Author: Grace Coppin

A new play will bring live theatre to parts of South Essex where it is rarely, if ever, staged. From a village hall in West Tilbury to a historic pub on Canvey Island, a Heritage Barn in the Wat Tyler Country Park to a Leisure Centre in Pitsea, Tales from the Thames charts its way along the Estuary, visiting ten diverse, intimate community locations and telling the epic story of five lives colliding on a single day along the banks of the river, and their futures changing forever.

The production is the first of a new series of exciting Creative Estuary Co-commissions – the initiative which aims to showcase 60 miles of the North Kent and South Essex region as one of the UK’s most dynamic and creative areas in the whole of the UK – working on this occasion with Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch (QTH).

Written by QTH Associate Artist Rebecca Brewer and playwright Vickie Donoghue, both from Thurrock, with Southend-based songwriter M G Boulter, Tales from the Thames begins as the sun rises over the river, and everything’s coming to life. The soundtrack of the Estuary is heard, from the dawn chorus of birds to engines starting, front doors closing and metal containers being loading onto waiting ships; across South Essex journeys are about to be made.

But today is different…

As the play develops, the audience is confronted with the emerging philosophical question: Can fractured relationships and fears of the future be overcome by stopping for a moment, taking in the view and listening to the water as it brings stories and memories to the shore?

“This is an epic story of the majestic Thames and its community. It’s about the power of coming together. And about winning a pop quiz,” teases Douglas Rintoul, Artistic Director, Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch.

Featuring live music and songs by M G Boulter – whose new album Clifftown, has contributions from musicians in bands such as Bellowhead and Spiritualized – this newly commissioned piece is deeply inspired by the Essex Thames Estuary and is made for and by the people who live and work alongside it.

Mathew Russell, Executive Director for Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch says “We’re taking it to ten community venues across South Essex and Tales from the Thames will be free to attend for everyone. The venues and locations have been chosen as places where local people rarely, if ever, have the opportunity to see live theatre performed. They’re all intimate settings, so the atmosphere will be electric.”

The venues and dates of performances of Tales from the Thames are:

• Saturday 26 June at 7pm – West Tilbury Village Hall
• Monday 28 June at 7pm – St Stephen’s Community Trust, Purfleet
• Tuesday 29 June at 7pm – The Place, Pitsea Leisure Centre
• Thursday 1 July at 7.30pm – The Corringham Hall
• Friday 2 July at 6pm – Aveley Community Hub
• Saturday 3 July at 2pm – Wat Tyler Centre, Pitsea, Basildon
• Sunday 4 July at 6.30pm – St Edmunds Community Hall, Southend-on-Sea
• Tuesday 6 July at 7pm – Tyrrells Hall Working Men’s Club, Grays
• Thursday 8 July at 7pm – The Lobster Smack Pub, Canvey Island
• Saturday 10 July at 7pm – South Ockendon Royal British Legion

The free tickets, for any of the performances mentioned above, will be available from Monday 7 June from Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch’s website www.queens-theatre.co.uk or by calling their Box Office on 01708 443333.

The production of Tales from the Thames brings together writers, performers, musicians and technicians from South Essex, co-ordinated by Creative Estuary and Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch. The team was brought together via a widely publicised Open Call for creative practitioners to get involved in the project.

After Rebecca, Vickie and M G had written the script and music, the job of creating the show is being undertaken by Rebecca as co-director, working alongside QTH’s Artistic Director, Douglas Rintoul. The set and costumes are being designed by Southend’s Rachel Dingle with choreography by Nikki Watson, from Gray’s CoDa Dance Company. Southend – on – Sea based Harry Fitzpatrick is Assistant Director, while Michael Bennett, Romford, is creating the sound design and Ed Guest, Dagenham, is lighting the show. M G Boulter is Musical Director.

Emma Wilcox, Creative Estuary Project Director says: “As we grow the Thames Estuary’s potential as a cultural and creative hub, we are committed to supporting our local artists and engaging our communities to contribute to their creative identity. In everything we do for the Estuary, we want to capture imagination and provide opportunities.  Tales from the Thames is fantastic project to kick off two years of Estuary Co-commissions – a new collaborative piece of place making theatre that’s accessible and cross generational, touring to community venues, and reaching under served and underrepresented audiences across our region.”

