Alan Breakwell’s Speech

I was invited to an exhibition at the Priest’s House Museum to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Tivoli theatre re opening after being closed and derelict for many years.  Alan Breakwell is the Chairman of the Friends of the Tivoli, and gave a short potted history of how the theatre came back to life thanks to lots of hard work from a small team of volunteers determined to succeed.

Alan admitted that as Chief Executive of the District Council at the time, he didn’t reply to the first letter asking for support, but the group didn’t give up and eventually got the attention they wanted.

My very good friend Malcolm Angel was instrumental in bringing about the revival of the Tivoli – he tells many a story about all the volunteers that came together to fix the roof and put the heating in, it was his life for 10 years.

Alan pointed out that the theatre took about £80k in it’s first year and in 2017 took over a million!  It is fair to say that it is now a huge success that draws crowds from a wide radius to see some first class acts on the stage and also very popular new release films in it’s guise as a cinema.

Well done to all the volunteers who keep it going today.