- October–November 2012
‘in the vatican everything is confidential and nothing is secret’
Following the death of the Pope a man is elected who the cardinals believe can stop the spread of corruption in the Vatican. Thirty days later he is dead. No official investigation is launched, no autopsy is performed and cardinal Benelli watches as the press release is secretly distorted. Benelli has the power to ensure the death is properly investigated but only by surrendering his last chance of becoming pope. Years later, beyond justice, ambition and friendship all that remains is his last confession.
A thrilling tail of rivalry, intrigue and faith. The Last Confession takes us inside the Vatican to uncover the events surround the death of ‘the smiling pope’
- March 2012
DRAGON?! - Dung shovellers, hockey players, policemen, a grumpy professor, a sorceress named Chlamydia, and a very large red dragon. Will Seth accept his Destiny, or will everyone get burned to cinders?
CLUEDO - The PANTOMIME - Was it Mrs Peacock in the Library with the dagger? Was it Professor Plum in the Study with the candlestick? Was it Mrs White in the Ballroom with the...pantomime piano...?
- March 2012
The BATS Freshers' Show takes on one of the most celebrated works of twentieth century theatre, Caryl Churchill's warts-and-all portrayal of the working woman, and what it takes to be one. Marlene has been promoted to managing director of the Top Girls Employment Agency and is lauded by women past and present as a successful, admirable female. But how much has she given up for her career? Her family? Her credibility? Even her gender?
- March 2012
Two men, two women. Sex, betrayal, half-truth, and that's just the bubbly first half. Rose has just moved into Cassie's spare room.She believes in horoscopes, leprechauns and numerology, which doesn't go down well with Cassie, who lobbies parliament to raise awareness of rape and gender inequality. They met on gumtree. Rose thinks Mark is the one, Mark's fairly sure he isn't. Tim lives with Mark. He is recently bereaved, fat and doesn't know what to do. So far, so good. But what seems like a romcom waiting to happen quickly curdles into something much, much nastier.
Set up as a sparky metropolitan comedy of manners, Penelope Skinner's divisive script delves deeply into the dark underbelly of modern romance, starkly depicting emotional manipulation, sexual humiliation and near-total self-destruction. An intoxicating mix of comedy and tragedy, 'Eigengrau' tenderly examines the alienation of modern life and the near-impossibility of living as a feminist in a world that believes the struggle is over.
- February 2012
The CU Show Choir returns to the stage with an all-new selection of the best songs from the most beloved movies, musicals and TV shows of all time. Our singers and orchestra will leave you dazzled with their boundless enthusiasm, talent and showmanship.
- February 2012
When Tom Ripley is sent to Italy to track down Richard Greenleaf, the errant son of a wealthy American couple, his mission takes on a sinister twist as their lives become inextricably entwined. Phyllis Nagy’s stage adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel ‘The Talented Mr Ripley’ explores the mind of one of crime fiction’s great anti-heroes; an intelligent, suave, and charming psychopath whose amorality is at the centre of a plot about duplicity and murder.
- November 2011
- November 2011
Combine the best restaurant in London and the worst diners in the world and what do you get? Madness. Add into the mix a verbose restaurant manager, a namedropping waiter, and a pseudo-sexually charged waitress, and Pinter’s Celebration is a feast of bizarre comedy not to be missed. Join us for this one-act play from perhaps Britain’s most revered and versatile playwright, and take the opportunity to explore his final work in all its comedic, dramatic and intensely strange glory.
- November 2011
It's the 2503th performance of "Oedipus Tyrannus" and Chorus 6 wants to call it quits. The tragic hero, however, isn't quite ready to end the performance. Can a plot be altered, can a well-known story be changed? The minor actors are determined to escape a theatrical prison... but the protagonist has other ideas.
BATS is proud to present this imaginative new adaptation of the Oedipus myth.