For more information about Creative Estuary, visit www.creativeestuary.com,  Twitter @creativeestuary / Linkedin / creative-estuary / Instagram @creativeestuary

Creative Estuary has a vision to forge a new future founded on creative energy and innovation, along the length of the Thames Estuary. Our ambition is clear: To transform 60 miles of the Thames Estuary across South Essex and North Kent into one of the most exciting creative clusters in the world. We’re going to do this by developing the places where the creative industries can build a vibrant and prosperous future, enriching communities and strengthening the region. The creative and cultural industries contribute more than £100bn per year to the UK economy, helping to attract investment, catalyse innovation, and enhance distinctive places and communities.  The £6.5m Creative Estuary programme will transform the visibility, identity and future of the region’s creative production infrastructure, supporting more than 400 new jobs, delivering new skills, qualifications, and apprenticeships across an area of 1.5million people, providing skills and training for more than 500 people. By using culture as the catalyst for growth, the Thames Estuary will provide much-needed space for expanding creative businesses and provide the scale of services, skills and infrastructure sought by both UK organisations and international creative producers. The success of Creative Estuary will contribute to wider national programmes to generate investment, jobs and creative industry opportunities for the whole Thames Estuary, making it one of the most attractive places to live and work in the UK. Creative Estuary is supported by The Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and led by a consortium of public sector and cultural organisations. The project is led by the University of Kent on behalf of a consortium of public sector and cultural organisations. They include the South East Local Enterprise Partnership (SELEP), Kent and Essex County Councils, the Greater London Authority, 11 local authority areas represented by Thames Gateway Kent Partnership and Opportunity South Essex, South East Creative Economy Network (SECEN), University of Essex, Locate in Kent and cultural organisations Metal and Cement Fields.

Creative Estuary Co-commissions will support a wide range of cultural projects with new commissions for Estuary-based producers and artists, from activity for emerging cultural activists to large scale commissions with a diverse mix of partners.  Creative Estuary Co-commissions will raise widespread awareness of existing creative talent across the region and support creative practitioners and organisations to make and present new work. We are committed to helping all our creative practitioners and engaging our local communities to contribute to their creative identity and will give artists, organisations and creative practitioners opportunities and support to help them realise their creative ambitions. The Co-commissions will create opportunities for creative innovation and new cultural production – we want to capture imagination and provide opportunities for greater collaboration and knowledge sharing.

Queens Theatre Hornchurch (QTH) is a vibrant producing theatre, working in outer East London, Essex and beyond. As a cultural hub, over 210,000 people enjoy the programme each year. Audiences are guaranteed a warm welcome from a three-year winner of UK Theatre’s Most Welcoming Theatre (2016 – 2018) and London Theatre of the Year 2020 (The Stage Awards), the first Greater London theatre to receive this prestigious award.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, INTERVIEWS AND IMAGES

Sarah Soliman, Marketing Manager, Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch sarahs@queens-theatre.co.uk

It feels almost like tempting fate but is that the sound of the world switching back on we hear?

It has been a ridiculously tough 15 months for everyone.  Whether it has been felt in small or large ways we don’t think any of us are quite the same as we were in March 2020.  As artists the pandemic has affected our world and work profoundly, taking away our audience, our community and our ability to share the beautiful things we make, live.

But, as the world begins to wake up again, QTH want to offer a little support where we can for Outer East London or South Essex based artists to set out on this new chapter with a sense of possibility and potential.

We are inviting proposals from any artist, in any medium, that:
– help you move you practice or career forward post-pandemic
– that signify crossing a new frontier to you.  That might be doing something in a new way, reaching out to a new audience or learning a new skill to help your career.  Anything. Just new to you.
If you don’t want to, you don’t have to make anything new.  This is not about commissioning you to make work, though you can if you want.  It is about commissioning you to do something to move yourself forward.

