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From player to prayer |
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The Cambridge Festival Theatre has always enjoyed a life filled with worshippers in one guise or another. Purpose-built in 1814, to house the frolics of The Norwich Players, it is now the Buddhists who tread the boards and seek the light.
The Norwich Players were a happy band of touring performers under the impresario William Wilkins. He first opened a theatre in Cambridge in 1808 made from wood and likely to have been situated where the Elizabeth Way roundabout is now.
Similarly blessed with the creative gene, his son designed Downing College in 1806 and The National Gallery, London, in 1833.
Father or son - it remains unclear which - then built The Festival Theatre. It boasted a Georgian stage, typically positioned in the very heart of the audience with two tiered galleries above, embracing the players in a horseshoe style, allowing every utterance to be savoured with ease.
Just a stone's throw from the Elizabeth Way roundabout was the Barnwell Theatre - as it was then known - a testament to first-class stage design.
However, despite the favourable amenities, The Norwich Players could not keep on playing. Financial difficulties led to the sale of the theatre in 1878 and a brand new audience filled the pit once more.
Enter stage left - the Evangelisation Society.
The well crafted space, with its excellent acoustics and sympathetic seating arrangements, lent itself admirably to proselytising and preaching. So the Evangelisation Society nurtured its flock there for approximately 37 years until 1915, when new blood was to occupy the building.
Kings College bought the theatre to house a boys club, but the new blood soon petered out and the theatre slipped into a sad and derelict state.
Words by: Emma Borley-Johnson
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