STUDENT GROUP 17 (1962/1963)
Alumni from this group include Michael Davis, Estelle Hampton, Gillian Kerswell and David Pearson and Sonia Dowden (Pearson).
A highlight of their first year was a photo call for the local press featuring a group session with Alfred Emmet. As of yet we have been unable to track down where or when these photos were published - if at all!
February 1964
THREE ONE ACT PLAYS
THE BALD PRIMA DONNA
by Eugene Ionesco
LITHUANIA
by Rupert Brooke
THE WEDDING
by Anon Chekhov
Directed by Michael Hoddell
Designed by John Rolfe
Cast:
Julia Atkinson, Donald Clarke, Michael Davis, Virginia Fell, Stanley Goodchild, Audrey Hewlett, Mary Holland, Reta Saxton-Howes, Gillian Kerswell, Roger Kidd, Michael Langridge, Earle Lewis, David Evershed-Martin, Earl Norder, David Pearson, Wendy Stone, Cleo Wrighton
This was the second of four Student Group revivals of Chekhov's THE WEDDING, and David Pearson's Questors debut.
Michael Langridge (who had graduated from Group 16) and Reta Saxton-Howes made quite a hit as a double act in THE WEDDING playing an aged waiter and waitress. Reta Saxton-Howes also drew praise for her performance in the THE BALD PRIMA DONNA. The pair were to repeat their partnership the following year in a director's showcase production of Ionesco's play THE CHAIRS.
July 1964
THE DARK OF THE MOON by Howard Richardson, William Berney
Directed by Michael Hoddell
Designed by John Rolfe
Cast:
Carol Allen, Jill Champion, Donald Clark, Michael Davis, Winifred Fraser, Keith Godman, Stanley Goodchild, Estelle Hampton, Jacqueline Hasland, Audrey Hewlett, Wendy Jolly, Monyene Kane, Gillian Kerswell, Roger Kidd, Michael Langridge, Earle Lewis, Wylie Longmore, James Neil, Earl Norder, David Pearson, Reta Saxton-howes, Wendy Stone, John Turner, Cleopatra Wrighton
This was the first Student Production to take place in the new Playhouse.
The production made a big impression on Douglas McVay in the County Times:
"... some nice playing, and some good moments. Wylie Longmore, arms and fingers bent and outspread, a bounding black eagle, as the witch-boy. Sorceress Estelle Hampton and Cleopatra Wrighton tormenting and enslaving him with a perilously whirling axe, their long hair like golden and ebony seaweed.
"Two things, though, were the real magic: Gillian Kerswell singing BARBARA ALLEN, only comparable in yearning beauty amongst American folk-songs with BLACK IS THE COLOUR OF MY TRUE LOVE'S HAIR; and the curtain... the witch-boy, his brief humanity lost, callously pushing Barbara's dead body with his foot, sending it toppling down a slope, casting his scarlet neckerchief after her — and vanishing as the lights blacked out..."
STUDENT GROUP 18 (1963/1964)
Margaret McDonald may possibly hold the record, if not for having been in more student groups than anyone else, then at least for taking the longest to graduate. Besides year one of Group 18, she is recorded as having been in year one of Groups 19 and 20 and apparently not achieving the second year until Groups 29 (1974-1976) and 30 (1975-1977). She appeared in several productions in 1978 as an acting member.
Group 18 also included Wendy Stone who later returned to direct Student Groups 35 (1982), 36 (1983) and 41 (1988).
February 1965
STUDENT ONE-ACT PLAYS
GREAT CATHERINE by Bernard Shaw
SGANARELLE
by Moliere
THOR, WITH ANGELS
by Christopher Fry
Directed by Michael Hoddell
Designed by John Rolfe
Cast:
John Alioglu, Julia Atkinson, Jill Champion, Michael Davis, Jill Ghampion, Keith Godman, Stanley Goodchild, Jacqueline Hasland, Audrey Hewlett, Trevor Hopkins, Wendy Jolly, James Neil, Rosalinde Nissel, Peter Sharp, Wendy Stone, Julian Tayler, Christopher Taylor
July 1965
MAJOR BARBARA
By Bernard Shaw
Directed by Michael Hoddell
Designed by Jill Champion
Cast:
Jill Champion, Keith Godman, Stanley Goodchild, Jacqueline Hasland, Audrey Hewlett, Phillip Irving, Wendy Jolly, Roger Kidd, Michael Langridge, David Pearson, Peter Sharp, Wendy Stone, Christopher Taylor, John Turner
The play was chosen to coincide with the centenary of the founding of the Salvation Army.
