Please help the Palace Theatre

Christmas concert to rescue Plymouth's Palace Theatre enjoyed "amazing support"


THE SOUNDS of Christmas song filled Plymouth’s Guildhall and helped one of the city’s most loved buildings on its road to recovery.

Tickets for the Palace Theatre Christmas Spectacular sold out in one day after it was announced the Palace Theatre Philharmonia and Chorus was to hold its very first show.

Under the command of musical director Marcus Alleyne, more than 200 musicians, made up of a full 70-piece orchestra and 140 singers, tackled festive old favourites and rarely heard pieces to entertain the 800-strong audience.

The orchestra and choir was created by volunteers whose love of music was only matched by their keenness to help charity GO Great Opportunities renovate the Victorian building on Union Street.

The money raise from the £12 tickets will greatly assist with paying for the restoration work of the Palace Theatre which was originally set to be the venue, but damage caused by numerous bouts of bad weather saw the concert relocate to the Guildhall.

For his part, Marcus Alleyne said the show was “a brilliant event.”

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The volunteers fixing up Plymouth's Palace Theatre in running for award


THE CHARITY behind the plan to renovate Plymouth’s Palace Theatre is in the running for an award which highlights the best of the nation’s voluntary arts groups.

The GO!Palace project has been tipped for an EPIC award in recognition of the hard work being done by the theatre’s volunteers to restore the Grade II listed Victorian building and the hope of bringing it back into use as a theatre for the community.

Heather Hunter, GO!’s chief executive said: “We need your vote as it’s a peoples choice award and there are 36 nominees.

“So please vote for us at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.] as this is a national award and would be great to bring it to the city of Plymouth.”

As part of their application, GO!Palace highlighted how it had created a huge community orchestra and chorus which raised thousands of pounds towards the scheme with a special Christmas concert.

The application also noted how the group have applied for funding and sought out local people to join the renovation scheme.

It continued: “They aim to employ small local builders and create 120 apprenticeships through the project. 120 volunteers helped to clear the space to allow for planning applications to move forward.

“In order to raise the necessary funds, a huge team of at least 330 volunteers came together to find ways to fundraise and soon created both a 140-strong chorus and 70-piece orchestra.

“The orchestra and chorus came together in August 2015 and managed to deliver a successful concert on 14 December 2015 which raised over £7,000 for the project. This entirely volunteer-driven project is hugely ambitious with the aim of transforming a Grade 2 star listed building as well as the adjoining premises which is intended to become an arts centre with spaces for diverse groups to operate.

“This project is about creating and developing new art and drama spaces, restoring an old but beautiful theatre space and thinking outside the box to make the whole project meet the needs of the community”.

STRUCTURAL work on the Palace Theatre is unlikely to take place for several months until full planning permission has been sought and granted, the charity refurbishing the building have revealed.

Heather Hunter, the chief executive of GO! (Great Opportunities) which is leading the Palace Project, said the team of dedicated volunteers have over the past few weeks cleared out the rear yard, emptied the old changing rooms and had been sweeping and cleaning “every nook and cranny possible”.

She said: “However, we are now at the point that there is little work that we can actually do other than keeping everything clean and tidy as our time limited planning permission came to an end in mid-November.

“We did all the things that we needed to do like mending the floors, making safe windows, and felting and battening the roof but we can do no more structural work now until we have sought planning permission.

“That said we will hopefully be able to gain any necessary consents to make the roof watertight in some other way as the felt and battening, which was all we were permitted to do under the listing, was no match for storm Gertrude and Henry and has resulted in the dome of the auditorium suffering serious damage.”

Heather said next month would see Dr David Wilmore – whom she described as “one of the country’s leading heritage experts” – write a heritage statement.

She said it was an “important piece of work and a definite milestone, as it will outline what has to be preserved and will indicate what we can and cannot do with regard to plans for the development.”

Once the charity has Dr Wilmore’s report they can “begin the real planning in earnest”.

