- February 2017
Dirty Hands is an existential play that tells the story of Hugo, fresh from prison, who visits his former boss, Monica, a Labour party deputy. In an attempt to prevent Hugo from being ‘eliminated’ by party members angered by his indiscretions, she must decide whether he is récupérable for the cause before midnight. This ultimatum frames the play, while the story is told in flashback. Hugo is a young intellectual, keen to prove himself as an homme d’action. He accepts the challenge of assassinating Turnbull, a rising star on the right of the party, making it look like a suicide. As the play progresses, we see Hugo’s internal struggles and self-doubt emerge; if he abandons his task he will be killed, but if he murders Turnbull will he lose his integrity? Hugo’s girlfriend, Jessica, warns Turnbull who, ever the persuasive politician, convinces Hugo to join his cause instead. Hugo agrees, but when he returns to proclaim his excitement for the future, he walks in on Jessica embracing Turnbull and shoots him. With the killer’s identity established from the beginning, this political drama considers the “why”, not the “who." Crime of passion or political murder? The audience must decide.
- February 2017
Hot Cross Men smashed it right out of the improv park with their Edinburgh Fringe hit, What the Dickens. That’s a fact. Many thought that was the end of their story. Untrue. Colin Rothwell (Actor-in-Chief, 1st Computer Science), Haydn Jenkins (Footlights Enforcer, 2.i [predicted] Geological Sciences), and Ted Hill (Doctors Hate Him, 2.i Biological Anthropology) are back, and now even the bad guys are left quivering in their boots. These boisterous beasts have improv oozing from their every hole; and they’re offering you a taste of the action. Our three comedy renegades were birthed, kicking and screaming (no midwife needed), from the gentle womb of The Cambridge Impronauts, and they haven’t looked back since; not even when there was a big explosion.
I hope you’ve got your copy of ‘The Conventions of Comedy’ because Hot Cross Men will blast it to smithereens, then throw it in a chemical fire (no safety goggles used), where it belongs.
It’s fully improvised. They’re fully in charge. And you’ll be pleased to learn they won’t be held back by anything: not by scripts, not by directors, and certainly not by the pesky establishment. The boys are trying out some new formats, popularised in Chicago, America. That’s right. America. They’re red hot, Red Cross, red men redemption. Hot Cross Men.
PREVIOUS PRAISE:
'Truly Marvellous' - EdFringeReview, 4 stars.
'Ridiculous and hilarious' - The Tab, 4.5 stars.
'An impressive display' - Varsity, 4.5 stars.
'It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but hot cross men' - Charles Darwin (Ordinary Degree, 1831)
- February 2017
Cathy has one ambition: to be the first person to fly solo from Scunthorpe to Paris. Unfortunately, her world-weary father just wants her to stay at home under his watchful eye and new hybrid Perspex ceiling whilst he tries to recreate his brief croissant-inspired love affair with the spirit of his dead wife in his specially made ghost garden. A fast-paced, absurd comedy show that takes you from the llama fields of Scunthorpe Aerodrome to the most left-wing corner of Scandinavia, Frank and Cynthia is a timeless love story that will have you weeping out of your ears.
- February 2017
- November 2016
George Orwell may have been one of the greatest authors of the twentieth century but 1984 had nothing on the travesty of 2016...
The heating in Pembroke has broken once again and two freshers who unwittingly signed up to row for the PCBC have been assigned the job of saving college from freezing over. They fight their way through the political instabilities of Cambridge to reach the gates of Pembroke only to find that the situation in college is in even more dire straits than they could have imagined. Will they be able to overcome the malice of Donald Trumpington and the Tab Editor in time to save the day?
Brace yourselves for an evening of Oliver award-worthy performances from the cream of Pembroke's fresher thesp talent
Bring some bevs and get ready to laugh your (Christmas) socks off!
- November 2016
“It wasn't Zeus, not in the least,
who made this proclamation—not to me.
Nor did that Justice, dwelling with the gods
beneath the earth, ordain such laws for men.”
Raging against the unfair treatment of her traitorous brother Polyneices’ corpse, Antigone defies the proclamations of the state forbidding any burial and gives Polyneices all the funeral rights appropriate for a man killed in military combat. When her despotic and newly-crowned uncle Creon discovers the betrayal, he sentences her to an agonising and irreligious execution, despite the protestations of his son Haemon and his political advisers.
Over the course of this fast-paced, ever-relevant Greek drama, we see the unyielding defiance of the individual will and the crushing tyranny of an authoritarian state come into conflict, resulting in (needless to say) tragic consequences.
