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Thursford
Above:Thursford on a non - Christmas Spectacular day, with seating removed and steam engines in place instead..
Above: The Carousel working and on which you can ride for the small charge of £2 per person. Jacob paid for his Grand dad to have a reminisce. Great fun.
Above: Part of our backstage tour. A chance to see the areas available to the dancers, singers, musicians, entertainers and support team when the Christmas Spectacular is being performed. A very small space indeed, as it is apparently with most theatres and concert halls. The first picture shows one of the narrow corridors that the performers use, back and forth to the stage. The second picture is the room set aside for the singers, not a large area, with very limited hanging space. The manaquins are showing some of the costumes used in past performances. All costumes used are stored and are occasionally reused for a performance. This was the case according to our tour guide when last year they celebrated 40 years of the show and a number of previously used costumes were especially given another airing. The third picture shows just one of the number of storage areas for the costumes and props used throughout the various previous shows.The fina picture shows the area set aside for the troupe of dancers. This area is currently full of items, some specially to show off previous used costumes and others which will form part of the equipment for the actual show.
As well as seeing the cast rooms we was also shown into the Winter Wonderland, Santa Grotto and the Cushworth collection. Areas for which over the show period November to December, you would normally have to pay extra to see. Non of the Winter Wunderland attractions were working and Santa was still on his well deserved holiday. However it was a first for Jacob to see the magic that has been created, incorporating the renovated traction engines and farm equipment in a number of the scenes.