We only ask for four things:
– that you live in Outer East London or South Essex
– that you define yourself as a ‘professional’ artist
– that your proposal involves taking us up on one of our resources, offered below
– That your proposal involves you interacting in real life with a new person in your community (don’t think too hard about this; it could be us, it could be a local printer, just someone.)

RESOURCES WE CAN OFFER TO YOUR PROJECT IN KIND
– Creative information, advice and guidance sessions with our Associate Producer and other members of staff where available
– Desk space to write that application, re-draft that play, finish editing that piece of music or whatever you might need it for* with access to unlimited hot drinks**
– Use of our Artist Space rehearsal and workshop studio*
– Performance, scratch or public facing time, including at:
– Outer Limits Scratch Night
– Havering Changing’s Big Summer Of Outdoor Arts
– Outer Limits Thurrock

Please submit a proposal of no longer than 250 words with a CV to matthews@queens-theatre.co.uk detailing what you want to spend the money on to move yourself forward across a new frontier.  Commission amounts will be between £1 and £500 with the actual amount given being at the discretion of QTH.  Deadline for proposals is 10am Monday 7th June and decisions will be communicated by 6pm Friday 11th June.

*availability dependent
**slight exaggeration but there is definitely some

Throughout the spring, local participants have been dialling in for our Tiny Telephone Plays workshops exploring creative writing, led by director Jules Tipton.

10 Tiny Telephone Plays have been selected for an audio performance by professional actors, and you can be among the first to hear these brand new audio plays…

Ten Tiny Telephone Plays is a live audio experience, both charming and thought provoking it spotlights moments of joy, hope and discovery experienced throughout the last year.

Can Dave find his bus pass? How important is a hat? What do a wonky cabinet and a couple’s marriage vows have in common? Who is Bodacious Bachelor Bart? Where is the ‘Happy Place’ and will it help us to treasure what we have around us…?

You will hear warming moments of connection as stories are shared that somehow bring us together, giving audience members a unique and moving theatre experience in their own homes at a time when live theatre performance is less accessible.

Written by Harry Cope-Prior, John Dunn, Lesley Dunn, Rodney Eborn, Andi Gaywood, Beena Khan, Christine Kite, Bobby Rolfe, David Savage, and Claude Thomas; performed by Mia Jerome and Martin Johnston; and directed by Jules Tipton.

Audio Performances: Wednesday 12 May, 2021 at 12:00 mid-day | 1:00pm | 2:30pm | 3:00pm | 4:00pm

The show is 20 minutes long and is performed live over the phone to a small group of audience members at a time. Audience members hear the performance from the comfort and safety of home.

Performances are FREE to attend, but spaces are limited and must be booked in advance in order to receive a unique telephone access code.

This project has been made possible thanks to the Paul Hamlyn Foundation‘s support of our Learning and Participation work.

For further details and to book a performance time, email learning@queens-theatre.co.uk or call 01708 443333.

 

 

This summer, Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch is leading an exciting new collaborative project, a Creative Estuary Co-commission, stretching in impact across South Essex, titled Tales from the Thames.

The Theatre has commissioned two writers, Rebecca Brewer and Vickie Donoghue, and composer M G Boulter, all from or living in South Essex, to write the piece.

Rebecca Brewer is an actress, writer and theatre maker living in Thurrock. She is an Associate Artist at Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch and has worked at the National Theatre, Royal Shakespeare Company, Royal Court, Almeida Theatre, and many times in the West End as well as on television, radio and film. Last year Rebecca was commissioned by Thurrock CVS to create At Least We’ve Got This Place, an audio-visual piece about life on her local allotment in Thurrock throughout the pandemic.

Vickie Donoghue is an Essex playwright and writer for TV and radio living in Thurrock. Her work and artistic practice is socially engaged and always focuses on the regions of south east Essex. She has worked at The Bush, the High Tide Festival, New Theatre Royal Portsmouth, the Royal Court and Sheffield’s Crucible. Vickie is Paines Plough’s playwright Fellow 20/21. Her 10-part Podcast drama The Piper, co-written with fellow playwright Natalie Mitchell and produced by Somethin Else for BBC Sounds, was broadcast in November 2020. It starred Tamsin Outhwaite and Kacey Ainsworth.

