University of Cambridge in popular culture

Throughout its modern history, the University of Cambridge has featured in cultural works. As of 2020, IMDb list 71 films or TV shows that include Cambridge as a filming location.^[1] Below are some notable examples of references to Cambridge in popular culture.

Literature[]

• In The Reeve's Tale from The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, the two main characters are students at a Cambridge college called Soler Halle. It is believed that this refers to King's Hall, which is now part of Trinity College.^[2]
• In Portraits of Places (1883 travel book), Henry James describes the college backs as "the loveliest confusion of gothic windows and ancient trees, of grassy banks and mossy balustrades, of sun‐chequered avenues and groves, of lawns and gardens and terraces, of single arched bridges spanning the little stream, which ... looks as if it had been 'turned on' for ornamental purposes."
• In Lions and Shadows (1938 autobiography), Christopher Isherwood writes extensively about his time at the university.
• In The Facts of Life (1939 short story) by W. Somerset Maugham, the main character Nicky attends Peterhouse due to its reputation in Lawn Tennis.
• Jill Paton Walsh is the author of four detective stories featuring Imogen Quy, the nurse at St. Agatha's, a fictional Cambridge college: The Wyndham Case (1993), A Piece of Justice (1995), Debts of Dishonour (2006) and The Bad Quarto (2007).

Novels[]

Before 1900[]

• In Gulliver's Travels (1726 novel) by Jonathan Swift, the hero and narrator, Lemuel Gulliver, is a graduate of Emmanuel College.
• In Tristram Shandy (1767 novel) by Lawrence Sterne, the title character is, like Sterne himself, a graduate of Jesus College.
• In Pride and Prejudice (1813 novel) by Jane Austen, both Mr Darcy and Mr Wickham, the primary antagonist, are Cambridge graduates.
• In Doctor Thorne (1858 novel) by Anthony Trollope, Frank Gresham, heir to the near-bankrupt Gresham estate, is a Cambridge student. Despite his family's objections, he is determined to return to the University and study for a degree.
• In A Tale of Two Cities (1859 novel) by Charles Dickens, Charles Darnay tutors Cambridge undergraduates in French language and literature.
• In Middlemarch (1872 novel) by George Eliot, Mr Brooke, the heroine's uncle and guardian, is a Cambridge graduate. He claims to have been a student at the same time as Wordsworth.
• John Caldigate (1879 novel) by Anthony Trollope is set partly at the University and in the nearby village of Chesterton.
• In All Sorts and Conditions of Men (1882 Novel) by Sir Walter Besant, Cambridge is an important setting.
• She: A History of Adventure (1886 novel) by H. Rider Haggard is the story of Horace Holly, a Cambridge professor, on a journey amongst the indigenous tribes of Africa.
• In the Sherlock Holmes series (1887–1927 collection of novels and short stories) by Arthur Conan Doyle, Holmes reveals that he first developed his methods of deduction while an undergraduate. The author Dorothy L. Sayers suggests that, given details in two of the Adventures, Holmes must have been at Cambridge rather than Oxford and that "of all the Cambridge colleges, Sidney Sussex College perhaps offered the greatest number of advantages to a man in Holmes' position and, in default of more exact information, we may tentatively place him there".^[3]
• In Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891 novel) by Thomas Hardy, Angel Clare rebels against his family's plans to have him sent to Cambridge and ordained as a minister of the Church of England. His older brothers are both Cambridge graduates and Cuthbert is the dean of a Cambridge college.
• In The Turn of the Screw (1898 novella) by Henry James, the story's narrator, Douglas, describes first meeting the protagonist after coming down from Trinity College for the second summer of his university career.

