Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District

City and theatre’s debts to Orlando

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Harry Bell chooses to describe Canterbury-born actor Orlando Bloom as a “starlet” with a “career on the wane” (August 18). This is, at best, an ill-judged descriptio­n of an internatio­nal star whose name has topped many a billboard and who last year won a Bafta award for his humanitari­an work for Unicef.

Perhaps unintentio­nally, Harry Bell is more accurate when, in a negative context, he makes a joke of describing Orlando as “the city’s favourite son”.

We in the Marlowe Theatre Developmen­t Trust have much to be grateful for in regards to what Orlando has done to encourage theatre in this city.

Since the start of the campaign to build the 1,200-seat Marlowe Theatre almost 10 years ago, Orlando has willingly lent his name and energy to the project. In the early days, this was invaluable in convincing our community and would-be supporters, that the project could, and would, succeed.

He was a patron of the campaign and became the first patron of the Marlowe Youth Theatre. Since then, he has consistent­ly championed the city of his birth, and other charities and organisati­ons are, I know, grateful for his support.

Criticism, often justified, is the currency of columns such as Harry Bell.

But it is good to remember that, usually, there’s another side to the coin. Peter Williams Chair, Marlowe Theatre Developmen­t Trust Freeman of Canterbury

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