- November 2016
An hour of musical stand-up from sketch-show regular Ruari Bride, and the Footlights team that brought you "Trump'd", "Full Frontal Prudity", "23, Please!" and countless smokers!
Join us in the Pembroke Cellars as Ruari performs variety of comedy songs on every aspect of Cambridge life, with favourites such as "The Consent Song" and "Stash" alongside brand new material.
From the pensive to the silly to the downright bizarre, Downbeat's multi-instrumental comedy makes it unlike anything else you'll see this year!
Previous Praise:
"Bride's consent song is a hilarious and relevant composition!" - Cambridge Theatre Review
"A showcase of Cambridge's late night wit and sharpness" - Varsity
- November 2016
1980s Alexandria, the television flickers on: ‘‘Nay, but this dotage of our general’s overflows the measure. Those his goodly eyes, that over the flies and musters of war have glowed like plated Mars, now bend, now turn […] his captain’s heart […] is become the bellows and the fan to cool a gypsy’s lust”
Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra is a love story born from political conflict: ambition, backstabbing and corruption. Witness the collision of two worlds: Rome, a modern, global superpower, and Cleopatra’s Egypt, a psychedelic landscape, a bower of bliss beyond the confines of Rome. Sparks fly. The drums of war begin to sound.
Fame and power converge on tabloid pages and television screens, changing romance to scandal. Personal identities are shaken along with public images. Both worlds begin to crumble, as egos are pitted against emotions.
This Michaelmas, see the ‘gaudy night’ of Shakespeare’s tragedy transposed onto the cultural landscape of the 1980s: radical politics, the ‘cult of personality’, music and excess.
“Strung out in heaven's high
Hitting an all-time low…”
- November 2016
It's back! Hot on the heels of our smash-hit sell out Fresher's Week Smoker, The Sticky Floor Smoker returns after a year's absence and this time it's bigger, funnier, and probably stickier.
If anyone's confused...
sticky
/ˈstɪki/
adjective
1.
tending or designed to stick to things on contact.
floor
/flɔː/
noun
1.
the lower surface of a room, on which one may walk.
Sticky Floor Smoker
/'stɪki flɔː ˈsməʊkə/
noun.
1.
A bloody brilliant line-up including top Footlights veterans and the hottest new talent alike. Known to induce bowel-destroying levels of hilarity.
Get thee down to the cellars and see for yourselves!
"A truly fantastic night of comedy"- The Tab
- November 2016
Three people are being held in custody for crimes they allege they did not commit. Telling each other their stories, they work back and try to find out how they all got banged up. Are they really all innocent? Are they part of some bigger conspiracy? And where have all the bees gone? Come and find out in this clever and fast-paced narrative comedy, full of great laughs and crazy characters.
- November 2016
Tom Evans is a brilliant particle physicist and a middling sketch comedian. Determined to put on a sketch show, but lacking in ideas, he does what any sensible individual would: he builds a time machine to travel time and space for inspiration. Together with the help of his friends this is the show they create.
But isn’t time travel notoriously dangerous? What is really motivating Tom? And did he really get with Cleopatra? Come and find out!
- November 2016
Something terrible has happened. Rewind.
Shadowed under the gaze of the Brooklyn Bridge: Eddie Carbone, his wife Beatrice and their orphaned niece, Catherine. Catherine has lived her life under the shelter of her aunt and the watchful eye of her uncle. Even the proposition to accept a job is begrudgingly met. Meanwhile, Beatrice’s cousins, Marco and Rodolpho, have arrived from Italy having entered the country illegally.
As jealousy enters the ring, and the self destructive fragility of humanity is pushed to its limits, witness tragedy emerge from the ruins. A thrilling journey for all, absorb yourself in one of the most intense plays ever written.
- November 2016
“We’re not dorks. I think Herbert could quite comfortably be classified as a dweeb, however. And I’m more of a posh effete.”
After getting kicked out of Cambridge for spending too much time writing student comedy, best friends Piers and Herbert must learn to function in the real world. Join them as they embark on an outrageous and farcical romp outside of the Cambridge bubble!
Watch in amazement as they enrol at a university that isn’t even in the Russell Group, fall in love (not with each other), get on the wrong side of a crazed drug lord, join the wakeboarding society and drink beer for the first time. But things go awry when dark forces cause the pair to grow further apart; can their friendship survive the ultimate test? Will their old college tutor stop stalking them? And what on earth does the janitor know that they don't?
