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Richard Gaunt writing in Questopics, May 1972
'Firsts' are always exciting. The first glimpse of the sea; first footprints on virgin snow; the first men on the moon; the first voyage on a brand new ship. None are as exciting as the launching of a new artistic enterprise—the very first production of a brand new play.
It's a sensation Questors' audiences have been able to enjoy since the annual New Plays Festival began 12 years ago. By and large, the sensation has been a rewarding one. Where else in London or anywhere for that matter can one see new work by writers like James Saunders, Dannie Abse, Derek Marlowe and Roy Minton, to name just some of the successful writers who have first appeared at Ealing, for free?
The New Plays Festival is what Questors and the theatre at large is all about. To encourage new writing. To encourage its performance. To show it to as many people as can be crammed into the playhouse.
Anyone who has worked on a new play will tell you what an experience it can be; the teamwork, the co-ordination of a hundred different skills to make a viable artistic enterprise. The fact that audiences come back year after year trying to spot a winner (and they often do) proves that something of that warm, rewarding experience trickles over to the other side of that stage-cloth.
STEAM
A late night entertainment
devised by
Mike Green and Alan Chambers
Songs by Don Kincaid, Joyce Adcock and Gordon Caleb.
Theatrical personalities leading the after show discussions included:
Michael Billington, Kitty Black, E. Martin Browne, Ronald Bryden, Martin Esslin, Lewis Greifer, Norman Holland, Peter Jones , John Kershaw, Walter Lucas, Frank Marcus, David Pinner, Robert Rietty, John Russell-taylor, Olwen Wymark
