Over the past few months I’ve been working with rural touring theatre company Stuff of Dreams on their Spring Tour, An Honest Gentleman. Having seen Christchurch Mansion used as a venue for talks and theatre productions I knew it would make the perfect setting for Stuff of Dreams tale of 18th Century highwaymen (and highwaywomen!) With help from the brilliant staff at Colchester & Ipswich Museums we’ve just staged two sell-out performances of the show in the atmospheric entrance hall of this beautiful building. With the help of funding from Arts Council England we were also able to employ BSL interpreter Caroline Smith to make the second performance accessible to all our audience members. It was great to see arts and heritage combining to create a really fun, immersive and site-specific evening’s entertainment!
Karen Goddard 