- November 2023
“I wish I had no love in me at all so I could better bear the things that need doing. I hate being held back and still, still I’m mourning the past.”
The early twentieth century.
Sophie has created a life for herself in a new country. When Jim, the younger brother she left as a boy, makes the same journey to come live with her, the siblings must renegotiate their relationship and the political tensions threatening to overwhelm their two-bedroom flat. At turns witty, tender, and thoughtful, this two-hander asks what happens when the people we love are too familiar and too strange, and how the fight for one home – family, community, or place – can complicate another.
- November 2023
The Pembroke Players' Freshers Panto returns again with an all new cast, crew and script! Come down to New Cellars for a rip-roaring Bridgemas special, following Peter Pan-tomime as he has to learn to embrace the panto spirit and save Cambridge from some malevolent rowers in the process!
- November 2023
“I’ll tell you what love is. Love is a precious thread you lose when you start to think. Love is a wide wide field of utter purity and it doesn’t exist - beds and carpets of snow flowers, drift stars of innocence, original light, embryonic sun, planet of lucid crystals, bruises like a virgin to the fumbling human senses, isn’t there.”
We are putting together a pastiche of Jeff Nuttall’s performance scripts, a collection of experimental, surrealist and expressionist writing which, in the author’s own words, tries to ‘punch holes in reality by weaving fiction and absurdity into the patterns of lives of unsuspecting citizens’. Comedy, farce, the ideas of Strindberg and Artaud, Tzara and the Absurdists, are all present, but the poetry, the humour, the sex
and outrage, the sense of unreality and fright are all reborn in the corporeal, graphic expression of Nuttall’s text. His writing turns inward, towards the complexity and disposability of the human condition, and how this in turn can be wielded against the authority of the powers that be.
- November 2023
AFTER A SUCCESSFUL OFF-WEST END DEBUT, GASLIGHT IS COMING TO CAMBRIDGE!
What would happen if we lived in a world where life-threatening physical wounds were treated as dismissible?
'Gaslight' is an Off-West End Award nominated play by Shaira Berg that delves into the devastating psychological impact of sexual assault and the struggle of victims to receive support. Scarlet, a university student in a seemingly loving relationship, is surrounded by toxic friends.
After a traumatic incident, she is plagued by a mysterious expanding physical wound that nobody takes seriously. As she tries to get help, she is met with disbelief, betrayal and apathy. Scarlet's journey highlights the impact of traumatic experiences on mental health, relationships and everyday life.
'Gaslight' is a powerful commentary on society's attitudes towards sexual assault and the importance of believing survivors.
'A brilliant and harrowing play that will stay with me for a long time...', 'Be prepared for the lasting impact this will have on you. You have been warned...' ★★★★★ - The Tab
- October 2023
Summer with Monika is an exploration of what it means to love, be loved and subsequently experience the loss that was in some ways inevitable, but no less painful.
- October 2023
"This is a true story and it's a love story. This is our love story. And the first thing I want to tell you is this: love is not a cast-iron set of symptoms. Love is whatever you feel it to be."
Blink is the story of Jonah and Sophie, two introverts thrown together by grief and fate. Newly arrived in a city too busy to notice them, they embark on a heartfelt romance without ever exchanging a word. Will their relationship rescue them from loneliness or are their scars too deep to heal?
A sweet, off-beat romantic comedy from multi-award-winning playwright Phil Porter.
- October 2023
The Pembroke Players regularly occurring comedy nights hosted in the beautiful New Cellars.
- March 2023
At the Young Women’s Empowerment Forum, Karina, the youngest female partner in a prestigious law firm, is poised to impart her wisdom to the hordes of Gen Z women who regard her as a role model in a male-dominated industry. Unexpectedly, Karina is thrust into a Zoom breakout room with Sara, her former intern, whose experiences throw into question Karina’s #girlboss sloganeering… #WomenSupportingWomen maps the vast expanse of greys behind the glib hashtag of solidarity, and unpacks the performances expected of women as leaders in the workplace — and as victims in the courtroom. The play also explores the incongruities of virtual identities in our post-pandemic world, where we are forced to project our public selves while in our most private spaces.
