BALLET, theatre, comedy and live music will all be shown at The Bay in Weston-super-Mare throughout December and January.
Eight Theatre @ The Bay shows will take place at the former Tropicana, on Weston’s seafront, as North Somerset Council looks to secure the building’s future as an events space.
The council has organised the shows alongside the district’s arts development charity, The Theatre Orchard, and the programme follows on from the international success of Banksy’s Dismaland which also took place at the former lido.
The council’s seafront and events manager Darren Fairchild said: “Following on from Dismaland we wanted to keep creativity in the building.
“We feel the future of the building is as an events space and the hope is to bring a more diverse audience than we have had before.
“It is really nice to work in conjunction with other community audiences.”
The theatre can hold up to 200 people and the council has already invited all of the district’s schools to go to free matinee performances.
Mr Fairchild said: “We always want to ensure the venue has a community feel around it and we want to support more community organisations.
“It is a possibility to do music events for 5,000 people here, but we also want to support those smaller groups to put on events.”
When the theatre series is complete the venue will have £500,000 injected into it, and Mr Fairchild said: “The light refurbishment will provide suitable toilets and heating, so we don’t have to bring all of those things in each time.”
The council’s leader, Nigel Ashton, said it is important to ‘capitalise’ on Dismaland’s legacy, and added: “These shows are just the start of establishing the venue as an arts and entertainment centre as part of our wider regeneration plans for the town where more people want to live, learn and spend their leisure time.”
Nutshell Nutcracker, Neither There Nor Here, Mrs Gerrish’s Grotto, Nutty Noah, A Christmas Carol, Instant Wit, Fireside Tales With Granddad and Coulrophobia will all be performed at the theatre in a series of shows starting today (Thursday) and finishing on January 18.
Show dates, performance times and tickets, priced from £5-20, can all be found via www.tobaccofactorytheatres.com/whats-on or by calling 01179 020344.
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