- November 2018
This new musical tells the story of Heathcliff and Cathy, two lovers almost psychically bound to each other but continually thwarted by family, society, and God. Heathcliff has just returned to Wuthering Heights after mysteriously disappearing for several years having made his wealth, but Cathy is now bound by other circumstances. The sun shines over the moors, but inside the storm of vengeance is brewing. In a retelling of Emily Bronte’s classic, this new musical tells the story of a passion which transcends life – and death – itself.
Listen to excerpts from this new musical on soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/michael-bascom/sets/cathy-a-retelling-of-wuthering
- November 2018
On the South Devon coast, the Haussman family home stands dilapidated and derelict. Its chief occupant is Judy, an aging, anarchic hippy who – after a minor cancer operation – holds court, welcoming her children home. Libby, accompanied by her daughter, Summer, is waspish and resentful. Nick is flighty and nervous, a former drug addict with little to call his own. Over a few sweltering months, the Haussmans hash out their past differences, remember family dramas and infatuations, and day-drink the summer away.
Dealing with the legacy of the 1960s and the Baby Boomer generation, Stephen Bereford’s debut play captures the spirit of a generation, and the consequences in their wake.
- November 2018
With a lineup of Cambridge's hilarious female and nonbinary comedians, the Footlights Lady Smoker brings you the funniest songs, sketches, monologues and stand-up in an hour of non-stop, back-to-back fun-filled hilarity. The material is always original and always varied. It can be soft and silly, rude and spiky, wordy and nerdy or a little surreal; whatever the style, it's always 'uproariously funny' (Varsity).
- November 2018
An unassuming family accidentally get caught up in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Unsure to act, but keen to stop the skewed election, they hatch a plan to Catfish the government with fake profiles to trick the algorithm, all from the spare bedroom of Gran's house. A new black comedy exploring the darker side of tech, how could you not heart react?
- November 2018
Two boys caught between their dreams of becoming famous football players and their need to join the resistance.
Two doctors who cannot reconcile with their political ideologies and personal tragedies.
A young girl unable to decipher reality.
Unfolding in the violence and confusion of occupied Kashmir, the djinns are many and appear to disrupt friendships and talks of peace.
Only stories remain to be told. And retold.
*
The Djinns of Eidgah set in occupied Kashmir is a haunting, heartfelt and political play written by Abhishek Majumdar and combines multiple storylines. Two friends Bilal and Khaled are caught between their dreams of becoming famous footballers and their political need to join the resistance. Bilal’s traumatised sister Ashrafi struggles to cope mentally and regularly visits Dr.Baig and Dr.Wani’s clinic for therapy. The two doctors cannot reconcile with their individual political ideologies, the duty to their clinic and the way they should accept their children’s futures, either as dead militants or dead children killed by the standing army. As the drama unfolds, two soldiers stationed in the occupied state are unable to read the complex chain of events and must choose between the misery of the people they encounter and what they have been trained to believe. The djinns are many and appear to terrorise and derail tales of friendship and talks of peace. The play depicts the confusion and violence in occupied regions and at the same time redeems it through the use of folklore, friendly banters about football and sincere political dialogue.
- November 2018
Get ready for ‘Unsung Heroes’ - join us as the BCC™ take a deeper look at the Unsung Heroes of Wider Rochester. A night to celebrate the overlooked voices of our society.
We human-people focus too much on worshipping celebrities, the luminaries who quite frankly don’t do much. Eg. Paris Hilton (excluding her culturally groundbreaking work on ‘Paris Hilton’s My New BFF). We neglect the average Joe’s whose work goes unrecognised.
‘Unsung Heroes’ transforms ‘nonentities’ to ‘celebutantes’, all whilst making us laugh, giggle, and maybe even snort. Who knows?
A celebration of these characters will redefine what we deem as important, paying homage to characters like wise Wendy from the Co-op Bakery, Brenda from the PSA or Susie from HR - what would we do without Susie?
