Hall For Cornwall is marking the countdown to the next phase of its exciting £20 million refurbishment project, with a week of special performances aimed at celebrating the talent of dancers, actors and musicians from across Cornwall.

Over the past 10 years, more than 100,000 young people have had the chance to perform on the Hall For Cornwall stage and, with plans to encourage even more young people to get involved when the building reopens in two years’ time, organisers decided to use the last week to showcase some of the incredible talent in the Duchy.

The celebrations will begin on Tuesday when members of Four Lanes Male Voice Choir will be joined by Britain’s Got Talent winner Paul Potts to perform a Gala Concert featuring traditional choral and local Cor-nish music.

On Wednesday, May 30, HFC resident company James Wilton Dance will perform Last Man Standing, an international award-winning work combining martial arts, break dancing and capoeira in a ground-breaking performance where dancers literally fly though the air.

On Thursday members of HFC’s own Youth Theatre will take to the stage with a very special produc-tion of Hell’s Mouth written by world famous Cornish playwright Nick Darke.

The play, a hilarious retelling of Greek tragedy Antigone, is part of the Nick Darke 70 Celebrations and, with a cast of talented young actors from across Cornwall taking part, this promises to be a real night to remember and an incredible opportunity for the talented youngsters to appear on a professional stage, many for the first time.

The Hall will officially close its doors to the public on Saturday, June 2 following a unique performance by Cornwall’s prestigious community orchestra and another HFC Resident Company, The People’s String Foun-dation Orchestra.

‘This is a key moment in the history of the Hall for Cornwall and it seemed only fitting to give the stage to two of our resident companies and our own Youth Theatre in our final week,” said chief executive and creative director Julien Boast.

“We have achieved some amazing things since the building was first opened in 1997, and we will be building on this foundation and all the spirit and history of the last 20 years by providing more opportunities for young people and schools and promoting and supporting creative talent when we reopen.”

The £2m investment confirmed by the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly LEP earlier this year meant that 90 per cent of the funding needed for the ambitious plan to rebuild the venue and bring jobs, economic growth and world class culture to Cornwall, was now in place for the project to confirm its go ahead.

Following the final performance, contractors will begin work on transforming the interior of the Grade II listed building into a modern cutting edge venue with a 1,354 seat tiered auditorium, large enough to attract top West End productions; break out spaces for young people; an ERDF and LEP funded creative business hub which will support Cornwall’s growing number of start-up digital, creative and technology companies; a stun-ning internal ‘Ope’ providing a public walkway from the new entrance foyer at Boscawen Street through the building to Back Quay, and a number of new bars and cafés.

Although the building itself will be closed, members of the public will be able to follow the progress of the transformation via monthly newsletters and regular updates posted on the website and Facebook, Twitter and Instagram channels, including some live video footage as the build progresses.

The team will be also be arranging exclusive open days and hard hat tours of the works to enable people to come in and see how thing are going as well as taking a community roadshow to events and locations throughout Cornwall.

Mr Boast added: "We now need to raise the final amount so that we can achieve our ambition to provide the people of Corn-wall with access to the best performing arts possible in a venue which rivals any in the country. It’s time to raise the curtain on our future.”