M G Boulter is a singer songwriter living on the Thames coast in Essex. His song writing has been described as ‘Gorgeous, in a word’ by Uncut and ‘Highly Recommended’ by the Independent on Sunday. His second full length album With Wolves the Lamb Will Lie was listed as one of the ‘Best Folk Albums of 2016’ by the Daily Telegraph. M G has been a member of Blue Rose Code, Emily Portman’s Coracle Band and The Lucky Strikes and was a touring member of US groups The Duke and the King and the Simone Felice Group. His recent album, Clifftown, takes an observant look at the British Seaside and is accompanied by The Clifftown Podcast project which seeks to uncover the hidden histories, culture and people of Southend-on-Sea

Together they will be writing a new piece of place making theatre that is accessible and cross generational, touring to community venues, and reaching under served and underrepresented audiences in South Essex.

More announcements about this project will be made next month.

 

 

Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch announces the cast and creative team for its production of Neville’s Island, playing 20 May – 12 June and 22 June – 3 July 2021. This fresh new staging of Tim Firth’s smash hit comedy launches the season at the Theatre and welcomes back Emma Baggott to direct, following her acclaimed productions of Misfits and Stiletto Beach.

The cast includes Beruce Khan (Shadowlands, Chichester Festival Theatre), Philip Cairns (Cyrano De Bergerac, The Playhouse Theatre), Sean Michael Verey (Pramface, BBC Three) and Stephen Leask (School of Rock, New London Theatre).

Director Emma Baggott is joined by set and costume designer James Button (Worst Wedding Ever, Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch, Salisbury Playhouse and New Wolsey Theatre Ipswich), Sound Designer Alexandra Faye Braithwaite (Grown Ups, Vaudeville Theatre), Lighting Designer Stephen Pemble (Misfits, Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch) and Fight Director Haruka Kuroda (The Last Temptation of Boris Johnson, Park Theatre).

Four out-of-condition clueless middle managers are forced on the outdoor awayday from hell. Shipwrecked, wrapped in thick fog and cut off from civilisation with one cold sausage between them, Gordon, Angus, Roy and the hapless Neville‎ are about to experience the misadventure of their lives…

From the critically acclaimed Tim Firth, writer of Calendar Girls, The Band and Our House, this award-nominated West End comedy is the perfect entertainment to welcome audiences safely back to live theatre, on their doorstep this summer.

Artistic Director Douglas Rintoul and Executive Director Mathew Russell say, ‘We’re excited to welcome this sterling team to the Theatre helmed by the brilliant Emma Baggott, for what will be a standout production of Tim’s hilarious hit show. We can’t wait to share this wonderful comedy with audiences in person’.

 Tickets to Neville’s Island cost £12.50 – £29 plus 65p QRenew Fee, tickets for under 26s are just £8. To book, click here .

Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch is thrilled to announce that their summer musical Love Letters will include hits ranging from the 60s to today from Essex’s very best! Artists include Alison Moyet, Billy Bragg, Billy Ocean, Blur, David Woodcock, Depeche Mode, Jessie J, Olly Murs, Sandie Shaw and The Tremeloes. The show runs 30 July – 21 August 2021.

This world premiere production of a funny and popular everyday love story promises to be an uplifting night out for everyone proudly calling Essex their home.

What happens when an unposted love letter meant to be sent between a passionate young couple dating, only gets delivered sixteen years later? Perhaps it’s time both put aside some regrets and rediscover what might have been – if it’s not too late…

Brought to you by Douglas Rintoul, the Theatre’s Artistic Director, and team members from hits such as Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Made in Dagenham and In Basildon.

The show marks the next step in the Theatre’s Essex on Stage programme, an ambitious two-year project led by Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch and made possible by the generous support of The Clothworkers’ Foundation. It champions positive notions of Essex, celebrates theatre made by working-class people and raises aspirations for emerging artists from Essex and Outer East London.

Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch has a long history of producing smash hit musicals from Blood Brothers and The Who’s rock opera Tommy, which both transferred to the West End, to more recent productions such as Melvyn Bragg and Howard Goodall’s The Hired Man, a musical adaptation of As You Like It in partnership with the National Theatre, and the regional premieres of Made in Dagenham and Once the Musical.

Tickets to Love Letters cost £13.50 – £30 plus 65p QRenew Fee, tickets for under 26s are just £8. To book, click here or call the Box Office on 01708 443333.

Since COVID-19 closed theatres across the country in March 2020, Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch’s small team has rapidly reimagined the essential services it provides. As a result, in 2020/21, QTH reached 160,500 people, and employed over 100 freelancers, generating a very different programme of life enhancing cultural activity.

QTH made new digital theatre attracting 9,497 unique household views. In June QTH premiered its first YouTube streaming, of co-production The Hired Man, seen worldwide, and devised and live streamed Here I Am, lovingly made out of 1,000 lockdown story responses from local community members. In November, it live streamed the world premiere of Misfits, co-commissioned from 4 diverse writers, receiving 4 star reviews and an OnComm nomination. In February the world premiere of Sharon n Barry do Romeo and Juliet on Zoom enjoyed 85% approval ratings and a 5 star Daily Mail review.

QTH premiered a new revue, Christmas Allsorts, and whenever permitted, staged performances in the auditorium and on the newly named The Other Stage, for families, people experiencing dementia, and comedy and music lovers.

QTH’s Learning and Participation team developed new creative online activity for social isolated and vulnerable people, attracting 141,857 engagements. Weekly Seated Dance Classes and Musical Theatre Workouts proved popular, as did Tiny Plays, online community playwriting classes, with the results recorded by professional actors and released online. This developed into a telephone edition for those who face barriers to digital engagement. Specially created Spring into Creativity Packs were delivered to 600 homes across the Orchard Village & Passive Close estates.

QTH Young Change Makers created a new Community Library, delivered I Am Here (sessions discussing identity online), launched a Changemakers Network and made a series of podcasts. Weekly work with Havering looked after children lead to a collaboration with Lung, The Children’s Inquiry, the R&D of which was shared in November.

When open to the public, QTH delivered 5,765 in person participatory engagements, taking over the theatre for 5 weeks of holiday workshops, running daily classes for parents & babies and older people, and switching Youth Theatre between in real life and weekly connect sessions.

Outer Limits has further evolved into a lifeline for a growing network of Outer East London and South Essex creative practitioners, with new weekly skills and networking sessions, one to one funding surgeries, 3 associate artist programmes to enhance support to independent artists (D-Live, Old Trunk, Rebecca Brewer), free use of rehearsal spaces, a scratch night and sharings, all engaging 1,685 local and regional artists.

QTH has helped establish Havering Changing, a new Creative People and Places partnership, appointing a dedicated team and facilitating new activity for under represented and under served communities. Hyper local outdoor and digital test events took place, alongside recruiting steering groups of local people in Harold Hill, Rainham, Romford and Orchard Village, running Let’s Create funding night schools, launching new creative community support packages (£31,000 awarded to date), and calling out for ideas for Let’s Make Havering Happy boxes of happiness.

QTH had made best use of closure to reinvigorate the building and cost effectively complete QNew, QTH’s ‎£1.3m capital redevelopment, the first in 40+ years, as well as transforming the membership of the Theatre’s Board. QTH fundraised for emergency support from public and private sources‎, including the Government’s Cultural Recovery Fund, Arts Council England, London Borough of Havering, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, London Community Respond Fund, Clarion Futures, and attracted record breaking levels of generous public donations.

Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch in partnership with Clarion Futures, the charitable foundation of Clarion Housing Group, are delighted to be launching a new project ‘Spring Into Creativity’ this week for residents of Orchard Village and Passive Close in Rainham, Essex.

