Theatre company 'delighted' with new rehearsal base

Bournemouth & Boscombe Light Opera Company staged Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in 2023

A long-running amateur theatre company has found an alternative home for rehearsals after it appealed for support.

The Bournemouth & Boscombe Light Opera Company (BBLOC), which celebrates its 70th anniversary this year, will now rehearse at St Paul’s Church in the nearby village of Throop.

It had been based at the Corpus Christi Parish Centre, but that space is due to close in September.

The company said it was "absolutely delighted" to have found a "new home".

Communications manager for the company Sarah Boyce said St Paul's had "turned out to be perfect on so many levels".

She said: "Aside from the practical elements, as a community theatre group it was important to us to have somewhere where we could build a bond with the people who run the venue."

Ms Boyce said that those involved at the church had been "nothing but helpful", adding that the company was "looking forward" to using the venue.

The group's newest show, 42nd Street, opens at the Bournemouth Pavilion - and runs from Wednesday to Saturday.

It also has two shows currently in production that are due to be performed at the Pavilion Theatre next year.

"It’s such a relief as it was quite stressful to think that, in the run up to our current show, we might not have anywhere to rehearse our next show, or that we’d need to be somewhere outside of our community," Ms Boyce told the BBC.

The company's former base, Corpus Christi Catholic Church in Boscombe, announced in May that running costs and potential significant maintenance bills meant that its church centre building was "no longer sustainable".

That led BBLOC, the resort's oldest musical theatre community group, on a "desperate" search for a new rehearsal space for its cast of up to 70 performers.