- November–December 2007
Attempts to describe her? Attempts to destroy her? Or attempts to destroy herself?
Seven nameless figures. One hour. One red bag. One ashtray. One hotel. One protagonist, missing.
In 1997, Martin Crimp’s controversial scenarios for the theatre revolutionised British playwriting, challenging audiences and defying critics. The seventeen ‘attempts’ are the search for the perfect story, and the action runs the gamut of modern life – from terrorism to pornography to gap years and smoking in the blink of an eye. Our protagonist is the ultimate enigma, and the possibilities are endless.
More relevant than ever to the world and our attempts to explain it, this daring and emotionally charged production of a modern classic will leave you speechless.
Ten years on, Attempts on her Life is back with a bang.
- November 2007
Ooh err matron!
Fresh from the Edinburgh fringe, ICE are back to the ADC bringing you a fully improvised farce. All the action is under your control as expert performers spontaneously create drama, passion, intrigue and romance in front of your very eyes. Well, maybe a bit. Mostly it's just hilarious fast-paced comedy!
Who murders whom? Who falls in love with whom? What could possibly come between the happy couple? Will Lord Fotheringale ever live down the embarrassing wombat incident of last night's dinner party? You get to choose!
Jeeves and Wooster meets Carry On meets AN ADDITIONAL THIRD CONTRASTING THING! The play will be lovingly created on the spot for you by our expert improvisers, so there is only one chance to see this unique and perfect creation. It has never been seen before and will never been seen again! No Scripts, no Rehearsals, no Kenneth Williams!
- November 2007
Once Upon a Time… there was an ADC/Footlights Pantomime.
You want traditional? This is traditional. The panto is back, and back to basics.
In a land where bulbous beanstalks grow, dark forests lurk, and the monarchy teeters on the edge of survival, get ready to see your favourite characters as you’ve never seen them before. From the three little pigs to the Fairy Godmother, and a big, bad pantomime wolf. Prepare to boo and hiss as you encounter the wicked Stepmother and cheer as Prince Charming tries to save the day.
The biggest and boldest show of the theatrical calendar, this year's pantomime features a script by Footlights regular Alex Clatworthy and Footlights Harry Porter Prize winner Rory Mullarkey, a catchy-as-hell original score by Harry Winstanley and performances from Cambridge's top comic actors. Once Upon A Time… is guaranteed to be fantastic fairy-tale fun for all the family. Oh, yes it is!
- November 2007
Stop Press! Here comes a play set in a local newspaper office, which redefines the idea of NEWS: Old lady savaged to death by her own collection of cats! Abusive secretaries! The tragic tale of a man who was just too good at digging holes without a spade! Ian McKellen's furtive fancy dress hobby! Chicken wings! An aristocrat in a cardboard box! Murderous schoolchildren! Indestructible gardeners! THE END OF THE WORLD! (on a provincial scale). - Forget world news! forget Heat magazine and The Times, and come to a place where 'Botox' is how posh people say 'buttocks', where congestion charges are when the price of Kleenex goes up, where the men are men, and so - for the most part - are the women. Hot new writing from Cambridge alumnus Tom Hensby, (shortlisted for the Harry Porter Prize and the 'Other' Prize): I Scream Scoop: Terrible pun. Terribly funny play.
- November 2007
What exactly do we mean by charity? Delve into the dirty, underhand and political world of big business philanthropy where principals and ideals simply disappear. Churchill's unnerving dark humour and trademark wit coupled with the Fresher talent on display make this play this season's must see!
- November 2007
Smash! Into a thousand pieces shatters the mind of the Disciple as he seeks knowledge from the Sage of Ages. Catapulted through fast-paced comedy sketches in this high-octane revue, prepared for you by Triple Point Comedy (fresh from their Edinburgh Fringe performance), the Disciple has no choice but to learn and laugh with pain and joy.
Marvel as Triple Point's experienced alternative comedians soar through darkly comic scenes and leave you giggling for more.
Meet the man who designs your nightmares. Taste the sweet tears of laughter of those around you. Prepare for wisdom.
- November 2007
Crowds are gathering. The town is made ready. The Visit begins. The arrival in Güllen of Claire Zachanassian, billionaire and former resident of the town, sends ripples of excitement through the sleepy eastern European settlement. But after Zachanassian offers the townspeople the grant they so desperately need in return for settling her old scores, the veneer of civilised life is scraped off to reveal the darkness beneath. Alfred Ill must die. And his neighbours and friends must do it. It’s only a matter of time.
The inspiration for Lars Von Trier’s Palm d’Or winning ‘Dogville’, ‘The Visit’ has transfixed audiences around the world with its blend of broad humour and bleak drama.