The project provides positive creative activities residents can engage with from their home while social distancing restrictions continue. Designed for all ages, with specific focus on adults who are shielding, these free resource packs contain everything needed to join in. Activities include crafts to make, recipes to bake, adult colouring, games, quizzes and puzzles, creative writing challenges and competitions with prizes including 60 theatre tickets to Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch productions later this year.

Key to the project has been the ambition to generate something special, personalised to the local community and celebrating the huge number of brilliant partners who would usually be delivering activities and events but have been limited over the last year, including; the Mardyke Community Centre, Newtons Primary School, Rainham Foodbank, Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch, West Ham United Foundation, Havering Changing, the Y.M.C.A, the Youth Service and Sports Development teams and others at the London Borough of Havering.

Celebrating the local touch included supporting local artists and businesses, including Gemma Compton (Craftschmooze stationary), born on the old Mardyke estate (now Orchard Village) and still a Rainham resident, who was commissioned to generate brand artwork as well as resources for the pack.

‘Spring Into Creativity’ also aims to share valuable local resources such as London Borough of Havering’s #LookAfterYourNoggin campaign as well as signposting digital and non-digital community initiatives including Havering Changing and upcoming digital and telephone based creative workshops.

Clarion Futures has previously funded the Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch’s participation work though regular dance and drama workshops at the Orchard Village estate as well as commissioning digital and telephone based activities. Clarion Futures is also a member of the Havering Changing consortium, a partnership of 8 local organisations that will seek radical new ideas to engage local communities in arts and culture, support local decision makers and share learnings, led by Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch.

 James Watson, Head of Learning and Participation at Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch, said ‘We hope everyone will find something inside to make them smile, give them pause to think or a chance to explore something new. Spring is here, new opportunities and initiatives are starting up and we are so excited to be at the heart of it continuing this valuable partnership with Clarion Futures and delivering more creative projects within the community.’

 Matt Parsonage, Head of Communities at Clarion Futures, said: ‘We’re delighted to be continuing our partnership with Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch which has evolved to meet the changing needs of residents during the pandemic. The ‘Spring into Creativity’ project will be fantastic for local people, providing opportunities to take part in activities and engage with the community and I’m sure it will prove to be very popular.’

Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch is delighted to announce that it has received further funding from Clarion Futures, the charitable foundation of Clarion Housing Group, to reinstate its offering of two strands of free digital classes for the next six weeks. In addition, Clarion Futures is funding six weeks of weekly telephone based workshops.

The classes are aimed at connecting our shared community from their own homes while in lock-down, streaming live from the Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch Facebook page each week and via conference calls.

Clarion Futures funded six weeks of workshops last summer and these proved to be hugely beneficial in bringing focus and positive engagement to people of all ages, racking up 27,000 views from 1,700 individual households.

Participants stated that ‘Everyone needs dance right now for their mental and health wellbeing – thank you’ and ‘We’ve been safe at home for 17 weeks now and this means so much to [my husband] and I.’

Thanks to the funding received from Clarion Futures, the digital sessions will run for six weeks beginning Tuesday 6 April. Previous sessions are also available to catch-up via the Theatre’s YouTube and Facebook pages.

Dance workouts will be hosted by Choreographer and Movement Director Sundeep Saini from her living room every Tuesday at 11am, with a brand new routine to try each week. These sessions will be delivered seated to support access and mobility needs, subtitled, and audio described in delivery. Each session goes live on the Theatre’s Facebook and YouTube pages at 11am on a Tuesday.

Musical theatre sing-a-long’s return with local musician and Musical Director Andrew Linham every Thursday at 11am, (additionally supported by Ardleigh Green Learning Federation). Andrew will lead a warm up session followed by the chance to learn a classic musical theatre number each week.

In addition, non-digital telephone based workshops are being introduced on Wednesdays at 11am. Tiny Telephone Plays is an extension of a hugely successful initiative the Theatre ran online last summer and reimagined this January for people without access to the internet. Sessions will offer a playful introduction to storytelling and playmaking activities designed to help unleash creativity led by established Theatre Director Jules Tipton and will be exclusively for residents of Orchard Village and Passive Close in Rainham, Essex.

