Submitted by Hazel Bell, Welwyn Hatfield u3a
In the 1950s Bognor Regis was well provided with theatres. The pier boasted two: the Pier Theatre, splendidly traditional with orchestra pit, red velvet curtains and all, offering variety shows; above it, on the upper layer of the pier, the Roof Garden Theatre, with repertory drama companies. Along the promenade to the west, the Esplanade Theatre offered more serious music concerts, as well as reviews played through the summer: Dazzle with Eric and Ida Ross, and brother Johnny Ross, holding it for several years. Susan Hampshire hails from Bognor; Julie Andrews as a child often sang at the Esplanade. Doreen Hinton, later featured on the childrens' television programme, Blue Peter, performed regularly at the Pier theatre.
Bognor Regis pier in the 1950s
Rosemary Harris is the most distinguished graduate of Bognor Regis repertory theatre. Her first job was there, as assistant stage manager, to pay her way through drama school. Others who went on to make their names were Michael Hawkins and Roland Curram, both much seen subsequently on platform and screen.
My mother, Kay Macaulife, joined the repertory company playing in the Roof Garden Theatre C the Phoenix, then the Buskin Players, whose Producer was Kevin Young. She was Company Secretary, and also played on stage in alternate weeks (depending on casting requirements). Each week the company was performing one play in the evenings, rehearsing another in the mornings. This was splendid for me; I spent much time hanging round the repertory theatre, making tea for rehearsals and selling programmes for performances, adoring the actors. I even made it on to the Roof Garden stage when a child was needed, once as Tiny Tim when an actress was ill in 1950.
My mother wrote about the Buskin Players’ production of of Bonaventure in 1951:
I was once in a play crammed full of nuns. Our costumes for the company always came from a neighbouring town; they were put on a bus at one end, and removed at the other. A simple process, but it had its snags, one of which was that they were usually despatched at the very last moment. For this production the hamper had not even arrived for the dress rehearsal and when it did it was fallen upon by a whole bevy of undressed nuns. We all fell back in horror when the contents were found to be one enormous grotesque cow, with an extremely exaggerated undercarriage, great rolling eyes and a huge lolling red tongue.
Our Producer, who had been a Shakespearean actor, and never forgot it, seized the telephone and declaimed in ringing tones – "I ordered Nuns, and you have sent me a cow!" The right hamper arrived just in time for the first performance and the frantic nuns hurled themselves into their costumes in an atmosphere very far removed from that of a Convent.