00:00What's so special about this venue? I think, ask anybody who's ever been here, it's just
00:08a magical building. I think what the City of Culture will do for Bradford is very much
00:12put us on a platform, show everybody that doesn't know Bradford what Bradford has to
00:18offer. As always, we'll play a massive part in attracting people in to experience culture.
00:24You know, with the three biggest touring West End musicals coming to the Alhambra, we've
00:29got Hamilton at the beginning of the year, and then we have Mary Poppins, and then at
00:33the back end of the year we've got Matilda. Sprinkled in between that, we've got Matthew
00:38Barnes, Swan Lake coming to us, and a new production for Bradford of Midnight Bell.
00:44We've got a South Korean dance company coming called Young May Dragons, and then I can't
00:48forget that we will both start 25 with the end of our 24 year panto, and then we will
00:55move into 25 at the end of the year with our legendary pantomime. It's fantastic for
01:01the economy, for tourism. Restaurants will be busier, bars will be busier, night-time
01:05economy will benefit dramatically. Well, it's really a palace, a beautiful palace
01:11in the centre of Bradford. From the outside, it has its domes and its arches, named after
01:16the Alhambra Palace, the Islamic palace in southern Spain, looking so beautiful and so
01:21distinctive, and then you come inside this auditorium, and it's a bit like the Palace
01:26of Versailles. It's got beautiful friezes, gilding, plaster work. You're in the most
01:31fabulous place. We've had Laurence Olivier's company, Chekhov, Sarah Bernhardt, the great
01:38Victorian actress, Laurel and Hardy, all the great comedians like Tommy Cooper, Frankie
01:43Howard, Ken Dodd. We've got our wonderful Billy Pierce doing the panto here. From the
01:49word go, it has been the home of British panto, and also involving local community
01:55like the Sunbeams, the local troupe of juvenile girls who performed here. It was created by
02:00Frances Laidler, a theatrical impresario, who had this vision of a palace of varieties,
02:06and that was in 1914, just before the First World War. It went from success to success.
02:12If I was going to use one word to describe the Alhambra Theatre, I would say exquisite.
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