Lifting the curtain on a theatre gem
ONE of our town’s most successful and iconic centres of creativity is greatly underappreciated, the epitome of hidden heritage.
The Curtain Theatre was first established in 1925 by a group of local enthusiasts looking to ensure that culture played an important role in the movement of the time to improve the lives of working people through education.
They took the name for their amateur theatre from Elizabethan London’s Curtyn Theatre, which predated the Globe as a venue for Shakespeare’s plays.
The key and lock symbol was chosen to represent their aim to open the
door to culture for the people of Rochdale.
The theatre itself, although situated between the train station and town centre, can be easily overlooked amongst the shops and the fast food outlets on Milkstone Road. Behind its unassuming façade, Tardis-like, a wholly unexpected experience awaits.
Plush carpets and a chandelier with an auditorium that can seat up to 200, all served by begowned modern-day enthusiasts.
The level of underappreciation partly comes from the enduring myth that the Curtain Theatre is a closed, elitist group.
This is far from the truth, as I discovered on my recent visit to their stunning production of Hamlet and meetings with current enthusiasts Lynn Sheerin (business director), Billy Sheerin (our current mayor) and John Rhodes (joint drama director).
The Curtain Theatre’s next production is, Bolton-born, Bill Naughton’s Spring and Port Wine, directed by Rod Fitton.
Beginning life under the title My Flesh, My Blood as a BBC radio play, broadcast on August 17, 1957 and with a stage adaptation at the Bolton Hippodrome in October 1959, it was re-titled Spring and Port Wine, opening at London’s Mermaid Theatre in November 1965.
Spring and Port Wine tells the story of a battle of wills in a small Bolton household between patriarchal Rafe Crompton and his children, with the iconic refusal by a daughter to eat a plate of herring one evening, leading him to serve it up for her day after day.
Over the course of the play, each character comes to challenge the stubborn, strict ways of the patrician, leading him to realise he needs to be more flexible and allow his children to be the adults they are or are on the way to becoming.
The much-loved 1970 film version starred James Mason with Diana Coupland, Hannah Gordon, Susan George and Rodney Bewes.