Head down to the Corpus Playroom for an absurd hour from Cambridge Comedy regulars and introducing new comedians, bringing to life a series of wacky, silly and endearing characters whose voices will finally be heard.
- October–November 2018
It’s Halloween and everyone’s on high alert for what this coven of witches are up to. Double double toil and trouble-ing? Fire burn and cauldron bubble-ing? Or maybe just supernaturally-inclined women trying to have a nice night in? Who knows.
Move over Harry Potter, Witches is a brand-new sketch show from a selection of the finest female and non-binary student minds. Get your broomsticks, black cats and spooky selves down to the Corpus playroom for a night of fresh sketches and character comedy. Although take heed, ye who seek them - with this many women left unsupervised, things are going to get darn scary.
The witches are here, they’re hilariously sincere, and they’re ready to obliterate their bad rep from William Shakespeare.
(Please note the cast and crew are not responsible for any audience members being cursed and/or transformed into a toad)
- October–November 2018
Siblings Daniel and Peppy have lived in the same house in South East London since they were children. Now adults, they are recluses; surrounded by a lifetime of memories lost in the chaos. They are isolated from the outside world until, following a misunderstanding, that world rushes in.
Deborah Bruce's humorous yet moving play reminds its audience of the importance of showing people the simplest kindness. It provides an insight into those left behind by society, and leaves the audience on a gentle tone of hopefulness.
- October 2018
Featuring performers who are all brand new to the comedy scene, Footlights bring you the funniest songs, sketches, monologues and stand-up in an hour of non-stop, back-to-back fun-filled hilarity. The material is always original and always varied. It can be soft and silly, rude and spiky, wordy and nerdy or a little surreal; whatever the style, it's always 'uproariously funny' (Varsity).
- October 2018
All was peaceful at Bedheads Record Company. Who needs sex, drugs, and rock and roll when you have a keyboard with seven different demo tunes and a mildly inept but dedicated office staff? The company even had a musician featured on the Now That’s What I Call Music 2011 album (although this was, unfortunately, the result of a clerical error.)
But when the unexplained death of one of the company’s star acts lands Bedheads two producers in prison, everything changes. As new evidence arises, the police reopen the case - but will it be enough to save Bedheads? Will the law prevail? Does a miscarriage of justice provide good source material for a top 40 chart hit?
Bedheads is a brand-new narrative interactive murder mystery musical sketch comedy based around the alibis of all of the dark and quirky individuals that emerge from Bedheads Records! Join us as we dive into the lives of these wacky and wonderful characters, and bring the killer to justice. Everyone knows that the music industry is cutthroat, but not like this.
- October 2018
Charles James has been sentenced to death for killing a cop. To him, life is a joke and death is a joke. Humour is how Charlie deals with a life gone bad. When the warden of a state penitentiary tries to convince him to donate a kidney to his sick son, humor is how he deals with the many people around him who all of a sudden want something from a dead man walking. All hell breaks lose in this play, including surprise visits from his mother, an unlikely friendship with the penitentiary reverend. In this dark comedy, we deal with the ethical implications involved with capital punishment, organ donation, and the interaction of the two.
- October 2018
Join us for this evening of new writing! The Fletcher Players bring you Smorgasbord: a festival showcasing some of the most exciting and original extracts from emerging student playwrights.
Hosted at the Corpus Playroom, this is a casual opportunity for writers to have their work performed on-stage, with the chance for the pieces to be discussed and critiqued afterwards by the audience.
Unlike many other writing festivals, there are no limits to the works being presented – they can be complete plays, extracts from a larger piece, or rough first drafts – as long as they are between 5 and 10 minutes in length.
- October 2018
“It’s this sort of time you’d turn on the radio and hope for a snow day.”
Alone, abroad and in the midst of a housing crisis, it only takes one missed train for Allie to lose all sense of time.
