‘Where’s Santa’s Hat’ family show to take place at The Arc Shopping Centre

Christmas Cabin, Santa’s Scandinavian-style home, is returning to the Arc Shopping Centre in the run up to Christmas.

It’s the base for Santa’s living room where children aged two to seven and their families can experience a 20-minute festive performance of “Where’s Santa’s Hat”.

The man in red has lost his hat and everyone knows that he can’t deliver his presents without it or his head will freeze in the North Pole wind so he looks for the help in the shape of Alva, the chief elf, a mouse … and the children in the audience.

Last year’s performances of “Where’s Santa?” at the cabin was seen by 2,786 adults and children and there’s hopes that can be exceeded with this year’s production by Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds.

Santa will be played by Greg Hanson while Grace Welfare takes the role of Alva.

Bury St Edmunds Town Council are supporting the project which brings theatre and live performance outside the building and  into the town centre.

The councils has also funded over 300 tickets for those in receipt of Universal Credit which were released on Thursday, November 9 on a first come, first served basis. All tickets are expected to be claimed by Monday, November 13. More details at https://bit.ly/47rG674 

Theatre Royal’s artistic director Owen Calvert-Lyons said: “In Bury St Edmunds we are renowned for our fantastic pantomime and following on the tremendous success of last year’s performance of ‘Where’s Santa?’, we again wanted to create something special for the younger children in the heart of the town centre – a theatrical twist on meeting Santa. When children step into our Christmas cabin they will be transported to a magical place – Santa’s living room.”

“Where’s Santa’s Hat?” was written by local actor and children’s author Hatty Ashton from Bury St Edmunds.

She played Älva in 2022’s performance and was thrilled to be asked to write this year’s show which will be directed by Theatre Royal’s head of Creative Learning David Whitney. 

Tickets are £4 on Fridays (except December 22) and £6 for all other days and performances run from November 17 to December 24.

Call the box office on 01284 769505.