Look ahead and a little to your left; the Cambridge Arts Theatre is the building with the striking red and white frontage, and a row of posters placed along the ground-floor wall, inviting you to glance at the upcoming shows. Nestled among older, brown-bricked neighbours, its modest, almost understated entrance might make you think twice-but this is indeed one of Cambridge’s treasures. The busy tea shop next door and the winding street around you can make it easy to miss-so keep your eyes sharp for the splash of red that signals the stage door to a century of stories.
Imagine standing where you are now, eighty years ago. It’s a cold night in February 1936, and a crowd has gathered on this very spot-some in black ties, others in their best everyday coats. Excitement hangs in the air. John Maynard Keynes himself, the famous economist, is somewhere in the throng, chatting with dancers and professors, his breath misting in the winter air. He’s paid for almost all of this theatre out of his own pocket. His dream? To build a bridge between Cambridge’s grand old colleges and the hustle of town life, by filling this new theatre with every kind of show that could stir the heart.
Behind the red and white wall, inside, the first burst of stage light is about to dazzle the audience. The Vic-Wells Ballet Company-Margot Fonteyn, Robert Helpmann-will leap and spin across the stage. Just overhead, a one-of-a-kind lighting system, almost science-fiction for its time, will cast colored glows and sharp spotlights with a flick of a portable switchboard. Even now, somewhere above you, wires and battens still hold the ghost of that first magical night.
In the coming years, this place would see students in togas declaiming in Ancient Greek, actors testing their wit in rowdy comedies, and, especially, the annual Christmas pantomime-a Cambridge tradition where generations of children, and more than a few adults, have cheered and booed, swept along by jokes and music.
Feel how the street hums with old energy, layered over with fresh posters in the windows. Some days, if you walk past just as a rehearsal lets out, you might catch a young actor spinning a tale for their friends on the pavement, or hear a stage manager calling out cues from the doorway. The curtain might be down now, but inside, the magic of theatre is always waiting to rise again.
