- December 2024
One of Shakespeare’s most famous comedies, A Midsummer Night’s Dream tells the whirlwind story of expectations and dreams and getting lost in the in-between. This chaotic tale unfolds in the magical midnight world of the Athenian forest where the air is pierced with jealousy, unrequited love, and delicious confusion. As they enter the forest, the Athenians are caught in Titania and Oberon’s quarrel over a child, both fairies desperate to follow their dreams of motherhood. Determined and yet disoriented, the humans are left to grapple with new identities and unexpected declarations of love.
Founded in 1957 by a group of students including Derek Jacobi and Trevor Nunn, ETG is an all-student theatre company that tours Europe with a Shakespeare play at the start of the Christmas holidays every year. Last year’s tour went to Chantilly, Leuven, Frankfurt, Montreux, Konstanz, Bern and Antwerp before coming to Cambridge for a run at the ADC Theatre in January.
If you have any questions about ETG 2024, please get in touch with the Tour Managers, Gemma and Katie Stapleton, at manager@cuetg.co.uk.
- December 2023
Following the success of last year's Hamlet, ETG is back for 2023 with a production of The Tempest.
A tale of power, magic, betrayal, love, and redemption, The Tempest is one of Shakespeare’s most famous and bewitching comedies. This enchanting story follows Prospero, a powerful sorcerer who was wrongfully stripped of her title and exiled to a remote island. With the help of spirits and monsters, Prospero conjures a tempest that brings her enemies to the island’s shores. As the storms of revenge fasten their grip, lovers embrace, fools plot murder, and Prospero holds the fate of all in her hands.
Our interpretation of this classic text invites the audience to re-imagine Prospero as a tortured artist, painting a tale of romance, political intrigue, and revenge through her magic. We see the world through Prospero’s eyes as she distorts reality to manipulate both the audience and the characters in the story. This production evokes expressionist art in both costume and set, reflecting how Prospero has subjectively moulded the spectacle, full of colour, music, and dance, that unfolds before us.
Founded in 1957 by a group of students including Derek Jacobi and Trevor Nunn, ETG is an all-student theatre company that tours Europe with a Shakespeare play at the start of the Christmas holidays every year. Last year’s tour went to Antwerp, Leuven, Tübingen, Konstanz, Bern, and London, before coming to Cambridge for a run at the ADC Theatre in January.
If you have any questions about ETG 2023, please get in touch with the Tour Manager, Jacob Gaskell, at manager@cuetg.co.uk.
- December 2022
Hamlet learns of his father's sudden death, whilst watching his mother remarry his uncle within weeks. Devastated by grief, Hamlet must grapple with relationships, family and his own unstable mind, as reality and his fantasies blur.
Our version of Hamlet invites the audience to delve into the psyche of the unstable Prince; they leave the theatre unable to distinguish the tragic events from the creations of his mind. The production will preserve an antiquity that cannot be pinned down to a particular time or age, drawing our focus to the inner psychology of Hamlet instead of the peripheral setting he finds himself in. We also hope to breathe purpose, dimension, and depth into the character of Hamlet, leaning into his youth and the difficulties that come with this.
The European Theatre Group was set up in 1957 by a group of students including Sir Derek Jacobi and Sir Trevor Nunn, and has toured Europe with a Shakespeare play almost every winter since.
It is an ambitious coach-bound operation; a company of 25 or so tour with professional lighting and sound equipment, costumes and an experimental set, enabling us to put on a show absolutely anywhere.
Over time, ETG has developed a reputation at home and abroad for producing exciting, innovative, experimental and professional interpretations of classic texts, attracting the most ambitious actors, technicians and creative forces from within the university.
Sadly due to COVID, the tour has not happened since 2019, but this year IT IS BACK!
- January 2021
ETG’s 2020 production of Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare’s classic tragedy of forbidden love, sets the fateful events within a school classroom, these famous characters reimagined as modern-day students, parents and teachers. This familiar world exposes both the joy of young love and the horror of unnecessary violence in their extremes. This student company hopes to reinvigorate this well-known and well-loved text by drawing new focus to loss of hope and innocence, the consequences of generational actions, and ultimately what it means to be young in today’s world.
While this year's tour has sadly been cancelled due to COVID-19, Romeo and Juliet will complete its run at the start of Lent Term, with additional matinees to be streamed to schools to uphold the society's commitment to education and theatre.
- December 2019
The Cambridge University European Theatre Group is a self-sufficient, entirely student-run theatrical company, which tours a Shakespeare play around Europe for two and a half weeks every December (and has been doing so for over 50 years now!). It is an ambitious coach-bound operation; a company of 25 or so tour with professional lighting and sound equipment, costumes and an experimental set, enabling us to put on a show absolutely anywhere.
