After ‘COVID Lockdown’, we re-opened with live performances in June 2021 with ‘Handbagged’. Prior to that, we produced a number of on-line shows and these are detailed below.
The Queen has met with every prime minister each week that she has been in London since coming to the throne in 1952. In Moira Buffini’s imagined account of those weekly meetings from 1979 to 1990 between the Queen and Margaret Thatcher, she concocts a delicious, bitter–sweet confection of what might well have transpired on those tricky Tuesday afternoons – complemented by a dazzling cast of national and international politicians and personalities. Recapture your memories of that period – laugh, groan, smirk, applaud, maybe shed a few tears – but above all have a fun night out back at BLT.
When The Lights Go On Again
A WW2 Musical Entertainment
Main House
Tuesday 15th June to Thursday 17th June with performances at 2pm each day
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One of our members Terry Richards has put together a light hearted entertainment of around 60 minutes constructed around a medley of famous WW2 songs. The cast will perform to a small socially distanced audience in the BLT theatre and we encourage you to come along and enjoy a bit of day time nostalgia. Performances daily on June 15, 16 and 17 at 2-00pm (with afternoon tea) Musical numbers include: ‘That Old Black Magic’, ‘When the Lights Go On Again’, ‘ There’ll Be Bluebirds Over The White Cliffs of Dover’, ‘A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square’, Boogie Woogie, Bugle Boy’, ‘In the Mood’.
Photograph 51
by Anna Ziegel
Directed by Scott James
Main House
Friday 2nd July to Saturday 10th July 2021 inc Sunday 4th July
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Does Rosalind Franklin know how precious her photograph is? In the race to unlock the secret of life it could be the one to hold the key. With rival male scientists looking everywhere for the answer, who will be the first to see it and, more importantly, understand it? Anna Ziegler’s thrilling play looks at the woman who cracked DNA’s double helix and asks what is sacrificed in the pursuit of science, love and a place in history. First performed to great acclaim in the UK in London’s West End in 2015 with Nicole Kidman playing Rosalind Franklin.
Happy Jack
by John Godber
Directed by Dan Armour
Main House
Friday29th July to Friday 30th July 2021
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BLT are delighted to present this First Knight production.
A 40-year love story – from Yorkshire pit village to Blackpool and back. Inspired by the story of his grandparents, John Godber’s bittersweet story of Yorkshire miner Jack and his long-suffering wife Liz, is filled with memories of a time now long gone but not forgotten. It chronicles their school days, as they start work, their courtship, marriage and parenthood, all peppered of course, with their hilarious rows with neighbours, friends, family and each other!
84 Charing Cross Road
by Helene Hanff
Directed by Colleen Batson
Main House
Friday 10th September to Saturday 18th September 2021 NOT Sunday 12th September
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Spanning a twenty year period from 1949, this true story is based on the dramatization of business letters between Helene Hanff, a young struggling writer in New York, and Frank Doel, the owner of an antiquarian book store in London. In a sense, these are also love letters. They are about the love of good literature. The play commences when Helene Hanff (played on Broadway by Ellen Burstyn) first writes to Marks & Co. and ends in 1969 with the death of Frank Doel, the delightfully dusty supplier of so many old volumes to Helen, who has shown her gratitude through the years by sending “care packages” to the staff of Marks & Co.
Living Together
by Alan Ayckbourn
Directed by Pauline Armour
Main House
Friday 8th October to Saturday 16th October 2021 NOT Sunday 10th
Following the success of Ayckbourn’s classic comedy ‘Round and and Round the Garden’ in January 2020, we bring ‘Living Together’ to BLT – another of the plays in the award winning trilogy of ‘The Norman Conquests’.
Oblivious to the repercussions of his actions, Norman leaves a trail of havoc, misunderstandings and comedy consequences, culminating in the fury of a home-made board game and the erotic delights of a brown nylon rug.
Alys Always
by Lucina Coxan
Directed by Paul Ackroyd
Main House
Friday 5th November to Saturday 13th November 2021 NOT Sunday 7th
Perhaps best described as a psychological thriller, it tells the story of Frances, a young woman who lives a mundane life in the publishing industry, who one day stops to help at a fatal roadside accident. When the victim’s family reach out to make contact, a door opens into a world previously out of reach, a world of privilege and possibility since the victim’s grieving husband is a luminary in the very world where Frances is trying to make her mark. Are her actions motivated by ruthless ambition or is she just doing what anyone might do to help a grieving family? Are the distortions of the truth she recounts merely trying to help their feelings or an attempt at ingratiation and will she get found out?
It’s a Wonderful Life
by Tony Palermo
Directed by Pauline Armour
Main house
Friday 10th December to Saturday 18th December 2021 NOT Sunday 12th
Tony Palermo’s adaptation remains faithful to the classic American film and introduces all 34 of your favourite (and perhaps not-so-favourite) characters. The story of idealistic George Bailey unfolds as he considers ending his life one fateful Christmas Eve. It takes the help of the lovable angel Clarence for George to have a change of heart and understand the true spirit of Christmas.
Review by Susan Elkin of Sardines: “Various things impressed me about this adeptly directed (Pauline Armour) production. First, the…..”
The Trojan Women
by Euripides 415 BC, Translated and adapted by Edward Philip Coleridge 1910
Adapted and directed by Pauline Armour
Available now on Bromley Little Theatre YouTube channel
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In Greek mythology the Trojan War was a war between the Greeks and the people of Troy. The strife began after the Trojan Prince Paris abducted Helen, wife of Menelaus of Sparta. When Menelaus demanded her return the Trojans refused. Menelaus then persuaded his brother Agamemnon to lead an army against Troy. Troy was besieged by the Greeks for ten years and was finally beaten when the Greek army built and hid inside a huge wooden horse which the Trojans thought was a gift and dragged inside their city walls. In the night, the Greek army emerged from the horse and slaughtered all of the men and boys in Troy. ‘The Trojan Women’ is set in the immediate aftermath of the sacking of Troy as the women wait amongst the ruins before they are exiled as slaves to the Greeks. This adaptation is non–specific in terms of era, and could be in any war zone throughout history, including what continues to take place in many countries of the world today.
Que Sera Sera –
What Ever WILL
be WILL be:
BLT Does Shakespeare
by the BLT team as inspired by The Bard
Available now on Bromley Little Theatre YouTube channel
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Please join us as more than thirty actors celebrate the bard’s birthday drawing inspiration from ‘The Complete Works’. There’s music and song, comedy and tragedy, satire and sketches, parody and poetry, sometimes irreverent, often bawdy, occasionally sentimental but always engaging. Come along and spot your favourite characters, listen out for a well known quote, tap your feet, hum a tune, laugh a lot, perhaps cry a little and raise a glass to both the past and to the return of our theatre in the very near future.
Wilde Wilde Women
By Oscar Wilde
Scenes directed by Pauline Armour, Bethan Boxall and Paul Doust
Available now on Bromley Little Theatre YouTube channel
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Please join us for a celebration of the writing of Oscar Wilde as twenty actors bring you a selection of scenes from four celebrated plays – ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’, ‘Lady Windermere’s Fan’, ‘An Ideal Husband’ and ‘A Woman of No Importance.’ Our ‘Wilde, Wilde Women’ along with several gentlemen will delight and confound you with their views on life, love, marriage, morality, ancestry and of course fashion. We hope that nothing will cause you to ‘resist the temptation’ of being dazzled, amazed and thoroughly well entertained.