As summer approaches, this coastal favourite has a packed programme of outdoor entertainments.
Lytham Hall Open Air Theatre
June 11th - August 27th
There’s an appealing balance to the 2017 theatre season designed for Lytham Hall, now one of the country’s most successful outdoor venues. The Grade I Georgian mansion will host four plays in its impressively restored parkland in June, July and August. Last year it drew the largest attendance in the country during an 80 venue tour by leading open air specialists Illyria.
Oliver Gray, the artistic director, said: ‘I felt that Lytham Hall was ideal for outdoor theatre, one of the outstanding venues in the country. The majestic trees provide first¬class acoustics and the loyal Lancashire audience was encouraging and wonderfully responsive. It has become one of the favourite venues for our casts.’
The open air season begins on Sunday June 11 with Chapterhouse Theatre Company performing Laura Turner’s acclaimed adaptation of Great Expectations.
They are followed by Illyria with Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Lost World on July 9, Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado on August 20 and on Bank Holiday Sunday August 27, Hans Christian Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes. Gates open two hours before each performance for picnics..
Details and tickets Lytham Hall 01253 736652 www.lythamhall.co.uk
Lytham Festival
August 2nd - 6th
Meanwhile, Lytham-¬based promoters Peter Taylor and Daniel Cuffe have again lined up an array of quality performers designed to draw a capacity audience of 75,000 for five nights of Proms on the Green, the centrepiece of the week¬long Lytham Festival from Monday July 31 to Sunday August 6.
Singer Olly Murs launches the festival on Wednesday August 2, followed by a Hacienda Classical Night with the Manchester Camerata on Thursday and an 80s and 90s show with The Human League and Midge Ure on Friday.
For the Madness concert on Saturday Suggs and the band are expected to play to a full house.
The Sunday spectacular this year will be a reprise of the West End Proms show, sadly curtailed by an unexpected gale last summer. Collabro, Ruthie Henshall and Ramin Karimloo, together with Claire Sweeney, Lea Salonga and Lancashire’s own Jodie Prenger and Lucie¬Mae Sumner, will be accompanied by the Heart of England Philharmonic Orchestra, before fireworks bring the week to a sparkling finale.
Tickets 0844 888 0200 www.lythamfestival.com
Lytham 1940s Festival
August 19th -20th
The distinctive voice and songs of the forces’ sweetheart Dame Vera Lynn, this year celebrating her 100th birthday, will be a poignant reminder of the wartime years at the free 1940s weekend on Lytham Green on August 19 and 20, when an entertainment stage, battle re¬enactments and vintage military vehicles will draw 20,000 enthusiasts to Lytham, some complete with their own gas masks, ration books and cod liver oil. The Lytham Spitfire at Fairhaven Lake, a full sized replica of the plane for which residents of Lytham and St Annes raised £6,500 in 1940, remains a huge draw even to the selfie generation.
www.visitlythamstannes.co.uk/whats-on/lytham-1940s-wartime-weekend-p578420
