The Freshman

The Freshman explores the Cambridge career of Christopher Masters, a working-class boy from Nottingham who is seduced by the tawdry glamour of the Cambridge theatre scene.  In the course of three acts, one for each academic year, Christopher changes from naïve neophyte to hardened operator, abandoning old friends and values and becoming ever more mired in decadence and corruption.  Far from fulfilling his promise, he ends the play sent down from college and jailed for fraud.

The Freshman was first performed by the National Student Theatre Company at the Edinburgh Festival in August 1984, with a cast including Deborah Adams, Beatie Edney, Kate Hardie and Jason Isaacs.