Theatre Guide Dog: May Week 2011

Just like Theatre, May Week is pretending. Pretending you love oysters and chocolate fountains and miscellaneous DJ act du jour. Pretending your feet don’t hurt. Pretending that one night, half of which was spent queueing, justifies the £120 hole in your bank account. So why not do an honest thing for once and see some theatre? At least that doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not.

Pretty Little Panic 20th-25th June (except 19th)

The Footlights’ finest’s finest. Be a guinea-pig audience while they work out what is and isn’t funny for the benefit of Americans.

READ The Tab’s review HERE

ADC Theatre at 8pm  £5-8

Rhinoceros 20th-21st June

Every character in this play except one turns into a rhinoceros. If that fact puts you off, nothing will redeem it. If it interests you, little will be capable of ruining it.

Pembroke College Red Lawns at 2pm  £5

Paradise Lost 21st-23rd June

The best non-dramatic English poetry becomes drama after all. Promenade production drawing on the already-strong associations of Sidney Bar with Hell.

Sidney Sussex College at 1pm  £5

High Society 21st-23rd June

Posh socialites swan around in black tie making a show of enjoying themselves – like walking down King’s Parade at 6am in May Week except with song instead of vom.

Emmanuel College Fellows’ Garden at 2.30pm  £6-8

And Then There Were None 21st-23rd June

If you want to spend May Week with Agatha Christie, you deserve this show and it deserves you. In light of this amicable exchange, admission is free.

Gonville and Caius College at 2pm  FREE

Not About Angels 22nd-25th June

For some reason Imogen Stubbs is premièring her new play at the ADC. Go out of curiosity, go because it has more chance than most things of restoring your faith in new writing.

ADC Theatre at 10pm  £4-6

Antony and Cleopatra 23rd-24th June

The Movement being clever with Shakespeare being clever. Rome becomes 1890s London and gets a gypsy little shock in the form of Cleopatra. Expect elegance and bile.

Downing College Howard Court at 3pm  £5-6

The School For Scandal 23rd-25th June

People wear silly hats and say silly (albeit witty) things. Has basically the same stuff in it as all the Restoration comedies.

Queens’ College Clositer Court at 4.30pm (2pm on 25th)  £5

The Proposal 23rd-25th June

Chekhout Chekhov’s least favourite farce. Just because he thought it was a “wretched, boring, vulgar little skit” doesn’t mean you will – your tastes are probably pretty different.

Round Church at 6pm  £3-12

The Bear 23rd-25th June

An operatic version of the above. You can tell a lot about a person by which of the two they choose.

Round Church at 8pm  £3-12

South Pacific 23rd-25th June

Churchill is to Cambridge what the South Pacific is to Europe – which makes this an apt choice. But if you can make the journey a pretty good musical awaits.

Churchill College Wolfson Hall at 4pm (6pm on 25th)  £6

Henna Night 23rd June

It’s about boyfriends and either hair-dye or suicide. Chicks, right?

St Chad’s Octagon (nr West Road) at 1.30pm and 5.30pm  £3-4

Lysistrata 24th-25th June

A 2500-year-old play about sex – so of course it’s still funny. By Aristophanes, the dirty old grandad of antiquity and only man who can get ‘cunt’ into a Penguin classic.

St. John’s College at 7.30pm  £5-6

HMS Pinafore on Punts 25th June

The type of ridiculous thing that ought to happen in May Week. The most entertaining thing that could happen is for the whole show to capsize, but even if it doesn’t the quaintness will carry it a good way – maybe to Grantchester.

St John’s College Riverside at 7.30pm  £5-7