Playing with minds at Trestle, St Albans

A PROMENADE production examining the history and heritage of a former hospital for the mentally ill is being performed at the Trestle Arts Base in St Albans next Saturday, July 4. Entitled Out of Sight Out of Mind? it has been created and will be performe

A PROMENADE production examining the history and heritage of a former hospital for the mentally ill is being performed at the Trestle Arts Base in St Albans next Saturday, July 4.

Entitled Out of Sight Out of Mind? it has been created and will be performed by members of Trestle's youth and community companies alongside professional actors, writers, designers and directors.

It is particularly apt because the Trestle Arts Base is the former chapel of the hospital in question, Hill End, and the lottery-funded project will take the audience on a journey through the buildings, along the corridors and into the minds of the patients and staff who lived and worked at the hospital over a century.

It will tell the story from the hospital's inception as a lunatic asylum, through its remarkable history during World War II to its final controversial closure in the 1990s.

Performances are at 1pm, 4pm and 7pm at the arts base in Russet Drive and the play runs for an hour.

Tickets are �5, available from the box office on 01727 850950.