A veritable of who’s who in British theatre set for Cambridge Arts Theatre this year

Cambridge Arts 2016 (Image: Archant)

In February, Britain’s most performed living playwright, Alan Ayckbourn has a double bill of plays written 40 years apart. Ayckbourn classic, Confusions is matched with the world premiere of his 79th play, Hero’s Welcome.

In March, the big names include Olivier Award winner Matthew Kelly in Toast, written by Richard Bean who wrote One Man Two Governors, one of the funniest plays on the West End stage ever.

The same month, Martin Shaw and Christopher Timothy star in Hobson’s Choice. Stars of EastEnders, Shane Richie and Jessie Wallace perform together on stage in Peter James’s The Perfect Murder.

It should be killing. And we have The Herbal Bed, a play about Shakespeare’s daughter, Susannah based on real events in the summer of 1613 when she was accused of adultery. The play was written for the Royal Shakespeare Company by Peter Whelan.

Cambridge Arts 2016 (Image: Archant)

In April, Of Mice and Men, the play based on John Steinbeck’s novel, stars Dudley Sutton (known for his role in Lovejoy) as Candy.

In May, there is the Olivier Award winning production of the children’s play Goodnight Mister Tom. English Touring Theatre present the world premiere of their adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited and we see Clybourne Park, a satire on race and real estate set in a fictional neighbourhood of Chicago.

In June, Michael Pennington stars in King Lear.

There are musical delights too, in February the West End production of Show Stopper, the Improvised Musical arrives after eight summers on the Edinburgh Fringe and a run at London’s Apollo.

The stunning and acclaimed English Touring Opera return in April with three operas: Mozart’s Don Giovanni, Gluck’s Iphiegénie en Tauride and Donizetti’s Pia de’ Tolomei and, also in April, there is Sasha Regan’s all male version of Gilbert and Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore – and Gareth Gates and Maureen Nolan in Footloose The Musical.What more could you want, but there is more, including Measure for Measure by Cambridge University’s Marlowe Society in February, The Gruffalo’s Child in March, Noel Coward’s Present Laughter in July, on its way to the West End, and The 39 Steps which seems to have become an annual event.

The one-nighters include An Evening of Murder with television historian Lucy Worsley, the Cambridge Footlights (both in February) and Ken Dodd’s Happiness Show in May, which sold out last time he was at the Arts in 2006. He fires off non-stop jokes like a machine gun. Take a deep breath before his show, there might not be time once it starts.

See: www.cambridgeartstheatre.com or call 01223-503333.