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Great Hall Players
        Great Hall Theatre Company

Address: The Assembly House, Theatre Street, Norwich, Norfolk NR2 1RO
Full facilities for wheelchairs, Induction loop for the hard of hearing.
Box Office: 01603 598688. Booking tickets

Programme 08-09. Forward to: March / May / June

November
Tuesday
25th to 29th Nov at 7:30pm
Tickets: £8, children 16 and under £5

My Boy Jack

David Haig, directed by David Hare

It is 1913, with a World War on the horizon. This powerful and compelling play takes us behind the scenes at Batemans, the Sussex home of Rudyard Kipling and his family.
    Kipling is desperate to prove his only son, Jack, is fit to serve his country in war despite his chronic myopia. Strings are pulled and the scene moves to the Western Front in 1915, where Jack - just 18, and a Second Lieutenant in the Irish Guards, commands his first raid. The bewildering aftermath takes us back to Batemans and witnesses the Kipling family coming to terms with events that ensue. If you enjoyed Journey's End try this one. It is even better.

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February 09
Tuesday
3rd to 7th Feb at 7:30pm
Matinee: Sat 7th Feb at 2:30pm
Tickets: £8, children 16 and under £5

Improbable Fiction

by Alan Ayckbourn, directed by Trudy McGilvray

In Improbable Fiction Ayckboun has created a plot as insanely upside down as Shakespeare's play of reversals and wish fulfilment Twelfth Night (where he found the title). We begin by eavesdropping on a meeting of the Pendon Writers' Circle, where six authors are in search of ...anything at all!
    All appears hopeless until suddenly fiction springs to life as fact. Truth may be stranger than fiction but definitely not here where it starts to unwind.....situation, period place and even planet changing at breakneck speed. A concoction of spoof sci-fi characters, a policeman that any crime writer would be proud to disown, a damsel in distress and an alien abduction erupt. How will the cast possibly manage the lightning changes and swift character-swaps? Make sure you don't miss it!

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March
Tuesday 24th to 28th March at 7:30pm
Matinee: Sat 28th March at 2:30pm
Tickets: £8, children 16 and under £5

Blood Brothers

by Willy Russell, directed by Peter James

A writer of Educating Rita and John, Paul, George and Bert takes as his starting point a path explored frequently in literature - twins separated at birth, leaving one in his own working-class environment, placing the other in privileged surroundings.
    Without knowing they are brothers, they find each other at seven years of age. We follow their lives through childhood, into adolescent romance, later youth and finally adulthood, as they take different paths.
        Russell poses the basic question of whether we are creatures of our heredity, inextricably linked by ties of genes and blood or perhaps the the product of our social, cultural and economic environment. This play version, written in 1986 is fast moving, thought provoking and at times very funny, and with Liverpool at its heart build to its inevitable and ultimate tragedy.

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May
Tuesday 12th to 16th May at 7:30pm
Matinee: Saturday 16th May at 2:30pm
Tickets: £8, children 16 and under £5

The Woman in White

Wilkie Collins, adapted by David Morrison, directed by Ayeha Christian

This is not a detective story, but a mystery with a strong element of detection. We are introduced to the eponymous character in the first scene and subsequently pulled through the play by the intrigue surrounding this ghostly figure.
    Walter, a drawing master, falls in love with his pupil Laura. Sadly for him she is already betrothed to Sir Percival Glyde, a foreboding character who is desperately short of money, and also has a dark secret he is at great pains to conceal! Will he stop at nothing to ensure his secret remains hidden? How can he get hold of enough money to pay off his huge debts? Can Walter solve the mystery?
        Manipulation, violence and false alibis all feature in this fast-moving adaptation. What does the woman in white know about the secret? How should she be silenced?

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June
Tuesday 30th June to 4th  July at 7:30pm
Matinee: Saturday 4th July at 2:30pm
Tickets: £8, children 16 and under £5

Not Now Darling

by Ray Cooney & John Chapman, directed by John Bury

With a pedigree that includes Dry Rot, There Goes the Bride, Move Over Mrs Markham, and Chase Me Comrade the Cooney and Chapman partnership just goes on providing unabashed laughter.
    This one became the West End hit of 1968 starring Bernard Cribbins and Donald Sinden. The fourth floor of West End furriers, Bodley, Bodley and Crouch becomes the epicentre of hilarious permutations and saucy entanglements reaching hysteria before everyone gets their just desserts!
        A truly uproarious farce about the consequences of attempted infidelity.

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Tickets

Booking in Person
    You can book at the Theatre Royal Box Office, which is open from 9:30am until 6pm. Monday to Saturday.

Booking by Phone
    Telephone 01603 598688 to book - pay instantly using your credit card. Your tickets can be posted to you upon payment if you wish. The Theatre Royal will make a small charge for this service.
Sold and unsold tickets will transfer to The Assembly House on the day of the performance - to be collected or sold at the door. Please ensure sold tickets have been collected at least ten minutes before 'curtain up'. We reserve the right to re-sell unclaimed tickets after this time.

Latecomers
    We regret that latecomers can only be seated at a suitable point in the performance determined by the Front of House staff.

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