"To go to Blackpool and not visit the Royal Palace Gardens is to visit London and not visit the Crystal Palace or Westminster Abbey, or go to Rome and not visit the Vatican or the Coliseum " Editor - London Weekly News 1891] Long before the famous Tower and Winter Gardens Blackpool's Royal Palace Gardens at Raikes Hall was a world famous destination for variety and music hall stars and touring exhibitions and battle reenactments like 'Savage South Africa' and the 'Afghan War'. With its lavish Grand Opera House, Indian Pavilion and famous botanical gardens, conservatories and menageries, it...

This new play charts the strange and intense relationship between All Souls Fellow, and historian, A.L. Rowse and German aristocrat Adam von Trott zu Solz. They met as young men in Oxford in 1929 and remained close until Trott was executed by the Nazis in 1944 for his part in the failed July 20th plot to assassinate Hitler. The play includes Al Bowlly and some of his recordings - so evocative of the 1930s. Rowse never got over Trott's death and his influence on him continued until Rowse's own death aged 93 in 1997. In spite of his brilliance, Rowse never felt that he really fitted in. He...