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Potters Bar Theatre Company |
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Bringing Musicals and Drama to Potters Bar |
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First production ‘1066 and all that’ in 1953 |
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Basil Edmond |
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The following extract has been taken from ‘The History of Potters Bar Theatre Company’ which was compiled in 2003 to commemorate the Company’s Golden Jubilee. Our current President and founder member, Basil Edmond, remembers how the Company originated. Little Heath in late Victorian times was once a little larger than Potters Bar, and it seemed to me in 1952 that the village needed a pageant or something similar to celebrate the Coronation of the next year. ‘1066 and All That’, a light-hearted, 1930’s musical look at British history, seemed to fit the bill. But how to find the large cast and team needed? I had been organiser for six years of the Christ Church Guild, handing over to Joan Bradshaw, when I married. The Guild was a social club for younger members of the church, which had put on concerts and one act plays in the past. There was a church drama group, led by Jean Eames. So I invited the first committee together with representatives of each, and from the village and received a lot of enthusiasm from each group. Eileen, my wife, who joined me, was already secretary of the village Coronation Committee, which was arranging village tea parties for the children. Mary Bradshaw, Jean Eames, Geoff and Margaret Spence, Madeleine Cuffe and Frank Tarry (the deputy organist of the church) were amongst those who joined me – and we had our first team. We invited some members of the defunct Potters Bar Dramatic Society, to which some of us had belonged, Bill Lang and Olive Clark, and in 1954 Vickie Coleman, to join us. And we were lucky to have from the start a great measure of enthusiasm from our audiences in our own small village hall, with little knee room and with the approval of the fire and safety people. As I was deputy head at Cuffley School then, we were able to invite a group of these children and some teachers to join in – led by Dorothy Allingham, who was deputy head for many years. Taking the early shows to a performance at Cuffley School also led to a number of Cuffley folk joining us from the very early days. We also took several early shows to Napsbury Hospital to a good house. As the first show had produced a ‘company’, they voted to continue and form themselves into being… Initially, the first show was loosely associated with the church and the support of many of the congregation was crucial in audience building. It was clear fairly soon that it would be wise to be independent officially. In 1954 we were established, with a policy to look for pre-release amateur musicals where possible and in those early days on occasion we gave the first regional staging of a release e.g. ‘Me and My Girl’, which had been taken off and forgotten during the war, ‘Blue For a Boy’, ‘The Water Gypsies’, ‘Free As Air’, ‘Lisbon Story’ and ‘Salad Days’. Very soon the need to put on plays as well as musicals was obvious and we had many early happy audiences and we were able to fill in the local gap. We also entered for festivals and we began a lifetime of reviews by the doyen of theatre critics, WH Gelder of the old Barnet Press. The venues of the early 1950s were fairly minimal and basic, and were often unsuitable or not available. As soon as they were built, they were tried out – the Methodist Hall, the North Mimms Hall, Charles the Martyr Hall and the old and new Parkfield Halls. Fortunately from the earliest days, we were able to have a succession of professional electrical engineers who guided and operated our technical side of things and our large and capable backstage teams developed. As Gillian Rickards once said, we plucked up courage, took a long shot in the dark and in 1958 produced ‘Oklahoma’ at Mount Grace School. In one fell swoop, we had to move forward in so many ways – large cast and chorus and dancers, the hiring of West End sets and the building up of a local orchestra from scratch. Fortunately, I already knew Arthur Tebbutt, a highly talented conductor who established our large musical tradition. Arthur was to be a pillar of strength for a number of years, working with Beryl Donaldson. Nobody deserves more praise in the years at Mount Grace than Bert Wright, of Mount Grace School, who let the big musical happen, with his patience and enthusiasm… I had met Beryl and Douglas Donaldson in 1948 and knew of her musical talent and they joined the Society from the early days and were to give the strong base to a developing Society with a welcome to their home in the Causeway thence to Leggatts. Beryl’s sister in law at the time was Jessica Spencer, a professional actress, who was playing opposite Richard Attenborough in the original ‘Mousetrap’ production. In this way, he accepted our invitation to be our first-ever president – but on the understanding that it was a purely nominal role – and he never attended any shows or became involved in any way. If from the beginning, we had talented singer and actors, ‘Oklahoma’ brought the Society the first of our professional choreographers/producers – Leslie Dyson and Jill Durne. ‘Oklahoma’ brought us our first colourful programmes and our Publicity teams. ‘Oklahoma’ led the Society to its cabaret teams, which have become professional standard entertainment level. Others will remember the early years and I apologise for not including all the great people who made things tick as early secretaries and social secretaries such as Ann Cresswell and Doris Halifax. Memories by Basil Edmond
And so PBTC continues ……Over 50 years on and the Company is still going strong. Its name may have changed from the original ‘Little Heath Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society’, but the essence of the Company remains. In 1964 ‘Potters Bar’ was added given the demise of the Potters Bar Dramatic Society and, as the year 2000 approached, it was felt that the Company needed a new snappier name (that you could fit on a cheque) to take us into the new millennium. Thus, ‘Little Heath and Potters Bar Operatic and Dramatic Society’ became ‘The Potters Bar Theatre Company’ as it is known today.
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History of PBTC |
