No soggy bottom for this panto dame
Clarkson’s cake made by Black Country master baker
THE pantomime season is with us again and so with these pictures and the one on our front page we take a look back at a couple of productions with an unusual Black Country connection.
On the front page we have the cast of Little Red Riding
Hood at the Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham in 1933.
The stars of the show were Clarkson Rose and
Wee Georgie Wood and they have accepted a very grand cake on behalf of the rest of the cast that had been baked for them by the students of the Birmingham Central Technical College department of bakery.
Tutor
Their tutor was George
Stephens, a master baker from West Bromwich. George and his wife Violet kept a shop, called Violet’s Pantry, in Carters Green. The picture below shows them with their staff at the shop – Violet stands first left and George is third left.
George started his career in the 1920s and won cups and medals for his baking. He became an expert in sugar and marzipan and taught these skills at the Birmingham College. Later, when in his 70s, he was invited to Buckingham Palace to teach the royal chefs his secrets in chocolate and marzipan moulding.
Pantomime legend Clarkson Rose was born in Dudley in 1890 to a well-to-do family that lived in Ednam Road. His archly comic panto dame character was inspired by the grand Dudley ladies he watched as a child as they were entertained to tea by his grandmother.
Twinkle
Rose was well known for his summer show, Twinkle, that ran for many decades at seaside resorts across the country. His pantomimes were always a sell-out and he appeared in the Royal Variety Performance of 1928. His last performed as a dame was in 1967 and passed away in April 1968.
Clarkson Rose is commemorated by a blue plaque at Dudley Town Hall.
Wee Georgie Wood (1894-1978) was another stalwart of pantomime. Standing only 4’ 9” tall, he played comic child characters throughout his career, although today he may be best remembered for being mentioned at the end of the song Dig It on the Beatles’ 1970 album Let It Be.
Cakes baked by George Stephens’s students for the panto stars of the Alexandra theatre became a tradition and we have another picture from 1949, when the show was Robinson Crusoe.
Principal boy
From left we have June Roberts, one of the students, C.J. Tripper, college secretary, comic legend Norman Wisdom, principal boy Betty Huntley-wright, R.A. Wright, head of the college bakery department, Eddie Leslie, as the dame, and George Stephens.
Eddie Leslie (1903-1975) and Norman Wisdom (19152010) regularly worked together, with Leslie helping to pen the scripts for Wisdom’s movies A Stitch in Time (1963 and Press for Time (1966). Wisdom, of course, went on to become one of the biggest stars in British entertainment, receiving a knighthood in 2000.
Betty Huntley-wright (1911-1993) also enjoyed a long career on stage, in film and television. One of the leading principal boys of the 1930s and ’40s, she also ran a small antiques business in London. •Please share your pantomime pictures from days gone day with readers – contact the Black Country Bugle, Dudley Archives Centre, Tipton Road, Dudley, DY1 4SQ or email dshaw@black countrybugle.co.uk