- November 2011
Sondheim’s musical thriller, a modern day classic, tells the story of Benjamin Barker. Framed by the evil Judge Turpin him - in order to rape Barker's wife - he escapes and returns to London only to discover his wife poisoned herself and Turpin is to marry his daughter. He rents a room over Mrs Lovett’s struggling pie shop, selling - to quote - “The Worst Pies in London”, and plots revenge, which soon expands to include a much wider clientele.
Sweeney Todd deftly mixes horror with the blackest humour. A cast of Cambridge's finest actor-singers will appear in a brand new production that will be mesmerising, disconcerting and bloody good fun.
Sweeney's waiting.
- March 2011
When no heroes are left, who will save us?
Fresh from the Edinburgh Fringe 2010, the Medics’ Revue is back, bringing ‘The Fantastic Forceps’ to the Fitzpatrick Hall and providing an hour of riotous sketches and hilarious songs that are sure to tickle your funny bone. Featuring entirely original, and specifically non-medical humour from the pens of undergraduate medics and vets, this show continues to be a well-loved Cambridge tradition. Drawing upon current affairs, pop culture and the twisted imaginations of the next generation of lifesavers, the show promises to provide light-hearted entertainment as a perfect antidote to the end of term. Medics’ Revue promises to split your sides, and then stitch them back up again after!
- March 2011
The world's greatest physicist, Johann Wilhelm Mobius, is in a madhouse, haunted by recurring visions of King Solomon. He is kept company by two other equally deluded scientists: one who thinks he is Einstein, another who believes he is Newton. It soon becomes evident, however, that these three are not as harmlessly lunatic as they appear. Are they, in fact, really mad? Or are they playing some murderous game, with the world as the stake? For Mobius has uncovered the mystery of the universe--and therefore the key to its destruction--and Einstein and Newton are vying for this secret that would enable them to rule the earth.
- February 2011
Running to 4 star reviews last term (‘a masterpiece of madness’, TCS), BATS revives ‘William Fergus Stuart’ as their week 4 lateshow. Attempting to tell the story of its author’s life, the show explores and explodes autobiography, going after war, life, death, romance and struggling to find your heart.
- February 2011
- November 2010
THE REAL INSPECTOR HOUND combines elements of metatheatre and farce with the 'whodunnit' formula of Agatha Christie and Conan Doyle and ludicrous comedy.
The play opens with two critics watching a play, presented with a group of characters trapped in the mysterious Muldoon Manor by adverse weather conditions and a lunatic apparently on the loose somewhere nearby
However, when one of the characters in the play is killed, Birdboot finds himself taking his place, and things only get stranger, as the lines between audience and play, critic and actor become bafflingly blurred.
- November 2010
Politics. Rebellion. Desire. All words. So what can they do?
For the characters in this play, the presence - or absence - of the right words can be life-changing. As a drama teacher is drawn into a staged version of his past, we see how saying what you really mean isn't as simple as it sounds, whether in London or Havana. But then you need words to tell a story, and perhaps they can help as well as hurt...
A new play by Paul Merchant.
- November 2010
BATS presents:
The MISANTHROPE by Moliere, verse translation by Tony Harrison
Fitzpatrick Hall, Queens' College | Week 4 Mainshow
2nd - 6th November
Tickets: £5/£7
"Let real feelings shine out through our speech, a deep sincerity where guile can't reach."
Widely regarded as Molière's masterpiece, The Misanthrope is a wickedly scathing satire of high society. Still bitingly relevant today, it enjoyed huge success in the West End earlier this year.
In this brilliant translation by Tony Harrison, the urban, young intelligentsia jostle for status and respect in 1960s Paris. Decide for yourself whether Alceste,the proverbial misanthrope, is an honest man surrounded by flattering sycophants or an arrogant idealistic fool.
BUY TICKETS ONLINE HERE - http://www.adcticketing.com/
- March 2010
- March 2010
The Last Five Years, by composer Jason Robert Brown, combines an eclectic and beautiful score, with an intensely powerful plot, told in a strikingly unique and individual way. The story deals with the breakdown of Cathy and Jamie’s marriage, however, the audience sees Jamie’s account in chronological order, whilst Cathy’s experience is in reverse, the two characters meeting only once in the middle at their engagement and wedding. This is a beautiful and challenging addition to the Cambridge musical theatre scene.
