Take an excitingly immersive ONSTAGE musical journey with OperaUpClose at Blackpool Grand Theatre this March with the captivating sung play Riders To The Sea composed by Michael Betteridge.

These powerful performances also include an exclusive prologue and feature Manchester’s acclaimed LGBTQ+ chorus The Sunday Boys live at The Grand

Get right to the heart of profound musical storytelling with Vaughan Williams and J.M. Synge’s RIDERS TO THE SEA from OperaUpClose at Blackpool Grand Theatre on Monday 3 March.

Lucky audience members really can’t get any closer to the action with all seating set right on The Grand stage for this thrilling production!

Vaughan Williams and John Millington Synge’s stunning sung play Riders to the Sea tells the compelling tale of a man haunted by the ghosts of his past. Bartley is reconstructing his memories of a great loss and finds himself drawn back to his family home and a seemingly inevitable chain of events. His sisters, Nora and Cathleen, have a parcel of clothes which may belong to their brother Michael who is presumed to have drowned, though his body has never been found…

This thrilling production is presented by OperaUpClose in association with MAST Mayflower Studios, and combines projection, recorded sound and live performance set to a new chamber orchestration for oboe, clarinet and accordion by renowned composer and choral conductor Michael Betteridge (Artistic Director of The Sunday Boys).

Riders To The Sea will be partnered with a dramatic new prologue piece The Last Bit of the Moon, composed again by Michael Betteridge, and performed by an internationally recognised cast alongside Michael’s acclaimed LGBTQ+ Manchester chorus The Sunday Boys. The Sunday Boys have previously accompanied the masterful miniature prologue piece via recording but will perform it live at The Grand! Bartley is imprisoned by guilt and grief. He is trying to write, haunted by voices and shadows of the past. The Moon offers him a chance to look at life directly, to return to the memory of his family, and find order and truth in the chaos of his grief.

We spoke to Michael about his beautiful compositions Riders to the Sea and The Last Bit of the Moon and asked him how he first became involved in music:

‘Neither of my parents were particularly engaged with music when I was growing up, but my Mum did buy a really cheap out of tune (but beautiful!) piano to ‘have around the house’. I was enamoured with it from a young age and my parents were kind enough to support piano lessons. I never intended to go into music professionally, especially as it never felt like a secure career choice, but around the age of 16 when doing work experience, I realised it was something I just had to do. I studied at the University of Manchester and really fell in love with music.’

How did you get involved in this project?

‘I was involved as one of the community choral leaders for one of OperaUpClose’s previous projects, The Flying Dutchman, and around the same time, Flora (the show Director), came to see a semi-staged song cycle of mine called Voices of the Sands. The themes in that work, as well as mine and Flora’s shared passion for opening up creative processes in opera to all, led to Flora inviting me onto this project, which I leapt on of course!’

How daunting and fun was it to work with Ralph Vaughan Williams’ score?

Very daunting! It’s a particularly challenging score to rework, especially as it’s a very harmonically rich piece and to reduce that to only a few instruments means tough choices sometimes have to be made. It was Flora’s idea to use an accordion, and I’m so glad she did, otherwise I think it would have lost a lot the flavour of the original. I’ve been very faithful with the arrangement, it’s definitely a reduction, as opposed to a total re-working. However, the original orchestration is huge and even with my faithfulness to it, the new arrangement, I hope, feels very fresh to the ears. ‘

What do you hope audiences will take from the production?

‘Riders to the Sea is such an unusual piece because it is much more a ‘sung play’ as opposed to a grand opera. Our version has really leant into this concept and the reduced orchestration allows for the intimate moments to be even more intense. But, for me, it’s the universal themes of family, home and grief that come to the fore in this work. We all have such different relationships with these three ideas and every member of the audience will experience and interpret the piece in vastly different ways. That’s the beauty of this work and I hope it gives audiences that opportunity to reflect.’

‘Riders To The Sea – intimate in style, mighty on impact’ – OperaUpClose

Vaughan Williams and J.M. Synge’s Riders To The Sea and The Last Bit of The Moon from OperaUpClose, composed by Michael Bettridge and featuring The Sunday Boys live are at Blackpool Grand Theatre on Monday 3 March with performances at 6pm and 8.15pm.

There will only be unreserved seating on the Grand Theatre stage for these performances which are also fully captioned throughout as part of the production design, including creative captioning to convey emotion.

Tickets from £15. Please note – this show contains references to trauma and grief. Recommended age 12+

Please call the Grand Theatre Box Office on 01253 290190 or visit for full listings, bookings and further information.