1900–1950[]

• The Longest Journey (1907 novel) by E. M. Forster begins at Cambridge University.
• In the Psmith series (1908–1923 collection of novels) by P. G. Wodehouse, both the title character and Mike, his closest friend, study at Cambridge University.
• In Women in Love (1920 novel) by D. H. Lawrence, the character Joshua is introduced at the dinner table as a Cambridge don. Over the course of the meal he explains, in accordance with the idiosyncratic stereotype, how "education is like gymnastics".
• In Jacob's Room (1922 novel) by Virginia Woolf, the protagonist Jacob Flanders attends Cambridge.
• In A Passage to India (1924 novel) by E. M. Forster, the Indian Hamidullah refers to his time at Cambridge to support his argument that it is easier to befriend Englishmen in England than in India.
• In The Case of the Missing Will (1924 short story) by Agatha Christie, the detective Hercule Poirot receives an unusual request for help from a Miss Violet Marsh, a graduate of Girton College.
• In Dusty Answer (1927 novel) by Rosamund Lehmann, the protagonist Judith Earle attends Girton College.
• In The Good Companions (1929 novel) by J. B. Priestley, the character Inigo Jollifant is introduced as a Cambridge graduate.
• In The Waves (1931 novel) by Virginia Woolf, the characters Bernard and Neville are both graduates of Cambridge University.
• Darkness at Pemberley (1932 novel) by T. H. White features St Bernard's College, a fictionalised version of Queens' College.
• Glory (1932 novel) by Vladimir Nabokov is the story of an émigré student who escapes from Russia and is educated at Cambridge before returning to his native country.
• In Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1934 novella) by James Hilton, the main character Mr Chipping mentions that he attended Cambridge. The author was a graduate of Christ's College and the likely inspiration for Chipping, William Henry Balgarnie, was a graduate of Trinity College.
• In The Citadel (1937 novel) by A. J. Cronin, the protagonist's initial rival and close friend, Philip Denny, is a Cambridge graduate. Dr Hope, another of the protagonist's main associates, spends much of his time at Cambridge where he is completing a medical degree.
• Out of the Silent Planet (1938 novel) by C. S. Lewis begins at Cambridge University, where Elwin Ransom, the protagonist of The Space Trilogy, is Professor of Philology. The trilogy also features the University of Edgestow, a fictional institution which is essentially a third Oxbridge.
• Missee Lee (novel 1941) by Arthur Ransome The title character is a former Cambridge student. She had to give up her studies and come home when her father died.
• The Hills of Varna (1948 novel) by Geoffrey Trease begins with main character Alan Drayton being sent down from his Cambridge college after it emerges that he was involved in a tavern brawl. His Cambridge tutor, Erasmus, sends him to the continent to try to retrieve a manuscript of The Gadfly, a lost play by the ancient Greek writer Alexis from the time of Socrates.

1950–1999[]