The CU Amateur Dramatic Club's Freshers' mainshow: see the best of Cambridge’s new theatrical talent in this dark comedy.
- November 2007
By special permission of Edward Albee, Selwyn's Mighty Players bring his first work to the Cambridge stage. The play is a challenging two man piece, which is filled with subtle humour whilst also having a darker twist.
- November 2007
Set in the urban atmosphere of the late 1980's, 'Fame' follows the path of ten students through their time at the prestigious New York's High School for Performing Arts. Despite their diverse backgrounds and talents, they all share a dream to become famous performers. But reality kicks in, things get complicated, and although the determination remains, they learn just as much about themselves as they do about acting, music or dance.
- October–November 2007
"The tale of the impossible. A house with its own soul. A death. A resurrection. A moor’s pestilential environment. A house that outwardly manifests the crumbling nature of Roderick’s inner decay."
A hypnotizing new production of Steven Berkoff’s extraordinary adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s, “febrile fantastical story that served as an occult tale for our voices and senses, to find their expression through”. Physical theatre pushed to the limits, a deeply chilling soundtrack and haunting film images combine to create a late night gothic spectacle.
Incest, catalepsy, premature burial, and mental disorder, “no, not madness. More an ability to see beyond madness… May I tell you something, may I? One step nearer the light and you have genius. One step nearer the dark and you have madness. Between the two is an indefinable region”. May I tell you something……?
- October–November 2007
A dinner party goes badly wrong. Sarah and Ralf are a young couple failing to find happiness in clubs or cinemas. They invite Sarah’s colleague Edith and her husband Bastian for dinner. Ralf jokes in poor taste that there’s a corpse in the trunk behind him. The level of taste descends as Bastian struggles to contain his violent discomfort at the prolonged joke, while his wife wants to join in the fun. Pizza is ordered. They discuss work. A defiled corpse falls out of the cupboard.
Mr Kolpert is a strikingly original work by a young writer, premièred at the Royal Court. It manages to fuse the excesses of Sarah Kane with the black humour of Pinter’s awkward interiors. This is a provocative, but above all a fantastically funny play. Nasty violence and guffaws: this says something about the way we live now, but we'll be too shocked and amused to care.
- October–November 2007
Oli Robinson's fab new production of Roald Dahl's classic.
- October 2007
- October 2007
“To the future or to the past, to a time when thought is free, when men are different from one another and do not live alone – to a time when truth exists and what is done cannot be undone:
From the age of uniformity, from the age of solitude, from the age of Big Brother, from the age of doublethink – Greetings!”
Winston Smith opens his diary. He thinks the year is nineteen eighty-four, but he can’t be sure. In fact, in the totalitarian superstate of Oceania, one can’t be sure of anything anymore. Winston is propelled on a voyage through love and rebellion and finally into the hands of the dreaded Thought Police. He has committed the ultimate human crime; he has fallen in love.
In this exciting stage adaptation of George Orwell’s timeless novel, beauty and horror collide. Winston gradually remembers how to feel, but in doing so, he condemns himself to death. But in a world where love and sex are banned, where everything is written in pencil and can be erased in a second, in a world where two plus two no longer equal four, aren’t we dead already?
- October 2007
"All memories are false, yours in particular."
Three strangers enter a house. Sisters, in fact. One remembers a sunny childhood, another remembers abandon and rain. Shelagh Stephenson's award winning play, THE MEMORY OF WATER is a witty and brutal examination of our tendency to reappropriate the past. Follow six characters as they are forced to untangle the knotty skein of memories. Places and memories collide, stories are diluted, and obsessions recur. Amidst nervous laughter and haunting snapshots: does the past really matter?
- October 2007
Of all the names it is possible to give a man (and there are many - Watkins, Smith and so on) there is one in particular which seems to hold a strange and profound significance; a name that seems to declaim itself from the rooftops, and from the peaks of mountains, and the cry echoes through the valleys of the ages like the bellow of a frustrated hilltop gorilla, resounding from one end of the rainbow to the other and washing back in the whisper of the tide… "Lancelot Sebastian von Ludendorff…"
This is the winner of the first year of Pembroke Players' New Writing Initiative. The Initiative was set up to encourage and draw attention to new theatrical writing from Cambridge students. We will be open to new applications at the end of Lent Term 2008. For more information visit www.pembrokeplayers.org.
- October 2007
The Swan Theatre Company presents an amateur production of Simon Stephens'
MOTORTOWN
Directed by Robert Icke.
