Man bans, chapel thefts and gaudy auditoriums: Cambridge’s best April Fools’ Day jokes

This year saw dozens of colleges and students get in on the pranking tradition

Devarshi Lodhia

How many did you fall for?Louis Ashworth

The University of Cambridge put in a strong showing for April Fools’ Day, with several colleges and students flexing their fake news muscles to observe our most treasured of national calendar fixtures.

Unsuspecting students waking up this morning – many of them simply expecting to spend the day gorging on chocolate – instead found themselves inundated with a smörgåsbord of tricks, ranging from the esoteric to the downright scary. Here are some of them!

Varsity

We admit it – this newspaper reported, in jest, that all undergraduate exams had been cancelled due to ongoing staff strikes, with all finalists to be awarded a 2:i grade. The story, which appeared to introduce a little too much false hope for some Cantabs, was variously described as “almost cruel”, “cruel”, and “so cruel”.

“I’ve never wanted an April fool’s to be more true,” one heartbroken commenter said. Varsity apologises for any emotional distress caused.

Gonville & Caius

Caius outlined their plans to honour the College’s most infamous prank, in which an Austin Seven was placed on the roof of Senate House, by permanently installing a flashing car of their own there. Confusingly, the College’s announcement is listed as having been published on the 29th of March, so we’re not ruling this one out yet.

Corpus

Undoubtedly the most ‘Cambridge’ prank of them all, Corpus reported that they had found an early notebook by famous Corpuscle, playwright Christopher Marlowe, in a student’s room. Suspiciously-named college staff members Piers Gaveston and Helene Faustus were enlisted to confirm its authenticity – the latter claiming the finding confirmed a “long-standing contention that Marlowe knocks William Shakespeare off the pedestal as the greatest of English writers”. One for the Englings.

The Blue Bird

The Cambridge student sport news website reported that the University had been stripped of its two glorious boat race victories last week, following “several instances of oar-tampering”.

The ‘author’, Poisson D’Avril (a nice touch for any French speakers out there), combined two of the last month’s biggest stories, the Australian ball tampering scandal and Cambridge Analytica, for one of the cleverer April Fools’ sport stories.

St Edmund’s

An ‘artist’s impression’ of St Edmund’s College’s new East Court showed plans to build an exact replica of King’s Chapel – or possibly revealed Eddie’s plans to steal Cambridge’s most iconic building and move it up to the hill college.

Eddie’s official account revealed the whole thing was a prank, apologising to King’s for the “botch job” and more generally for anyone whose “eyes are forever scarred by the bad cropping we placed in front of you”.

Newnham

Newnham’s Facebook page reported that, in honour of the college’s founder, Millicent Fawcett, and to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the first women being able to vote in the UK, the College would be banning all men from walking on their grass – in a move they dubbed the “Fawcett Centenary Grass Ban”.

“Well done to everyone who spotted that our ‘Grass Ceiling’ story was actually an April Fools’,” the College’s official account said.

The Cambridge Student

A worrying possibility had it been true, student union newspaper TCS’s story claimed the popular Facebook page Crushbridge was set to reveal the identity of its lovesick contributors, with Cambridge Analytica determining whether posters’ feelings were mutual or not.

CamDram

Some actors were given a slightly harsh treatment

Cambridge thespians’ dreams (or possibly nightmares?) looked set to come true after a mocked-up CamDram profile featuring TripAdvisor-style user star ratings was posted in the Cambridge Theatre Facebook page.

Memebridge

Memebridge – Cambridge’s biggest student Facebook page, and a longtime support of popular food truck Van of Life – changed its cover photo to feature the Van of Life’s infamous rival Uncle Frank’s (aka the ‘Van of Death’). The change is assumed to be in jest, but the photo has not yet switched back – it remains to be seen what effect such a shift in loyalty could have on the competitive post-Life carb market.

ADC Theatre

The ADC announced “necessary changes” to its auditorium with a grand reveal of the theatre’s garish new green and purple colour scheme. As the centre of Cambridge’s theatre scene, we’re not sure how the changes will go down with some of the edgier thesps. Perhaps the only thing more upsetting than this colour scheme is the fact that a musical is set to tread the VK-stained boards of Cindies next term.

Seen a good Cambridge April Fools’ joke that slipped through the net? Email news@varsity.co.uk with a link and we’ll take a look