• The Masters (1951 novel), The Affair (1960 Novel) and The Light and the Dark (1947 novel) by C. P. Snow, both feature an unnamed fictional college, partly based on the author's own, Christ's.
• Facial Justice by L. P. Hartley (1960 novel) is set in a dystopian Cambridge sometime after the Third World War: "Cambridge - for so the settlement was named - was built on the supposed site of the famous University town, not a vestige of which remained."
• At the start of Trouble with Lichen (1960 novel) by John Wyndham, the heroine, Diana Brackley, studies Biochemistry at Cambridge.
• The Millstone (1965 novel) by Margaret Drabble is the story of a young female Cambridge academic who becomes pregnant and is forced into a completely alien life style.
• The House on the Strand (1969 novel) by Daphne du Maurier is the story of two Cambridge graduates who have created a drug that enables time travel. They frequently refer to their college days.
• Maurice (1971 novel) by E. M. Forster is about the homosexual relationship of two Cambridge undergraduates.
• Porterhouse Blue (1974 novel) and its sequel Grantchester Grind (1995 Novel) by Tom Sharpe both feature Porterhouse, a fictional Cambridge college.
• In Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (1974 novel) by John le Carré, two recurring characters in the Smiley series, and Control, the anonymous head of The Circus, are described as having begun their rivalry at Cambridge.
• Timescape (1980 novel) by Gregory Benford is the story of a group of scientists at the University of Cambridge and their attempts to warn the past about a series of global disasters that have left the world in a state of disarray. Benford's short story, Anomalies, is also set at Cambridge, where the main character, an amateur astronomer from Ely, meets the Master of Jesus College.
• Floating Down to Camelot (1985 novel) by David Benedictus is set entirely at Cambridge University and was inspired by the author's time at Churchill College.
• Still Life (1985 novel) by A. S. Byatt features Cambridge University.
• In Redback (1986 novel), Howard Jacobson creates the fictional Malapert College, drawing on his experiences at Downing College and Selwyn College.
• Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987 Novel) by Douglas Adams contains considerable material recycled from the aborted Shada, therefore much of the action likewise takes place at St. Cedd's College, Cambridge.
• The Matthew Bartholomew Chronicles (1990s novels) by Susanna Gregory, is a series of murder mysteries set in and around the 14th century Cambridge and focuses on the vital work in the field of medicine undertaken by the university during this period.
• The Gate of Angels (1990 novel) by Penelope Fitzgerald is about a young Cambridge University physicist who falls in love with a nurse after a bicycle accident. The novel is set in 1912, at a time when Cambridge was at the heart of a revolution in Physics.
• (1990 novel) by Kwame Anthony Appiah is largely set at the University.
• Air and Angels (1991 novel) by Susan Hill is largely set at Cambridge, where the Revd Thomas Cavendish, a university don, falls in love with Kitty, a young Indian girl.
• For the Sake of Elena (1992 novel) by Elizabeth George features a fictional Cambridge college called St Stephen's.
• In A Philosophical Investigation (1992 novel) by Philip Kerr, the government call on Cambridge's Professor of Philosophy to talk 'Wittgenstein', a murderous virtual being, into committing suicide.
• In Stephen Fry's novels The Liar (1993) and Making History (1997), the main characters attend Cambridge University.
• In A Suitable Boy (1993 novel) by Vikram Seth, one of Lata's would-be suitors, a fellow college student, dreams of attending Cambridge University.
• In Bridget Jones's Diary (1996 novel) Mark Darcy and Daniel Cleaver studied at Cambridge as undergraduates, which is how they met.
• The Cambridge Quintet (1998) by John Casti fictionalizes a college dinner conversation between guests including Wittgenstein and Alan Turing.

Since 2000[]

• In When We Were Orphans (2000 novel) by Kazuo Ishiguro, the protagonist, Detective Christopher Banks, begins his narrative immediately after graduating from Cambridge.
• The Consolations of Philosophy (2000 nonfiction book) by Cambridge alumnus Alain de Botton which led to a TV series adaption in 2001, details the author's experiences at Cambridge.
• In Atonement (2001 novel) by Ian McEwan, the characters Cecilia and Robbie arrive home from Cambridge at the start of the novel.
• Wittgenstein's Poker (2001 novel) by David Edmonds recounts the celebrated confrontation between Sir Karl Popper and Ludwig Wittgenstein at Cambridge University's Moral Sciences Club.
• In Elizabeth Costello (2003 novel) by J. M. Coetzee, the title character is a former Cambridge student.
• In Quicksilver (2003 novel) by Neal Stephenson, the character Daniel Waterhouse is educated at Trinity College where he meets Isaac Newton, later lodging with him.
• In the Maisie Dobbs mystery series (2003–2010 collection of novels) by Jacqueline Winspear the heroine is a former student of Girton College, having attended before and after World War I.
• In Cloud Atlas (2004 novel) by David Mitchell, two of the main characters, Robert Frobisher and Rufus Sixsmith, meet while studying at Gonville and Caius College.
• The Indian Clerk (2007 novel) by David Leavitt is an account of the career of the self-taught mathematical genius Srinivasa Ramanujan, as seen mainly through the eyes of his mentor and collaborator G. H. Hardy, a British mathematics professor at Cambridge University.
• Engleby (2007 novel) by Sebastian Faulks is largely set at a fictionalised version of Cambridge University.
• In The Sense of an Ending (2011 novel) by Julian Barnes, Adrian Finn, one of the central characters, studies Moral Sciences at Cambridge. The minor character Brother Jack is also a Cambridge student and the young English teacher Phil Dixon is a recent graduate.
• The Invested Investor (2018 nonfiction book) is a non authored by Peter Cowley, Chair of Cambridge Angels, describes the entrepreneurial environment at Cambridge University, including several start-ups that began in Cambridge.