Each year we typically visit twelve venues - ranging from professional theatres, to schools and universities, and even to churches and converted bread-ovens - and travel through five or six countries. In the past, we have performed in France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland, The Czech Republic, Italy and Hungary, before returning for a homerun in Cambridge the following January.
ETG’s rich history began in 1957 when a group of students, which included Sir Derek Jacobi and Sir Trevor Nunn, travelled across Switzerland with their production of Romeo and Juliet. Over time, ETG has developed a reputation at home and abroad for producing exciting, innovative, experimental and professional interpretations of classic texts, attracting the most ambitious actors, technicians and creative forces from within the university. We provide successive generations of company members and audiences with challenging experiences completely unimaginable elsewhere in British (let alone student) theatre.
- February 2019
“Maybe we are free. To do whatever. Children of the new morning, criminal minds. Selfish and greedy and loveless and blind. Reagan's children. You're scared. So am I. Everybody is in the land of the free. God help us all.”
‘Angels in America’ is Tony Kushner’s Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize winning drama about the AIDS crisis in New York under the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Considering ideas of sexuality, betrayal, American identity and the supernatural, this piece of magical realist drama is a beautiful depiction of queer relationships, religion, and American politics.
“Mom. Momma. I’m a homosexual, momma.”
- December 2018
A story of love, jealousy, deceit and prejudice, "Othello" is one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies. This timeless play has been reinvented again and again, its warnings and lessons remaining resonant for every society that comes to it, and 2018 will see ETG reimagine the play in the vibrant and explosive 1960s London jazz era.
The Cambridge University European Theatre Group is a self-sufficient, entirely student-run theatrical company, which tours a Shakespeare play around Europe for two and a half weeks every December (and has been doing so for over 50 years now!). It is an ambitious coach-bound operation; a company of 25 or so tour with professional lighting and sound equipment, costumes and an experimental set, enabling us to put on a show absolutely anywhere.
Each year we typically visit twelve venues - ranging from professional theatres, to schools and universities, and even to churches and converted bread-ovens - and travel through five or six countries. In the past, we have performed in France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland, The Czech Republic, Italy and Hungary, before returning for a homerun in Cambridge the following January.
ETG’s rich history began in 1957 when a group of students, which included Sir Derek Jacobi and Sir Trevor Nunn, travelled across Switzerland with their production of Romeo and Juliet. Over time, ETG has developed a reputation at home and abroad for producing exciting, innovative, experimental and professional interpretations of classic texts, attracting the most ambitious actors, technicians and creative forces from within the university. We provide successive generations of company members and audiences with challenging experiences completely unimaginable elsewhere in British (let alone student) theatre.
- December 2017
The war is over and a carnivalesque celebration emerges, with memories of fighting soon giving way to frolics and flamboyance.
‘Much Ado About Nothing’, one of Shakespeare’s most widely loved comedies, weaves wit, gossip, deception and revenge into the ultimate quest for romance.
Welcome to the Carnival: prepare yourself for an explosive feast of masquerade and spectacle.
The Cambridge University European Theatre Group is a self-sufficient, entirely student-run theatrical company, which tours a Shakespeare play around Europe for two and a half weeks every December (and is now in its 60th year!).
- May 2017
The place is Venice. The time is a few years from now. After a period of political and religious upheaval, this once famous city has been submerged by flooding. The world has been thrown into disarray and in Venice two clear groups have emerged: those above the water and those down below. As the former borrow money from Shylock - confined to the submerged Venetian slums - this Jewish matriarch seizes her opportunity for revenge.
Shakespeare’s most divisive play comes to the ADC stage, exploring what happens when society steals all it can.
In a world where the rich make the rules and chaos is the currency, how easy is it to take revenge when you no longer have anything to lose?
- February 2017
“Ireland musn’t be such a bad place, so, if the Yanks want to come here to do their filming.”
It’s 1934 in the small island community on Inishmaan, and the gossip is flying because Hollywood director Robert Flaherty is coming to neighboring Inishmore to film his big hit ‘Man of Aran’- and there’s a small chance that some of the locals might get cast. No one is more excited by this opportunity than ‘Cripple’ Billy, who longs to escape from his tedious daily life and the shadow of being defined by his disability.
Martin McDonagh’s pitch black comedy examines an ordinary coming of age story in extraordinary circumstances. This script will simultaneously have you crying with laughter and holding your breath in apprehension. Don’t miss this beautiful homage to Irish story-telling.
