Lottie Unwin: Drama Queen

How is it that I can feel it in my bones there is only a week left?  My diary requires serious daily liver damage until the startlingly blank next page, and I have just sent the first few texts announcing my return on the southwest London babysitting scene.  Also, where last week the program was hectic, it seems thesps too are scraping blu-tack off college walls and vaguely thinking about getting those books out of the library to carry to far off counties and then not get read. There’s not all that much going on.

Last week’s Tab skies were awash with stars, a huge number of shows picking up four.  With a whole term of potential for rehearsal perhaps the success is a testament to hard work and slave driving directors.  Or us reviewers are just knackered and feeling nice.

This week’s line up is as follows:

The History Boys – Monday 8th – Saturday 13th, 7.45 with 2.30 matinees on Thursday and Saturday at The Cambridge Arts Theatre.  £10-30.

I saw this in the National Theatre and it was brilliant.  If this is the only chance you will have to catch the tour, be there.

Julius Caesar – Monday 8th – Saturday 13th, 7.00 in the Fitzwilliam College Auditorium.  £4-6.

‘This production’ claims to be ‘best described as the lovechild of Rome and Alan Clark’s Diaries. Dressed in pinstripes, shoulder-pads and hair-gel, our senators show the one thing that’s timeless in politics is how nasty is is.’  Camdram spelling slip up aside, the edgy take is certainly brave and quite possibly foolish.

Wolfson Howler – Monday 8th, 8.00 in the Wolf and Stein Pub. £5.

Alun Cochrane, TV comic with an impressive list of appearances to his name, is headlining what is a consistently great evening.

Alfie – Monday 8th, 7.30 in The Mumford Theatre. £8-10.

‘Made famous by movies starring Michael Caine and more recently Jude Law, Alfie is the brilliant, original stage play about a young man with an overwhelming desire for the ladies.’  But, Jude Law won’t be in town and anything lesser heart-throb will be an anticlimax.

Annie Get Your Gun – Tuesday 9th – Saturday 20th, 7.45 with 2.30 matinees on Saturdays at The ADC. £6-10.

‘When Buffalo Bill’s ‘Wild West Show’ comes to town, Annie Oakley, an astonishing sharp-shooter, quickly falls in love with the show’s gun-toting star Frank Butler. But who is the finer shot? And will their rivalry shoot holes in their romance?’  I couldn’t care less, but with names as difficult to say in an English accent as Annie Oakley, singing and dancing, I am sure I will be persuaded.

She’s Not There – Tuesday 9th – Saturday 13th, 8.00 at The Corpus Playrooms. £5-6.

‘A psychological thriller to make your heart race and maybe stop’, which is the most fundamentally and obviously flawed advertising slogan I have ever encountered.  The ‘visceral experimental production’ promises to blur ‘the boundaries of what we consider to be theatre, undermines the myths surrounding celebrity, and questions what we call art.’  Consider it a last dose of the intellectual before daytime TV engulfs you over Easter.

Smoker – Tuesday 9th, 11.00 at The ADC. Sold Out.

Categorically useless information.

Charity Smoker – Wednesday 10th, 7.30 at Pembroke New Cellars. £4.

Wishing you’d bought tickets for The Smoker weeks ago?  Even if it’s only a bit funny, the proceeds go to Cusafe that raises funds for education in sub-Saharan Africa and that is admirable expenditure of both time and money.

Frozen – Wednesday 10th – Saturday 13th, 8.00 in Robinson College Auditorium. £4.

Yet another Week 8 serving of what could be really exciting writing.  In this case, ‘Ten year-old Rhona is abducted, abused, and murdered, resulting in the stagnation of the lives of three people connected to this crime. Yet the mother, the perpetrator, and the academic studying the criminal brain, eventually cross paths, culminating in a shocking confrontation.’  Hopefully a taster for the Bones marathon I am going to indulge in come Sunday.

Harry Porter Prize: The Hostage – Wednesday 10th-Saturday 13th at 11.00 in The ADC Theatre. £4-5.

Judged by Oscar nominated co-writer of Peep Show Jesse Armstrong, Keith Akushie’s winning play sounds like a bloody good idea.  Yes, ‘Making small talk can be hard enough’ and yes, it so would be ‘even worse’ if it was ‘with your own kidnapper.’  What hour-long comic potential.