Dropouts! is a new fish-out-of-water comedy from the people who brought you Judge Judy’s Buzz World (Footlights Harry Porter Prize Winner 2016), Quinoa: A Middle-Class Sketch Show, Quinoa II: No Pain No Grain, The Country Wife, Tristram Shandy: Live At Scotland!, Comedy 4 Calais, Kenneth Watton's Bedtime Chat Show 3: The Benign Comedy, Crow, Tristram Shandy 2: A Sentimental Journey, Rubber, Tate Postmodern, Picasso Stole the Mona, the sold-out Fresher's Week Smoker and numerous other college and Footlights smokers.
Past praise for the team;
“quickly had the room in stitches” (Varsity) ★★★★ ½
"vastly enjoyable" (The Tab) ★★★★
"gems of sarcastic satire" (TCS)
"kept the audience engaged and with a laugh on their lips throughout" (Varsity)
Darkchat Edinburgh Fringe Awards 2016- Best Comedy Performance- NOMINATED
- October 2016
Joe Spence (‘horrifying’, The Tab) and Stanley Thomas (‘a member of an otherwise indistinguishable gang of rowdy boys’, Varsity) pour an hour of delicious, meaty, brown sketches down your grateful throats.
From disputes on the Sodom town council to an x-rated seance, this’ll one to make you go ‘yeah, it was better than expected, I guess’. Join Joe and Stan at Pembroke New Cellars as they try to figure out exactly how to get themselves out of this hot, gravy-ey mess.
- October 2016
Ah, fanfiction. Taking things we love and making them a bit rubbish ever since Steve really enjoyed Mabel’s cave painting of a mammoth and did one a bit like it but rubbish. In this upcoming extravaganza, Shaw, Stopher and Fenton take the combined sincerity and irreverence of fanfiction and apply it vaguely to the format of sketch comedy. Three comedians who have done the rounds and got the t-shirt (they share it between them) take to the Cellars for an hour of good fun, laughs, and dodgy prose. Drinks provided.
- October 2016
This October the Pembroke Players Japan Tour will return from Japan with the same Shakespeare play first toured ten years ago: Romeo and Juliet.
In the 400th anniversary year of Shakespeare’s death the ever-recognisable love story of Romeo and Juliet continues to find new resonance. This is a modern, energised restaging of the classic text.
Having performed in Tokyo, Okinawa, Ely, Cambridge and London – don’t miss the last few performances of this show with some of Cambridge’s most experienced actors.
- October 2016
Join a selection of the funniest student comedians on the circuit for the very first Smoker of the year! Whether you're a nervous fresher or an embittered finalist, get yourselves down to the cellars for what is sure to be an unforgettable night of mirth and revelry.
- August 2016
‘The universe is deterministic alright, just like Newton said, I mean it’s trying to be, but the only thing going wrong is people fancying people who aren’t supposed to be in that part of the plan.’
In the schoolroom of a country estate in the 1800s, Thomasina Coverley is discovering the truth about carnal embrace. In the same room about 200 years later, a group of academics are still trying to work it out. While thirteen-year-old Thomasina complains to her tutor about algebra and rice pudding, in the present day, Bernard Nightingale arrives at the house in his red Mazda, and both, in turn add more than a little disorder to the lessons learned at Sidley Park.
The story of the precocious Thomasina and her tutor begins with the style and flair of a Wildean farce, but quickly develops tension as the stakes rise. Cutting insults, love rivalries of Byronic standard, and poetry of a much lower one fly across the schoolroom table. Meanwhile, Bernard, a literature academic, has both ‘Romantic’ and romantic endeavours of his own. He believes he has found a note that suggests Byron was involved in a duel at Sidley Park, and which might explain his mysterious flight to the continent. With the begrudging help of fellow expert, Hannah, he attempts to piece together the evidence that would prove his theory correct.
A paperchase through time shows the audience that science and technology are all very well, but lust fuels the inevitable spiral into chaos.
- August 2016
Tristram Shandy's sizzling autobiography, 'The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman', has just hit the shelves and the author has announced a nation-wide tour: a theatrical extravaganza which captures the scandal, wit and wisdom of this instant classic.
Join us at C Nova for an evening like no other, and revel in the sex, the song, the dance, the love, the lies... Will Dalrymple's 'masterful' (The Tab) adaptation of Laurence Sterne's hilarious and groundbreaking novel takes you on a poignant and compelling tour through the life and opinions of Britain's finest Tristram.
- August 2016
Cavemen. Table football. Birds.
What do all of these things have in common? In a word – nothing. In two words – still nothing. But even so, in this sketch show, all of these seemingly unrelated things will be linked together, whether they like it or not.
Babushka heads up to the Edinburgh Fringe 2016 after a five-star, sell-out run in Cambridge.