- January 2017
The Cambridge University European Theatre Group is a self-sufficient, entirely student-run theatrical company, which tours a Shakespeare play around Europe for two and a half weeks every December (and has been doing so for over 50 years now!). It is an ambitious coach-bound operation; a company of 25 or so tour with professional lighting and sound equipment, costumes and an experimental set, enabling us to put on a show absolutely anywhere.
Over time, ETG has developed a reputation at home and abroad for producing exciting, innovative, experimental and professional interpretations of classic texts, attracting the most ambitious actors, technicians and creative forces from within the university. We provide successive generations of company members and audiences with challenging experiences completely unimaginable elsewhere in British (let alone student) theatre.
- December 2015
Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night, or What You Will’ takes us to the heart of the festive season, full of music, trickery, deception and disguise. This year’s European Theatre Tour’s production will be set against a backdrop of 1950s Europe in an era of post war opulence, where appearance is everything, yet nothing is quite what it seems to be. With identical twins separated by a shipwreck, a cross-dressing heroine and everyone in search of love, Twelfth Night is one of the most famous and tangled love stories in literature.
In the fantastical, wacky and slightly surreal Kingdom of Illyria, the peace of the grieving Olivia and heartsick Duke is disturbed by the arrival of Viola and Sebastian with a lazy drunk, a vain pedant, a cowardly fool and a cunning maid who indulge in the madness of the festive season against a backdrop of 1950s Europe, with a mixture of original compositions and fifties music.
Using music, movement, physical theatre and slapstick comedy to show just how “the course of true love never did run smooth” in this, the most loved of Shakespeare’s comic plays, Twelfth Night hurls us into the madness of Illyria as the twins try to make their way through.
Join ETG this winter as we tour European schools and theatres on the university’s oldest theatre tour.
The Cambridge University European Theatre Group (ETG) tours a Shakespeare play around Europe for two and a half weeks every December. It is an ambitious coach-bound operation; a company of 24 tour with professional lighting and sound equipment, costumes and an experimental set, enabling us to put on a show in a wide variety of venues around Europe.
The European Theatre Group is a self-sufficient theatre tour, that has travelled by coach to schools, universities and professional venues across Europe each December for the last 58 years. Whilst Switzerland remains a central part of the itinerary, tours have also included dates in Belgium, Germany, France, The Netherlands, Luxembourg and Italy. In recent years the company have enjoyed performing for a London audience, before a home run in January at the ADC Theatre, Cambridge.
An integral part of the tour is the educational enrichment we provide. Our plays are designed to engage with modern audiences, from children to expatriates; alongside this we offer both artistic and technical workshops, and work with schools to support students studying the text in class.
- May 2015
"Banish not him thy Harry’s company: banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.” (II.iv)
Henry IV, consumed by guilt for the rebellion by which he seized the throne, faces an uprising of his own. His enemies are uniting to challenge his rule, yet all the while his heir Hal shuns his royal responsibilities, instead keeping company with the apparent miscreants of Eastcheap: drunkards, thieves and a certain John Falstaff. Caught between two worlds and two domineering paternal influences, Hal must decide between fulfilling his birthright and a life of heady merriment.
A traditional playhouse setting, complete with live band, will be the backdrop to this interplay of political intrigue and boisterous comedy: an exploration of identity against the forces of responsibility and revelry.
- December 2014
“Stars, hide your fires; Let light not see my black and deep desires.”
Rich, dark and brooding, 'Macbeth' follows the story of Macbeth and his ambitious wife as they become increasingly trapped by a supernatural prophecy that puts Macbeth on the throne of Scotland and destroys his sanity. Drawing on a loosely-mediaeval aesthetic that places the witches and their prophecy as the focus of an omnipotent “other”, acting over the characters and the audience, this year’s production draws audiences into a world they cannot fully comprehend or escape.
The European Theatre Group is a self-sufficient theatre tour, that has travelled by coach to schools, universities and professional venues across Europe each December for the last 57 years. Whilst Switzerland remains a central part of the itinerary, tours have also included dates in Belgium, Germany, France, The Netherlands, Luxembourg and Italy. In recent years the company have enjoyed performing for a London audience, before a home run in January at the ADC Theatre, Cambridge.
An integral part of the tour is the educational enrichment we provide. The play is designed to engage with modern audiences, from children to expatriates; alongside this we offer both artistic and technical workshops, and work with schools to support students studying the text in class.
