Cambridge Footlights and much ado about Jonathan Miller's Shakespeare

Jonathan Miller cut his teeth as a director with the Cambridge Footlights and went on to have a prestigious career as a director and producer.

In 1980, Miller was persuaded to join the troubled BBC Television Shakespeare project (1978–85). He became producer (1980–82) and directed six of the plays himself, beginning with a well-received The Taming of the Shrew starring John Cleese (another Cambridge scholar).

Cambridge’s annual Shakespeare Festival is a festival of the plays and is believed to be the largest festival of its type.

The productions are performed in full period costume with live Elizabethan music in July and August. The festival attracts upwards of 25,000 visitors for the productions which take place over a period of eight weeks in July and August. Each performance is held outside in the private gardens of the colleges.

Founded in 1988 it has grown significantly and was recently listed fourth in the Independent on Sunday's list of the 'Top 50 UK Arts Festivals'. There are eight full productions during the seven weeks of the Festival (that's 163 performances, with four plays running simultaneously at different open-air venues throughout). The performances all take place in the gardens of the University colleges, but despite its academic setting the actors are all professional and are drawn from all over the country.

In 2015, a book called 'Shakespeare in Cambridge: a celebration of the Shakespeare Festival' by Andrew Muir was published which charts the origins, history and ethos of the Festival.