Poems[]

• In The Prelude (1805 poem) by William Wordsworth, the entire third chapter is based on the poet's time at Cambridge.
• In Memoriam A.H.H. (1849 poem) by Alfred, Lord Tennyson is a requiem written in memory of the poet's Cambridge friend Arthur Henry Hallam. The poem features numerous references to their time together at Trinity College, "the reverend walls in which of old I wore the gown".
• Xu Zhimo's best-known poem (1928) is Zaibie Kangqiao (simplified Chinese: 再别康桥; traditional Chinese: 再別康橋;.: 'again (or "once more") leave Cambridge'), variously translated into English as "On Leaving Cambridge", "Saying Goodbye to Cambridge Again", "Goodbye Again, Cambridge", etc. The poem is part of China's national curriculum taught to all schoolchildren and has generated a tremendous amount of adoration of Cambridge in China.^[4]
• The Caterpillar and the Men from Cambridge (1943 poem) by Weldon Kees is a satirical response to the teachings of Cambridge literary critics I. A. Richards and C. K. Ogden.
• On the Beach at Cambridge (1981 poem) by Adrian Mitchell is written from the viewpoint of an official at the nuclear bunker in Brooklands Avenue, Canbridge, which is operating as the Regional Seat of Government in the aftermath of a nuclear attack. The effects of the attack include a rise in sea level and the University Library and King's College Chapel have been reduced to dust.^[5][6]

Stage[]

• In Utopia, Limited (1892 opera) by Gilbert and Sullivan, the entrance of the character Princess Zara, who is returning from her studies at Girton College, is heralded by a song called "Oh, maiden rich in Girton lore". In the earlier Gilbert and Sullivan opera Princess Ida (1884), the princess founds a women's university and the subject of women's education in the Victorian era is broadly explored and parodied.
• Mrs. Warren's Profession (1894 play) by George Bernard Shaw focuses on the relationship between Mrs Warren, described by the author as "on the whole, a genial and fairly presentable old blackguard of a woman" and her Cambridge-educated daughter, Vivie, who is horrified to discover that her mother's fortune was made managing high-class brothels.
• In many novels and plays by Thomas Bernhard (written between 1970 and 2006), Cambridge (Geistesnest) is the refuge of a Geistesmensch escaping from Austria.
• In Professional Foul (1977 play) by Tom Stoppard, the main character, Anderson, is Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge University.
• In Rock 'n Roll (2006 play) by Tom Stoppard, Cambridge University is a key setting.
• A Disappearing Number (2007 play) by Simon McBurney is about a famous collaboration between two very different Cambridge scholars: Srinivasa Ramanujan, a poor, self-taught Brahmin from southern India, and G. H. Hardy, an upper-middle class Englishman and world-renowned Professor of Mathematics.

Film[]

