be missed!
- March 2005
It's THE annual festival on the Cambridge drama scene. It's showcasing the hottest, fresh talent of the winning student-writers whose short plays were selected from across the university. Each night 7 little nuggets of polished, outstanding drama and comedy will be played. 7 casts, 7 writers, 6 directors, 1 huge production team, all crammed into the sexiest little venue, performing brand-new work.
- March 2005
Pat, Conor and Tommy have little else to do than sit in a pub discussing elephant sex, John Reilly's daughters, and the Republican Movement's penchant for painting cats green. But when Pat's father dies they are all forced to confront the real issues in their lives. Sometimes life is more than just pints, paint and lesbians.
"I never knew Jesus was Irish. Though when you think about it, it explains a lot."
- March 2005
Youth of Cambridge! Your country needs you to see OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR!
Step right up, do it for God, King, and Country! Here, at last, in one
show, experience the dangerous trenches of France along with those of the
cabaret girls! Two parts War Game, three parts Music Hall, four parts
History, six parts Song, five parts Floozies, and nine parts Machine Gun
Fire, let Oh What A Lovely War! take you OVER THE TOP!
- February 2005
Faced with another Sunday evening of incomprehensible boredom, two housemates take the only sane option left open to them - Break out the boardgames! Unwittingly they embark on a game of risk that spills over into their lives and ushers reality into the corner until It's thought about what it's done. In the days that follow, in the no-man's land between the sofa and the coffee table, they found out that war isn't a game... unless it's been bought at Woolworths.
- February 2005
Caught in the dull routine of office work in London, Rob and Alex struggle to find excitement in their mundane lives. While Alex is drawn ever closer to suicide by his dangerously destructive urges, Rob has worked his way into the undergarments of every attractive female in the vicinity and now awaits his next 'discovery'. When work colleague Julia sees Alex's vulnerability, she tries to help him, much to Rob's annoyance. Having vied for Julia's attention for some time, to no avail, Rob sets about his own plot to get his own back on Julia, theough her one weakness - Alex. As Alex edges ever closer to suicide and Rob comes closer to murder, who will get there first? Or will Julia stop them both before it's too late.
- February 2005
CUMTS proudly presents the UK premiere of the off-Broadway smash hit musical revue SECRETS EVERY SMART TRAVELLER SHOULD KNOW
"This is your captain speaking. We'd like to apologise for the delay in take off. The flight attendants will be serving a complimentary cocktail. And we'll be taking off just as soon as I drink it."
SECRETS EVERY SMART TRAVELLER SHOULD KNOW is a fast-paced, furiously funny musical comedy revue for anyone who's ever travelled anywhere - and survived to tell the tale! The entire journey is planned: from booking the tickets to losing the luggage to an unexpected stop in customs, 'Secrets...' is a smart, witty cautionary tale for any holidaymaker. A smash hit Off-Broadway featuring the songs 'Ageing Planes', 'Buffet' and 'Naked in Pittsburgh', you'll be laughing and singing along all the way to the departure lounge. If you ever get there...
Miracle Airlines - if it's a good flight, it's a Miracle!
http://www.MiracleAirlines.co.uk
- February 2005
One night, one Corpus Playroom - what would you do?
For one week only we've given 5 groups of performers in Cambridge the change to show us exactly what they would do. The Fletcher Players introduces you to a variety week in the Corpus Playroom. It promises to be one of the grooviest weeks the Playroom has ever seen. If you want the opportunity to see some of the best and the most innovative performers in Cambridge, this will be the place to be.
- February 2005
How far would you go for the person you love? How much would you change? 'The Shape of Things' is a provocative, acerbic play which exposes how superficial the relationship between a man and a woman can . The play deals with four university students trying to seek acceptance. It is a savage indictment of the modern 'makeover' culture, showing how far people force others to conform to perceptions of beauty with a blurred view of 'art' and 'reality'. Writer Neil LaBute has been described by the New Yorker as 'the best new playwright to emerge in the past decade...'.
- February 2005
In a sordid bedsit, a prostitute welcomes a client. So it seems. But what is he really looking for? And what does she really want from him? When they are joined by a second man, more questions are raised - is he just another client, a lover, or a brutal rapist? Dwelling on a passing sweetness and descending into dark demanding self-investigation, through warmth and sentimentality, flirtation, make-believe and confession, "The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady" is a modern-day morality play which explores the blurred lines between love, dependence and psychotic attachment.
Following the success of Cross Road Blues at the ADC in Michaelmas 2003, "The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady" is David Hall's second play as writer/director.
- February 2005
Shakers Restirred reflects the eighties as you have never seen them before. Following four cocktail waitresses through a hectic night, the girls take on characters ranging from the checkout girls to the classic 'yuppie'. Shakers cocktail bar is THE place to be! After work, before a club, to meet the blokes, to pick up the chicks, to drink to celebrate or drown your sorrows, for birthdays and parties to romance and sin, this is the place to be seen!
- November–December 2004
Kane's 'Cleansed' written midway through her infamous career on the cusp of her naturalistic and expressionistic phases, is perhaps the cruellest yet most redemptive of Kane's plays. It is a world where love is on trial but justice is aptly perverse and brutally ministered. Set in University buildings transformed into a sanatorium, Tinker's inmates kindle the personal and human within the institution, clinging onto scraps of faith, promise and trust where no values prevail and where ideals are defunct.
CLEANSED is presented as part of HATS's PLAYROOM DOUBLE BILL:
'The Pitchfork Disney' at 7pm
'Cleansed' at 9pm
every night November 30th - December 4th
- November–December 2004
The Pitchfork Disney is the first of Philip Ridley's grotesque and disturbing plays that were met with almost universal critical acclaim and revulsion in the nineties. In an East London flat the agoraphobic Stray twins live the world differently, surviving on chocolate and Barbiturate fuelled dreams of oblivion. A darkly comic play that unsettlingly reflects the tensions and contradictions of post-modern London life.
THE PITCHFORK DISNEY is presented as part of HATS's PLAYROOM DOUBLE BILL:
'The Pitchfork Disney' at 7pm
'Cleansed' at 9pm
every night November 30th - December 4th
- November 2004
When the Brewster-Wright's receive working-class couple Jane and Sidney into their state-of-the-art kitchen, the occupants fear the couple may more than lower the tone of their Christmas Eve: little did they imagine the chaos their party games would bring. This is the hilarious scenario of ABSURD PERSON SINGULAR's rampaging alocholics in negligees, peanut butter sandwiches and drunken dancing. Alan Aykbourn's side splitting social comedy explores a side of the festive season which the middle classes would prefer to keep hidden. The perfect anecdote to end of term blues!
- November 2004
Woyzeck, an ordinary man who endures the rat race to clothe and feed his family, is tortured by jealousy and driven to murder. A seemingly simple tale which grows more complex as the action unfolds. Georg Buchner's Woyzeck changed theatre forever: written so far ahead of its time, the play remained unperformed for 76 years. Celebrating 15 years of German unity, White Block Theatre Company invites you to experience this exciting new interpretation of a modern classic. Performed in German with surtitles.
- November 2004
To celebrate 100 years of the Entente Cordiale, White Block presents Moliere's most controversial play of a seemingly honest priest, Tartuffe. Banned for five years due to Moliere's provocative view of the church, Tartuffe contains moments of farce and razor-sharp satire. Deception, lies and obnoxious servants add up to an evening of pure delight. Performed in French with surtitles.
