The Nutcracker

Your Hotel

Oaklands Hotel
Thorpe St. Andrew

The Oaklands Hotel is the perfect choice for those who want to combine the convenience and facilities of a large hotel chain with the individuality of a country house hotel.

The hotel offers en-suite well appointed and constantly refreshed bedrooms featuring traditional décor and individual design.

Facilities include:
carvery restaurant, lounge/bar, bedroom telephone.

No hotel lift but ultra modern ground floor lodge suites are available for a supplement of £12.50 per person sharing.

Availability

Only from Kirbys coach depot at Rayleigh... then Loughton, Buckhurst Hill, Chigwell, Epping and the Harlow border

Act 1 storyline

It's Christmas at the Stahlbaum home. There's a huge tree, and many guests arrive to celebrate with the family. Clara's godfather, Herr Drosselmeyer, makes magical toys. He entertains the guests with two life-sized dolls that dance around the room. Then he gives gifts to the children, and gives Clara a very special gift of a nutcracker. Her brother, Fritz, is jealous, and grabs the nutcracker and it gets broken! Clara is very upset, so Herr Drosselmeyer repairs the doll before handing it back to her.

Soon after, all the guests leave and the children go to bed. Clara gets up in the night and goes downstairs to get her nutcracker from under the tree. She falls asleep there, and is transported into Christmas fantasy where her nutcracker has grown to the size of a human. When the Mouse King attacks, the Nutcracker Prince tries to valiantly defend young Clara, but is struck down in the battle. Clara in turn saves her Nutcracker Prince by throwing her shoe at the Mouse King and defeating him. With the nasty Mouse King out of the way, Clara runs to the Nutcracker Prince. When she kisses him, he turns into a human!

Then she and her Prince are whisked away through the Enchanted Forest, where they see dancing snowflakes and other wonders.

Music includes:
The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, the Dance of the Reed-Flutes, the Waltz of the flowers as well as the Chinese Dance, the Arabian Dance and the Russian Dance.