- March 2023
A and B have been close friends, for a while. A is sharp, witty and unafraid to be vulnerable; especially when they drink too much. B is more traditional, straight, and is quick to tell A when the point of 'too much' has been reached. They bounce off each other and push each other; neither are afraid of an argument. However, when military intervention in another country provokes them to severe disagreement, the closeness of their friendship is brought into question. B has a new girlfriend, A disapproves. B suggests A gets help for what might be a drinking problem. The volume is dialed up when a protest forms against the military intervention and A and B come to a head. Neither will back down, and both are at a tipping point, will either of them step in?
- March 2023
Dazzling is a new, student-written script that tracks the thoughts and feelings of Alix, the show’s only onstage character, as they live through an obsessive relationship with a beautiful stranger, Fiona. The story charts how Alix’s obsession seeps into various aspects of their life, exploring friendship, creativity, careers, addiction and mental health - and the ways in which these interact with our personal relationships.
- February 2023
Mix a Hitchcock masterpiece with a juicy spy novel, add a dash of Monty Python and you have The 39 Steps, a fast-paced whodunit for anyone who loves comedy! In The 39 Steps, a man with a boring life meets a woman with a thick accent who says she’s a spy. When he takes her home, she is murdered. Soon, a mysterious organisation called “The 39 Steps” is hot on the man’s trail in a nationwide manhunt that climaxes in a death-defying finale! A riotous blend of virtuoso performances and wildly inventive stagecraft, the play is also packed with over 150 characters (played by a cast of four), an onstage plane crash, handcuffs, missing fingers, and some good old-fashioned romance!
- February 2023
Thirty-five years ago, all the fish disappeared. No one knows where. No one knows how. No one knows why.
In a hearing committee on Capitol Hill, three Senators are still searching for answers.
- February 2023
An omniscient, lyrical narrator takes the audience on an intimate journey into the small Welsh town Llareggub, where its occupants are dreaming and living their individual lives of yearning, loving, and losing. It is a story about community, friendship and our neighbours, laced together by Thomas' groundbreaking, melodic work originally intended for radio.
A retired, blind sea captain named Captain Cat dreams of his past and people he knew long ago. Mog Edwards, the town draper, and Myfanwy Price, the dressmaker, write hopeless love letters to each other. Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard cleans away invisible dust, tormented by her two late husbands. The despicable Mr and Mrs Pugh despise each other. The indolent Sinbad Sailor fantasises about the beautiful Gossamer Beynon, and she likewise, whilst the Reverend Eli Jenkins evangelically sings the town awake. Mr Waldo runs recklessly around town, and Polly Garter overcompensates for the death of her true love.
Thomas’ use of words lull the audience into a transient, dreamlike state as we are led down into a raw and familiar day of ordinary, yet still intriguing, characters in this poetic, alluring and ultimately reflective play.
- February 2023
On midsummer's eve, 1889, in the count's kitchen, Miss Julie asks her valet to dance.
"He's trembling, the big strong boy... with arms like that..."
Miss Julie introduces two characters who are at war with themselves and their positions in life.
Julie, whose strange behaviour makes her the subject of gossip, has just left her fiance. She is unable to face her family and ill at ease with members of her own class.
Jean is an ambitious valet. Loosely affianced to Christine, a servant, he is drawn to Julie although he knows that she brings risks.
Helen Cooper's version of Strindberg's absurdist and confrontational play is coming to Pembroke New Cellars Week 3 Lent Term.
- November 2022
The winner of The Pembroke Players Playwriting Competition, 2022!
A lighthearted, fast moving comedy of 20 minutes: 4 activists, one mink, one mission.
Week 7 Mainshow (23rd - 27th Nov)
- November 2022
- November 2022
Jude can’t pray. In fact, every time she tries to pray, she blacks-out and wakes up masturbating. But when her mother falls ill, everything gets slightly less funny, no less absurd and a lot more complicated. Combining punk theatricality with dry humour and a deeply human focus, I Can’t Pray is a unique and exciting piece of new writing by Laurie Ward. Previous praise for Laurie’s writing include: 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟‘incredibly emotive’ - Three Weeks / 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 ‘genuine originality…daring’ - Varsity.
