Venues across East Anglia are getting ready to throw their doors open again. Wayne Savage looks at what’s on at Haverhill Arts Centre.
A programme of crowd pleasers, that’s how arts and leisure manager Nick Keeble describes the Janaury to April season.
“My personal highlight is Toyah, Up Close and Personal but I’m also looking forward to Hank Wangford and the Lost Cowboys and folk legend Maddy Prior”, he says.
“We’re also thrilled to have lots more broadcasts from the National Theatre, The Royal Shakespeare Company, The Bolshoi Ballet and the English National Opera. They’ve proved ever so popular with our audiences over the past year and we have some real crowd pleasers with Treasure Island and Behind the Beautiful Forevers.”
The season starts with The Nutcracker, with other broadcasts from The Bolshoi Ballet including Swan Lake, Romeo and Juliet and Ivan the Terrible.
If you missed Jack and the Beanstalk last month there’s still some panto fun to be had courtesy of Haverhill’s Centre Stage’s production of Peter Pan and there’s more swashbuckling action with a recorded broadcast of the National Theatre’s production of Treasure Island.
For youngsters there’s Shoe Kangaroo and the Big Bad Boot which promises to be an old load of cobblers, The Duck in the Truck and The Magic Porridge Pot.
Original drama fans should check out the political United We Stand, featuring songs arranged by folk musician John Kirkpatrick, courtesy of Townsend Productions, who brought The Ragged Trousered Philosophers to the Arts Centre last year.
There’s also Eastern Angles’ Oysters, a tale of sex, boat-building and bivalve molluscs which draws its themes from the Essex coast.
Theatre broadcasts this season include the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Love’s Labour’s Lost and Love’s Labour’s Won, both live. The National Theatre screens live Behind the Beautiful Forevers and The Hard Problem. English National Opera will broadcast La Traviata live and the Royal Exchange Theatre presents a live broadcast of Hamlet starring Maxine Peake in the title role.
As ever, there will also be lots more from local groups including The Vicar of Dibley from Centre Stage.
Music fans are catered for too with sounds from the 1950s-1980s while other highlights include demonstrations by Haverhill Art Group, the return of the Monkey Nuts Comedy Club, the return of LDN Wrestling and a local band night.
For full details of everything’s that’s on, visit www.haverhillartscentre.co.uk
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