{"id":938,"date":"2023-08-28T10:33:44","date_gmt":"2023-08-28T09:33:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anaisleseat.com\/?p=938"},"modified":"2023-08-28T10:33:44","modified_gmt":"2023-08-28T09:33:44","slug":"theatre-tours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anaisleseat.com\/index.php\/2023\/08\/28\/theatre-tours\/","title":{"rendered":"Theatre Tours"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m a big fan of theatre tours and take one whenever I get the opportunity. Recently I have been on two which have been rather special. Chichester Festival Theatre<\/a>, one of the best regional theatres in the UK, does not do tours very often but the one I experienced recently was outstanding. We were taken round every department with the head of each explaining how they work. I was particularly interested in the understage and backstage areas and how scenes are changed using only lifts and rails because the theatre has no fly tower.<\/p>\n

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Even better was my tour of the Gaiety Theatre<\/a> in Douglas, on the Isle of Man. Here the tour was presented by a member of staff who had worked there for many years, including the period between 1990 and 2000 when an incredible restoration of the theatre took place. It is a Frank Matcham<\/a> masterpiece. The tour lasted nearly two hours and covered every aspect of the theatre, including the last remaining operational Corsican Trap<\/a> in the world ( too complex to explain here but look it up or watch the YouTube video ).<\/p>\n

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Both theatres are what they are today thanks to the efforts of one man. In the case of Chichester this was Leslie Evershed-Martin<\/a>. He has written two books about his time at the theatre, The Impossible Theatre <\/em>and The Miracle Theatre<\/em>. The Gaiety owes its present success to Mervin Stokes<\/a>. His book is called Saving The Gaiety<\/em>. All three books are now out of print but second-hand copies can be found online.<\/p>\n

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Other tours I would recommend are at the National in London and The Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m a big fan of theatre tours and take one whenever I get the opportunity. Recently I have been on two which have been rather special. Chichester Festival Theatre, one of the best regional theatres in the UK, does not do tours very often but the one I experienced recently \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8WLDF-f8","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anaisleseat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anaisleseat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anaisleseat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anaisleseat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anaisleseat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=938"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/anaisleseat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":952,"href":"https:\/\/anaisleseat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/938\/revisions\/952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anaisleseat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anaisleseat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anaisleseat.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}