Sustaining themself on panic-bought oranges and the sounds of the sixties, Allie dithers between frantic farce and semi-lucid lethargy in the confines of a budget hotel room, when on discovering seven blank postcards bought at a happier time, they resolve to write home - return address or not. But an awkward ‘wish you were here’ soon begins to unravel a fragile web of uneasy relationships and invasive anxieties.
Merging the boundaries between delusion and reality, theatre and film, ‘I’m Having a Wonderful Time in Baden-Baden’ offers a comical, poignant and innovative take on how we communicate when we’re on our own.
- September–October 2018
‘We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.’
It’s 2018. Oscar Wilde died over a century ago. Does he still have a place in our hearts? In a bold modern production of the classic comedy-melodrama, Lady Windermere’s Fan, the play and its fin-de-siecle wit and sensibilities are lovingly interrogated, even as they are performed.
Lady Windermere’s Fan was first performed in 1892. Half-comic, half-serious, It tells the story of Lady Windermere, her husband, and a mysterious ‘other woman’, who may not be all that she appears.
The University of Cambridge Asia Theatre Tour, founded in 2017 is a student run theatre company that performs a British play to venues around the UK and East Asia: China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan. The tour takes place in September over a 3 week period with rehearsals/tour preparation in August. As well as performances, the tour has a big educational focus, engaging audiences directly with the play through workshops and classes. Workshops are not limited to the play and also encompass production, directing and other plays/writers (e.g Shakespeare).
It is a truly fantastic opportunity to put together a production that will be staged internationally whilst travelling around East Asia on a highly subsidised tour. We have the support of Emma Thompson as our patron and participants will be working with some awesome venues as well as people in each of these countries. We currently have the support of people from Cambridge Youth Summer Camp, the British Council and UNESCO to name a few organisations. It's an unmissable project if you're interested in theatre beyond Cambridge, education and culture/cultural diplomacy. As it is a relatively new tour, there is a lot of scope to bring in your own ideas that will influence the future of the tour. We also hope that it offers a chance for Cambridge students to mutually learn from the diversity of people encountered on tour.
- October 2018
Footlights bring you the funniest songs, sketches, monologues and stand-up in an hour of non-stop, back-to-back fun-filled hilarity. The material is always original and always varied. It can be soft and silly, rude and spiky, wordy and nerdy or a little surreal; whatever the style, it's always 'uproariously funny' (Varsity).
- October 2018
'I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia.'
Virginia Woolf meets Vita Sackville-West, the socialite wife of an eminent politician and 'pronounced Sapphist', one evening in the 1920s and before long they embark upon one of the most high profile of love-affairs in the literary world. Vita finds Virginia admirable and enigmatic. Virginia finds Vita intimidating but alluring. Both members of the Bloomsbury set, they share a love of language, of letter-writing, and of each other.
'Vita & Virginia' documents the notorious relationship between these extraordinary women as they experienced it over the course of twenty years. Adapted from the correspondence of Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West, Eileen Atkins' careful composition of the blossoming romance is witty, tender, and utterly charming.
- October 2018
'It’s I who decides who my patients think they are. I know them far better than they know themselves.’
Murder is just the background at the private sanatorium, Les Cerisiers. The investigation into a nurse’s murder reveals not one of the patients is quite what they seem. Everyone is hiding a dangerous secret and all are drawn into an increasingly dangerous game to protect it and themselves.
Questioning the nature of sanity, the role of science and ‘expertise’ in society, and the responsibilities governments and individuals have to each other, The Physicists is a satire that puts our concepts of society under the microscope.
- October 2018
It’s thicc, white, and gets a bit greasy if left out in the sun too long… that’s right; it’s a seamless description of both the egg-based condiment Mayonnaise, and of the chicken-nugget-based English student Amaya Holman.
Putting the “hot” in potato salad and the “hell” into hellmanns, ‘amayonnaise’ will be a saucy (and slightly surreal) hour of solo standup comedy and song, chatting about mental health, body image, growing up, and the complex relationship between a young woman and her condiments.