- October 2014
The backyard of a suburban home, Connecticut, August 1948. Set over 24 hours, the play is a claustrophobic portrayal of the conflict between a man’s duties to his immediate family and to his wider national family. Tensions rise and fall as the family simultaneously attempts to come to terms with the past and to fashion a future for itself though it feels impossible.
- December 2013
The king is dead. The show must go on. A new star is waiting in the wings. Richard of Gloucester is a born performer, stepping up as director and leading man as he stages his own irrepressible rise. Casting two performers in the role of Shakespeare’s infamous murderer-king, the prestigious European Tour Group takes a fresh look at the rise and fall of an icon.
“Richard loves Richard. That is, I am I”
- January 2013
All that glisters is not gold, Often have you heard that told..
Young hot-shot Bassanio’s in a hell of a lot of debt. His magic solution? To court and marry wealthy heiress, Portia. All he needs is a good suit, speedy boat and a loan of three thousand ducats. But if the loan isn’t repaid in time, money-lender Shylock will be demanding more than just cash…
This winter, Cambridge's longest-running theatre tour will be taking on Shakespeare's most controversial 'comedy'. Set in the urban playground which is contemporary Naples, this daring production will look with unflinching eyes at man's inhumanity to man, and the Western world's obsession with wealth and beauty, through the lenses of, amongst other things, Berlusconi's immigration policy, the shiny horror of reality television, and the inertia and despondency of Eurotrash youth culture.
- January 2012
“King Lear” is one of greatest works in Western literature, yet the challenges involved in performing Shakespeare’s tragic masterpiece mean that it is rarely performed in student theatre. Set in modern day England, ETG’s “King Lear” will thrive on verbal and visual accessibility. Regal lavishness and the proud pomp of archetypal Englishness will spiral into a nightmare as Lear casts goodness and compassion into the wilderness and malice takes up the reins of power. The modern world of England will slowly collapse into a timeless Gothicism; everything and everyone being stripped of colour and distorted, leaving behind a terrifying skeleton of all things English.
With a reputation for pushing the boundaries of innovation and creating truly imaginative and utterly polished productions of great Shakespeare tales, this winter’s ETG tour of Europe looks set to be one of the most ambitious ever.
- December 2010
Bright lights and carousels, screams, swings, and thrills: The Taming of the Shrew is the story of showmen. In Shakespeare's celebrated comedy, it is the 1950s, and a travelling funfair has just rolled into town. On the
surface, it is a dream-world of riches, romance, and riot; but underneath it all lurks the anarchic subculture of these unsettled entertainers, living on the very edge of society. Here, corruption and wickedness
pervade, morality is a mere aberration, and nothing is quite as it seems. But appearances must be kept up, and the show will go on.
As the oldest and most prestigious touring theatre society in Cambridge, ETG tours a Shakespearean play, along with full set and professional lighting and sound equipment, around Europe by coach for just over two weeks each December as soon as Michaelmas term has finished. Full details of the tour and what it entails can be found at www.cuetg.co.uk.
- January 2010
"But we are spirits of another sort..."
Enter into an industrial, monochrome forest, formed on the outskirts of a city under authoritarian rule. It is home to unearthly, exiled creatures that call themselves fairies...
The Cambridge University European Theatre Group proud to present 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' this winter, following on from last year's spectacular, sell-out 'Hamlet'. We are a self-sufficient, entirely student-run theatrical company, which tours a Shakespeare play around Europe for two and a half weeks every December (and has been doing so for over 50 years now!). It is an ambitious coach-bound operation; a company of 24 tour with professional lighting and sound equipment, costumes and an experimental set, enabling us to put on a show absolutely anywhere. It is one of the most challenging yet rewarding experiences in Cambridge theatre.
Each year we visit around ten venues - ranging from professional theatres, to schools and universities, and even to churches and converted bread-ovens – and travel through five or six countries, before returning for a homerun in Cambridge the following January.
A typical day on tour doesn’t exist! Every single performance is like an opening night as we usually only perform at any given venue for a day, meaning we constantly have to adapt the show, both technically and artistically, to best suit the space we are performing in. However as a rough idea, we leave the previous venue very early in the morning, arriving at the new venue around lunchtime. The entire company then unloads the coach and starts the “get-in”, setting up the lighting, sound and set. Whilst the techies finish this, the cast prepare the show for this new stage. Sometimes we then put on a late matinee (and if not, we explore the town), before settling down to dinner followed by the evening show. Once the curtain comes down we rapidly “get-out”, reload the coach, and by midnight, head off to stay with a host family!
SEE www.cuetg.co.uk FOR FURTHER DETAILS.
