Agatha Christie’s A Murder Is Announced
Tuesday 22 – Saturday 26 September, 7.45 (Wed, Sat mat 2.30)
Tickets £22
Round and Round the Garden
Thursday 1 – Saturday 3 October, 7.45 (Sat mat 2.30)
Tickets £16
Round the Horne
Thursday 15 – Saturday 17 October, 7.45 (Sat mat 2.30)
Tickets £22
The Snow Queen
Thursday 29 October, 11.30, 3.00
Tickets £12
Miss Nightingale: The Musical
Friday 30, Saturday 31 October, 7.45 (Sat mat 2.30)
Tickets £18 (Sat mat £15)
Let’s Hang On
Wednesday 4 November, 7.45pm
Tickets £21.50
A Christmas Carol
Friday 6, Saturday 7 November, 7.00 (Fri 11.00, Sat mat 2.30)
Tickets £14
Peter Pan
Friday 4 December – Sunday 3 January, various times
Tickets from £18
Tickets & information 0844 406 8666 www.lighthousepoole.co.uk
There’s something for everyone as the curtain goes up on a new season of quality drama at Lighthouse, Poole’s Centre for the Arts this autumn.
Agatha Christie’s classic story, A Murder Is Announced, opens proceedings with Judy Cornwell, best known for her much-loved portrayal of Daisy in the hugely successful sitcom Keeping Up Appearances, as Miss Marple. She heads a stellar cast that also includes Diane Fletcher (Elizabeth Urquhart in the classic BBC dramatisation of House of Cards), Sarah Thomas (Glenda in Last of the Summer Wine) and Rachel Bright (Poppy from EastEnders).
The third of Alan Ayckbourn’s famed Norman Conquests trilogy, Round and Round the Garden runs from 1 to 3 October and finds the relentlessly solicitous Normansimultaneously attempting to seduce carer Annie, charm her brother’s wife Sarah and satisfy his own wife Ruth with varying degrees of success.
Reliving a golden era of radio comedy, Round the Horne (15-17 October) puts a cast of incomparable characters like Rambling Sid Rumpo,J Peasemold Gruntfuttock and Julian and Sandy, back on stage with dialogue from the original scripts of Barry Took and Marty Feldman.
A delightful retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen on 29 October adds new songs, beautiful costumes and stunning scenery to the classic fairy tale; while Matthew Bugg’s musical Miss Nightingale brings the on-stage glamour and off-stage affairs of war-torn London to life with bags of 1940s glitz and glamour.
The award-winning Let’s Hang On takes a musical journey through the career of Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons on 4 November with hits like December ’63 (Oh What A Night!), Sherry, Bye Bye Baby, Walk Like A Man, Can’t Take My Eyes Off You, Working My Way Back To You, Big Girls Don’t Cry and Grease building to a spectacular finale of, naturally, Let’s Hang On.
The run up to the festive season begins on 6 and 7 November with Box Clever Theatre’s bold reworking of A Christmas Carol in which thegrasping Scrooge’s dismissal of two street buskers results in a chillingencounter withhis long dead partner Marley and the Christmas Spirits that forces him on a journeythrough his past, present and future until laughter and goodness replace the ice in his heart.
All of which should prepare us for the opening of this year’s Christmas show on 4 December, an original but faithful take on Peter Pan with the unmistakable Christopher Ellison (from TV’s The Bill) as Captain Hook and Bluestone 42 star Jamie Quinn in the title role. With some performances already sold out, Peter Pan also features Lighthouse favourite Neil Smye as Smee. Ally Cox, artistic director of Stagewise School for the Performing Arts, based at Lighthouse, will play Mrs Darling and Tiger-Lily will be played by Poole actress – and Lighthouse stage door supervisor – Lora Townsend who was one of Anne Boleyn’s ladies in waiting in the recent BBC drama Wolf Hall.
