Join guest speaker Sue Arthur MA as she takes you through a fascinating historical journey of cinema and society at the seaside on Wednesday 21st March in the Lawrence House Studio at 2.30pm. In 1929 The Times said: 'the talkie is an unsuitable marriage of two dramatic forms. We cannot believe it will endure.' The public and the cinema exhibitors had different ideas. By the end of that year, 980 British cinemas had converted to sound.

Beryl Whittaker did so much for so many over so many years. She opened the Whittaker Dance and Drama Centre in Blackpool on 11 February 1952 and since then it has been a long standing training ground for many young performers. Beryl herself previously performed at theatres such as the London Palladium, Blackpool Opera House, Manchester Opera House and Blackpool Tower Circus. She also appeared in the Royal Variety Performance in 1948 as a dancer-juggler alongside Danny Kaye and Julie Andrews.

There's a fabulous opportunity to meet the staff of the Grand Theatre Academy and sample some of its work with an exciting Open Day on Saturday 24th March in the Lawrence House Studio from 12 to 4pm. And you'll have fun!

At the Blackpool Tourism Business Excellence Awards, the Grand Theatre picked up the award for Welcome All Award 2006, sponsored by Blackpool Exhibition and Conference Hotels. The theatre was also Highly Commended in the Cultural Experience of the Year category.

Ken Dodd OBE is leaving the Diddy Men in the Jam Butty Mines of Knotty Ash to bring his famous Happiness Show back to Blackpool's Grand Theatre this March. And how tickled we are!

Laugh, cry and dance in the aisles with TV soapstars Shobna Gulati and Shana Swash in an all-singing and dancing musical comedy from Monday 12 to Saturday 17 March 2007. From the wickedly witty pen of Louise Roche, writer of TV's Where the Heart Is, this touching and brilliantly funny musical follows five friends as they relive their past on an hilarious karaoke night out "¦ and you'll recognise every character!

Willy Russell's heartbreaking play is brought to life in the Lawrence House Studio on March 3 and 4. The Grand Theatre Youth Academy presents the captivating play of twin boys, separated at birth, only to be re-united by a twist of fate and a mother's haunting secret.

The Big Ballet was founded in 1994 and hails from the Urals. Each of the sixteen dancers in the corps de ballet weighs 220 pounds or more and has only one goal: not to lose a single pound!!! The Big Ballet deliberately and confidently challenge accepted social standards in a world where the pursuit of slenderness and beauty has taken on an almost maniacal devotion.

Billy Fisher, a working class nineteen year old, lives a dreary, ordinary life, but escapes from it by living in a dream world. His lack of attention causes inaccuracies in his work (the funeral directors of Shadrack and Duxbury), leading him to lie. As his errors and lies start to pile up he feels he has to get away...Billy has a difficult decision to make.

Over 200 people have taken a guided tour through Blackpool's glorious Grand in the dead of night, learning of the ghostly goings on in the town's 113 year old Victorian theatre, visiting areas that few have the opportunity to see during daylight hours, never mind the wee small hours around the witching hour.

Set in England in the 1920s, an impoverished British woman, who has given up her fancy and powerful lifestyle for her journalist boyfriend, befriends a terminally ill American heiress hoping she and her boyfriend will then come into wealth and power again. Kate Croy and Merton Denver are engaged in a passionate clandestine love affair.