Let the sparkling lights at Sheringham’s Little Theatre help shine the way through the Winter gloom and lead you into a scintillating Spring.
With a superb selection of over two dozen exciting events already booked before the end of May, there will be something for everyone to enjoy. And keep your eye on the website www.sheringhamlittletheatre.com for more events and mainstream cinema being added.
Some productions come with added anticipation, having been paused by the pandemic. Refreshed regulars are returning with sprightly fresh shows eagerly waiting in the wings.
To showcase the best of up-and-coming local talent, the energetic Youth Theatre will finally perform the beautifully crafted musical Guys and Dolls. It’s on for three nights at Easter including Good Friday so make sure of booking your tickets early.
From 31 March to 2 April, the Little Theatre Players bring to life a classic comedy by J B Priestley. When We Are Married is all about three couples celebrating their silver wedding anniversaries, having been married on the same day in the same chapel. Or so they believe!
More local performers well worth your support are the century-old Cromer and Sheringham Operatic and Dramatic Society. They bring their next show to the Sheringham stage from 9 to 12 February, with a Saturday matinee too. Alan Bennett’s eccentric Miss Shepherd is The Lady in the Van.
Also long established is theatre group Stage Direct whose new drama is one more in a long line of highly successful productions. They tread the boards with Miss Marble Takes a Break from 20 to 22 January.
Jazz fans will be delighted to see the return of Jazz at The Hub. There are no fewer than five live sessions on the last Sunday of the month launching in January. Having suffered the bitter disappointment of being the first band to be cancelled at the start of the pandemic, the Paul Hill Quartet now hold the privileged position of performing the first in this series of sets. Visit www.sheringhamlittletheatre.com to see the list of much-loved musicians through to the end of May.
Known to many as a finalist on The Voice UK when she reduced Sir Tom Jones to tears, veteran folk and blues singer-songwriter Sally Barker takes over the Little Theatre stage for an evening of music from Joni Mitchell and Sandy Dennis. 12 March is the date to note for this folk-filled evening courtesy of local promoters Deckchair Productions.
More music of a different kind entirely on 4 March is Samia Malik showcasing her thrilling new solo show Songs to Heal and Empower. At Sheringham to celebrate International Women’s Day on the following Tuesday, Samia’s bilingual work has the support of the Arts Council.
The Little Theatre is pleased to be hosting the final performance on 5 March of this third regional tour for The Canada Boys. Another Rob John drama from well-respected fEAST Theatre, it is set in 1912 at the Norwich mustard factory of J & J Colman. Ambition, love, duty and family feature in this local story.
Comedy in a cake shop on 19 March comes with a touring production of the Tobias Nicholls’ play The Last Crumb.
Audience participation is an essential element of the fund-raising show on 26 March by The Intellectual Hooligans from Norwich who base their entertainment around the TV programme Whose Line is it Anyway?
A one-act dark comedy thriller, My Other Half, premiered at the 2021 Holt Festival and now enjoys an exclusive preview on 22 March at Sheringham before an extensive East Anglian Tour throughout April. Written by the Little Theatre’s very own Christopher Sainton-Clark.
An amazing mix of fun for little people will be the magic and mayhem of Captain Calamity. Sheringham gives you three different shows to experience his wacky world of the Lollipop Lighthouse in Chocolate Button Bay! Performances in February, March and April. Book for one or all three!
Self-evident from this programme is how Sheringham Little Theatre manifests its continuous support for local actors and crew by providing a professional platform for their talent. But the venue also brings you the very best of world-class performances from London and beyond via the modern technology of satellite.
Starting on 15 January the screenings get under way with Felicity Kendal and Gary Wilmot in Anything Goes.
Complete with a cast of 40, the new award-winning play from Tom Stoppard Leopoldstadt can be viewed from a West End stage on 27 January.
A very special screening on St Valentine’s Day from the Royal Opera House is the modern ballet classic Romeo and Juliet.
The Book of Dust by Philip Pullman is brought to the stage of London’s Bridge Theatre by director Nicholas Hytner on 17 February.