• Bachelor of Hearts (1958 film) about a German student studying Mathematics there.
• Chariots of Fire (1981 film) by Hugh Hudson is partly set at Cambridge between 1919 and 1924, when protagonist Harold Abrahams (played by Ben Cross) was a student there.
• Monty Python's The Meaning of Life (1983) features Churchill College in the "church scene". Many members of Monty Python are Cambridge alumni.
• True Blue (1996), about the mutiny at the time of the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race of 1987
• National Lampoon's Van Wilder 2: Rise of Taj (2006), under the name of "Camford" (alluding to the commonly accepted portmanteau of OxBridge)
• The History Boys (2008) film about a group of boys applying to do history at Oxford and Cambridge
• In An Education (2009 film), written by Nick Hornby, directed by Lone Scherfig, and based on an autobiographical article by Lynn Barber, the protagonist's main teacher, Miss Stubbs (played by Olivia Williams) is a Cambridge graduate.
• Creation is a 2009 British biographical drama film about Charles Darwin, one of Cambridge's most famous alumni.
• Page Eight (2011 film) by David Hare is partly set at Cambridge, where the Director General of MI5 (played by Michael Gambon), his colleague and closest friend (Bill Nighy) and the Prime Minister (Ralph Fiennes) were all at college together. Although the college is not named, it is Jesus College that was used for filming.
• In Cloud Atlas (2012), one of the main characters, Robert Frobisher, continuously writes to his lover, who is depicted as living and studying in Cambridge. Parts of the University of Cambridge feature throughout the film.
• The University (King's College and Trinity College) features in the opening scenes of the 2010 film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
• King's College is one of the filming locations of the 2011 film Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.
• In Guy Richie's 2011 film Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Sherlock Holmes is shown meeting his nemesis, Professor Moriarty, in Moriarty's office, with a brief stock shot establishing this as King's College, where Moriarty is a professor.
• Fire in the Blood (2013) is a documentary film depicting the development of accessible, low-cost antiretroviral drugs for the treatment of HIV/AIDS, which features Yusuf Hamied who led these efforts.
• In James Marsh's 2014 Biographical film The Theory of Everything, young Stephen Hawking falls in love with literature student Jane Wilde at Cambridge University, where both of them study.
• The Imitation Game is a 2014 historical drama that features Alan Turing (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) prominently. Several lines in the film's dialogue make reference to Turing being a Cambridge alumnus and fellow of King's College of Cambridge.
• In Matthew Vaughn's film Kingsman: The Secret Service, the protagonist Eggsy is asked by other Kingsman recruitment candidates whether he has studied in Oxford University or Cambridge University
• In Morgan Matthews' film X+Y, released in the US as A Brilliant Young Mind, is a 2014 British drama film partly set at Cambridge University. The story follows a young mathematics prodigy, Nathan, as he attempts to attend a competition at the university. Various scenes are shot at St John's College, Cambridge.
• The 2015 film The Man Who Knew Infinity about mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan, was filmed at Trinity College, Cambridge, where Ramanujan was a fellow.

Television[]

• The West Wing character Will Bailey, portrayed by Joshua Malina, attended Cambridge on a Marshall Scholarship and was the President of the Cambridge Union Society. Another character from the series, Lord John Marbury, portrayed by Roger Rees, was educated at Cambridge.
• In The Big Bang Theory, Rajesh Koothrappali, portrayed by Kunal Nayyar, studied astrophysics at Cambridge. Another character from the series, Priya Koothrappali, portrayed by Aarti Mann, studied law at Cambridge.
• In Death In Paradise, Detective Inspector Richard Poole, portrayed by Ben Miller, and his friends were educated at Cambridge.
• The Glittering Prizes (1976 TV drama) and Oxbridge Blues (1984 TV Drama) by Frederic Raphael both feature Cambridge University.
• In Doctor Who's seventh season, broadcast in 1970, the companion Liz Shaw is written as a scientist from Cambridge University who becomes an assistant to the Third Doctor during his exile to Earth.^[7] In a later serial featuring the Fourth Doctor, Shada, much of the action takes place at the fictional St. Cedd's College, Cambridge. The story was written by Cambridge alumnus Douglas Adams and abandoned during its production due to strike action, but the serial was finished in 2017 using original footage combined with animation and a voice-over from Tom Baker.^[8]
• In the 1994 Star Trek: The Next Generation series finale, All Good Things..., Data is seen holding the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics in an alternative future timeline.
• Sir Isaac Newton: The Gravity of Genius (1996 TV), a biographical drama about famous Cambridge alumnus Isaac Newton, was shot largely in Cambridge.
• Eskimo Day (1996 TV Drama), written by Jack Rosenthal, and starring Maureen Lipman, Tom Wilkinson, and Alec Guinness, is about the relationship between parents and teenagers during an admissions interview day at Queens' College. There was also a sequel, Cold Enough for Snow (1997).
• Cambridge Spies (2003 TV drama) is about the famous Cambridge Five double agents who started their careers at Cambridge: Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, Donald Maclean and Anthony Blunt.
• Hawking (2004 TV drama) is set during the early career of Stephen Hawking (played by Benedict Cumberbatch) as a PhD student at Cambridge
• In Kingdom (2007–2009 TV series), created by Simon Wheeler and Alan Whiting, solicitor Peter Kingdom (played by Stephen Fry) and his brother (Dominic Mafham) are both Cambridge graduates. In the fourth episode of the first series, Kingdom returns to Cambridge and meets his old tutor (Richard Wilson), when one of his clients alleges that her daughter has been rejected by his old college purely because of her working-class background. Although the college is never identified, it is Queens', where Fry himself was a student, that appears on screen.
• Einstein and Eddington (2008 TV Drama) tells the story of Cambridge scientist Arthur Eddington (played by David Tennant) and his rivalry with Albert Einstein (played by Andy Serkis). Some scenes were filmed at St John's College, Cambridge.
• One of the main characters of Magnum, P.I., Jonathan Quayle Higgins III, played by John Hillerman, was graduated as Doctor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge in 1947.
• Micro Men (2009 TV Drama) portrays the 1980s computer industry in the city and university of Cambridge.
• Grantchester is set and filmed in the Cambridge village of Grantchester. Robson Green filmed a fight scene at the university.^[9][10][11] The university's colleges have been used for filming, including Trinity College, Cambridge, which was used in the 2016 "Christmas Special" episode.^[12]

