Amateur operatic show featured love and tough betrayal
THIS week’s Memory Lane feature takes a look back at a performance by a local operatic society in the Valley.
Our regular Memory Lane contributor, Peter Fisher, has sent us an array of pictures of Rossendale Amateur Operatic Society, which launched in 1934.
The society put on a performance of The Girl Friend in 1965.
The show is a musical comedy in two acts, written by R P Weston and Bert Lee, and adapted from Kitty’s Kisses by P Bartholomae and Otto Harbach.
It was performed in the Public Hall in Haslingden from Monday, November 1 to Saturday, November 6, at 7.15 each evening.
The play tells the story of Kitty Brown and Robert Mason, who flirted their way through a long train journey in the Rockies.
When the train stops, Kitty loses her handbag and all her money, and Robert promises to find it.
The train leaves him behind and takes Kitty on to meet her mother at the Hotel Wendell.
However, when Kitty arrives at the hotel, her mother isn’t there, and Kitty is left with no luggage or money.
Jerry, the reception clerk, refuses to let her in, but Jenny, the telephone operator at the hotel, takes pity on Kitty and suggests that she impersonate a Mrs Richard Dennison, for whom the bridal suits is booked.
The Dennisons were to meet an uncle, who, once they had demonstrated that they had spent a year in happy marriage, would give them a settlement of £50,000.
However, Mrs Dennison has discovered a former blonde acquaintance of Richard’s and decides to spend the night at another hotel, while Richard heads for a nightclub.
As a result, Kitty manages to blag the bridal suite, and retires there to dream of Robert.
No sooner has she done so, however, and Richard staggers in. Ignorant of the occupant, he goes to sleep in the adjoining room. In the morning, Kitty and Richard meet over a disputed breakfast tray, and Mrs Dennison discovers them and summons her lawyer, who turns out to be Robert.
Kitty protests her innocence, but can’t convince Robert, who takes up Mrs Dennison’s case.
Meanwhile, Jerry has been doing a spot of investigating, and, when Robert, ashamed of his doubts about Kitty, gives up the case, Jerry takes silk and contrives a happy ending.
During the Rossendale Operatic Society performance, ice cream was served in the interval, and there were buses from the Public Hall to Rawtenstall after the show.
Desmond Connolly and Patricia Kay starred as Robert Mason and Kitty Brown, while Stanley Whittaker and Marie Rothwell played Richard and Mrs Dennison.
There was also a chorus and a troupe of dancers in the show, which was produced by Geoffrey Winterhalter and directed by William Glassbrook.
This week’s first picture (top left) shows the chorus in The Girl Friend.
Next (top right) is a shot of the dancers.
Below that is a shot of the front cover of the programme for the show.
Inside the programme, John S Landless, the president of Rossendale Amateur Operatic Society, thanked the people who had helped bring the show to fruition.
He said: “As you will realise, the production of a musical comedy such as this demands a great deal of preparatory work, and I am happy to pay tribute to the untiring efforts of our cast, committee and helpers.”
In our final two pictures of the week (bottom), we have Patricia Kay as Kitty Brown and Desmond Connolly as Robert Mason.
If these pictures bring back memories, please get in touch with the Rossendale Free Press newsdesk. Many thanks to all our regular nostalgia contributors.