- February 2016
Next Door is a new piece of student writing that takes a look into the most familiar aspects of our day to day lives; when we sit around the kitchen table. Made up of sparadic, disconnected scenes and characters, the unity of the play rests on the similarity of circumstance and the tendencies of structure in the dialogue, which may be sometimes painfully familiar. Ranging from scenes that depict the most tedious to the most poignant moments of human lives, Next Door creates a sense of community out of the times when we may feel most alone or isolated.
The script is committed to perfected naturalism, and the actors involved will portray characters that they themselves have written and developed, mostly through Verbatim work. Listening carefully to recordings of real conversations that actors have whitnessed, we will work to devise dialogue that is meticulously accurate to the real ways people speak.
This is a chance to properly unwrap the structure of our language, and become intensely familiar with the rhythm and pattern of the most everyday speech. Through these processes, both actors and audience will uncover a liberating and inspiring beauty in the moments we tend to take for granted.
- February 2016
"I don't want realism. I want magic."
Blanche DuBois is a faded Southern Belle, her whole life taken away from her. But she is determined to cling on to the past, come what may. She seeks refuge in the dilapidated home of her sister in New Orleans but here she finds Stanley Kowalski, brash and aggressive, and determined to bring Blanche's fragile existence crashing down around her. As Blanche and Stanley's confrontation comes to a head, Blanche retreats further and further into fantasy and delusion until she can no longer distinguish between reality and illusion.
Tennessee William's masterpiece is a violent and moving tale of lust and death, the New World and the Old, the brutish and the delicate, dreams and harsh reality.
This intimate new production brings the audience not just into the cramped tenement in the New Orleans French Quarter but into Blanche DuBois' fragile and haunted mind.
- 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
‘As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect.’
Berkoff’s Metamorphosis, adapted from Franz Kafka’s 1912 fable Die Verwandlung, is a gruelling and pertinent commentary on the role of the worker in society. Gregor slaves relentlessly to provide for his family. His self-neglecting existence eats away at him, until he becomes a metaphor of his state: a giant beetle, a creature so lowly that it eats its own excrement. Exhausted of empathy and disgusted by him, Gregor’s family leave him to waste away, and Gregor becomes a martyr for a system which took but gave him nothing. Does work really pay, and who pays the greatest cost?
- February 2016
‘I don’t care if I am an abomination. That woman, that wrong woman, is who I am, and I refuse to be cured.’
This claustrophobic, bittersweet twist on a story from Ovid's Metamorphoses turns the romance of Iphis and Ianthe into a tragedy. The heroine, Iphis, having been transformed into a man by the goddess Isis in order to solve the ‘problem’ of her homosexuality, suffers an identity crisis. Her mother Telethusa and new wife Ianthe struggle to cope with her depression and anger, which threaten to turn into radical action against her misogynistic father, Isis and society itself.
This bleak yet hopeful student-written play challenges prevailing ideas that our identities are not our own. In our world of increasingly fluid sexuality and gender roles, 'Iphis' raises the question – does mankind ever progress beyond its prejudices?
- February 2016
"It’s just another place to live. Ireland – America – what’s the difference?"
Tomorrow morning, Gar O’Donnell flies to Philadelphia.
Tomorrow morning, he leaves behind everything and everyone he has ever known.
Tonight, he has doubts.
Watch private hopes and fears unfold in public in Brian Friel’s poignant examination of family ties, leaving home and escaping the past.
- February 2016
'You let him in and he puts down the knife and the prayer mat on your floor and you offer him wine.
But he doesn’t drink. But you do drink -
Cut to your face. Cut to the knife. Cut to the prayer mat.
And you – you play that, her aching sexuality. Which I know you... I love your work.'
The producer has a story to sell and a multimillion dollar budget to blow. It’s got everything: Sex. Terror. Disneyland blasted to oblivion.
But he needs the right girl.
The production asks: just what exactly is acceptable to exploit for our viewing pleasure?
An explosive play from the critically acclaimed writer of Shopping and F**kng, Some Explicit Polaroids, and pool (no water).
- February 2016
"Unhappy the land that has need of heroes."
Planet: Earth. Time and Place: Italy, 1609.
Galileo looks up at the night sky, using the newly invented telescope. He observes the sun and the planets. He sees with a searingly brilliant eye, his genius and his methods have never been seen before.