In addition, the charity must acquire a full set of drawings of the building as it currently is, along with a new structural survey.

Heather said that while the charity acquired the Palace Theatre in May last year, the neighbouring Great Western hotel was not acquired until October. As a result the reports could not be carried out until both buildings were in the charity’s hands.

Heather admitted the project hit a small setback when inspectors from the Health and Safety Executive closed the building after the charity was unable to present its Asbestos report during an unannounced visit. As a result a new report was commissioned and secured.

She said: “It would be easy at this stage to become very frustrated as we have hundreds of volunteers itching to do some work but there is none that we can give them and sadly that is the way of a heritage project.

“We hope to have some of our permissions through by September to allow some of the proposed apprenticeships to be taken up but of course until there is work that we can do this won’t be able to happen.

“For the time being we are concentrating on raising funds for the upkeep of the Palace as it stands and keeping it wind and watertight until we can commence structural repairs.

“We are also allowing people to come and visit for a tour of building and anyone who wishes to come should ring the GO! office.”

New performances by the Palace Theatre Philharmonia and Chorus are being rehearsed with the aim of a number of summer proms along with other fundraising activities.

Heather said: “We haven't stopped work at the Palace, there is just little we are now able to do.

“We are taking this lull in building to create the opportunity to collect as much archive and memorabilia of the Palace which Plymouth people may have stored away in their lofts.

“We collect anything and everything from programmes to posters, photographs, newspaper cuttings and anything of interest.

“It will all be put into our museum of the Palace which will be installed in one of the rooms upstairs in the theatre. “Also, we keen to have any memorabilia about the Great Western Hotel for which we have very little in the way of information. So all contributions are welcome.”

The charity is currently running a survey about people’s hopes for the Palace Theatre at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

THE CHARITY behind the renovation of Plymouth's Palace Theatre have won an 'epic' award for its work on the Victorian building.

GO! (Great Opportunities) Together were announced as the England winners of the UK-wide Epic Awards at a lavish ceremony held at Cardiff Castle at last week.

The Epic Awards, now in their sixth year, are the premier awards for voluntary arts groups based in United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, shining a light on their achievements and aiming to inspire others to get involved and participate in artistic and creative activities.


The event saw GO! commended and recognised for their Palace Theatre project which aims to renovated the derelict listed building and return it to use as a cultural venue for Plymouth.

Judges recognised GO Palace Project after it learned how hundreds of volunteers and musicians came together to find ways to fundraise for the renovation of the Grade II* listed scheme, putting on a grand Christmas concert with a 140-strong chorus and 70-piece orchestra.

The judges also took note of how Go Opportunities aims to employ small local builders and create 120 apprenticeships through the long term project and how the charity had raised more than £16,000 via a crowdfunder drive.


After winning the award, the charity was praised by Ed Vaizey MP, minister of state for culture and the digital economy in UK Government.

He said: "The GO! Palace project is an amazing example of volunteers coming together to revitalise their community.

"The scale, ambition, ingenuity and creativity of the project is incredibly impressive. GO! Palace demonstrates brilliantly the collaborative concept of Voluntary Arts; Our Culture Commons initiative which stimulates communities to re-imagine the cultural life of their area and is just the sort of collaborative approach we advocate in the Culture White Paper."

Faith Sanderson, director of communications at GO! said: "We would sincerely like to thanks all the volunteers and members of the choir and orchestra who have all gone above and beyond for the Palace Theatre in Plymouth.

"We are delighted to be working with so many dedicated people who will ensure that beautiful building like this will not get lost and forgotten."

Someone from the government said,
He said: "The GO! Palace project is an amazing example of volunteers coming together to revitalise their community.

"The scale, ambition, ingenuity and creativity of the project is incredibly impressive. GO! Palace demonstrates brilliantly the collaborative concept of Voluntary Arts; Our Culture Commons initiative which stimulates communities to re-imagine the cultural life of their area and is just the sort of collaborative approach we advocate in the Culture White Paper."