'I wanted to write a play that is dark and contradictory and violent because our culture is dark and contradictory and violent. In that sense, I wanted to write, as honestly as I possibly could, about England’ - Simon Stephens
‘The war was alright. I miss it. It’s just you come back to this.’
Danny returns home. All is not well. A play in eight scenes about the war on terror and the culture that drives it, Motortown has established itself as one of the most controversial, most impressive and most important plays of the millennium.
Following its sellout productions of The Alchemist and Much Ado About Nothing, The Swan Theatre Company returns to the ADC with this explosive new play, premiered to great acclaim last year at the Royal Court.
- October 2007
The top improv group in Cambridge for improvised comic sketches, games, songs and dances. Come and see us in our greatest show yet, fresh from a national tour and performing at the Fringe. It'll be good.
Nothing is prepared - the audience provide all of the scenarios. Want us to do a song about flan? We'll do it. Want to see David Cameron present a political cooking program? No problem. Want to see a horror movie based on squirrels? That we can do.
- October 2007
www.aslanisonthemove.co.uk
'They say Aslan is on the move - perhaps he has already landed...'
Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy have been evacuated from London during the Blitz to a big old house in the country. While exploring, Lucy comes across a wardrobe through which she reaches the magical land of Narnia. She meets a faun who tells her of the cruel White Witch, who turns innocent creatures to stone and has cast a spell of perpetual winter over the land. When Lucy returns to Narnia with her brothers and sister, however, the faun has been captured by the White Witch. Teaming up with a couple of beavers, the children set off to rescue him and to find the great lion Aslan, with whose help they must set things right.
C.S. Lewis' classic tale of good and evil is brought vividly to life in Adrian Mitchell's thrilling adaptation, originally written for the RSC. Join us for what promises to be one of the most exciting productions at this year's Edinburgh festival!
- August 2007
The Cambridge Footlights are the world-famous comedy troupe who first aired the talents of some of the foremost British comedians and actors of this century. Footlights is the only student comedy society to have a national tour show, and also the only one to have an Edinburgh Fringe show composed of entirely new material.
The Tour Show, the most prestigious show in the Footlights year, is one of the most eagerly anticipated productions in the Cambridge theatrical calendar as well as at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The Tour Show attracts the best of Cambridge's infamous comedy and considerable technical talent.
Reviews for last year's Tour Show 'Niceties':
"A proper funny sketch show with great performances" - David Mitchell, 'Peep Show'.
"A breakneck round of fast-paced sketches, each one funnier than the last…ingeniously hilarious…the country’s most famous student comedy troupe is back on top form" – Cambridge Evening News
- October 2007
Leontes is a jealous man and suspects his queen, Hermione, of adultery with his brother. His persecution kills her and their son. Their infant daughter is sent into exile in Bohemia and named Perdita: she is discovered by a mad hatter who raises her as his own. Sixteen years later Perdita is the belle of Bohemia: she is loved by Florizel and adored by bumpkins. Events conspire to bring together Leontes' stagnant court and the vibrant but dangerous wonderland of Bohemia and a kind of healing is achieved. These fantastical worlds will be realised with design inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice. A cast of eight will portray upwards of twenty characters in a self-consciously theatrical production, physically building new worlds with their bodies. Exit, pursued by a teddy bear.
- July 2007
Here where drugs are quick, pagans worship on a barren landscape; infanticide, bestiality, adultery and cross-dressing are status-quo. Mercilessly ambitious nobles wait in the wings for their turn in the spotlight as ‘King’ whilst a moneylender whets his knife for his pound of flesh. Brothers battle to the death and Asps feed on Queens. Underage intimacy is all the rage; self-obsessed actors play all the parts, cannibalism thrives and fairies fly off into the night…
And who said William Shakespeare is boring?
Welcome to Shakespeare’s Bankside, both the Wooden O of Dreams and a pestilent nest of sex and insobriety. The news headlines read, “Bad is all the world, and all will come to naught”, but on Bankside our troupe perform a new comedy. Action To The Word take you on a whirlwind physical theatre voyage through The Bard’s best-bits, inviting you to his world of Love, War, Chaos and Despair.
- June 2007
Alcock Improv, fresh from their national tour, want to show everyone what they can do! Come along for an hour of improvised comic sketches, songs, dances - anything. You name it, we'll do it. And make it funny. Check out our website - www.alcockimprov.co.uk - for more info.
- June 2007
Following last year's magnificent and highly acclaimed production of Jekyll and Hyde, the award winning Festival Players are delighted to present another Cambridge Premiere.
Based on the 1987 film, and fresh from a celbrated West End Production, The Witches of Easwick is a magical mix of light hearted comedy and captivating musical numbers that will keep you spellbound.
