The former home of the mischief-making Gay Delavals who famously loved to bamboozle their guests with trickery and theatrics is inviting visitors to take a walk in their footsteps this autumn.
Seaton Delaval Hall has joined forces with performing arts company November Club to host immersive theatre event The Unlocked Door. Involving a journey back in time through the National Trust property in Northumberland, it will make its debut in November - appropriately enough - with attractions including live music, circus performances and a pop-up bar.
The extravagant Delaval family who lived at the Sir John Vanbrugh-designed hall in the 1700s was renowned for a sense of fun which occasionally tipped over into wild behaviou r such as practical jokes to shock overnight guests. The hall's current £7.5m restoration project, Curtain Rises, seeks - alongside the repair and conservation work - to return a sense of surprise and fun, albeit on a tamer scale, to the former ‘party’ house.
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And the new theatre event, created by November Club, which it will be presenting from November 2-4, follows in the family's trend of staging performances and is part of that new lease of life, offering a unique experience which will lead visitors on a journey through the hall’s spaces and introduce them to a host of characters – some real, some imagined – as they travel through 300 years of stories.
Circus Central, the Newcastle-based circus skills agency, will be helping the theatre-makers with the hour-long performances which also will feature live Spin City DJ sets . LAMDA-trained Joe Hufton, artistic director of November Club who has previously worked with the likes of internationally-renowned immersive theatre company Les Enfants Terribles, said: "I’m really excited to be working at Seaton Delaval Hall."
This will be his first main production since taking over November Club in 2020 and he said it is great to be collaborating with new talent, including Newcastle-born set designer Amy Watts. "I’m looking forward to bringing some original immersive storytelling to this incredible building."
He added: "I really hope that North East audiences will respond to this contemporary and bold take on Seaton Delaval Hall’s past." The hall's general manager Emma Thomas sees the joint event as "a great way of introducing new audiences to some of the histories of Seaton Delaval Hall".
She said: "The Unlocked Door is a bold and immersive experience that will showcase the spaces that have so recently been transformed as part of our National Lottery Heritage Fund-supported Curtain Rises project." The production, recommended for ages 16-plus, will be performed throughout the evenings during its November 2-4 run at Seaton Delaval Hall.
There will be various time slots - 6pm, 6.20pm, 6.40pm, 7.20pm, 7.40pm and 8pm - available to book. To buy tickets see here. Those with access issues should call the hall on 0191 237 9100 to discuss their requirements before booking.
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