The new season of events for the Pomegranate Theatre and Winding Wheel is now on sale.

Chesterfield Theatres are pleased to announce that this season’s biggest productions include Babe, the Sheep-Pig live on stage for the first time. This exciting production is directed by West End director Michael Fentiman, with beautiful puppets designed by Cirque Du Soleil’s Max Humphries and amazing puppetry from War Horse’s Matthew Forbes.

Also set to be a hit this season is West End sell out sensation Dreamboats and Petticoats. The Musical which features some of the greatest hit songs of the Rock ‘n’ Roll era; inspired by the smash hit multi-million selling albums Dreamboats and Petticoats One, Two, Three, Four and Five.

This season, playgoers will be pleased to know Chesterield Theatres have the return of the annual Spring Play Season – John Godber’s new play The Empty Nesters’ Club, Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles, William Shakespeare’s Long Lost First Play (abridged) presented by Reduced Shakespeare Company and Ventoux – the story of Lance Armstrong and Marco Pantani in the 2000 Tour de France.

Each year Chesterfield Theatres grows ever more popular with the family audience and this year they would recommend booking early for shows such as David Walliams’ The First Hippo on the Moon, Mr Bloom’s Nursery Live!, Beauty and the Beast Easter Panto (starring Keith Chegwin and Basil Brush), the already mentioned, Babe, The Sheep-Pig and Dinosaur World. Looking further ahead to the Summer Season, they also have Sooty and The Very Hungry Caterpillar taking to the stage.

Comedy fans should make way for Rob Beckett, Count Arthur Strong, Rory Bremner and a whole series of comedians from their very own Spotlight Comedy Club.

New tributes to be introduced this season include Cilla (selling fast!), The British Beach Boys, Spice Girl’s tribute – Spice up your Life, Paul McCartney tribute – Macca, One Night of Adele and The Take That Experience.

In addition to their theatre events, they are delighted to offer an exciting programme of films and satellite broadcasts including Star Wars, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, The Girl on the Train and A Street Cat Named Bob. Satellite broadcasts include RSC Live The Tempest, NT Live Amadeus, Royal Ballet Live Sleeping Beauty, Royal Opera Live Madama Butterfly and RSC Live Julius Caesar.

The Chatsworth House Trust has been awarded an £80,000 grant by the Heritage Lottery Fund to help convert a grade-II listed former Game Larder into a place where visitors can learn more about the historic landscape.

Thanks to National Lottery players, work is now underway to design and install the new information displays in the Game Larder, which is due to open, seven days a week, from mid-December.  Free to enter, the octagonal building in the park only 100 metres from the house at Chatsworth, will contain panels of images with historical facts information covering the last 500 years, with hands-on displays for visitors to explore and audio storytelling to explain the landscape as seen through its seven floor-to-ceiling windows, as well as its flora and fauna.

The Chatsworth House Trust is thrilled to have received the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund, and is confident the Game Larder project will help people of all ages and all walks of life to enjoy and learn more about the heritage of their local landscape and its management.

The Game Larder project is part of a nationwide celebration of Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown’s 300^th anniversary. Its displays include the enormous impact Brown and his famous successor Joseph Paxton had on the ‘natural’ landscape, including the diversion of the river Derwent; the building of Edensor village; and the development of the famous 105 acre garden with its huge rockery, and plants and trees from around the world.

The opening of the Game Larder is a culmination of a project which has been running throughout the year which saw guided walks and talks on the evolution of the landscape.

The Devonshire Educational Trust at Chatsworth and the Capability Brown Festival are also supporting outreach work with a range of deprived community and refugee organisations in Derbyshire and South Yorkshire, exploring the landscape at Chatsworth.

Rachel Parkin, Education Coordinator, says:-

“We’ve welcomed visitors who were originally from as far afield as Iraq, Sudan, Bangladesh, Syria, and Bulgaria, and visitors from deprived communities in the region many of whom had not previously seen much of the English countryside. The reaction from all involved has been really positive, which is great because we want to encourage visits and engagement with the landscape and countryside from a wider range of people.”

Sitting approximately 100 metres from the house, the Game Larder is an octagonal building on a stone plinth. Built in 1909, it was used for decades by the Dukes of Devonshire to store game in cool conditions but became derelict following arrival of modern refrigeration systems in the mid-20^th century. During the 1950s and 60s the Game Larder was used as a chicken shed by Duchess Deborah Devonshire.

Next spring, Chatsworth will present its most ambitious exhibition to date, exploring the history of fashion and adornment: House Style: Five Centuries of Fashion at Chatsworth.

