All aboard Santa's New Sleigh for a genuine family experience!

Sam Bradshaw from Sam Bradshaw Productions is the man behind the show.

He’s more than relieved that it is going ahead. During the second lockdown, he admits things were looking 50-50 – a degree of uncertainty which makes planning difficult.

Rehearsals didn’t start until after the lockdown was over, but it is difficult: “You are just waiting for the government, for a yes or a no from them.”

And then the question is whether the public are going to trust in the venue in terms of its safety. Fortunately, the signs are looking very encouraging.

“People are booking and I think that is very important. I think a lot of people are really, really wanting this Christmas to be a family thing as much as possible, and seeing a Christmas show really is a family thing to do at this time of year. The theatre is a great place to come together to enjoy the magic of Christmas, and people are desperate for it, given what the rest of the year has been like. People are thinking ‘Let’s go out and have some fun!’”

In the show, Christmas is fast approaching, and Santa’s Sleigh is nowhere to be found. Will his lovable elves, Sprocket and Dibs be able to create a new sleigh in time or will Christmas have to be cancelled?

Santa’s New Sleigh is a festive play by Brad Fitt with original music and songs by Richard Lamming.

Sam is a performer turned producer.

“I fell into producing in 2007 when I was working as a magician and was asked to put together a little show for Longleat Safari Park. I did a little show that they could add to their offering, running five times a day on the hour, and it played there for six weeks. I was performing. I had trained as an actor, and I invented a character called Lenny Longleat.

“It was just a little 20-minute show, but it was something different for me – and it just gave me the bug for producing. I just found that I quite liked the business side of it.”

Sam was in a production he did last year.

“But last year was a difficult year with all the uncertainty of Brexit going on and people weren’t so quick to come to the theatre.

“Being in it was fantastic, but being the producer I had to make sure that it happened.

“And I just liked being the one that puts the whole thing together.

“I love that magic of coming up with the show, of finding a script that already exists and making it come alive and then you see it on stage and you realise that it is happening on stage because it was me who had the script and thought it could work – and then suddenly you are watching it and there is an audience there. It’s a great feeling.”

As a producer, he feels his own acting background is important – just as he would urge anyone in the business to learn to appreciate every aspect of the business.

“There are so many people in the business who will disrespect, say, the person doing the costumes just because they don’t understand what that person does… or the person doing the lighting.

“As an actor I would say that it definitely helps to understand what a producer does, and as a producer it is really important to understand what it is actually all like as an actor.”

Tickets from the Capitol.

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