Despite the oncoming exams, this term promises a huge variety of exciting student theatre. An eclectic assortment, ranging from May Week Shakespeare to jazz-influenced Marlowe to late night stand up, Varsity Theatre picks our highlights for the term ahead. 

Week 1 - Saint Joan at the ADC Theatre. The production team describe it as 'a cerebral tragedy of faith and power,' this period adaptation of George Bernard Shaw's 1923 play 'gets to the heart of what makes Joan such a world-changing figure'. 

Week 2 – The Revlon Girl at the ADC Theatre. Last term our reviewer gave this Brickhouse Production 5 stars and praised the cast for their “subtlety and gentleness”. Director Geraint Owen says it is the only play that has ever made him cry from the page, staging a true story from eight months after the Aberfan disaster that became a hugely significant event in Wales’ cultural history. The play dramatises a meeting between the bereaved mothers of the village and a representative from Revlon.

Week 3 - Market Magic: Footlights Harry Porter Prize 2019 at the ADC Theatre Late. Chosen by famous funny-person Alex Horne as the winner of the Footlights’ Harry Porter Prize 2019, Market Magic, written by Jamie Hancock, promises to take customer service where no comedy has before. For Ali, what begins as just another late-night shift in a low-end supermarket turns into an absurd and unsettling journey through a strangely familiar new world. Warning: this product contains sneering self-checkouts, consumerist creatures, conniving councils, and clandestine conspiracies. Consume at your own risk.

Week 4 - Doctor Faustus at the Corpus Playroom and FootDarks (ADC Late). Doctor Faustus, directed by Atlanta Hatch, adapts Christopher Marlowe's Renaissance play for the Corpus stage. Drawing on the well-known myth of the man who sold his soul to the Devil, this new production features original music and jazz choreography. FootDarks are three BME (they once heard “alt-white”) stand-ups from the Footlights. Find out why Danny Baalbaki believes white people prefer their dogs over their children, how some people at Patrick Sylla's college became anxious about offering him fruit, and what Hasan Al-Habib has in common with Tommy Robinson.

Week 7 - The Footlights International Tour has their opening run at the ADC - Last year's tour travelled to London, Edinburgh, California, Boston, Chicago, New York, Cambridge, and many more. This is the latest on offer from the group that launched many of the greatest names in British comedy, including Stephen Fry, Emma Thompson, Hugh Laurie, Mel Giedroyc, Sue Perkins, John Cleese, David Mitchell, Robert Webb, Richard Ayoade, and Olivia Colman. 

May Week - Once exams are out of the way, the theatre scene is fully saturated! As You Like It, Twelfth Night, La Naissance d’Osiris, Volpone, A Woman of No Importance, college theatrical societies present their usual varied mélange of May Week theatre. Typically outdoors, these classic plays are usually put together post exams and provide an injection of culture into the ‘debauchery’ of May Week! Whether Shakespeare and his contemporaries, some witty Wildean wonders, or some pastoral opera on the banks of the Cam, this year’s May Week productions will be something to look forward to at the end of a busy academic year.