KIDDERMINSTER PLAYHOUSE
1946 - 1968 A Souvenir

History

Contents

SHOCK TACTICS 1963 - 1964

Things began badly and worked up to what the Director appropriately called a show-down at New Year. First the Nonentities had less than average support for Pools Paradise, The Amorous Prawn and Wuthering Heights, which introduced Jane Green wood and had Ronald Griffin as Heathcliff.

Then four rep weeks played to appalling business with Policy for Murder, Doctor at Sea, This Thing Called Love and Semi Detached (which incidentally produced one of the best repertory performances for years by Frederick Arle as Fred Midway).

Drastic action took the form of "Operation Shock", when local papers and hoardings carried the announcement reproduced on the right.

The shock produced results and its immediate effect was to boost business for the pantomime, Jack and the Beanstalk (in which Bert Ward was playing dame again) and the combined musical, Kiss Me Kate. The long-term effect was that all the conditions were met and the theatre's reopening in September was assured.

How was the £5,000 raised? The Town Council gave £3,500, amount asked for; Worcestershire County Council gave £l ,000 and admitted that it should have supported the theatre years earlier; the Rural Council gave £300 and Stourport Urban Council £l00. Only Bewdley failed to respond.

Rating remission came after a change in the law, giving a charitable body a right to a 50 per cent reduction and granting councils the power to remit the rest. The Town Council did so, ending a struggle which had lasted 13 years by the Director and the honorary solicitor, Colonel R. W. A. Painter.

Then began the discussions over the future of the theatre (on the assumption, at that time, that it had one). The Director told members of the council that he intended to retire and as no other member had the time or the inclination to take his place the society would be prepared to sell the theatre to the council, with completion at the end of five years and an understanding that it would be leased back to a new trust at a nominal rental for at least another ten. This would have meant survival for 15 years, by which time it was reasonable to hope that a new theatre would have been built.

The council agreed to buy over a four-year period but this did not please the Director, for the council spokesman had made it clear that there would be no more grants, only annual instalments of the purchase price. The nub of an argument that went on for some time was that the Nonentities felt that the Corporation was looking for a bargain rather than supporting the arts.

Four more repertory plays, The Hot Tiara (introducing a young leading lady named Virginia Balfour), The Sound of Murder, The House on the Cliff and Love Locked Out, continued to feel the benefit of the New Year publicity but a later block, The Public Ear and The Private Eye, Trap for a Lonely Man, The Shining Hour and All in Good Time, indicated that the impact was wearing off.

The Nonentities ended their season with Guilty Party (a board room thriller whose cast included Norman Hanson) and The Geese Are Getting Fat. Carpet Trades chose an Ivor Novello show, Perchance to Dream and the KAOS did well with another revival, Annie Get Your Gun.

Opera for All brought La Boheme and The Secret Marriage, Elspeth Bryce starred in a holiday week show Rattle of a Simple Man and the season ended, for once, with a professional production, Distinguished Gathering, with a cast headed by the late Vic Oliver, who had wise words to say about the live theatre to his audience after curtain-fall each night.

In the midst of its financial troubles the society had agreed to help the new Swan Theatre at Worcester by staging a benefit night. Handing over a cheque for £133, the Director congratulated Mrs Sara Knight on having raised £22,000, plus a gift of £l0,000 from the City Council. "We opened", he recalled, "with only £l,000 from local people and a loan of £1,000 from our council. In fact, in the last 17 years our benefactions from all sources have not reached the impressive figure you are starting off with".