SEASON 27 (1955-56)
The Three Honourable Gentlemen
Hamlet
The Tragedy of Fratricide Punished
SS Tenacity & A Phoenix Too Frequent
Getting Married
A Penny For A Song
She Stoops to Conquer
Having just completed a season of new plays, what else could we do this season but start building a new theatre. As The Times of 19 September 1955 proclaimed:
"The Questors are in the front line of the amateur theatre in this country, and that is more or less where the audience arriving for the first night of the new season on Saturday found them. A night shift of volunteers was busy with picks and shovels digging trenches for the foundations of the first of the new buildings [ed. The Shaw Room], on the site where it is hoped to erect what will be one of the most adaptable theatres in the world."
[Picture: Marius Goring cutting the first turf]
Sept 1955
THE THREE HONOURABLE GENTLEMEN
by Gunther Weisenborn, translated by Michael Bullock
Directed by Harvey Unna
Design by Dennis Farr.
This play was written by a member of the German Resistance involved in plans to overthrow Hitler and although it is a farce something along the lines of THE GOVERNMENT INSPECTOR, Weisenborn's own life has all the drama of a wartime thriller. [See Wikipedia]
Making his first appearance in this production was another Questors giant, Laurence Nixon. As well as being an actor in constant demand, Laurence (who had the (dubious) honour of portraying a soldier in combat in the first edition of Michael Green's THE ART OF COARSE ACTING) was Honorary Treasurer of Questors for many years as well as Membership Secretary and a prominent member of the Committee of Management. His obituary (Questopics April 1968), which included a moving tribute from the playwright James Saunders, aptly referred to him as "A Man of Many Parts."
Also appearing in this production were Ted Scrivener, Gerald Rawling, Sylvia Estop, Sylvia Jarvis, Betty Ogden and Ed Pitt.
November 1955
HAMLET
by William Shakespeare
Directed by Barbara Hutchins (Kit Emmet)
Designed by Graham Heywood
This was our first stab at The Prince of Denmark's tragedy and seems to have been very well received.
The young actor playing Hamlet made quite an impression. In 1953 he had appeared in CLERAMBARD and MAJOR BARBARA billed as John Scott, but I notice that in 1954 he began calling himself John Murray Scott and that a few years later there was a professional actor of that name and the same age credited in IMDB as being in the AVENGERS and A FOR ANDROMEDA. Does anyone know more about this young man? He doesn't seem to have done anything at Questors after HAMLET, although he was in the Tin Hut "farewell" revue GOING! GOING! in 1962.
Harry Ives and David Lorraine no doubt stole the show as the grave diggers [right], and other star turns included John Clemow (Mercellus), Vincent McQueen (Horatio), Clifford Webb (Polonius), Frank White (Claudius), Wilf Sharp (First Player), Michael Green (Captain and Osric), Ed Pitt (Young fortinbras) and Cyril Box (who hadn't been around for a few years and for whom this was a final appearance at Questors - all of which seems somehow appropriate that he should play the Ghost of Hamlet's Father!)
Questors trivia (1):
The financial success of this production of HAMLET led the Committee of management for the first time to consider including in each season the play that had been set for that year's school exams.
Questors trivia (2): It was about this time that there was a lot of discussion in the corridors of power as to whether The National Anthem should be played at the beginning or the end of the performance, and the Front of house Committee was particularly worried that the recording they had was far too slow, so they were looking around to replace it with a quicker one. (I feel some coarse rumblings in the undergrowth!)
December 1955
THE TRAGEDY OF FRATRICIDE PUNISHED
Directed by Barbara Hutchins (Kit Emmet)
Designed by...I don't think it was designed!
Performed a few weeks after HAMLET with the same company taking different parts, this was not exactly a pastiche - not exacty Coarse Acting (which hadn't been invented yet anyway - although it may have given Mike Green a few Coarse ideas!) - it's probably best to quote the description given in the Forestage magazine.
"FRATRICIDE PUNISHED [is] a play that may not be generally known, since it was last produced in 1924 by William Poel in a production that W. A. Darlington later described as "one of the funniest things he had ever seen on the stage". How it came to be written is a fascinating mystery, but a reasonable conjecture is [...] that a company of English players in Germany at a time when Shakespeare's Hamlet was still the talk of the town were asked to perform the great work. But as it was not in their repertoire and they had no copy of the text, the Germans insisted on their making up a text from what they knew of the original story. It is [...] by far the most amusing of all Elizabethan curiosities ; a jewel of unconscious comedy."