The exhibition will bring to life the captivating individuals from the Cavendish family, including Bess of Hardwick, one of the most powerful women of the 16th century; the 18th century “Empress of Fashion” Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire; and Adele Astaire, the sister and dance partner of Fred Astaire. Deborah Devonshire and Nancy Mitford, two of the Mitford sisters; model Stella Tennant and John F Kennedy’s sister ‘Kick’ Kennedy will also be central to the show. Telling the rich history of both international style and the Devonshire Collection, the exhibition will demonstrate the power of fashion to illuminate these extraordinary characters.

House Style will give unprecedented insight into the depth of the Devonshire Collection and the lives of renowned style icons from Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire to Stella Tennant. The exhibition will be woven throughout the grand rooms of the house including the Painted Hall; the Chapel and the State Music Room. Layering art history, fashion, jewellery, archival material, design and textiles, the exhibition will be organised by theme, including Coronation Dress; The Devonshire House Ball; Bess of Hardwick and the Tudor influence; The Georgiana Effect; Ducal Style; Country Living; The Circle of Life; and Entertaining at Chatsworth.

Sally Ambrose, Chatsworth’s Head of Visitor Services and Marketing, said:-

“House Style is a landmark exhibition for Chatsworth that has been years in the making. Fashion is interwoven into the fabric of the Cavendish family history, and the house itself has been at the centre of international style for decades.

“This exhibition will give visitors the opportunity to see the story of Chatsworth, through the styles and fashions of the people who have lived and stayed here. House Style will stay true to the history and tradition of Chatsworth, whilst also including modern day concepts and designers, appealing to style aficionados, casual observers and those with an interest in heritage and culture alike.”

Highlights of the exhibition will include personal family collections, including items belonging to the current Duke and Duchess of Devonshire, such as a Givenchy bolero worn on the Duchess’ wedding day. These pieces will be displayed alongside livery, uniforms, coronation robes and fancy-dress costumes, demonstrating the varying breadth of fashion and adornment from the Collection throughout the generations.

The show will also include exceptional couture designed by Jean Phillipe Worth and Christian Dior, together with influential contemporary garments from designers such as Gucci, Helmut Lang, Margiela, Vivienne Westwood, Erdem, Alexander McQueen, Christopher Kane and Vetements.

Important artworks will also be on display, including rare costume designs from the 1660s by Inigo Jones, Surveyor to the King’s Works and one of the most notable architects of 17th century England. Contemporary artist TJ Wilcox will be showing his intimate filmed portrait of Adele Astaire, which contains the only surviving film of the star, found at Chatsworth in 2015.

Hamish Bowles, International Editor-at-Large at American Vogue, will curate this landmark show with creative direction and design by Patrick Kinmonth and Antonio Monfreda, the duo behind some of the most memorable fashion exhibitions of recent years.

Hamish Bowles commented:-

“To be let loose in the wardrobe rooms, the gold vaults, the muniment room, and the closets, cupboards, and attics of Chatsworth, in search of sartorial treasures has been a dream come true for me.

“Chatsworth is a real treasure house and the characters of generations of Cavendish family members who have peopled its rooms and gardens and landscapes is revealed as vividly through their choice of clothing and adornments, as through the canvases and lenses of the great artists and photographers who have memorialised them through the centuries.

“In House Style, we hope to bring these compelling and fascinating people and the very different worlds they inhabited to life, through the clothes and the jewels that they wore.”

Alessandro Michele, Creative Director at Gucci, commented:-

“Chatsworth is unlike anywhere else in the world. A place full of charm, history and rituals. It is a piece of England, of Europe and the contemporary world, all at the same time. You can see history everywhere, yet everything is alive. This exhibition proves how much historical objects are an incredible source of inspiration for creating the present. Thus far the house has been speaking, now House Style gives a voice to the wardrobes of its inhabitants and guests.”

To coincide with the exhibition, Rizzoli will publish House Style: Five Centuries of Fashion at Chatsworth, with a foreword by the Duke of Devonshire; an introduction by the Countess of Burlington; edited by Hamish Bowles; and essays and texts by Hamish Bowles, Kimberley Chrisman-Campbell, Charlotte Mosley, Sarah Mower, Diana Scarisbrick, and Lady Sophia Topley. This book will be a 200-page survey of fashion at Chatsworth featuring photographs by Mario Testino, Cecil Beaton, Bruce Weber, Steven Meisel, Tim Walker, Ellen von Unwerth, and many previously unseen pictures from the Devonshire personal photograph albums.

The exhibition runs from 25 March to 22 October 2017, and is included in the price of entry to Chatsworth House.

House Style: Five Centuries of Fashion at Chatsworth has been made possible with the support of principal sponsor Gucci, together with C W Sellors Fine Jewellery, Investec, Sotheby’s and Wedgwood.