Theatre Guide Dog: Week 2

Jailbreak = easy. BA had a spare dog-seat to Sydney, and were only too happy to be of service to their favourite sarky canine. All sponsorship money to the TPR Foundation for fostering exceptional egos. While you bask in my glory and I bask in the sunshine, here’s the week’s theatre:

Much Ado About Nothing 1st-5th February

Expensive for a reason. Big budgets and lots of rehearsal time don’t automatically make things good, but they help. A lot. For reasons why this will probably be very good, see my interview with director Carl Heap. This man can make six-year-olds like Shakespeare, so not enjoying it may be more of a reflection on you than the production.

Cambridge Arts Theatre at 7.30,  £15-25

Spring Awakening 1st-5th February

Unlike last week’s lack-luster (pun not typo) Pornography, this play does have sex in it. And rock music. Maybe drugs too. If you’re too high-brow to be enticed by such a generic triptych, it may interest you to know that this re-imagining of an oft-censored German play from the 1890s won oodles of awards (Olivier, Tony, Grammy) and ran on Broadway and the West End. So pretend you’re going for that instead of sex.

ADC at 7.45,  £8-12

The Pin 2nd-5th February

In a sort of precursor to the Spring Revue, here’s some three-way sketch comedy from Ben Ashenden, Alex Owen and Mark Fiddaman. Given that they’re involved in almost every Footlights thing ever (fig.A; fig.B; fig.C), claims to “comedic innovation” and hopes that “you won’t see anything like this in Cambridge” will be hard to deliver on – but all the better if they manage.

ADC at 11,  £4-6

The One Woman Plays 1st-5th February

Monologues aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but this series of them offers nine wide-ranging stories which might do well in the ever ‘intimate’ Corpus Playrooms. Ideal for those who don’t like concentrating on more than one character at once. Or men.

Corpus at 7,  £5-6

Dead Air 1st-5th February

Writer/Director Mark Christie, of Ecclesiastical Perks fame, strikes again. I can’t help but be a tad suspicious of black comedy in new writing – can a Cambridge student really be tortured and jaded enough to do it right? While I don’t wish any suffering on the guy, I kinda hope so.

Corpus at 9.30,  £5-6

Footlights Smoker 1st February

The Footlights do some jokes for about an hour. If you haven’t got a ticket, this is useless information because it’s already sold out, like always. If you do have a ticket, this is also useless information because you probably know what you bought.

ADC at 11,  £6-7 (if it weren’t sold out)

Corpus Smoker 31st January

Has an immediate advantage over the Footlights smoker insofar as there are still tickets. Join Pierre the compère for an assortment of comedy from people pointedly not at the ADC Theatre.

Corpus at 9.30,  £5-6

Totally Tom 3rd February

The people behind High Renaissance Man, the try-hard redbrick cousin of Gap Yah- they have a lot of YouTube hits, and given the high calibre of viewer who frequents that website (almost as noble and respectable as our own commenters), this must constitute a recommendation.

Howard Theatre – Downing at 7.30,  £6-7