An amateur operatic society enjoyed the opening night of their new production with a visit from their local mayor and mayoress.

The Whitehaven and District Amateur Operatic Society had their opening night of 'Allo 'Allo, a play adapted from the original TV series, on March 29.

Attending were the mayor and mayoress of Whitehaven, Charles Maulding and his wife Sylvia.

James Last, director of the current show and a committee member, said: “We ask them to attend most things, and they were happy and able to attend this time.

“They met the cast after the show and gave them some really good feedback.

“The opening night went really well.

“It’s a straight play, written originally for the original cast in the 80s and a lot of societies have done it, we did it in the early 2000s we revived it again to raise money for our next show which will be Into the Woods in November, which is a musical by Stephen Sondheim who died relatively recently.

“It’s not done very often in our area, we’ve never done it before.”

The society is over 100 years old, as James explained: “It’s very old established in 1904, back then it was operettas much like many musical theatre societies, we just carried on going.

“We do a musical every year and usually a play as well in between.

“It has changed obviously, back in 1904 you were doing things like Gilbert and Sullivan operettas, things like HMS Pinafore, old shows, and as time goes on you do more contemporary musicals.

“There was a time when they did this really radical new musical called the Sound of Music, they’ve done all the golden oldies like Oklahoma and The King and I, recently they’ve done some more modern ones like Legally Blonde and Sister Act, that was a really good show.

“Recently we’ve done some more really popular ones like Oliver, and last year we did The Adams Family, the first time it’s been done in this area.”

The society takes on anyone with a passion for singing, acting, dancing, or all three: “We’re educational, you can come with very little experience and we will teach you it, our rehearsal process is quite long in comparison because we want to give everyone the most preparation,” James added.

For more info, visit https://www.wadaos.org/.

READ MORE: Pubs struggling to hire staff in Cumbria amid cost-of-living crisis