But he is in danger; his enemies are everywhere, convincing the Pope that Galileo's new ideas pose a threat to all that the World stands upon.
Soon he will be forced to defend himself and his theories against all of civilisation: in his battle for truth, Galileo has to choose between his life and his soul.
Brecht's greatest play is a shattering and beautiful delving into the cosmos, beauty, science and truth, religion and morality, and the responsibility of Genius. Mark Ravenhill's 2013 translation for the RSC national tour is a hugely intelligent and vibrantly theatrical venture.
- January 2016
God. Torture. Fate. Grief. Maths. Sex.
A kaleidoscope of emotions and situations, with six actors and over fifty characters, 'Love and Information’ gets to grips with the fundamentals of what it is to be alive. A series of scenes that would often be viewed as too odd or conversely too commonplace to be put on stage: a form of drama that’s somehow both familiar and entirely new. A sketch-show meets serious drama.
Caryl Churchill’s 2012 play shows the poetry of life, from the ordinary to the peculiar, in snapshots varying from mere seconds to over five minutes.
- January 2016
"Insanity runs in my family...it practically gallops".
Set in 1940s Brooklyn, Arsenic and Old Lace paints the portrait of the two elderly Brewster sisters who drink tea, gossip, knit…and poison lonely old gentlemen who turn up at their door. As their nephew Mortimer seeks to place the blame for the pile of bodies on his insane brother Teddy, a third homicidal brother Jonathan turns up with his plastic surgeon-cum-alcoholic sidekick Dr Einstein. As the body count grows in equal proportion to the hilarity and shocking wickedness, the Brewster family reveal insanity lurking in every corner.
Kesselring’s most famous work opened on Broadway in 1941 and was described by the New York Times as "so funny that none of us will ever forget it". A highly successful film version with Cary Grant followed swiftly in 1944. With its unique combination of sitting-room set-piece elegance, razor-sharp humour and alarming depravity it is no wonder that this play has retained its relevance, regularly undergoing revivals on Broadway and in the West End.
- January 2016
Farewell Tim is a sketch show with a mysterious hero. You may not have known him, but you will have seen him. He was your neighbour’s neighbour, your cousin’s first love, the kid you bullied at tennis camp. But he was also our best friend.
We want to tell you the story of Tim’s life, the high points and the low points, from the very beginning to the very end. We want to tell you about his hopes and his dreams, his passions and his hatreds, his successes and his many, many failures. We want to tell you about his first moments in this world and the last time we said “farewell”.
Join Charlie and Sam for a night of fast-paced comedy. Tim may not really exist, but the sketches that immortalise him certainly do. This brand new show is not be missed.
- January 2016
Amy's found another body in a hotel bedroom. There's a funny smell coming from one of Jim's storage units. And Kate's losing it after spending all day with the police.
There's not going back after what they've seen.
Laura Wade's 2005 play explores what happens to the people who discover dead bodies. It is a touching, tense drama that demonstrates the unnerving truth that it is death that connects us all. As lives intersect, it is the small details that seem to cause the biggest shockwaves, and you can never be sure who is going to become the next dead body.
- January 2016
Ladies and Gentlemen may I have your attention purrrrlease...
Introducing, Dragtime! An evening of eargasmic musical theatre delights where the beards are beautiful, the brawds are busty, binaries are thrown out the window.
Don your cap, grab your heels - it's smart, it's sexy... it's time to Dragtime!
- January 2016
One dismal winter’s evening, in her dingy London flat Kyra Hollis, a twenty-something school teacher, receives a visit from her ex-lover, Tom Sergeant whom she has not seen since the end of their six year love affair.
Several years her senior — Tom is a charming and successful restauranteur whose wife Alice, has recently died from Cancer, driving him to a life of apathy and nostalgia for his past with Kyra.
As the evening progresses, the two cook and converse, attempting to reignite the passion and spark they once had. The conversation is intimate and explosive as they reminisce, confront truths never before addressed and rediscover all that made them fall in love. As morning dawns, the snow begins to fall, and the Spag Bol grows cold both their futures hang in the balance.
David Hare’s Olivier Award winning play delves deep into the inner workings of conversation and human intimacy.
- January 2016
Typhoid Mary is a darkly comic new chamber musical telling the intriguing tale of domestic cook and unwitting assassin, Mary Mallon.
