Lottie Unwin: Drama Queen

Ta-ble? Home? O-ven? Par-ents? What are these alien words?  The comforts of that place from which I was transported exist only as sketchy memories, exchanged for a blur of hermes, bikes and long hours in a big cold room listening to someone talk.  I begin to see how God could have made the world in seven days – having squashed so much theatre, drinking, small talk, late night philosophy and a bit of work into this week there seems ample time to have done some creating.

If you didn’t get tickets sorted for the complete sellout of Midsummer Night’s Dream this week then curse yourself for disorganisation and if you made it to the Mumford’s Camino Real you would have already suffered enough for being so super human, so I’ll let you off.

This week the line up is as follows:

Magpie & Stump Comedy – 9.30 – Sunday 17th January (yes tonight) at The Winstanley Lecture Theatre, Trinity College. Free.

Featuring The Tab’s very own film critic extraordinaire Rob Young in a show without a price tag is an opportunity, which should be snatched up.  And I am not at all biased.

Wolfson Howler – 8.00 – Monday 18th at Wolfson College. £5. Free for Wolfsonites.

Headlining Chris Addison, as in the one from The Thick of It, I have high expectations that this will be the crowning glory of a long weekend of comedy for any of you that made it down to Friday night’s Velvet Onion Comedy Club.

An Audience With Sally Morgan – 7.30, Monday 18th at The Corn Exchange, £19.50

‘Sally's psychic power has been with her since she was nine months old and she is now rated as one of the world' top mediums.’  Now she has her own show on Living so it must be true.  On her website it’s quoted that Princess Diana said ‘Thank you forever grateful’, apparently so inspired she lost the ability to punctuate.   I can’t wait.

Signatures – 7.45 – Tuesday 19th – Saturday 24th at the ADC.  £6-9.

The Cambridge Contemporary Dance Society Workshop show us their stuff, demonstrating that “Every dance form has its own signature and every signature is itself unique”.  It sounds very pretentious, but I concede I resent dancers because they can do something I can’t, and that I am just being childish.

Cheese Badger and Other Stories – 11.00 on Tuesday 19th and 5.00 on Saturday 23rd at ADC.  £5.

Hang on – the comedy continues and though I am doubtful a Cheese Badger – if it is an object or concept – can rival Chris Addison, my over active imagination does revel in the prospect of a ‘sketch show that towers above Cambridge like some sort of humorous Godzilla’, leaning sinisterly over Kings’ College Chapel.

Doctor Faustus – 7.45 Tuesday 19th – Sunday 24th at St. Peter’s Church, Kettle’s Yard.  £5-6.

Director Rory Atwood promises a ‘nauseously comic production exploring the boundaries between art and theatre, faith and madness, knowledge and despair’, so even with the dark tale of Doctor Faustus there is no escaping Week 1’s humorous tone.  The professional company is lead by Tab Reviewer Ben Blyth as Faustus, the man himself, so show your loyalty.

Be My Baby – 11.00 – Wednesday 20th to Saturday 23rd at ADC. £4-6.

Rebecca Hutchinson’s production sounds like a really good TV drama with its tales of a girl getting pregnant and her subsequent struggles to keep the baby.  ‘Set to the irresistible music of the 1960s’, it does resemble an amalgamation of What’s Wrong With Angry and Valued Friends that I saw last term, but it’s territory I am excited is still in Cambridge fashion.

John Humphrys on Friday 22nd and Germaine Greer on Saturday 23rd, both at 7.45 at The Cambridge Arts Theatre.  Tickets start at £10.

The place to go for some seriously intellectual ‘chat’ from the man described by the theatre as ‘a byword for combative interviewing’ and the groundbreaking publisher and feminist icon.

Check out Rob Smith’s Culture Vulture to see what else is on this week.