- May 2007
Crash! Meet ICE, Cambridge's most popular improvised comedy group, as they liven up a weary Sunday evening with an hour of explosive comedy in the ADC bar.
In a lethal cocktail of classic games, new games and mysterious narratives - all based on suggestions by you, the audience, they will get to know you in ways you cannot possibly imagine.
- May 2007
Alex is bored of life. Alex is boxed in. Alex doesn't live in a box per se but feels boxed in. You know, metaphorically. If only there was some way to change things. If only there was some way to make life better. Maybe there is. Well, actually, there is. Yeah. There definitely is.
Explore the unhinged, thrilling possibilities of life as Alex reaches boiling point and breaks out of the box (again, it's a metaphorical one) into the enchanting, misshapen world outside.
An unashamedly merry and uplifting sketch show from Footlights regulars Helen Cripps and Anna O'Grady, Boxed In will make you laugh, cry (with laughter - it's not sad) and exclaim with delight when you realise how brilliant life is.
Does any of it really happen? Does it really matter? Who cares for God's sake? If you're not enraptured by the sight of two sombreros and a kazoo, you shouldn't be going to the theatre anyway.
- May 2007
DDS and HATS present... WHAT THE BUTLER SAW
"There were old ladies in the audience not merely tearing up their programmes but jumping up and down on them out of sheer hatred…" Stanley Baxter [Dr Prentice] remembers the original West End run.
Dr. Prentice, the chief psychiatrist at a private clinic, wants to have an affair with his secretary. His wife, Mrs. Prentice, has invited a hotel porter to her husband’s clinic in an attempt to seduce him. This leads to inevitable problems as both husband and wife lie and deceive each other as they hide their lovers in a bizarre variety of disguises. From this outrageous situation, chaos ensues when the Chief Government Health Inspector turns up on the scene and, relying heavily on his Freudian training, decides to section them as clinically insane …
Add in a leopard print dress, far too many doors and a scandalously damaged statue of Sir Winston Churchill and you have a recipe for disaster.
- May 2007
Join Cambridge's most popular improvisational talent as they once again take the ADC stage by storm. Are you tired? Stressed? Unable to understand the deconstructive argumentation section on Lenin? Then Revise This! as ICE lead you through a fast-paced night of unprepared comedy sketches, songs and narratives which will enlighten you in ways you can't understand but pretended you did in supervisions all term.
- May 2007
"You kidnap the Captain and bind him in chains; jump ship and start again."
A desperate band of songsters, poets and low-lifes in waiting will pour out their little blood orange hearts for your entertainment. We'll pretend to be friends and do away with your loved ones in a song. We'll all put on a brave face. Expect bust-up guitars and ill-fitting hats. Expect violins. Expect to be thrilled and disappointed in fairly equal measure by whatever snapshots we offer. Feather-light folk will melt into stomp-hollering blues. Pirates will roar and lovers will fall; whorehouses will burn to the ground and a backwards smile will catch us off guard, all in front of your eyes. In essence, our raggle-taggle band of waistrels and brow-beaters will do everything in their power to make you love the bottom of the barrel.
- May 2007
Portia’s father has died leaving a bevy of suitors trying to solve the riddles on three caskets to win her hand * and her large fortune. Bassanio must raise a sum to travel to Belmont and try his suit. His friend Antonio leverages his credit to secure money from the Jewish money lender Shylock for Bassanio’s quest. All seems to go well for Portia and Bassanio when Antonio’s ships miscarry and Shylock demands the collateral for his loan: a pound of Antonio’s flesh. On their wedding night, Bassanio flees to Venice to be at his friend’s side. Things look ill for Antonio when Portia arrives disguised as a Doctor of Laws (with her waiting woman Narissa disguised as her Clerk) to save Antonio’s life and her marriage. After winning the case, Portia tests Bassanio’s commitment and he is found wanting.
- May 2007
“I’ve caught a cold. A germ. In my eyes. It was this morning. In my eyes. My eyes. Not that I had any difficulty in seeing you, no, no, it was not so much my sight, my sight is excellent – in winter I run about with nothing on but a pair of polo shorts – no, it was so much any deficiency in my sight as the airs between me and my object, the shades they make, the shapes they take, the quivering, the eternal quivering – please stop crying – nothing to do with heat-haze.”
Edward and Flora enjoy a happy country-side life. Goose for lunch, a garden flowering with clematis and convolvulus, and a plentiful supply of Chateauneuf-du-Pape. Nothing could be more splendid. But who’s that shady figure lurking at the back gate? Is he really just a match seller? There’s a slight ache in Edward’s eye, niggling away at his very core, and nothing will make it go away until he’s found out…
- May 2007
A bloody, bawdy comedy set in the Elizabethan theatre-world.