Verdi’s Rigoletto from the Royal Opera House is being screened on 10 March. Verdi is the composer again for the next Royal Opera House screening of La Traviata on 13 April. By contrast, sandwiched in between those two operatic occasions is Hex, which is the new musical retelling of Sleeping Beauty from National Theatre on 17 March.
The final presentation on the silver screen in this Spring season is the breathtakingly beautiful ballet Swan Lake from the Royal Opera House with the sublime score from Tchaikovsky.
There’s something for everyone in the Spring Season at Sheringham!
A feel-good show of stage song and dance favourites is set to be performed by a troupe of talented young performers at Sheringham Little Theatre.
A Celebration of Musical Theatre, running from April 14-16 at 7.30pm nightly, will see a cast aged eight to 16 showcase their stage skills.
They are excited and eager to step back into the limelight for the first time in two years, after the traditional Easter musical Guys and Dolls was postponed and then cancelled due to the Covid pandemic.
But the youngsters are aiming to come back with a bang with an hour-long show that will include hits from classic shows, including Guys and Dolls, as well as an introduction to some newer productions.
They are married in reality, as well as on stage – and both blissfully wedded to a shared lifelong love of amateur dramatics.
Peter and Amanda Howell play pompous councillor Albert Parker, and his downtrodden wife Annie, in a production of the classic comedy When We Are Married by the Sheringham Little Theatre Players which opens on March 31.
Since they first met in 1989 when Peter played Henry Higgins and Amanda Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, the Coltishall pair have portrayed hundreds of roles mainly for the Cromer and Sheringham Operatic and Dramatic Society and the Maddermarket in Norwich.
They were wed 30 years ago, but have only played a married couple on stage less than a handful of times. That includes as King Arthur and Guinevere in Camelot on Cromer Pier in 2005 and as a widow and her dead husband Gordon in Life and Beth at the Maddermarket in 2014.
Sheringham Little Theatre is packing its suitcase for a summer holiday to remember, with the launch of its first full programme of events in two years.
The return of its popular summer drama season includes a feel good musical harking back to a classic pop-filled road trip in the swinging 1960s.
Summer Holiday saw Cliff Richard and the Shadows driving through Europe in their Routemaster London bus – singing hits such as In the Country, Bachelor Boy, Move It, Living Doll, the Young Ones and On the Beach.
A stage version, running from August 16-20, is one of the highlights of a newly-released brochure which shows the theatre is back in action after a long pandemic pause.
A theatre is putting fundraising in the spotlight as it plugs a funding gap in the wake of the pandemic.
Sheringham Little Theatre is seeking help from its supporters and general public – to attend money-spinning shows and special events as well as weighing in with other fund-generating ideas and action to carry them out.
Theatre director Debbie Thompson said: “Like many arts venues, we have had life-saving financial support from national and local government grants aiding Covid recovery. But even though we have had that funding, we are not out of the woods yet – and could be staring at a five figure deficit. So we are using our upcoming in-house productions as money spinners to help our coffers recover – and also appealing to the public for ideas, energy, donations and involvement to help the Little Theatre make 2022 a year of recovery that gets us back on track.”
Lady Walpole has taken over the presidency of Sheringham Little Theatre with the aim of seeing her famous family name reach a 50-year milestone as the figurehead of the arts venue. Her late husband Lord Walpole died in May 2021, aged 82, after 48 years in the role.
Now his widow Laurel has succeeded him – ensuring the Walpoles, who have taken part in Norfolk public life since the time of Britain’s first Prime Minister Sir Robert 300 years ago, complete their half century leading and supporting the theatre.
Lady Walpole, whose role was approved at the theatre’s recent annual meeting, has been visiting the venue since she married Robin in 1980 and is delighted to carry on where he left off, saying the role would be an honour and pleasure. “It is something we always did together – bringing the children to plays and pantos, and coming ourselves to see other events including the summer seasons. It is such a friendly place, the standard of productions are so high. I have been a theatre goer all my life, visiting the local theatre in Swindon as a child with my parents, enjoying student trips to Stratford, and going to ballet in London when I worked at the University of Reading. I love all live theatre and look forward to trying to encourage and enthuse others to visit the Little Theatre to sample it themselves if they’ve never been. The size and intimacy of the auditorium makes you feel really involved in live productions there – more so than big city theatres.“