Covid-19: Norwich's Maddermarket Theatre to close until next summer

The Maddermarket Theatre on St John's Alley in Norwich city centre is hoping to reopen next summer for its centenary

A 99-year-old theatre is to close until next summer in a "heart-breaking decision", its trustees said.

The Maddermarket Theatre in Norwich will shut its doors from 21 November and aimed to reopen a month before its centenary in September.

The move to mothball the venue would stave off a potentially "disastrous" trading period, it said.

Theatre chairwoman Paula Meir said: "We are giving the theatre its best chance of long-term survival."

The city centre venue - which hosts in-house amateur productions alongside touring plays and shows - said its fundraising Norfolk Voices Festival would still go ahead next month with socially-distanced audiences.

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Following the theatre's initial closure due to the lockdown, its operations had been restructured and a new business strategy implemented.

Ms Meir said: "The trading environment has never been more uncertain, and we were faced with a stark choice: risk our financial reserves by attempting to run with socially-distanced audiences, or mothball the theatre for nine months.

"We ran several financial scenarios, and even with reasonable audience numbers, trading would have been challenging.

"And if audiences don't return as hoped, it would be disastrous."

The venue was set up in 1921 by theatre director Walter Nugent Monck, who bought the abandoned former Roman Catholic chapel St John's as a home for the Guild of Norwich Players.

The building also displays a plaque to mark the spot opposite where William Shakespeare's friend actor Will Kemp jumped over a wall after morris dancing from London to Norwich.