What he meant was,
Personally the government would let this beautiful building fall down in favour of getting the suits to work ten minutes quicker.

There's something about GO that isn't quite right, and that's before we even go into them letting volunteers work without the proper asbestos regulations signed off.
Methinks they're a new Tory template charity to replace arts council funding, and other funding of public interests, , and as a bonus, to roll back the arts away from cutting edge, to the old crap doing the rounds in the 1800s. Back to the future with the Bully boys.

Plymouth's Palace Theatre to be restored to its original 'crimson red' colour this summer


This summer will see the Palace Theatre become a hive of renewed activity as the next phase of work begins on the listed Victorian building.

The Grade II* former Palace Theatre in Union Street has for more than a decade been on English Heritage's 'Heritage at Risk' register, the at-risk register of the Theatres Trust, and was named as one of the 10 most endangered Victorian or Edwardian buildings in England and Wales by the Victorian Society.

Despite this, the last year has seen a remarkable transformation as the Great Opportunities (GO!) organisation has carried out an extensive plan of restoration thanks to a small army of volunteers.

A spokesman for the group said all the various surveys, costings and permissions that were pending to enable readiness for the summer programme of work were now in place.

The spokesman said: "The team are looking forward to launching the new phase of work and the imminent activity commencing on the exterior of the building and the roof.

"Very soon some of the past 'Palace colours' will start to emerge as the external doors are restored to the original crimson red

Summer concert to raise funds for Palace Theatre renovation

The city's newest and most passionate orchestra and choir is set to hold its second grand performance after their fundraising sell out show last December.

The Palace Theatre Philharmonia and chorus are set to deliver a brand new Les Miserable concert suite on August 13 this year at the Minster Church of St Andrews in Royal Parade.

the concert will see doors open at 1.30pm for the 2pm show and again half an hour before the 7pm show.

Tickets sold out within 24 hours for their last performance at the Plymouth Guildhall, held to raise much needed funds for the renovation of the listed theatre in Union Street, and organisers say they expect a similar result this year when the £10 tickets go on sale on Saturday, June 24.

The Philharmonia and Chorus will comprise of a full forty-five piece orchestra and 100 singers within the walls of the church.

Organisers say that since the success of their debut performance, where Plymouths Guildhall was filled to the brim, the choir and orchestra have been working hard on their next large scale fundraising effort.

They will be bringing some of the best film soundtracks and musical theatre show tunes alongside the new Les Misérables suite. European arranger Fedor Vrtacnik is known for writing and arranging for Robbie Williams, Jose Carreras and many other wold renowned musicians. Not only will the choir and orchestra be offering some of the popular chorus numbers from the show but they will also be joined by 10 soloists from across the country.


Taken from Brent Herald

BUMP...what's going on? The renovation/restoration seems to have ground to a halt and signs of decline are evident again...Is Brent involved?

Not far off Les. It's a Tory inspired national "charidee" that was going to get oik volunteers and "apprentices" to do everything with next to no health and safety, while the people at the top earn very nicely thank you. Thankfully the council still has a conscience and stepped in re the asbestos etc. There's no money in it for any of their mates these days, so it'll stand idle and decaying. It's traditional. If it were an empty C of E church with a congregation of 2, it would have had millions spent on it.

Very true...always plenty in the pot for the god squad.

knock it down and put a student flat block up.

House student apprentices in there and they could make their own flats.

Earwegoagain wrote:

House student apprentices in there and they could make their own flats.

maybe the drug dealers that used the place as a haven could set up a pop shop in there too.

Sadly it's the right building in the wrong place, Union street is a dump..

Union st has become more and more of a dump as they have moved the late night drinking down the Barbican, planned decay so that the big money can rebuild it along with Milbay to make the new Barcelona type ocean city, unfortunately our current crop of big money men couldn't organise a stag night in Diamond Lils.