Grand Designs
A visit to Lancaster’s Grand Theatre last night to see a talk by Mark “Billy” Billingham (SAS: Who Dares Wins). An interesting account of his life and experiences, with plenty of humour and celebrity name dropping. No preaching or “life lessons”, just what worked for him and therefore might work for us. What I wasn’t aware of was his charity work in Haiti. No big sales drive, but there was an opportunity to contribute if you wanted to.
We were sitting right at the back of the circle, which gave me a chance to admire the highly decorated ceiling. This theatre was part designed by Frank Matcham, a prolific architect whose most famous theatre (still standing) is the London Palladium. I have had the privilege to perform at the Grand on several occasions and am a member of Lancaster Footlights, who own the theatre. The society bought it off the council in 1951 to save it from demolition and since then have worked tirelessly to raise funds to maintain and improve the building. Mostly run by volunteers, they have achieved a good - and eclectic - mix of amateur and professional productions, the latter bringing in a lot of the much needed funds. It has become well established now on the comedy circuit, either as a sell out venue in its own right or as a smaller “try out” venue in preparation for a stadium tour. I am proud to be part of it and look forward to seeing - and hopefully performing in - many more shows in the future.
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