- January 2009
The Cambridge University European Theatre Group is a self-sufficient, entirely student-run theatrical company, which tours a Shakespeare play around Europe for two and a half weeks every December (and has been doing so for over 50 years now!). It is an ambitious coach-bound operation; a company of 25 or so tour with professional lighting and sound equipment, costumes and an experimental set, enabling us to put on a show absolutely anywhere.
Each year we typically visit twelve venues - ranging from professional theatres, to schools and universities, and even to churches and converted bread-ovens - and travel through five or six countries. In the past, we have performed in France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland, The Czech Republic, Italy and Hungary, before returning for a homerun in Cambridge the following January.
Over time, ETG has developed a reputation at home and abroad for producing exciting, innovative, experimental and professional interpretations of classic texts, attracting the most ambitious actors, technicians and creative forces from within the university. We provide successive generations of company members and audiences with challenging experiences completely unimaginable elsewhere in British (let alone student) theatre.
http://www.cuetg.co.uk
- December 2007
Pompey defeated, Julius Caesar returns to Rome, flushed with triumph. But Rome has changed, and talk of assassination lurks behind every column...
Cambridge University European Theatre Group's 50th anniversary production of one of Shakespeare's greatest tragedies brings the political intrigue of Ancient Rome into a modern setting in which our barbarism and ambition are revealed in the relationships with those closest to us. Morality is forgotten in the lust for power, love is cast viciously aside, and the true nature of honour is finally realised.
ETG was founded in 1957 by a group of students including Sir Derek Jacobi, who toured Europe in a fruit van. Highly acclaimed recent productions include Macbeth (2006), The Taming of the Shrew (2005), and Romeo and Juliet (2004).
This brilliant new production tours Europe in December 2007 before returning to the ADC Theatre, Cambridge, for a run from 15-19 January 2008.
- December 2006
How does a man get to murder a king? Is it because he is ambitious? Or because he has met three strangely entrancing sisters on a heath whose enigmatical sing-song prophecies included an address to himself as the future king? Or is he irresistibly ensnared by his undaunted wife who knows him better than anyone else and can in turn tempt and taunt him exactly at the right moment? Macbeth kills the king and has to become a master of hypocrisy. But his conscience surrounds him with horrifying dreams and maddening visions, and the crown on his head becomes a torturing device.
Murder follows upon murder as Macbeth tries to secure his bloody throne, until, abandoned by all allies, he holds his tyrannical sceptre over a country paralysed with fear and terror. This production will draw you into a cinematically paced ghostride of eerie shapes, smiling courtiers, stylish costumes and distorted sounds, a world made out of thunder and lighting, crowded by witches, apparitions, murderers, and sleepwalkers, in which you can see some of Shakespeare's most memorable characters come to life and experience his poetic language at its most powerful.
Since 1957, ETG has toured Europe each winter performing a Shakespeare play. Founded by Sir Derek Jacobi, we have developed a reputation both at home and abroad for producing exciting and innovative interpretations of classic texts. We traditionally visit a wide variety of venues across the whole of Western Europe travelling complete with set, lights and costumes; this enables us to produce a first class performance in any location. ETG is not only Cambridge's premier touring theatre group, but also the oldest and most respected touring group of any university.
- January 2006
Amidst the crystal avenues of the university city of Padua, the students frivolously entertain themselves. The boys crave the girls who love to be craved, while the old people sneer at the youth they have lost. Things have changed since they were young...
In a world where you are judged by your appearance, your worth and your manners, Kate, the most rebellious lady in the city, sits alone. Then, a man emerges from the garish light of day into her darkness and turns her world upside down. Could Petruchio be the man to tame a shrew?
In a Gothic swirl of black and purple, rock music, leather and lace, the European Theatre Group recreates this battle of the sexes through an animated realm of confusion, elegance and farce.
Returning from their European tour, and following the sell-out success of Romeo and Juliet (January 2005), ETG presents a new take on this classic Shakespearean comedy.
- January 2005
Since 1957, ETG has toured Europe each winter performing a Shakespeare play. Founded by Sir Ian McKellan and Sir Derek Jacobi, we have developed a reputation both at home and abroad for producing exciting and innovative interpretations of classic texts. We traditionally visit a wide variety of venues across the whole of Western Europe travelling complete with set, lights and costumes; this enables us to produce a first class performance in any location. ETG is not only Cambridge's premier touring theatre group, but also the oldest and most respected touring group of any university.
- December 2003
This luscious and pacy production set in 1950s Italy will tour for two weeks around central continental Europe before Christmas. One of the most prestigious productions Cambridge has to offer. Sure to be another huge success.