- February 2010
This seminal piece of female drama is controversial even today. A group of monologues from people in all walks of life discuss different aspects of the pussy with humour, tenderness and rage. Titles include ‘Reclaiming Cunt’, ‘Hair’, ‘My Angry Vagina’ and ‘Because he Liked to Look at it.’ The production will take place as part of ‘V-Day’ - a worldwide feminist movement around Valentine’s Day to promote ending violence against women. All money raised from the production will go to women’s charities.
- February 2010
A hilarious new musical comedy - at times fantastical, at times close to the bone - that tracks three students in their final year at university as they plan, prioritise and panic. Is Zander's CV his saving grace? Is Rachel cut out to appear on television every day? Are Bonnie's trivial goals her downfall? Don't laugh too hard, just in case you're laughing at yourself!
http://www.bigfishents.com/events/theatre/the-final-countdown
- November 2009
- November 2009
'...one flew east, one flew west, One flew over the cuckoo's nest'
When convicted villain McMurphy manages to cheat his way into serving out his sentence in a mental hospital, utter pandemonium ensues on Nurse Ratched's ward. Cheif Bromden, the supposedly deaf-mute patient, watches as the new addition refuses to bow to the rules and routines that had before been irrefutable, and slowly, as Nurse Ratched's rigid grip on her authority disintegrates, the other inmates begin to regain a sense of vitality. McMurhpy's rambunctious behaviour transforms life on the ward, but at what cost?
Dale Wasserman's 1963 stage adaptation of Kesey's classic novel brings to life this touching and revelational tale through the juxtapposition of scrutinising action and beautiful soliloquays. In an exhilarating exploration of the human mind and the concept of 'sanity' this production will not fail to engross.
- March 2009
‘The goldest throne in the world is still sat on by an arse’ said Montaigne, and the Earl of Rochester's SODOM examines this fundamental of fundaments with no little rectitude. The base instincts which govern our governors are expressed here through the nihilism of a poet who finds his only reality in sexuality. Relocated from Restoration decadence to political sleaze, Lewinsky dresses and Prescott leers, with songs, dances and Signior Dildo, this is what every play should be, this is to Shakespeare what Hollyoaks Later is to Hollyoaks.
- March 2009
“Is there no instance of a friend turned false? Take heed of that: no love by proxy, Julio.”
An extremely exciting opportunity to be part of an imaginative production of Shakespeare’s ‘lost play’. For years, Cardenio has been surrounded by mystery and the subject of heated debate as to the true authorship...However, for the first time we present an original re-imagining of the play by Bernard Richards; perhaps as close as we will ever get to the truth of this lost work.
- February 2009
Sophrosyne is a play about family and evil. It is Robert's 60th birthday. He lives with his boyfriend, his mad mother and her parrot. His two warring children come up for the celebrations: his son grows penises on the backs of rats, his daughter believes in God. Robert wants to talk about sex. No one else does. A child has been lost and a poem written, and Robert wants to put a glory-hole through the fourth wall. No one quite knows what to say. We can see the strings of madness, inherited voices and murder.
Sophrosyne is written by the joint winner of the Other Prize 2008, Freddy Syborn. His previous plays include Tragedy Circus, A Beast For Thee, Now the late last winter, Indivisible, and Flesh-Eating Jacobean Zombies. Of A Beast For Thee, Varsity said "I really can't think of a better new play I've seen at Cambridge. As both writer and director of this forty-five minute piece, Freddy Syborn skillfully avoids all the usual over-earnest pitfalls of 'student writing' and instead constructs his own strong and impressive theatrical language."
- November 2008
A small town in 50s' France - A Rhinoceros stampedes through the streets, mildly upsetting our hero, Bérenger. At first he is undaunted by the rhinocerisation trend but as the whole of humanity begins to follow the fashion and transform into rhinoceri he desperately tries to hold out and remain human.
