So we did it. After all the hubbub and rave reviews, we went to see “Around the World in 80 Days” at the Royal Exchange theatre, Manchester –  and you know what? IT WAS AMAZING. No heavy political message. No expensive technical special stage effects. No reality show celebrity appearances. No Divas. Just disciplined professional actors working as a team, with expert direction and design to provide seamless enjoyable entertainment that left us with an exhilarated glow.

We feel refreshed and inspired that hopefully this is the turnaround, where audiences vote with their feet and enjoy trained professionals on stage where they should be. It’s already happened with “The Play That Goes Wrong” in the West End and if “Around the World in 80 Days” doesn’t appear there to high acclaim, we’ll eat an assortment of our 19th century hats.

This is the kind of theatre we were trained to produce and the high quality production values that Adhoc have provided all these years in all of our private and public engagements; that our clients have always benefited from and that now paying public can see the value of.

Well done and thank you to all the cast, director Theresa Heskins and Beverly Edmunds and the New Vic theatre, for providing something we’ve been waiting for a long time.