Little Show Peep: Week 7

TRY! TRY! (And other plays) – Monday 19^th November

In Episode 1, Season 2 of Mad Men, Don Draper reads a poem by Frank O’Hara. In Term 1, Week 7 of this year, a small group of Cantabs put on a selection of short plays by the very same man. O’Hara wrote in the exuberant setting of 1950s New York. His plays are poetic, intellectual, comic, and seldom performed. Most definitely worth a Try! Try!

Corpus, 9.30pm

THAT FACE – 20^th November – Saturday 24^th November

Polly Stenham was not only nineteen when she wrote this multi award winning play. Mia is experiencing the brutal world of boarding school. But back at home, where her alcoholic mother and her drop out brother live, it’s no less uncomfortable. Harrowing? Yes. It’s also meant to be brilliant.

Corpus Playroom, 7pm, £5/6

BURLESQUE! – Tue 20 – Sat 24 November

More exclamation marks! Burlesque! begs you to join it for ‘a dizzing romp through musical numbers, sketch comedy and interactive cabaret’. There’ll be plenty of music, plenty of satire, – its star is called Ryvita von Teese – and, hopefully, plenty of fun. With Jeff Carpenter as musical director, it probably can’t go far wrong.

Corpus, 9.30pm

FOOTLIGHTS PANTOMIME 2012: THE SNOW QUEEN

ADC, 7.45pm

It’s time, sheep, for the Footlights Pantomime. Gerda and Kay have a mission: to save the town of Achoo from being permanently frozen over. But they’ve got to outwit the Snow Queen first. And I’m not just talking about your average Snow Queen, but ‘the nastiest, pastiest, sassiest Snow Queen ever to have cursed Scandinavia’. Pasty and sassy is an unusual combination. Pantomimes and fun, however, isn’t. Flock along.

IF YOU PLEASE – Thu 22 – Sat 24 November

Breton and Soupault are predictably unpredictable in this classic piece of French surrealist theatre. Taking popular genres and their correspondingly familiar speeches, they lull us into a sense of security only to jolt us out of it at the last minute by turning convention on its head. So when one character says, ‘I love you’, the other replies, ‘a cloud of milk in a cup of tea.’ Crazy!

ADC, 11pm, £6/£5

THE PILLOWMAN – Thu 22 – Sat 24 November

Martin McDonagh’s multi-award winning play centres Katurian Katurian, a writer who, for the duration of the play, is interrogated by policemen Tupolski and Ariel about the contents of his short stories. It’s dark.

Cripps Auditorian, Magdalene, 7.30pm, £5

WARD OF THE RINGS – Tue 20-Sat 24 November

The twenty-first Addenbrooke’s annual panto, which combines Lord of the Rings, an NHS hospital, and ‘irreverent and topical humour’. It’s also in aid of the Rosie Hospital Campaign, the East Anglia’s Children’s Hospices and the Addenbrooke’s dementia and delirium service. It’s not that far away – flock to it.

Mumford Theatre, Anglia Ruskin, 7.30pm, £6/10