Cambridge University European Theatre Group

The Cambridge University European Theatre Group is a self-sufficient, entirely student-run theatrical company, which has been touring a Shakespeare play around Europe for two and a half weeks every December, since its founding.

It was founded in 1957 by a group of students that included Sir Trevor Nunn and Sir Derek Jacobi (now a patron), who that took Romeo and Juliet on tour across most of Switzerland for a period of just under two weeks during December.

The tour then consisted of half a dozen actors and a set transported in two fruit vans. Today it is a more ambitious coach-bound operation; a company of 25 or so tour with professional lighting and sound equipment, costumes and an experimental set, enabling us to put on a show absolutely anywhere.

Each year they visit around twelve venues - ranging from professional theatres, to schools and universities, and even to churches and converted bread-ovens – and travel through five or six countries.

South African playwright and critic Stephen Gray was director of the company for 3 years (1962-1964).