The Big Time, a comedy by Wayne Miller produced by Walton-Gunn Productions of South Shields, is holding a fundraiser and two preview performances in the town before heading off to the Edinburgh Fringe.
The fundraiser at the Armstrong Hall in Stanhope Road on 22 July at 7:30 will feature leading NE comedian Steffen Peddie supported by South Shields panto legend and comic Bob Stott and a number of local musicians, including Eilish Stout-Cairns, who also appears in the play, and The A-Chuck Brothers. Tickets (£8 + booking fee for online booking) are available from Ticketsource.
The preview shows are in the Marine Pub in Ocean Road, South Shields on 27 and 28 July at 8:00. Tickets are also £8 (+ online booking fee). Tickets are available from Ticketsource.
This is Walton-Gunn’s second—but by far the largest—production. Its debut show was Peter Plank's Magical Mystical Egg, an Easter pantomime for children performed at the Westovians Theatre in South Shields in April.
Stacy Walton and her fiancé Wayne Miller decided to launch Walton-Gunn Productions following the death of her father Tony Walton in 2016 and her mother Maureen Walton in 2017.
“Nursing both parents through cancer and then losing them both within the space of 15 months was, without doubt, the hardest and most traumatic thing I've been through,” she said. “Being able to do something that honours them and doing it through theatre, something which they loved, means something positive is coming out of all of this.”