A hilarious romp in the darker recesses of the 20th Century.
- November 2008
- May 2008
Footlights' famous evening comedy shows hit Queen's this easter term in association with BATS.
- March 2008
Twenty years after forming a society during their teens called “the disciples of James Dean,” five former members hold a reunion dedicated to looking to the future, but find themselves rooted in an unresolved past. Tensions mount as secrets are revealed and an unexpected guest returns to reveal the truth about love, life and James Dean. Past and present merge in the two separate time periods in which the action is set, adding comedy and poignancy to this innovative work.
- March 2008
Two short plays, one about the sexual tensions of a lesson which veers into violence, the other about the difficulty of kicking a man to death when you are holding a pot plant. Short, quick, cheap and entertaining, these plays promise to be entertaining and experimental.
This double-bill is a joint venture between BATS and the Lady Margaret Players.
- February 2008
“The Vagina Monologues” consists of approximately 20 monologues read by a variety of women. Cambridge’s production is part of the V-Day Campaign which was established 10 years ago to stop violence against women and girls. Every year performances of Eve Ensler’s Obie-award winning play “The Vagina Monologues” are held on college and university campuses around the world to raise awareness and funding.
- November 2007
The story is about an affable man Elwood P. Dowd and his imaginary friend Harvey, a 6 1/2 foot tall rabbit. When Elwood starts to introduce Harvey, a pooka, to guests at a society party, his society-obsessed sister, Veta, has seen as much of his eccentric behavior as she can tolerate. She decides to have him committed to a sanitarium to spare her daughter Myrtle Mae and their family from future embarrassment.
When they arrive at the sanitarium, due to a comedy of errors, the doctors commit Veta instead of Elwood, but when the truth comes out, the search is on for Elwood and his invisible companion. When he shows up at the sanitarium looking for his lost friend Harvey, it seems that the mild-mannered Elwood's delusion has had a strange influence on more than one of the doctors, including renowned Dr. Chumley, his medical partner Dr. Sanderson, and the head nurse Miss Kelly.
Only just before Elwood is to be given an injection, Dr. Chumley's Formula 977, that will make him, as his taxi driver says, into a "perfectly normal human being; and you know what bastards they are!" does Veta realize that she'd rather have Elwood be the same as he's always been — carefree and kind — even if it means living with Harvey the pooka.
- November 2007
'...no man would sacrifice his honor for the one he loves. Nora: It is a thing thousands of women have done.'
Over a century ago it caused a scandal never been seen before on the European stage; it was banned from British theatres; it changed the portrayal of women on and off stage forever. Yet even today, the shock that 'Ibsenism' brought into contemporary society all that time ago, the issues he explored are still relevant and highly emotive. In the infamous central character, Nora, Ibsen epitomized the human struggle against the humiliating constraints of social conformity, an issue which still holds sway over each and every one of us today.
- November 2007
What would you do if you received late-night phone calls from a stranger wanting to know if you clean your shoes with furniture polish? What if the same stranger turned up on your doorstep? Would you let him in? Would you offer him olives? What would you ask him to do with the pips?
Boasting a typically irresistable blend of wit and menace, 'The Collection' is a lesser-known Pinter classic that is guaranteed to charm, shock and delight. Come and experience the thrill of Late Night Pinter.
- November 2007
"A nice little promising life there, I thought and a nasty mess somebody's made of it." One evening the Birling family sits down to dinner to celebrate the engagement of their daughter. Prosperous and content, they could not be more satisfied with life. Unexpectedly the doorbell rings, an Inspector has come to inquire about a young woman who has committed suicide. A young, pretty woman by the name of Eva Smith but they none of them know her, of course.
Slowly but inexorably, the Inspector connects them to the young woman, shattering their illusions about themselves and their lives.
"An Inspector Calls" is a challenging play by a well-known playwright that is searching and poignant but underpinned with understanding and humour. It offers the actor well-drawn, complex characters and brilliantly written dialogue in a suspenseful, dramatic situation.