- December 2015
Fresh from their successful run at the 2015 Edinburgh Fringe, Shedload return with their handcrafted lighting and live immersive sound effects for the latest addition to their Gothic Horror series. Three short stories from Edgar Allen Poe the master of the genre, ‘Silence a Parable’ a damned soul’s tortured tale, ‘The Black Cat’ a madman’s liquor induced rage and finally ‘The Fall of the House of Usher’ a visitation into a dark and crumbling mansion. Let us transport you deep into the macabre mind of this classic and acclaimed writer.
- December 2015
For one night only!
A dramatic read through of an original script written by a Cambridge student, after which the audience can offer feedback and criticism.
'Lock In'
Control is important for us all.
Yet, what happens when, after “one too many” alcoholic drinks, that control slips away? Who are you after three drinks? Or five? Or ten?
At around midnight on a weeknight, five people lock themselves into a London pub. Three young academics, a brash social-climbing accountant and an unassuming barman. Over the course of the session, they begin to discover who they really are.
Written by Colm Murphy
Directed by Haydn Jenkins
Tickets: £3.
- December 2015
"I’m just the crazy, unreliable narrator of my own story."
Haworth parish hall welcomes you to their weekly ‘Womens Aid’ meetings, held every Wednesday, six ‘til seven.
Featuring: Jane, the woefully under-qualified group leader; Tony, who finds sexual gratification in Channel 4 documentaries; Grace, her warden, who sings karaoke every Friday night; Isabel, whose growing baby bump is struggling to fit behind the Tesco till and Helen, who lives in the hall on the hill and always arrives with paint on her fingers.
See these classic Brontë figures strip off their corsets, break down the attic door and elbow their way in to the twenty-first century.
A dark comedy.
Byronic heroes not invited.
- December 2015
Dancing at Lughnasa is the story of five sisters living a fragile life in rural Ireland in 1936, told through flashbacks of the youngest sister’s illegitimate daughter, Michaela. Though the sisters’ tragic fates are revealed through Michaela's hindsight, the play is lightened by their mutual love and support, shared humour and moments of wild abandon when their erratically functioning radio brings the house to life with sweet blasts of music from a world outside their own.
Into this carefree yet precarious world come their long-lost brother Jack, who has “gone native” after years of missionary work in Uganda; Gerry, Michael’s adventurer father; and the news that their livelihood is threatened by both a changing world and a conservative community.
- November 2015
The Marlowe Society presents Hatch, a showcase of scratch performances of new dramatic and poetic works in progress from the hotbed of Cambridge literary talent.
A fantastic insight into fresh new writing in its infancy, there will be an informal post-show discussion for audience, performers, directors and writers to pick apart the evening’s work.
Hatch is a unique and exciting opportunity to be a part of a writing process.
Previous praise for HATCH throughout the ages:
'The Marlowe Society’s more active presence in Cambridge Theatre is much appreciated when opportunities like Hatch are the result.' Tab, 2015
'Wonderful makes for the most accurate description' TCS, 2014
'dark, alarming, and riveting' TCS, 2013
'Everything about it is just so lovely' Tab, 2012
'a gutsy enterprise' CTR, 2011
- November 2015
It’s 1956 and the Susan B. Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertrude Stein are having their annual quiche breakfast. Will they be able to keep their cool when Communists threaten their idyllic town?
- November 2015
“I can tell the difference between who I am and a side effect.”
Four people are involved in a failed drugs trial for RLU37, a new anti-depressant created by the international corporate giant, Rauschen Pharmaceuticals. Doctors Toby and Lorna battle with the meaning of depression and the limits of medical science, as they administer the trial in an explosive professional partnership. Tristan and Connie, volunteers on the trial, soon develop a violent love for each other. But they are cannot get past one burning question: is their love ‘real’ or is it induced by the dopamine coursing their veins? Does it matter?
The Effect is a funny, passionate and moving depiction of modern medical science, depression and love.
Winner of Best New Play, Critics’ Circle Theatre Awards 2012.
