Corpus Cashes In On Potter

Tradition, old halls, mystery and – most of all – gowns all mean it’s easy to draw parallels between Cambridge and the world of Harry Potter.

But one Cambridge College is taking this to shameless new lows: Corpus is set to offer ‘Harry Potter’ formals to the public, for a shocking £57.75.

Breaking with 650 years of tradition, Corpus will, from Michaelmas, open its doors to the paying public once a week for a 3 course meal and a short talk about the college.

The exorbitant fee is almost SEVEN TIMES the standard formal guest ticket at Corpus and nearing EIGHT TIMES the average Cambridge College formal ticket of £7.50.

According to Neal Robbins, one of the organizers of the so called ‘Supper Club’, guests will be treated to just ONE glass of wine in the college reception rooms before being ‘ushered’ into the main hall.

No one from the Corpus hierarchy was willing to talk to The Tab directly about the scheme.

However, current Corpus student Amrou Al-Kadhi told The Tab that the price “is absolutely absurd. I cannot believe that college would be so cheeky.”

The outrage is not based on price alone: the college has never before opened its Great Hall to non-University affiliated diners.

Robbins explained “To dine [in the hall], you normally had to be connected to the College – and even then you had to have rank and special access”.

The move comes as Cambridge faces severe cuts in the level of its government funding.

However, the Uni managed to raise £1bn in donations last year alone and was recently found to be Britain’s most wadded University.

But does generating funds mean scrapping tradition?

Corpus obviously think so.