Hotbed 2009

The Cambridge new writing festival presented by The Junction in association with Menagerie runs this year from 25 June until 4 July. It’s part of the Escalator initiative from the Arts Council. There are full-length plays, one-act plays, readings, works in progress, two cabaret evenings and six guest productions, all crammed into ten days.

If you’re up for it, then you can see eight plays plus the final of the ever-popular One-Page-Play-Competition-Athon on Saturday 4 July. Otherwise, there’s Anna Reynolds’ Stand by Your Van on 25 and 26 June and also on 1 and 2 July. The one-act plays are Flick to Kick by Judy Upton and Matt Merritt on 27 and 28 June and 4 July, Richard Fredman’s Four for Jericho on 28 and 29 June and also on 4 July and At Sea by Clare Bayley on 29 and 30 June and 4 July.

The three new full-length pieces presented as script-in-hand performances begin with Events from a Forgotten War by Fraser Grace. This is inspired by the writings of the murdered Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya and plays on 27 June, 1 July and 4 July. Egusi Soup is a début play by Menagerie associate Janice Okoh on 3 and 4 July. Alison Faulkner is also a new writer; her theme in Prosperity 3 concerns rig workers in the Nigerian oilfields.

Guest productions this year are Our Share of Tomorrow from Real Circumstancea and Helen Mori’s A Pint for the Ghost both on 27 June, The Captain of the Football Team by Kenneth Emson on 1 July, Jeremy Hardingham’s Wittgenstein’s Face on 2 July, A Stroke of Genius from the PIT ensemble and Tasseomancy from Small Change both on 4 July.