'This is a provocative and challenging play ... it ends in an edgy gesture of good sense that made me feel like cheering.' - The Independent
'The Effect is a headlong delve into the mysteries of the human brain. And Prebble pulls it off with assurance, tickling our cerebellums in the first half, before tugging on our heartstrings in the second ... heartbreaking ... it has a heart as well as a brain.' - Time Out
- November 2015
Free speech isn't free without having a platform to say whatever you like. So now there is one!*
Five acts, one hour. This is Open Slather.
- November 2015
Panopticon n. A hypothetical prison with cells arranged around a central well, from which prisoners can at all times be observed.
Join three experienced Footlights laughter-generators for an evening of paranoid sketch comedy in the cramped and personal panopticon of the Corpus Playroom, where anything is possible and nothing is certain.
Will comedy duo Rob and Tom accept outsider Oliver as one of their number? Will the two halves of the audience put aside their age-old disputes and finally unite in peace? Will the performers use the evening as an excuse to suddenly cut the lights and harvest your organs? No. We promise that won’t happen.
Panopticon is a brand-new sketch show from the cognitive entities that brought you Grizzly, Bafflesmash Presents: Back in the Cellar, The Footlights Harry Porter Prize 2015: Warp Factor, Booby and Bafflesmash Presents: Menagerie.
- November 2015
"He pats her... his patting becomes beating and he continues beating her even though she's screaming..."
Nancy’s existence is on hold until she finds Rhona, her missing 10 year old daughter. Agnetha wonders if her work investigating the minds of criminals is starting to affect her own thoughts. Meanwhile Ralph, sitting on a bench, feels the hot sun on his face, and spies the next little girl he’d like to keep him company for a while. The mother, the academic, and the perpetrator are drawn together, culminating in a shocking confrontation.
Frozen dares to ask whether it’s possible to understand the minds of serial killers, and ultimately to forgive them.
- November 2015
- November 2015
'Who gives a fuck about my insides? Can have a gut full of maggots for all I care, so long as I've got a suntan.'
The eternal tock of the clock is stopped. Lipsticked lips wrinkle and dry. Birds fall and rot and are stuffed and sold in antique shops. And every year, Cougar Glass turns nineteen.
In a dilapidated flat above an abandoned factory in East London, Cougar Glass is preparing for another vodka-soaked, cigarette-smoked celebration. Captain Tock hovers around the exquisite Cougar; plucking his grey hairs, cursing the shrieking birds, craving Cougar’s attention. But Cougar can only think about youth. Cougar is thinking about Foxtrot Darling, a teenager with fragile good looks, who is soon to arrive with his pregnant fiancée - Sherbet Gravel.
Darkly humorous, enthrallingly absurd and unforgivably frank, ‘The Fastest Clock in the Universe’ addresses the ache of ageing, and the destructive potential of our quest for eternal youth.
- November 2015
It's midnight on the Dartford Crossing. Roland settles in for another thrilling night supervising the toll-bridge machines; Andrea's pretty sure she's come to kill herself.
Two strangers on a bridge in the dead of night, a game of dominoes and a value ready meal- Neither of them wants to be there. Both think the other's crazy.
Still, it's nice to have the company.
Free Fall provides a gripping, provocative and darkly humorous insight into desperation, hope and human nature in the modern world.
- November 2015
'I heard y'all talkin' about killin' Momma. I think it's a good idea.'
Dallas, Texas. The Smiths are just like any other American family. 6 grand in debt to drug barons, they hire 'Killer' Joe Cooper, a detective-cum-contract-killer, to murder their estranged matriarch for her sizeable life insurance policy. When Joe demands a rather unusual retainer for his services, a simple plan spirals dangerously out of control.
Explosive, gory and darkly funny, this Southern Gothic pulp classic by Pulitzer Prize winning author Tracy Letts (Bug, August Osage County) has been causing controversy, on stage and screen, since it premiered in 1993.
- October 2015
From the team that brought you the sell out hypnotism show last year, we present The Hypnotist: Séance.
The Corpus Playroom has been transformed into a bridge to the spiritual world, through which the audience can interact with the dead, via The Hypnotist.
Prepare to see, hear and feel the dead in this brand new hypnotism show.
Volunteers, who must be aged 18 or over, can refuse at any point
to continue taking part in the performance.
- October 2015
‘What if our aloneness isn’t a tragedy? What if our aloneness is what allows us to speak the truth without being afraid? What if our aloneness is what allows us to adventure – to experience the world as a dynamic presence – as a changeable interactive thing?’