- August 2016
In 2013 Yaseen was diagnosed with depression and left university. Then he wrote a comedy show about it. A stand-up show about depression, therapy, recovery, movies and New York City. 'Thought-provoking, exquisitely written and doesn't scrimp on big laughs' * (Varsity). 'Crisp, well-timed... hilarious and touching by turns' (Cambridge Student).
- June 2016
In collaboration with Pembroke Players Comedy, the Impronauts are here to round off your May Week! Sparkling fresh from a SELL-OUT run of Quickfire shows at the ADC, join Cambridge's most renowned (and only) improv troupe for a dinner-time treat, packed full of hilarious scenarios inspired entirely by the audience's suggestions.
★★★★★ “Genuinely Fantastic”—The Tab
★★★★ "an enjoyable and unpredictable evening of varied and energetic comedy"- Varsity
- May 2016
The Pembroke Players' annual Golden Gods Smoker is back! Come down to the Cellars for an evening of the freshest stand-up and sketches from veteran Footlights regulars and new talent alike. Complementary wine!
- March 2016
Cavemen. Table football. Birds.
What do all of these things have in common? In a word – nothing. In two words – still nothing. But even so, in this sketch show, all of these seemingly unrelated things will be linked together, whether they like it or not.
The premise of each sketch will be contained inside the previous one, like one Russian doll inside another. With the added incentive of free wine, what better way to kick off the final week of term than coming along to see Babushka?
- March 2016
Tristram Shandy is BACK!
After his smash-hit book tour, spanning 256 years and ending in style at the ADC in October, things haven't been going so well for Britain's finest Tristram. Death is a-coming. But in true Shandean style, Tristram sticks two fingers up at the Reaper. The first is the newly-resurrected, hitherto dead and buried Parson Yorick. The second is one last theatrical outing, a dense, mad, galloping horse of a play that promises to sweep you off your feet and across the English channel.
Join Tristram and Parson Yorick for a swift, funny, sunny, rambling, dangerous, lusty, lovely, loveless, daring, scary and, above all, Sentimental Journey through France, Italy and Beyond!
- February–March 2016
No Dogs. No Children. Know your limits.
The Cricketer's Legs is a booming business full of eccentric characters and amusing goings on. And the owner bloody hates it. All he wants is to maintain a sense of English propriety in his pub. But one day, what can only be described as a whole sketch show's worth of nonsense will push him to the edge. This is that nonsense.
Come on in to The Cricketer's Legs, grab a complimentary drink and settle to watch the conveniently comical antics of the regulars.
The pub is fictional, the beer is real.
A new sketch show from the people brought you the Tab theatre award winning UKIP: The Musical, Murder on the Disorient Express, Laugh You Long Time, String Me Up, Tate Cambridge, More Revelations, Hyper-History, and numerous Footlights Smokers.
For reals though, there's a free beer with every ticket...
Previous Praise:
"Innovative and excellent with a glorious bizarreness" - CTR
"A showcase of Cambridge's late night wit and sharpness" - Varsity
- February 2016
After a record-breaking, sold-out international run in and around Pembroke New Cellars, the Tab Theatre Award-winning* team behind 'Quinoa: A Middle Class Sketch Show' are back with more sketches!
Having faced weeks of training on a strict diet of middle-class grains and middle-range banter, join these six comedians (as seen in Footlights, Corpus and various college smokers) as they try and whip you into shape (comedic shape, that is!). You’ll be laughing so much, that weight will just fall off!**
"Original, clever and witty, I’m sure this lot will go far"- The Tab
"had me laughing harder than I have at any other show this term"- Varsity
"Genuinely hilarious"- Cambridge Theatre Review
*BEST COMEDY 2015 for "Sitcom: A Sitcom"- The Tab
**No money-back guarantee, always check the label, do not pass go, do not collect 200, you may or may not lose weight depending on your diet and exercise regime, ‘Quinoa’ may not be suitable for those with a poor sense of humour or irritable bowels.
- February 2016
It's the summer hols at last! Escape the windy rain of February and join the Famous Five for seaside hijinks and simply lashings of ginger beer. When Julian, Dick and Anne join their cousin George for the summer holidays, they are sure that adventure is just around the corner. And they're right! Something fishy is happening on Kirrin Island. Someone's signalling from the tower, there are strange crates on the beach, and where oh where is Timmy?
Things are looking grim, but don't worry -
Aunt Fanny's packed a picnic.
From creative persons behind And Then There Were Nuns, Night of the Amorous Prawn, Tristram Shandy: Live at the ADC! and Picasso Stole the Mona Lisa comes a new comedy that will redefine the word 'corking'.
- February 2016
“Pause you who read this, and think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of that first link on one memorable day.”
