About Us

A message from our Chairman:

Welcome back to the LTO and our 2023/2024 season.

It’s been a tumultuous few years to say the least, but we are still here producing great theatre at affordable prices.

During the past year our treasurer Mike Russell stepped down from the role after 50 plus years of dedicated and loyal service. We also have two new artistic directors who will continue like their predecessors, choosing interesting, evocative, challenging but always entertaining plays with great casts.

However, all our other key members and volunteers who run the theatre, are stretched to breaking point. If we don’t bring in new volunteers soon, the theatre will simply not be able to function. Having lost the Coliseum recently, Oldham cannot afford to lose another live theatre venue, so please spare some of your valuable time because it is badly needed.

It’s my final year as chairman too and having recently retired I am taking a back seat and handing over to a new chairperson. The good news is that we are financially sound and have made regular improvements to the venue, so we have a wonderful atmospheric basement theatre which stages fantastic productions. I am proud to be associated with such a great place and people, and as the website states Lyceum Theatre Oldham is ‘amateur theatre at its best!’

Many people still don’t know our theatre exists, so please spread the word, and with our new advertising on the front of the building even more people can discover us. It’s a welcome step in announcing that Lyceum Theatre Oldham has finally arrived…only 90 plus years after it all began.

We are looking forward to a great new season and I hope to see you all very soon.

Phil McCarthy


A Message from Our Artistic Directors

For 2023/24 we have tried to choose a balanced season which will appeal to all tastes and which will challenge our performers.
A SKULL IN CONNEMARA by Martin McDonagh
After Martin McDonagh's recent Oscar nominations for The Banshees of Inisherin, we thought it might be appropriate to stage one of his plays again.  A Skull in Connemara is part of a trilogy which includes The Beauty Queen of Leanne which we performed in 2016.
The play is about Mick Dowd, the local gravedigger.  Every seven years or so he has to disinter bones from their graves and dispose of them.  This is to make way for new occupants!  A few years earlier Mick had been the subject of rumours involving the death of his wife.  Now it is time to dig up her bones and the local policeman will standing by!  This is a dark, comic tale of suspicion and guilt which has redefined the concept of graveyard humour!
MOONLIGHT AND MAGNOLIAS by Ron Hutchinson
A complete change of location, this play is set amid the glamour of Hollywood.  Loosely based on real events, Moonlight and Magnolias, the title refers to the romanticisation of the pre-civil war south, tells the story of the film producer David Selznick's attempts to rewrite the screenplay for Gone with the Wind.     This is a very funny, fast paced play with terrific parts for the cast.
IRON by Rona Munro
To keep our season balanced, we have chosen two serious plays.  The first is Iron by Rona Munro.  Set in a women's prison, it tells the story of Josie who goes to her visit her mother, Faye, who was jailed for the murder of Josie's father fifteen years previously.  The two women have not met during that time.    Josie has no recollection of the events, being a small child when it happened, and needs to speak to her mother to get some sort of closure.  This play is billed as an intense, psychological drama in which a mother and daughter try to break the barriers of time, memory and punishment.
A MONTH OF SUNDAYS by  Bob Larbey
Another wonderful comedy!  This is a charming, funny, poignant play by Bob Larbey best know for tv hits such as A Fine Romance, Please Sir, and Ever Decreasing Circles.  It is set in a home for the elderly.  To the painful, uncomfortable ritual of Sunday family visits, Cooper and his friend Aylott reply with humour and wit, aware that life can only be endured if treated as a comedy.
SEPARATE TABLES by Terence Rattigan
Terence Rattigan has been described as the patron saint of repressed feelings, wells of loneliness and unspoken desire!  Separate Tables, which is two plays in one, has all that, but lots of humour, too.  The Beauregard Hotel, somewhere on the south coast, is home to mainly retired middle class residents. The first half the play focuses on an ex model, visiting the hotel in the hope of rekindling a relationship and the second act is the the story of a retired army major with a secret, and the way the other residents react to his past.  These are all wonderful characters, most of whom you will feel empathy for.    Few playwrights have written with more understanding of the human heart.

A Few Words About Us

The Lyceum Theatre Oldham is a successful and award-winning amateur theatre company entering its 93rd year.

The Theatre can be found on the lower ground floor of the Lyceum Building, 95 Union Street, Oldham. A varied programme of productions is presented each season in this intimate theatre space.

In 2015 the Lyceum Theatre Oldham refurbished the auditorium to provide new seating and decoration.

             

The Theatre has also recently refurbished the front of house and bar area. The large and comfortable bar and coffee lounge is the perfect place to enjoy refreshments before, during the interval and after the performance.