A GROUP of actors could be forgiven for thinking somebody had it in for them when another of their performances was hampered by a missing key.

The Blackburn Drama Club were forced to break down the locked door to their dressing room half an hour before curtain-up on a performance of One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest last week at Thwaites Empire Theatre, Blackburn.

And they suffered a similar fate during a performance of A Christmas Carol at Hoghton Tower on Sunday when the actor playing Fagin missed his cue because of a locked door.

It happened during one of three sell-out performances of A Dickens of a Christmas at Hoghton Tower, which involved six extracts from five Charles Dickens tales performed in eight locations around the tower.

Club Secretary Eric Nolan explained: "The penultimate scene shows Fagin, after being condemned in the courtroom, taken away across the courtyard and led down to the dungeon in the tower and incarcerated, to the accompaniment of the hissing and jeering of the audience who have followed him and the jailer to the underground cell.

"Then everybody returns inside to the main banqueting hall for the final extract, that of A Christmas Carol, at the end of which Fagin, played by Brian Whittaker, rejoins the whole cast to lead them in singing We wish you a Merry Christmas' to end the show.

"However, come Brian's cue to reappear, no Brian! It was only after the end of the performance that someone asked if we'd unbolted Fagin's cell door.

"The answer was no' and we realised poor Brian was still locked up at the other side of the tower - well out of hearing from anyone, alone in his cell awaiting release!

"Fortunately Brian saw the funny side of things, which was just as well since there were two more performances still to do.

"Thereafter two cast members were given the task of retrieving Brian before he started thinking the rest of the troupe were taking it out of him for being the baddie."

This is the second year running Blackburn Drama Club has been invited to perform Dickens at Hoghton Tower just before Christmas.