Theatre Guide Dog: Week 5

It’s week five. Are you sad? The Guide-Dog is never sad, only sarcastic. I’ve dressed up as a clown for you, theatre people, so that you will be sad no more. Clowns are actors too. If you don’t like clowns, scroll down and read about this week’s shows instead – I cater for all your needs.

Posh 22nd-26th February

This Oxbridge-related play opened in London last year, and has made its inexorable passage to the ADC. The fading-glory-story of a fictionalised dining club; its posh-boy paradigms are probably not something Cambridge actors will struggle with. If you’re not in the Pitt Club but want to be able to pretend more convincingly to folks back home that you are, here’s where to get your inspiration.

ADC at 7.45  £6-10

The Duchess of Malfi 24th-26th February

Everyone loves a good Renaissance Revenge Tragedy. This is a definitely a Renaissance Revenge Tragedy, and it may be good as well. There’s never been a not-funny play at the Howard Theatre before – in a week’s time this will (hopefully) no longer be the case.

Howard Theatre – Downing at 7.30  £4-5

Margot de Sade 22nd-26th February

Underpinned by a very elaborate fiction, let down only by a moonfruit fansite, this show purports to be the final leg of the farewell tour of a burnt-out entertainment icon from yesteryear America. Effectively the play has already started, but you do have to pay for the most interesting bit: a cabaret-cum-confessional inside the loving four walls of the playrooms.

Corpus at 7.30  £5-6

Jacques and His Master 23rd-26th February

Czech award-winner Milan Kundera, conveyed through the venerable medium of a Simon Callow translation. The pair of eponyms evocatively reminisce while wrestling with their playwright in a way which rises above cheesy metatheatre. The Wikipedia article considers the ADC run a ‘notable production’, and you believe everything else that Wikipedia says, don’t you?

UPDATE: apparently it isn’t notable any more. Wikipedia is an inconstant mistress.

ADC at 11  £4-6

Some Explicit Polaroids 22nd-26th February

A less subtle member of the same school as Pornography, this play has actual sex scenes. And drugs and rentboys from the internet. Set in the dusky past of 1999, it follows the release of a political activist after 15 years in prison and his understandable despair at rejoining a world in which Boyzone are at the top of the charts.

Corpus at 9.30  £5-6

Prometheus Bound/Unbound 23rd-24th February

Aeschylus’ Promethean tragedy in surtitled Classical Greek followed by Shelley’s in good old English. Not for the faint of mind, this is a ‘semi-staging’, or rather a dramatic back-to-back reading of the abridged and complementary texts. There’s specially-written music to accompany too. Imagine a much less sexed-up Agamemnon and you’re probably thinking along the right tracks with your thought-train.

Queen’s Theatre – Emmanuel at 7.15  Free

Memory of Water 23rd-25th Frebruary

It was on at Corpus last term and was apparently very good. That said, the two productions are in no way linked (except by the script…), so there are reservations to my recommendation. It has the advantage of being free but the disadvantage of being far away. Unless you’re already conveniently-located at Homerton, in which case you might as well go for the craic.

Small Studio – Homerton at 6  Free

Wolfson Howler 21st February

The invincible juggernaut of Cambridge comedy. Headliner Nick Helm has a worrying tendency to thrust his not-insubstantial crotch in time with his punchlines, so it might be worth avoiding the front row; but once you’re at a safe distance there’s lots to enjoy. Also to be reckoned is the Return of Ed Gamble.

Wolfson Bar at 8  £5