Art[]

The colleges of Cambridge University were painted by several artists in the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, including William Westall, Myles Birket Foster, Thomas Rowlandson, Richard Bankes Harraden, and Joseph Murray Ince.^[13]

J. M. W. Turner produced a watercolor painting of Cambridge in 1793.

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  Clare Hall and King's College Chapel, Cambridge, from the Banks of the River Cam, 1793, watercolor

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  St John's College, Cambridge by Joseph Murray Ince

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  Kings College Cambridge, by Joseph Murray Ince

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  East Window of King's College Chapel, Cambridge, by Joseph Murray Ince

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  The Great Court of Trinity College, Cambridge, by Joseph Murray Ince

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  Market Place at Cambridge by Thomas Rowlandson

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  Procession of Boats on the River Cam below Clare College, Cambridge by Richard Bankes Harraden (1778-1862)

Radio[]

• High Table, Lower Orders (2005–2006 radio series) by Mark Tavener is set at a fictional Cambridge college.

Audio book[]

• The Dongle of Donald Trefusis (2009 audiobook) by Stephen Fry is a 12-part series in which Fry, as himself, receives an inheritance from his (fictional) former Cambridge tutor, Donald Trefusis, who has recently died. The inheritance includes a USB drive (or "dongle") which contains messages from Trefusis to Fry from beyond the grave.

Computer game[]

• Civilization (1991 video game) by Sid Meier features 'Isaac Newton's College' as a Wonder of the World. This could be a reference to Cambridge University as a whole or to Trinity College specifically. However, the video accompanying the wonder in Civilization II (1996) erroneously shows the University of Oxford.
• Amnesia: Rebirth (2020 video game) by Frictional Games has the main protagonist Anastasie "Tasi" Trianon, discover the partially mummified remains of an archaeologist/explorer, dressed in what appears to be 19th century British safari hunting attire during her exploration of "The Other World". A note written by the deceased can be found next to the body, identifying him as Professor Thurston Aloysius Herbert of Cambridge, England (Professor of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge). The note further states that he was the first to solve the mysteries of the gate-builders, and the first human to breach the boundaries between the worlds.

See also[]

• Isaac Newton in popular culture
• Cultural depictions of Charles Darwin
• Cultural depictions of Alan Turing
• Stephen Hawking in popular culture

References[]