Before COVID-19
The Anglian Players have been ongoing since 1951 when we had our first play ‘Room In The Tower’ by Hugh Stewart which was an adaptation of Lady Jane Grey’s final days before being executed at the age of 17. She’s known as the ‘Nine Days Queen’ after only reigning nine days in total between King Edward VI and Queen Mary (nicknamed Bloody Mary for her many beheadings during her reign).
We were first established as a group in March performing at St. Peter’s Church Hall with our main values and goals to bring amazing live performances to the public, by always offering at least one classic and one comedy production every year. As the years progressed, we stayed in March, making the March Community Centre our new home where we stayed for many years. Through our time at St. Peter’s Church and March Community Centre we have had the opportunity to perform some amazing titles for the public including;
- Hi-Di-Hi
- A Fate Worse Than Death
- Fawlty Towers
- The House On The Cliff
- Don’t Get Your Vicars In A Twist
- Jekyll And Hyde
During the COVID pandemic like every business, charity and individual, this world crisis hit us too! Not only financially but during the peak of the pandemic it was not possible for us to continue our arrangement with the March Community Centre. Thanks to the amazing members of our committee and society, we were swiftly able to arrange moving from this site and find ourselves a new location to call our home to ensure we could do what we love, providing the live performances for the fens!
After COVID-19
Since the pandemic we have worked hard as a society to find a new suitable venue to ensure our performances and customer experience can be at the highest standard, we were lucky enough to find Doddington Village Hall as our new home for shows, along with its full sound and lighting set-up to enhance our shows for the viewer. It also hosts an on-site bar to provide refreshments during our performances making us believe we have taken a big step forward to provide a better experience for our viewers.
This has been proven with the shows we have been able to perform in Doddington, our first show back after the pandemic was ‘Pride and Prejudice’ which was written by our current Chairman, Andrew Clark. This was followed by a Valentine special, ‘A Variety Of Love’ and a great comedy, ‘Marian or the true tale of Robin Hood’. All performances have been provided with top-rated reviews from the public who attended, with many telling their friends and becoming repeat viewers of our shows!
Currently, we put on two performances a year at Doddington Village Hall. We have our summer production which is usually a more comedic play and our Christmas pantomime which is a great hit every year! Our past performances have been Dick Whittington, Cinderella and this year will be Puss in Boots. To see some photos from these plays or from our summer productions, please go to the gallery.
Along with our new venue we also rebranded our logo to give a fresh and modern feel to our society. We also trialed new things such as immersive, interactive murder mystery nights as well as attending local events in costume and undertaking raffles so that more people find out about our society, so we can raise much needed funds for the performances you love!
Moving forward, we are always looking to improve our society and try new things! We already have some great shows and events in the pipeline ready for us to bring them to life! If you would like to join the Anglian Players, become a patron or join our mailing list, more information can be found on the Join Us page.