The once successful writer Robert Greene is struggling with the failure of his comedy Friar Bacon and Friar Bungay. Meanwhile Brummie upstart Will Shakespeare's new 'docu-drama' Henry VI is wowing them at the Rose. Kit Marlowe steps in to help alleviate his friend's financial burden with a little 'creative opinion shaping' against the Flemings. However, in a world of literary rivalry, plague and spying...someone's bound to get hurt...
Presented by The Marlowe Society on its 100th anniversary.
- March 2007
http://www.forbiddenplanet.org.uk/
http://www.myspace.com/forbiddenplanetcambridge
‘Goodness Gracious, Great Balls of Fire!’
5...4...3...2…1…BLAST OFF!!
Join us on board the mother ship ADC for a journey into deepest space. Robots, mad scientists, and aliens all welcome. BEWARE, our journey may be treacherous. There may be asteroid showers and there may be monsters but that’s just what we’ve come to expect from space travel these days.
What is set to be the theatrical highlight of the Lent term, Return to the Forbidden Planet is a joyous mix of fun. This is Shakespeare's forgotten rock and roll masterpiece. The Tempest as a 1950s B-movie, bursting with 60s and 70s pop numbers including classics such as ‘Good Vibrations,’ ‘Goodness Gracious Great Balls of Fire,’ ‘Shake, Rattle and Roll’ and ‘Born to be wild’ . There is something for everyone aged 2 to 200 - human, cyborg or robot…
VISIT OUR BLOG - Regular posts from productionland and from Outer Space
http://blog.myspace.com/forbiddenplanetcambridge
Education
Space Cadets on a Mission of Discovery to the Forbidden Planet!
Saturday Week 8&9 Fun workshops based on The Return to the Forbidden Planet and The Tempest will be run on Saturday mornings before the matinee performances of the show.
10-11am – discovery into space- exploring the key elements of the show, set, costume, make-up, lighting and sound throughout the theatre while touring the theatre at your own pace
11am -12 noon- workshop on stage for Primary age children including singing, dancing and movement based on the show
12 noon-1pm- workshop on stage for Secondary age children including singing, dancing and movement based work on the show
ADVANCED BOOKING IS ESSENTIAL – book your place by calling the theatre on 01223 300085 or going online to www.adctheatre.com
Education packs focused on inter-textual links between Return to the Forbidden Planet and The Tempest are available for Primary and Secondary age children. To request an education pack and/or a free practical workshop in your school alongside your school booking please contact Hazel Sheard at hjs38@cam.ac.uk
http://www.forbiddenplanet.org.uk/
- March 2007
So there's this man in Russia and he's not happy with his coat. So he gets a new one. And he loves it. And there's this man and woman in England and they're not happy with each other but they probably don't want new ones because they already quite love each other. Or maybe just like each other a lot. Partly based on the humour and tales of Nikolai Gogol, Coat flicks between nineteenth century St Petersburg and the here and now. It's sort of a romantic comedy but it's also about other things for instance eg. apple and blackcurrant squash for example. So if you like love and you love like, this is the play for you.
The Harry Porter Prize was established four years ago to celebrate the contribution to Footlights of the Club’s Senior Archivist, Harry Porter. In past years the award has been judged by Stephen Fry, Bill Oddie and Michael Frayn, and we are pleased to announce that the prize this year will be judged by Declan Donnellan, the multi-award-winning director and playwright, co-founder of Cheek by Jowl, and author of 'The Actor and the Target.'
- March 2007
- March 2007
In 1941, the fathers of quantum mechanics and, consequently, the atomic bomb, met in Copenhagen.
Niels Bohr and his wife, Margrethe, in Nazi-occupied Denmark, entertain their old friend and colleague Werner Heisenberg, who is heading the Nazi nuclear program.
Now they are "dead and gone", they attempt to piece together that fateful evening, to make history certain, and to work out exactly why that meeting ended the two scientists' friendship - the friendship that discovered quantum mechanics and put human subjectivity back at the centre of the universe – the friendship that raised the awful spectre of nuclear annihilation.
Humanity was "Preserved, just possibly, by that one short moment in Copenhagen. By some event that will never quite be located or defined. By that final core of uncertainty at the heart of things."
Michael Frayn’s enthralling drama portrays the human faces behind quantum theory and the development of the nuclear bomb. History, ethics and science fuse and ask: can anything ever be certain?
