KIDDERMINSTER PLAYHOUSE
1946 - 1968 A Souvenir
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FESTIVAL YEAR 1950-1951
A season which ended as the Festival of Britain was getting under way included a great deal of valuable and original work. The theatre's contribution to the festival was a pageant, The Loom of Time, which treated Kidderminster and its carpet industry with no great reverence: But audiences expect pageants to take place out of doors and this huge production lost money, in spite of a special council grant of £100.One of the early repertory plays was Possession, by Kenneth Rose on a topical theme of a farmer being dispossessed of his land. This was at the time when proposed opencast coal-mining was an explosive subject in Worcestershire. Humphrey Heathcote played the lead as a kind of rural King Lear.
There was also Robert Gaston's production for the Nonentities of Family Portrait, a stage representation of Christ's family, with an anonymous cast, which for many remains a highlight in the society's achievements.
Kenneth Rose wrote, produced and appeared in Rosalie, or The Pride of the Blue Dragoons, and was also seen in his old part of Sir Roderick Murgatroyd in Ruddigore. Between times he was reading 150 entries for a new play competition. Busy days indeed!
The Nonentities also produced Fools Rush In, with Sheila Jacobs
making
a first appearance, and The Giaconda Smile, which introduced
John
Pell. Marhorie Baker and Will Church gave valuable support in
Rosalie
and
Nick Reynolds and Harry Beresford succeeded in looking very like
the Duke of Wellington and Napoleon.
The comic lead was Bernard Dunn, now an executive of Samuel
French Ltd., the theatrical publishers. The lightweight Middle Watch
completed
the season.
Touring productions saw the Young Vic keeping up its remarkable standard. The Black Arrow, long remembered for the character who was shot in the back with an arrow in full sight of the audience, had a young man in the cast named Keith Michell, later a Stratford star and film actor. The production of The Merchant of Venice by Glen Byam Shaw had Powys Thomas as Shylock and a court scene so compelling that a reporter in the stalls stood up out of habit when the judge entered. Tours also included Black Chiffon and that incredible money spinner Worm's Eye View.
Repertory work in the first half of the season included Yellow Sands, Deep are the Roots, Miranda (Nella Burton in a fish-tail), My Sister Eileen, Hay Fever, Murder Without Crime, Rain (with one of Robert Gaston's rare appearances - "an evangelical Harry Lime" said a review), The Lady from Edinburgh, On Monday Next (all about a provincial repertory company with great fun for John Devaut as the producer and Eric Jones as the author), Duet for Two Hands and The Marquise.
Visitors in the winter season included the Ballet Rambert, the Sherry Brothers, the Ambassador Ballet, and the Lanchester Marionettes. Max Norris directed the pantomime Mother Goose. The KAOS presented The Gondoliers and Carpet Trades Maid of the Mountains.
A new rep in the spring began with High Temperature and Travellers' Joy, which served to introduce players who were to become firm favourites. The revival of Pygmalionhad William Moore as Higgins, the exuberant South African Joan Blake as Eliza and Reginald Green (now with the National Theatre) as Doolittle. Other newcomers included Ann Johnson, remembered especially for her Heloise opposite John Devaut in the second of the prize winning plays, Keith Andrews, Jean Robbins, Patricia Buckley and David Saxby.
The programme included A Lady Mislaid, Avalanche, Love in Albania, French Without Tears, Harvey (Reg Green in great form as Elwood P. Dowd), Night Must Fall, Private Lives and a play which surely deserved a better future than it achieved, Peter Philp's The Castle of Deception.
This won the author £100 in the festival play competition and was written as a pastiche of the fashion then current for verse drama. The author called it "a museum piece in bogus verse" but suffered, like so many inspired hoaxers, from being taken seriously. The company had an hilarious week; the play was not seen again.
The scenic artist for this season was Rosemary Towler, now a well-known actress in her own right.
Finance
The 51 weeks averaged gross takings of £373, the Nonentities made a surplus. of £650, the Playhouse lost £1,871 and the grants remained at £628. A theatrical garden party and a ball swelled the funds but the debt was reduced by only £817, to £2,836, with less than five months to go to the deadline.The Council agreed to convert its loan of £1,000 into a gift providing the remaining £1,836 was cleared. The challenge was accepted.
The battle for rating exemption was begun and round one ended with a
local valuation court dismissing a submission that the Scientific Societies
Act of 1843 should cover the theatre's activities.
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