As Pip’s memories unfold, a world of hidden ties is revealed. The chains of unrequited love, of unforgotten hate and unanswered questions bind together Charles Dickens’ characters. In this retelling of the seminal novel, we follow Pip’s journey from a blacksmith’s workshop to the houses of the wealthy London elite. This vivid exploration of Pip’s consciousness, and the series of events which shaped it, captures all the emotion, mystery and drama of Dickens’ original tale.
“I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.”
- February 2016
Join Luisa Callander (1995 - ?) and Ruby Keane (? - 2016) for a night of surreal-ish comedy and real-ish laughter.
- February 2016
From the writers of hit sketch show Revelations ("The perfect show to celebrate the end of week five." 8/10 TCS) comes "More Revelations" a brand new hour of sketch comedy by people who are definitely better at writing innovative sketches than coming up with innovative titles!
- February 2016
"History nowadays is not a matter of conviction. It’s a performance. It’s entertainment. And if it isn’t, make it so."
Yorkshire, 1983. 8 unruly grammar-school pupils are competing with the best in the country for places at Cambridge and Oxford. They are helped (or perhaps hindered) in their efforts by two radically different teachers, one who is struggling to resist the eroticism of transmission of knowledge, and another who seems to think history is all a game. Meanwhile they struggle through the perils of adolescent love, sex, and the problem of how to cheat a system that's been around for hundreds of years.
"What is history? History is women following behind with a bucket."
- February 2016
The Professor is awaiting the arrival of a new pupil while the Professor's Maid/Manservant worries about hir health and warns them of a potentially perilous situation. While the lesson starts well, the pupil seemingly promising and bright, the Professor is incensed to discover that hir pupil cannot subtract. As the lesson progresses, the Professor becomes increasingly infuriated with what they consider the pupil's ignorance, while the pupil develops a toothache, becoming an all-around aching of the body.
The result is a hilariously dark comedy with tragic consequences, its musings as to totalitarianism in education (Something many can, I am sure, sympathise with) politics, psychology, and sexuality are as fresh and fascinating today as they ever were.
- December 2015
When Pembroke is subjected to a hostile takeover by the Senior Tutor, a group of freshers must embark on a perilous and tenuously Lord of the Rings related quest to Girton to find the rightful heir to the Master's throne...
- November 2015
There will be a murder. There will be mystery. And an excellent, no-holds-barred sketch show.
From the creators of the blockbuster hits
‘BAD HABITS’
‘PICASSO STOLE THE MONA LISA’
‘TRISTRAM SHANDY: LIVE AT THE ADC!’
'Santa is a Scumbag'; 'Politics!'; 'Hamlet: The Sketch Show'; 'Failure - A Sketch Show with a Chip on its Shoulder'; 'The Coalition' and, of course, 'The Night of the Amorous Prawn'.
comes a brand new format. Murder Mystery AND Sketch Show.
Praise for previous shows:
'The future of Cambridge Comedy' - The Tab 1/2
'Hilarious, LOL, riotous romp' - Edinburgh Guide
'Impossible to flaw' - EdFringe Review ****
~ FIVE NIGHTS ONLY ~
~ COCKTAILS PROVIDED ~
~ BRING YOUR OWN NUN ~
21:30, Tue 24th - Sat 28th November
£6, Pembroke Players Membership Discount applies.
New Cellars, Pembroke College
BUY TICKETS NOW -http://pembrokeplayers.tessera.info/event_33
- November 2015
This 1926 adaptation of Ferenc Molnar's 'The Play at the Castle' proves that when it comes to high comedy and classic escapism, P.G. Wodehouse sets the standard by which all other writers one day hope to achieve. A play written towards the beginning of his career, it is full of the charming wit that fills his dialogue and the plot twists that he was to become the master of. Not only that, it also contains some clever progressive elements, not typically present in Wodehouse's work, which serves to break the 4th wall without actually doing it. Cryptic, I know, but you'll see what I mean.
It is mid-20's Italy. A castle, overlooking the Mediterranean. A pair of successful playwrights, Turai and Mansky, and their protege composer, Adam, arrive at the castle early to surprise their leading actress and Adam's fiancee, Ilona, when an event occurs which puts that engagement at risk. Will the day be saved? Will the marriage happen? Will Turai ever remember Dwornitscheck's name? Will Mansky recover enough to eat some breakfast? Will I ever stop asking questions in an attempt to make this description live up to how good the play is? Will Almady stop being such a pompous chap and swallow his pride? Will I answer any of these questions? I will answer one - the last one - yes. For the rest you shall have to come to the Pembroke New Cellars in week 7. See you there, chums!