Free glass of wine included in the ticket price
- November 2022
- November 2022
Ugly Chicken Fisters follows Keira and three (to begin with) strangers on a venture to the local pub in their hometown in the West Country. The play begins as a comedy on the stark differences between the four characters - often stemming from their varying experiences of living in a small, rural community. As Keira gets to know her three new friends, they are forced to confront their differences from one another and try to understand why they are the way they are. It also has lots of silly jokes about sheep shagging and that kind of thing.
- November 2022
Rebekah King's nationally acclaimed one-woman production is about a Neolithic girl whose family have gone out into the snow searching for their missing herd, leaving her to guide them home with her voice. She tells us stories about her family, her dreams and ideas, and all the while the Thing Without a Face watches, and waits.
Premiered at National Student Drama Festival 2021
Winner of Pembroke Players Playwriting Competition 2020
Performed at Brighton Fringe 2022
- November 2022
- November 2022
Do the words “Beep Test”, “Gifted and Talented programme” and “Show and Tell” evoke a visceral reaction in you? If so, take a trip with us Back To School! From sports day to pizza Fridays, this brand-new sketch show will teleport you back to the good old days of primary and secondary school, dredging up those all of those childhood and adolescent memories which have been buried… for good reason.
- March 2020
Live from Pembroke New Cellars, it's Saturday night...! From the team behind the five-star, sell-out production of Doctor Whom comes a brand-new-for-one-night-only panel show of games, quizzes and calamitous comedy featuring some of Cambridge Theatre's finest new performers.
- March 2020
Chance, we've got to go on.
Go on to where? I couldn't go past my youth, but I've gone past it
Alexandra Del Lago, ageing actress of the Silver Screen, and her escort, Chance Wayne, end their month-long bender in St Cloud, Missouri. While the actress has been fleeing from her suspected failed comeback to the screen, Chance is returning to his hometown. He seeks the glory, the fame and the girl he knew from his youth, however, time and corruption threaten him from every angle.
- March 2020
And before I killed it I just sort of, played with it?
While it, squealed...
...you don’t think it minded that, do you?
A sunny day in the garden of the mysterious hairless god; Cat and Dog sit together by the shrubbery and while the hours away, discussing everything under the sun.
Philosophy of language, casual genocide, masturbation...that sort of stuff.
While Cat lays bare the stale (though still raw) kitchen sink trauma of his adolescence, and Dog staunchly defends the value of fun to the bitter end, it becomes clear that all previous attempts to shed light on the secret lives of domestic animals have probably been holding something back for the sake of the children. Please think twice before bringing them.
Under the curious eye of an elderly Professor, the two bicker, joke and muse their way to conclusions of varying stability about the nature of their strange, safe little world - and probably, somewhere along the way, discover something akin to the meaning of friendship.
- March 2020
1896. Girton College, Cambridge, the first college in Britain to admit women. The Girton girls study ferociously and match their male peers grade for grade. Yet, when the men graduate, the women leave with nothing but the stigma of being a ‘blue stocking’ – an unnatural, educated woman. They are denied degrees and go home unqualified and unmarriageable.
Blue Stockings follows Tess, Carolyn, Maeve, and Celia through their tumultuous first year at Girton College where they are not only faced with the systematic barriers of misogyny and the cruelty of the class divide that further dictates their right to learn, but also fall in love with the very same boys that brand them as inferior.
- February 2020
Keep good Gawain and ready for the test; be prepared to play the lethal game but for now take your rest.
The mysterious Green Knight arrives at Camelot and lays forth a challenge: any may take the Green Knight's axe and strike him provided he may return the blow in one years time. Gawain accepts and beheads the Green Knight with a single stroke. Gawain does not fear reprisal until the Green Knight stands, picks up his head and reminds Gawain of the promise he made. One year later as he goes into the wilderness of nature, Gawain enters a world wonders and strangeness.
