Be swept away by an unforgettable ONSTAGE musical journey with OperaUpClose and the captivating Riders To The Sea at Blackpool Grand Theatre this March.

These excitingly immersive performances also include an exclusive prologue featuring Manchester’s acclaimed LGBTQ+ chorus The Sunday Boys live at The Grand.

Experience musical storytelling at its most visceral with Vaughan Williams’ and J.M. Synge’s RIDERS TO THE SEA from OperaUpClose at Blackpool Grand Theatre on Monday 3 March.

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

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

This thrilling production 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 also be partnered with a dramatic new prologue, The Last Bit of the Moon, written by ArtfulScribe’s Community Sirens Collective, composed again by Michael Betteridge and performed by an internationally recognised cast alongside Manchester’s acclaimed LGBTQ+ chorus The Sunday Boys.

Michael’s famous The Sunday Boys choir have previously accompanied the masterful miniature prologue piece via recording but will perform it live at The Grand! Not to be missed. Bartley is imprisoned by guilt and grief over the drowning of his brother Michael when they were young. He is trying to write, haunted by voices and shadows of the past. As the shadows become increasingly maligned, Bartley experiences the pain of chaotic memories that are neither shaped nor fixed. 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.

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

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