Incidentally, as a curtain raiser there was a showing of Fred Pateman's film "Towards a New Theatre." The version we have today in archives [view it here] is of a later date and carries the story right through to the building of the new theatre and the gala opening by Her Majesty The Queen Mother in April 1964.
January 1956
SS TENACITY
by Charles Vildrac, translated by Harold Bevan
Directed by Clifford Webb
Designed by Billee Laurence
&
A PHOENIX TOO FREQUENT
by Christopher Fry
Directed and designed by Colette King.
There's very little to say about this double bill, except that this was our first production of a Chrisopher Fry play. So just enjoy the photos - particularly those of the radiant Diana Benn seen here with Patrick Bowley.
March 1956
GETTING MARRIED
by George Bernard Shaw
Directed by Pamela Richards
Designed by Madge Turnbull
This was a Shaw Centenary Production and was the 14th out of 37 of his plays we have produced at The Questors (excluding extracts and rehearsed readings).
The cast included Ted Scrivener (inevitably) as well as other favourites Gerald Rawling, Carla (Craik) Field, Paul Imbusch and Frank White.
I was about to pour scorn on the Mayor of Ealing, pictured here facing a "No Smoking" sign with a lighted cigarette in her hand, when on closer inspection it seems that in those days exception was made during the interval! Poor woman. She must have been praying for the end of Act One only to light up and find herself having to make polite conversation with Alfred!
April 1956
A PENNY FOR A SONG
by John Whiting
Directed by John Clemow
Designed by Jane Kingshill.
This delightful comedy about the finer lunacies of the English at war, introduced us to two new Questors stars --- Ffrangcon Price (Whelan) and Neville Bradbury.
On my reckoning, these two chalked up 128 roles between them over the years. Sadly we lost Neville in 1992, but Ffrangcon is still very much part of our family, although it's been a while since we've seen her on stage.
Others in the stellar cast include Michael Green, David Lorraine, Kit Emmet, Vincent McQueen, Tony Worth and Harry Ives. What a show that must have been!
Alec Atchison has reminded me that we revived this play in 1978 and took it to Minack - a perfect setting! It was directed this time by John Davey and Alec described it as a key production in terms of cast and crew representing, as he put it, "a sort of handing over from many old established members to a new generation."
"I first met Roger Kelly when I was ASM on Penny for a Song, at the Minack in 1978. Roger was Tour Manager, and also in the cast were Jude Davis, née Emmet, who played
Dorcas, (the Judi Dench role) and Mike Davis, now her husband of course, who played Rev Brotherhood.
"It was an important show for a whole new(ish) generation of then young Questors members who went on to work on numerous shows or take on other responsibilities in Questors. They include Tim Hayward, Martin Stoner, Roy Brierley, Tina Harris, Chris Sydenham (she did some Stage Management, but was Licensee of the Grapevine for years) Pete Walters, Lesley Montgomery (who married Pete), Barbara Morris, Richard Lewis, Jan Morgan (who married Richard), Annie and Graham Williams and by Questors standards a stellar cast including Ted Scrivener, Philip Remington, Rosemary Purkis, Alan Drake, Tony Barber, Ken Ratcliffe and Phillip Sheahan.
"Two years later, I was DSM on MACBETH, again directed by John Davey, and was one of the group which had begun to cohere in 1978. In 1984, Roger Brace and I were co-SMs on TWELFTH NIGHT, with many more of the old guard of actors including John and Ruth Howard. Ruth was doing Props, and it was following this that John first instructed me to act as his solicitor, which eventually led to the formation of the Howard Trust.
"So, a lot sprang from A PENNY FOR A SONG. If I hadn't enjoyed it, and got involved with future productions at the Minack, the Howard Trust might never have been set up."
June 1956
SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER
by Oliver Goldsmith
Directed by Harvey Unna
Designed by Dennis Farr and Ian Toplis
Having proved their worth in the previous show, Ffrangcon Price and Neville Bradbury moved straight on to this production, which went from Mattock Lane to The Torquay Open Air Summer Theatre for three nights in August.
I expect that Ffrangcon made newcomer Peter Whelan (Tony Lumpkin) feel welcome. The rest, as they say, on that score is history!
Others in the cast included Jo Arundel (Irvin), Alan Drake, Henry Heilpern, Betty Ogden and Tony Worth