Theatre Guide Dog: Week 3

Let me tell you about my ol’Dad, Rex. Fated by the Olympian Dogs to do TERRIBLE THINGS to his own family, he ran away from home and, after a trifling murder, made a new life for himself: wife, kids, adoring Theban populace – the whole shebang. Unfortunately, it later transpired that the dog he killed was his Dad, his wife had been his mother and my brothers, sister and I were drawing nest-shaped loops in the family tree. Being dogs, however, none of us have ever had any concept of sexual taboo, so we just got on with life and everything’s completely fine.

Antigone – 25th-29th

Live music! Physical theatre! Inbreeding! The ADC gets tragic this week, just at the point where Part II English students start to crave some Aristophanes. Maybe crave is putting it a bit strongly actually. Worth a look to see what ‘a new version by Simon Haines and Richard Keith’ can offer.

ADC, 7.45pm, 2.30pm matinee on the 29th, £6-10

The Real Thing – 25th-29th

I was getting a bit sick of all the emails asking, no begging, me to find out when we could FINALLY get some Tom Stoppard put on in Cambridge so I went to see a dog about a man, pointed out it had been a matter of months since Arcadia et voila: messieur-dames, the week three Corpus mainshow. It’s about a playwright and love and language and all the signs for a decent production look good, so if you care about any of these things then you should probably go.

Corpus Playroom, 7pm, £5-6

Art – 25th-29th

The Pembroke Players  get about a bit, but this week they’re making use of the under-appreciated (if a bit stuffy) Pembroke New Cellars to put on a play about either Art, or the lack of it, or maybe about friendship – the publicity had a lot of ‘concepts’. It sounds like it’s pitching itself towards a heart-warming-examination-of-modern-relationships-through-the-analytical-prism-of-a-cultural-format angle (you know the kind of thing I mean), so expect moments of tension and difficulty and maybe some man hugs.

Pembroke New Cellars, 7pm, £5-6

The Orphanarium of Erthing Worthing – 26th-29th

Continuing the theme of familial-dysfunction at the ADC this week (and yes, I’m talking about the plays hur hur), this is some eccentric-looking new writing about the trials and tribulations of orphandom. The script’s been written by funny people too, so it should be a fairly upbeat treatment of the topic of very lonely children.

ADC, 11pm, £4-6

Plank – 25th-29th

This is a comedy that makes a virtue out of not having anything to say, which can only really mean one thing: Harry Michell has devised a piece of silent physical theatre that reveals, hilariously, the innate ridiculousness of ever eating a panini, nevermind being plagued by doubt over whether you should have done something disgusting to a sandwich in the middle of Neros instead. Or maybe it’s very dialogue heavy and set in a coffee-shop, I’m sorry reader, but I just don’t know. Either of these options will probably yield up a decent amount of laughs though.

Corpus Playroom, 9pm, £5-6