Drama

For those with the desire to warm their literary bones before term starts, the Cambridge American Stage Tour 2016 performance of As You Like It gets the ball rolling at the ADC. If that doesn’t fill your boots, splash out on a ticket to what promises to be a provocative performance of Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme at the Cambridge Arts Theatre. Week one sees a treat for fans of all things Greek. Not only will Euripides’ tantalising Medea be performed at the Corpus Playroom, the Cambridge Arts Theatre also sees the return of the annual Cambridge Greek Play, a comedy/tragedy double bill of Antigone/Lysistrata. If that’s all Greek to you then seek refuge at the ADC to see Cambridge students acting as actors discussing Oxford students in Alan Bennett’s The Habit of Art.

From a play about Oxford to a play about Oxford, week two comes with a slap in our smug Oxbridge faces in the form of Laura Wade’s Posh at the Playroom. The play that inspired the 2014 film The Riot Club is sure to leave unsuspecting freshers terrified at public perceptions of their new world, and to remind wisened finalists of the crushing disappointment that to “carpe some f***ing diem” for most of us involves less champagne-fuelled debauchery and more finishing a whole packet of Sainsbury’s chocolate digestives in one sitting. For something less uncomfortably close to home, the ADC offers Caravan. And for something even further from home, head out to Anglia Ruskin University’s Mumford Theatre, where party politics meets Samuel Beckett in Tony’s Last Tape, based on the diaries of the late Labour politician Tony Benn.

The middle of term, as always, comes with some intense drama. Weeks three and four take us on a turbulent ride through 20th-century China in Teahouse, seducing us with the darkly funny love story Blink, and mystifying us with e x i l e. Week five follows up with classics like The Duchess of Malfi at the ADC and A View From the Bridge at Pembroke New Cellars, as well as tempting the week five fates with I have lost myself at the Playroom. The Cambridge Arts Theatre becomes a literary haven in weeks six and seven with adaptations of E.M. Forster’s A Room With a View and D.H. Lawrence’s notoriously steamy Lady Chatterly’s Lover. Take a trip to the ADC for Bed (a theatrical recreation of Kanye West’s ‘Famous’ I think not) or for a night of labial truth from The Vagina Monologues. The Corpus Playroom gives us a play on an outcast man who escapes to war in Britannia Waves the Rules; another on one gargantuan struggle of a female journalist unable to escape the perils of male dominated business in Right Place Wrong Time; and a third, inspired by a true story, of one man’s confusion with culture, gender and sexuality in M. Butterfly.

This term’s drama wraps up with illicit sex (Love in a Maze, ADC), an unexplained arrest (Joseph K, Corpus Playroom), a funeral (Lily, Corpus Playroom) and the birth of a monster (Frankenstein, Mumford Theatre) – an apt ending to the first act of this academic year.

Comedy

Our first chuckle of the year comes in the form of Lagoon: The Footlight’s International Tour Show 2016. After receiving four stars from Varsity during its Easter run, this sketch show provides a jolly welcome for the new cohort of freshers.

The beginning of term has a variety of performances to wet your comedic appetite. If it’s one-woman shows that tickle your taste buds, you can start with Pinefish, Corpus Playroom’s offering in week one. If panel shows are more to your liking, the second course of Have I Got to Mock the Buzzcocks Ja Vu at the ADC is the order of the day. Yo Ho Ho – an Improv Show at Corpus Playroom in week three is recommended for those with a stomach for surprise. For something not on the main menu, head down to Pembroke New Cellars for Fanfiction: A Sketch Show or to the Howard Theatre at Downing College for The Art of Coarse Acting.

In week four the ADC gives us a double bill of comedy: Diphthong, for some phonetic fun, and Dropouts!; it’ll take more than an exclamation mark to trick us into being excited. There’s plenty more to curb the mid-term blues, including Comedy Weakly at the ADC (an inevitable return to the punny self-mocking show name), Milk Teeth at Corpus Playroom and 88mph: A Time Travel Sketch Show at Pembroke New Cellars.

In case there’s anyone left in Cambridge with the stomach for more, the end of term gives us two more sketch shows at the ADC: Crazy Walls: A Sketchy Show and The 23-Hour Sketch Show Bonanza.

Michaelmas is also littered with resident sketch shows: Footlights’ Smokers, Corpus Smokers and Impronauts shows which, although they can be hit-and-miss on the laughs, always provide a better evening than a date with your favourite library spot.

Something else

Musicals

The big musical of Michaelmas Term is Little Shop of Horrors, the week four main show at the ADC, because who couldn’t do with more horror-comedy-rock-musicals in their life? The Last Five Years (week one, ADC) invites us to explore the highs and lows of romance through song, or check out Andrew Lloyd Webber’s classic tale of fall and redemption, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (Robinson College Auditorium, week seven). For something more experimental, the operatic poetry of Scenes From a Void promises to be interesting. If opera is what you live for, there will be performances of Dido and Aeneas at Sidney Sussex College Chapel (week three) and The Descent of Orpheus into the Underworld at The Round Church (week six).

Film

Michaelmas comes with the much awaited second instalment of Cambridge Shorts, the newest platform for budding filmmakers to showcase their talent. Saunter down to the ADC on the 18th of October to take a break from pretentious student theatre for some pretentious student film (I kid).

Who knows?

For a little bit of everything, don’t miss Smorgasbord at the Corpus Playroom in week three. The evening will be a mix of experimental new writing and primitive snippets of future shows – get writing and your work could be featured. The 24-Hour Plays also rears its ugly head at the end of term: a creative eruption, not for the faint-hearted but sure to be good fun.