The lawns of Cambridge become a stage this month when the annual Shakespeare Festival returns from 8 July to 24 August. Taking place in some of Cambridge University’s most beautiful college gardens, the festival has been enthralling audiences with timeless tales of romance, tragedy and farce for more than 30 years.
Described by The Times as serving up a “tour de force of Elizabethan drama”, the programme sees four plays running from 8 to 27 July, before the programme switches with four new offerings during late July and August.
Act one sees Cambridge Shakespeare Festival favourite A Midsummer Night’s Dream bring fairies, forests, magic and mysticism to St John’s College, while A Winter’s Tale serves a cold slice of suspicion and obsession (and a bear) at Downing College.
We meet up with Falstaff and the rest of the gang in Henry IV Part 1 at Robinson College, while Hamlet’s spiral of self-torment and madness will play out against the really rather lovely backdrop of King’s College’s gardens. Up for round two, which begins on 29 July, will be The Tempest (Trinity College), Much Ado About Nothing (St John’s), Henry IV Part 2 (Robinson College), and As You Like It (King’s College).
Adult tickets are £17.