Clarion Futures has previously funded the Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch’s participation work though regular dance and drama workshops at the Orchard Village estate. Clarion Futures is also a member of the Havering Changing consortium, a partnership of 8 local organisations that will seek radical new ideas to engage local communities in arts and culture, support local decision makers and share learnings, led by Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch.

The digital classes and telephone based workshops have been made possible thanks to a grant from Clarion Futures’ Emergency Support Fund which has been created to offer direct financial support to some of its longstanding partners during the coronavirus outbreak.

James Watson, Head of Learning and Participation at Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch, said ‘We are so excited to be back, live in your living room and hoping to spread a little joy during this difficult and isolated period. We regularly hear from participants how important this digital and non-digital content has been in supporting positive wellbeing and social connection and remain incredibly grateful for the funding partnership with Clarion Futures that is enabling such valuable activity to continue.’

Matt Parsonage, Head of Communities at Clarion Futures, said: ‘Initiatives like this one run by Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch are so important in terms of keeping communities connected at the moment. We’re delighted to be building on our partnership and funding these new sessions which we hope will help improve the mental and physical wellbeing of local people.’

Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch is delighted to be able to reopen its doors to the public on Monday 17 May 2021 (subject to the Government’s Roadmap).

The new season of produced work at Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch gets underway with a new production of Tim Firth’s hit comedy Neville’s Island, from 20 May – 12 June and 22 June – 3 July 2021 (socially distanced seating will remain in place at least throughout May and June).

Four out-of-condition clueless middle managers are forced on the outdoor awayday from hell. Shipwrecked, wrapped in thick fog and cut off from civilisation with one cold sausage between them, Gordon, Angus, Roy and the hapless Neville‎ are about to experience the misadventure of their lives…

From the critically acclaimed Tim Firth, writer of Calendar Girls, The Band and Our House. This fresh new production of an award nominated West End comedy, is the perfect entertainment to welcome audiences safely back to live theatre, on their doorstep this summer.

From 30 July – 21 August 2021, the main stage will be filled with all the best of Essex pop throughout the heart of the summer as the postponed premiere of Love Letters, a brand-new jukebox musical, promises audiences an unmissable post Lockdown treat. It is the next step in the Theatre’s Essex on Stage programme, an ambitious new two year programme led by Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch and made possible by the generous support of The Clothworkers’ Foundation, championing positive notions of Essex, celebrating theatre made by working class people and raising aspirations for emerging artists from Essex and Outer East London.

In early autumn 2021, Romford-born David Eldridge (In Basildon) returns home with a ‘gorgeous new play’ (Independent) that takes a touching look at the first fragile moments of risking your heart and taking a chance. This tender‎ and funny critically acclaimed smash hit received its world premiere at the National Theatre before transferring to the West End. Beginning is being revived and relaunched by Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch from 3 – 18 September 2021.

Details of the rest of the Autumn 2021 season of productions, including a newly commissioned play, will be unveiled in late June 2021.

Finally, tickets are on sale for our traditional family pantomime Aladdin returning to Hornchurch this Christmas.

The Theatre is also offering a range of socially distanced comedy, dance and family guest shows throughout May and June 2021. Acts such as comedy favourites Scared Scriptless, Bring the Laughter, Queen’s Theatre Comedy Club and Shake It Up Theatre – the improvised Shakespeare show. Children aged 4 – 13 can join the Mad Science team for an exciting journey through the world of Chemistry! For dance enthusiasts the Theatre are hosting Ballet Central – the renowned company of young graduate dancers. The annual National Theatre Connections Festival, celebrating young people and theatre-making also takes to the main stage. Queen’s Theatre Hornchurch will be showcasing new work from local artist Maria Ferguson with Essex Girl as part of its Outer Limits programme on its newly renamed The Other Stage, as well as continuing the sing-a-long musical for people living with dementia and their carers, Down Memory Lane.

The popular community Café will reopen, and the Theatre’s impressive learning and participation programme continues with a range of online and in-person activities.