Previous Praise for Amaya:
“laughs” - Varsity
“10/10” - A Dentist, on the number cavities Amaya had acquired since her last bi-annual check up
“She is persistently late, and oughtn't blot her scholarly reputation for want of an accurate watch” - camCORS
“big bobbies” - Man On Tinder
- October 2018
Bella and Will shot to fame in the noughties after they won smash-hit TV show ‘DUETS!’. But a decade on, Bella’s losing her voice, Will’s losing his religion, and neither of them can lose those extra pounds. Under the mysterious threat of an anonymous text, can they prove that they’ve still got it?
‘Reverse Cowgirl’ is a comedy about a pop-star double-act who have lost everything but each other. With nothing left but pride, can they take back the reins?
- October 2018
Three short(ish) plays about family - and food. From the writer of 'The Arm in the Cat Flap' ("trod the lines of silliness, sharp wit and poignancy with nothing less than brilliance and flare", ★★★★★ - TCS; "Geelan is an abundantly talented writer. He has an innate skill in finding the right balance of the bizarre without ever tipping it over the edge", ★★★★½ - Varsity).
HAM: Flo has made her stage debut as Mr Smee in a community centre production of 'Peter Pan'. She hopes for a civilised post-show family meal at a nice restaurant, hopes that her three narcissistic siblings might get along, and that for this one night at least, just a sliver of the attention might fall on her.
EGG: Jennifer and Georgia’s brunch party take an unexpected turn, as the dark details of their guests’ marriage are laid bare over scrambled eggs. (‘Highly Commended’ by the panel of professional judges at the Downing Festival of New Writing; “A sparklingly witty farce” - TCS)
CHIPS: When Liam’s dad dies, his career-driven mum now faces the mammoth task of making him dinner each night. They eat frozen chips, watch TV, and try to get to know each other.
★★★★½ - The Tab
"As a collection, Ham, Egg and Chips fits together like a dream. With abundant laughs and a big heart, this is joyous familial theatre at its finest."
https://thetab.com/uk/cambridge/2018/10/03/review-ham-egg-and-chips-114152
- October 2018
Remember that girl you fell in love with once? Remember how complex she was? And how you could never cure her, but her lack of character arc helped yours progress in the long run? Well, guess what. HERE SHE IS.
Ania Magliano (Funny Women Regional Finalist 2018, Chortle Student Comedy Award Semifinalist 2018) presents her debut solo show, exploring what it is like to grow up in a world that bases your worth on whether people fancy your or not. She hopes it will be funny, explorative, innovative and most of all that someone might think she’s fit.
- September 2018
"We should talk." From the master playwright of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" comes a double-bill of Homelife and The Zoo Story: stories of attempting to establish real human contact. They are stories of both kindness and cruelty, where what is gained is also lost. Come see the play that the New York Times described as “an essential and heartening experience….The Zoo Story is infused with a young man’s frustration and hormonal energy, while Homelife is the product of an older, more contemplative mind….If Homelife is an openhanded slap, The Zoo Story is a gut punch with a closed fist.”
This amateur production is presented by arrangement with Josef Weinberger Ltd.
- September 2018
Three one-act comedy plays. And sausages. From the wild west, a spooky undertaker, to a superhero retirement party.
- September 2018
- August 2018
"I long
To hear the story of your life, which must
Take the ear strangely..."
Sixteen years of waiting. Three thousand miles to cross. One story, waiting to be told.
Prospero has waited through years and across oceans. The loss of her Dukedom in Milan and the betrayal of her brother cannot go unpunished. But as the storms of old politics rise again, lovers take their first embrace and fools plot murder, the clock is ticking - and for Prospero to succeed even spirits above and monsters below must have what they desire.
Gather around our light, and let us tell you the story of Prospero's life.
