Antony and Cleopatra
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
Content warning [May contain spoilers]
The 1930s are on fire; while Antony and Cleopatra ascend into fiery passion. War encroaches from who formerly held them dear.
Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, written in 1607, chronicles one of history’s most passionate and reckless love stories.
At face value, this dramatic tragedy traces the dichotomy between the triumvirate-ruled Rome and Ptolemaic Egypt. Yet, the parallels between Egypt and Rome are beyond geography and extend into the tensions between: love and sacrifice; hedonism and duty; affair and matrimony; myth and man.
The European Theatre Group 2026/27 production highlights the political aspects of the play by setting our production at the teetering edge of the Great Depression. Cleopatra’s kingdom becomes a self-indulgent moonshine-ridden dinner party that deals long card games and dances into the dusk of the Jazz Age. Rome is the domain of terse board meetings, senate hearings and frigid negotiations by those seeking to withhold financial and political systems from utter collapse. With a musical landscape that calls back to the 1920s and 1930s, we ask the question often left amiss in considerations of the play: How much can we defend in the name of love?
This production is suitable for ages 12 and over.
Depictions of:
abuse (physical), self-harm and/or other intentional self-injury (including suicide), death and/or dying, blood, war
References to:
some sexual activity
Brief mentions of:
discrimination and/or bigotry (racism, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia)
The ADC Theatre is Britain's oldest University playhouse, today administered and maintained by the University of Cambridge. Plays have been presented on the site since 1855, when the Cambridge University Amateur Dramatic Club (CUADC) was founded, and the society met and performed in the back room of the Hoop Inn, which stood almost exactly where the ADC Theatre stands today. Today, the ADC Theatre is the centre of University drama in Cambridge, run almost entirely by students with no Faculty involvement.
Access
When you arrive at the ADC Theatre, there are power assisted doors to the Box Office. In the foyer there is a lift which leads up to the bar and auditorium. The accessible toilet is located on the ground floor across the foyer. Further information can be found here.
If you are booking a wheelchair seat in the ADC auditorium for the first time, please call the Box Office on 01223 300085 or email access@adctheatre.com. We will then alter the permissions of your ADC account so that you can access the wheelchair seats on our website when you book in the future.
Complimentary tickets are available for full-time carers.
The ADC Theatre and Corpus Playroom is fitted with an infra-red audio system designed to help deaf and hard of hearing patrons. If you are using the system for the first time, please arrive early and seek advice from our Front of House team.
Assistance dogs are welcome in both of our venues. Please call the Box Office or email the above address when booking to ensure you are seated appropriately.
If you are travelling by car, you can use the Park Street car park (2 minute walk), the Grand Arcade car park (10 minute walk) or the Castle Hill car park (15 minute walk). You can find out more information here.