John Peel Theatre

They performed Yes and No, in Wigton Secondary School hall.

From Phil Martin (via Facebook): The mention of the new lighting in the [newspaper] report revives vivid memories of my dad building all the lighting kit at home to use in the club’s new venue. He used Carr’s biscuit tins, painted matte black and fixed together into various banks for footlights, overhead spot lights etc., coloured perspex(?) sheets for the effects, and a whole stack of switches, dimmers and other equipment sourced from Strand Electrics. The photo shows him with Tom Hadwin and John Housby demonstrating the new control panel.

The theatre club refurbished the toilets and roofed over the side alleyway making an indoor route to the toilets and a much more comfortable experience for audiences.

The theatre stage was completely rebuilt.

Extensive dry rot was discovered in the theatre and major work was carried out to eliminate it.

Established for young club members to attend classes to prepare them for taking part in performances. The workshop rapidly became popular and has a long waiting list.

Arts Council and Allerdale District Council grants (along with others - see sponsors page) enabled a major refurbishment. The removal of two rows of seats allowed for an ambitious project which reopened one of the original windows and moved the internal corridor wall back to create a welcoming bar area. A new, larger and easily accessible technical box was built. Club members also cleaned, repaired and painted all of the seats and repainted the theatre interior.

Yes, this one!

A regular Open Mic Night was established and quickly became popular.

Thanks to a generous donation of equipment from Long Meg Band, the theatre received a complete upgrade of its sound system,enabling it to more easily cope with the increasingly technical demands of visiting bands and open mic nights.

In August 2017 Wigton Theatre Club put on its first Shakespeare production. Romeo and Juliet was performed with a black box stage and minimalist, modern setting. The production was well received by large and enthusiastic audiences.

Wigton Theatre Club won a grant of £12,000 to install solar panel to improve the comfort of the building and preserve its fabric.

Thanks to a very generous grant of £2396 from Wigton Coop, the club purchased LED parcans, 2 intelligent moving heads and a new Avolites Titan One virtual lighting console.

Stage working and wing lights were upgraded and stage storage access improved with the addition of doors at the front of the stage.

Work continued on improving dressing rooms, props, tools and costume storage started in 2017.

Thanks to the M&S energy grant, the theatre can now be kept warm and dry through the coldest months and the theatre is more comfortable for members and audiences.

The original seats (estimated to be around 100 years old) were looking very shabby. Around 60 of the original seats were sympathetically restored, to return them to their former splendour whilst maintaining their history.

The remaining seats are modern linked seats, commissioned to fit with the original seats. They allow for more flexible seating and performance space and can be removed to create a dance floor.

For the first time in its history, the John Peel Theatre shut its doors for live performances, along with every other theatre in the country; amateur and professional.

Work was carried out during the closure to refurbish the toilets, green room and the theatre's sound system, whilst play readings, some social events and Open Mic Nights (from June 2020) moved onto Zoom.

These grow in popularity and have attendees from all over the UK, Ireland, Canada and the United States.

At Christmas, The John Peel Zoomers collaborated on a cover of The Fairytale of New York, produced by Ian Kellett. It has had over 7000 views to date.

During the enforced Coronavirus shutdown, the old toilets were completely torn out and replaced with fully enclosed unisex toilets, including a special baby changing station and a fully compliant accessible toilet.

A new box office was built to house our brand new online ticket sales system and provide facilities for selling printed tickets at the theatre for the first time.

Balcony built onto the stage for Romeo and Juliet but as a permanent structure to use in future productions.

After successful grant applications and generous donations from the public, we were able to install our first set of solar batteries - just in time for the winter bills!