Why did a 23-year-old woman leave her comfortable American life to stand between a bulldozer and a Palestinian home? This one-person, verbatim play tells the story of Rachel Corrie’s short life and sudden death, from the words she left behind.
The play is by arrangement with Nick Hern Books.
- October 2015
‘That was the trouble with Elyot and me, we were like two violent acids bubbling about in a nasty little matrimonial bottle’
Private Lives is a thrilling and witty comedy not to be missed. A divorced couple, Elyot and Amanda, are each on honeymoon with their new spouses, Sybil and Victor. When Elyot and Amanda notice they are honeymooning in adjacent apartments, they realise that they still love each other and decide to run away together. Initially their affair seems to be going well, but with wits as strong as theirs arguments quickly ensue. It is only a matter of time before Sybil and Victor turn up..
- October 2015
The Drury Lane Theatre, after-hours, 1828. Six years after the death of Percy Bysshe Shelley, Mary Shelley and her stepsister Claire - ersatz lover of Lord Byron - reunite in an attempt to salvage their poets' dwindling reputations. Mary has written the truth about their history, and now Claire wants to stage it, perform between them the story of Byron and Shelley. And so, with all due fear, self-indulgence, and dramaturgical fiasco, they begin to do just that.
- October 2015
Toucans are members of the family Ramphastidae of near passerine birds from the Neotropics. They are brightly marked and have large, often colourful bills. The name of this bird group is derived from the Tupi word tukana. Toucans are usually found in pairs or small flocks. They sometimes fence with their bills and wrestle, which scientists hypothesize they do to establish dominance hierarchies. A toucan's tongue is long (up to 14–15 cm) adding to its sensitivity as an organ of taste. The colourful and large bill, which in some large species measures more than half the length of the body, is the hallmark of toucans. Despite its size, the toucan's bill is very light, being composed of bone struts filled with spongy tissue of keratin between them. The bill has forward-facing serrations resembling teeth, which historically led naturalists to believe that toucans captured fish and were primarily carnivorous; today it is known that they eat mostly fruit.
“Toucan” is a world within your imagination.
A new sketch show from Footlights Guy, Sam, Jordan and Theo, who have collectively brought you Cirque De L'Extaordinaire, Pelican, Beluga, Hippo Concerto, Dystopia: The Musical, STIFF! (The Footlights Harry Porter Prize WInner 2014), Amygdala Wonderland, Sunset Eternal, The Marlowe Showcase, The Double, Laughing Fitz, numerous Footlights smokers, and many more.
Previous praise:
Varsity - "Highly original and truly hilarious"
The Tab - "The epitome of bizarre hilarity and joyous absurdity"
TCS - "Has half the audience dancing and the rest laughing"
- October 2015
When one man goes to war he leaves the city, his wife and brother. A year later only the wife and brother remain.
Christopher Shinn's new play asks what happens when people and events apparently thousands of miles away affect the heart and soul of a city.
“A political play and also a psychodrama about what Arthur Miller called the politics of the soul… The finest new American play I’ve seen in a long while” - New York Observer
- September–October 2015
For the ninth consecutive year the Pembroke Players Japan Tour will once again be be visiting Tokyo and Yokohama with a company of some of Cambridge’s finest actors, directors, and technical crew, to perform a Shakespeare play and give educational workshops in schools, theatres and universities.
‘They say this town is full of cozenage…’
Ephesus and Syracuse are in conflict. Any Syracusan found in Ephesus — a city known for disguise, deceit and sorcery — will be condemned to death.
One pair of twin brothers (both called Antipholus), and one pair of twin servants (both called Dromio) are separated at birth. When one Antipholus and one Dromio, both of Syracuse, arrive in Ephesus, they are thrown into a heady mixture of confusion and chaos: soon realising that in this city, things are definitely not all they seem.
'What error drives our eyes and ears amiss?'
Prepare for an intoxicating, entrancing Comedy of Errors, with live music and a stylish aesthetic inspired by Highsmith and Hitchcock. Enter a world of souks and bazaars, shady merchants, and figures hiding beneath wide-brimmed fedoras, a whirlwind of violent cross-purposes and social disarray, where the consequences of one’s mistakes may prove very dangerous.
‘I’ll say as they say and persever so, / And in this mist at all adventures go.’