Surprisingly, out of the 40 Bernard Shaw productions so far put on by The Questors this was only the second of two productions of MAJOR BARBARA, the first having been directed by Eric Voce in 1953.
Writing in the Middlesex County Times, 'THT' was enthusiastic about the performances (including that of the makeup artist!) but unfortunately credited Tony Shipley as the director of the piece, instead of Michael Hoddell. Tony was in fact the 'Stage" director.
STUDENT GROUP 19 (1964/1965)
Amongst this Group's first year students was Roger de Toney. He had made previous brief appearances in the 1965 New Plays Festival and had doubled as a "lord" and a "shepherd" in the 1965 production of HENRY V. He didn't make it into this Group's second year but went on to Group 20 where he graduated in the part of Rev Parris in THE CRUCIBLE (see below).
It was his Uncle, Michael McOwan, who suggested that Roger should join The Questors. Previously he had been working as a scene shifter in a Guernsey Repertory Theatre. In addition to being a pillar of strength in the Student Group he was a familiar figure in the Grapevine (on both sides of the bar) and became a regular actor through to the late 1980s. He joined the Committee of Management in 1972 and became Chairman in 1984.
Student Group 19 at work...
February 1966
STUDENT ONE ACT PLAYS
A NIGHT OUT
by Harold Pinter
THE OTHER SON
by Luigi Pirandello
THE RED VELVET GOAT
by Josephine Niggle
Directed by Michael Hoddell
Designed by Sheila Sorley
Cast:
Charleen Agostini, Veronica Brend, Diana Devlin, Sonia Dowden, Patsy Feathers, Tony Garner, Richard Gaunt, James Harrop, Jillyann Healy, Trevor Hopkins, Michael Langridge, Rosalinde Nissel, David Pearson, Laurence Phillips, Morris Rosen, Helen Sorokou, Julian Tayler, Christopher Taylor, Christine Taylor, John Turner
[Photo: A Night Out]
The cast of this triple bill included Jillyann Healy, Sonia and David Pearson, John Turner and Michael Langridge.
Also appearing for only the second time on the Questors stage (the first being as a “walk on” in THE SILVER KING (1965) where he nearly brought the show to a stop by missing an entrance - "I was putting my makeup on, actually") was Richard Gaunt (left), who was a first year student in Group 20 at the time, a future leading actor and editor of Questopics as well as a core member of the Coarse Acting team.
Here is an extract from QUESTOPICS introducing the triple bill to Questors members:
STUDENTS' ONE-ACT PLAYS
The growth and success of the Questors Theatre, like any other society, depends upon the constant influx of new faces and new personalities. Each year at this time Questors members have the opportunity of seeing the production of three one-act plays by those students who are in their final year of training. In a few months' time many of them will be joining the main acting group, and, if past history is anything to go by, will soon be displaying their talents both regularly and creditably on the Questors stage.
Here, then, is the chance to have a preview of what is to come; a chance to see these young people in their first production and to pick from them a face or personality which in the future may very well become one of Questors leading performers.
The three plays to be performed are chosen, wherever possible, for their variety of style and content; but the most important consideration is, as always, to provide an evening's entertainment for the audience who are, after all, the most important part of any theatre.
Sadly, Douglas McVay, writing in the Middlesex County Times, did not echo this positive tone:
"With the best will in the world, I have to report that, in the Questors’ students’ triple-bill, directed by Michael Hoddell last week, I found the first segment wrongheaded and inadequate; the second ineffably dull; and the third, unentertainingly trivial."
Well you can't win 'em all!