- August 2018
Two meetings Two noses Two nationalities Two women Two clowns: Biscotte (French) and Margareth (English). A delightfully educational, horrendously challenging intercultural relationship.
- July 2018
Two parallel realities find Finola alternately setting up home with DIY enthusiast Matt and exploring the world with adventurer Nick. Whichever lifestyle she has found herself drawn into, Finola wonders if she could have cut her cake without it crumbling. This innovative new play, with its interwoven simultaneous plots, is the work of writer, Julia Bolden and director, Richard McNally, both active members of WRiTEON - The Cambridge Scriptwriting Forum. In 2016, Richard directed the critically acclaimed Butterfly Effect, of which Julia was one of the nine writers
- July 2018
- July 2018
The Darling family children receive a visit from Peter Pan, who takes them to Never Never Land where an ongoing war with the evil Pirate Captain Hook is taking place.
- July 2018
Inspired by and including Orson Welles’ infamous 1938 radio broadcast based on the novel by H. G. Wells
An alien invasion throws humanity into chaos in the classic sc-fi novel The War of the Worlds, but all it took to cause real-life panic in the streets was Orson Welles' 1938 radio adaptation, which listeners took for news. In the days following the broadcast, widespread outrage was expressed in the media. The programme's news-bulletin format was described as deceptive. Now, ten years later, the WBFR radio ensemble recreates the events surrounding the infamous evening, including the full original broadcast. Complete with commercials and sound effects, this radio-play-within-a-radio-play is an homage to the form's golden age and a timely reminder of what fear can do to a society.
- July 2018
All office fire wardens Baxter, Lisa and Kirsty want is a little danger. They soon start to wonder... what if there was an actual fire?
- June 2018
A heist built from your suggestions. What will we steal? How will we steal it? It's all up to you!
- June 2018
Immigration, immigration, immigration. No, you haven’t stumbled across Nigel Farage having a stroke on Question Time. Instead we’re here to discuss the show that would induce said stroke: SECOND-GENERATION.
SECOND-GENERATION is a sketch show that will look at the trials and tribulations of living between multiple cultures in Modern Britannia.
This sketch-show will showcase the hilarity that ensues as cultures mix and showcase some fabulous Cambridge talent.
- June 2018
It's May 1997. Tony Blair has won the election and Katrina and the Waves have won Eurovision. Channel 5 is a month old. No one knows who Harry Potter is. Britain is the coolest place in the world.
At the local secondary school it's a different story. Miss Belltop-Doyle can't control her year 10s, Mr Pashley has been put in charge of a confiscated tamagotchi and Miss Turner is hoping that this muck-up day goes smoother than the last. Tobias, the German language assistant, watches on. Things can only get better.
Education, Education, Education is The Wardrobe Ensemble's love letter to the schools of the 90s and asks big questions about a country in special measures, exploring what we are taught and why, and where responsibility lies.
- June 2018
A parable of poetry from across history and around the world, all focused on one animal - the cat. Graceful, wondrous, wild, weird, vicious, cruel, kind - cats have a little of everything, which might explain why humanity is so ambivalent towards them! This performance of poetry and short fiction follows humanity's treatment of this animal from amoral innocence to experienced compassion. It's playful, it's silly - but watch out, it's got claws.
- June 2018
If you are reading this then I implore you to stop now and read no further. For if you are in a chipper mood, or even just mildly content, I fear there would be nothing more dampening to your happy life than to see this show. Our story follows a group of innocent children who have just lost their parents in a terrible accident. I wish I could tell you that these orphans were relocated to a new home with a loving guardian where they lived happily ever after, but I am afraid I cannot. For if you have ever lived in the real world, as I have, you would find it a most improvable place - A phrase which here means a place where Improvisers make up very funny drama on the spot from audience suggestions. Their scenes will tell the tale of poor orphans, quirky guardians, secret organisations, hidden conspiracies and dastardly villains. Oh no, do not go and see this show... for it is sure to be A Series of Improv-able Events.