- February 2020
Climb aboard a scarlet steam engine and travel to a haunted castle in the Scottish Highlands for an enchanting and legally safe sketch show which may or may not be parodying a certain book and movie franchise about a certain boy wizard.
- February 2020
"I can't know you in one hundred and forty."
"Try."
How do you communicate under a law which limits your speech to 140 words a day? Bernadette and Olive meet at a cat's funeral and steadily move towards the realisation that, for all their attempts at Morse code, contractions and telling stories with their eyes, something was already lost in translation between them long before the Hush Law was passed.
- February 2020
First time performers, first rate comedy. After 2 sell out shows last term join us for our first smoker of the new year!
- February 2020
Join DOCTOR WHOM for a wibbly-wobbly adventure across time and space as they traverse the cosmos with their impressionable sidekick and talking robot dog. However, disaster strikes from an unexpected place when Doctor Whom defeats all their enemies for good, ridding the universe of all evil. Facing an identity crisis and long-long-long-term retirement, the Doctor must reckon with their greatest enemy: themselves.
"Stylish, fact-paced, and genuinely funny ... beg, borrow, or use your sonic screwdriver to wrangle a ticket to this whimsical take on the classic series. You won’t be sorry. ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐" - The Tab
- February 2020
1959. Daisy begins the play revolting against her priggish husband Robert. She is in love with Suzannah- an actress who plays the part of the defiant and liberated Nora in A Dolls House. Torn between society and her desires, the personal life decision Daisy makes will have consequences for four couples over the next 90 years.
This brilliant piece of new writing travels from 1959 to 2042, telling the story of our shifting relationships to love, identity and theatre. Wife asks how we may interact with our past, how we may connect in the present and how we may find independence.
Wife celebrates what we have now and the hope found in shared stories.
First performed at the Kiln Theatre in 2019…
★★★★
“A rousing look at 60 years of sexual identity… Alive, and endlessly curious"
Guardian
★★★★
"Exuberant eccentricity and crackerjack intelligence. A play for today. And yesterday. And tomorrow."
WhatsOnStage
- November 2019
"It’s almost as if everything before then was a big dark nothingness, that I emerged out of nowhere, rosy-cheeked and ready for marriage on page 26"
Madame Bovary is a tragic tale of the loss of a woman's agency through marriage and motherhood in 19th century France. In this one-woman show, the narrative is recast for the first time with a distinct focus on the female voice.
Come and see Flaubert's classic novel retold from Emma's own perspective, in a world in which the vocalisation of female suffering has never been more valuable, necessary or important.
- November 2019
Meet Eve and Adam. After all, who hasn't? They're the couple to know and they're here for one night and one night only (actually 3) to answer questions from the public. Don't be fooled into thinking they're those geezers from that old book - these two are the modern reincarnation - success, power, good looks and better hair, but is everything as dandy as it seems? Come and see for yourself in this comedy extravaganza...
- November 2019
‘Mais la raison n’est pas ce qui règle l’amour/But reason does not govern love.’ Molière
The Cambridge Annual French Play: a radically avant-garde and minimalist modernization of one of the most influential French plays ever written. The first time Cambridge has ever done a truly bilingual play; simultaneously in French and English and with no subtitles.
Protagonist Alceste, member of the glitterati, despises his world’s insincerity and puts up an epic struggle against the calculating rules of the fame game. Disillusioned with humanity itself and increasingly unpopular, he ironically falls in love with the epitome of the world he detests: the flirtatious and flighty Célimène, a feisty gossip columnist/part-time feminist. Watch a hilarious debacle over a critical poetry review taken to Kafkaesque extremes when Alceste is put on trial for his cruel but honest criticism (in the form of a Facebook dislike). A play about reputation, and a satire of the 21st century media, journalism and Hollywood culture, putting Sartre's thesis that we only exist in the eyes of others to the test.
In short, a rattling good yarn.
- November 2019
Why is the floor sticky?
Is that a good thing?
Who's going to clean it later?
For the answers to these questions and, just as importantly, free wine(!) come down to Pembroke New Cellars on Sunday for the 2nd Smoker of the year!
