» No shortage of drama in town theatre’s story
THIS week in 1960 Cheltenham’s Theatre and Opera House was renamed the Everyman Theatre. The new name heralded a fresh start for the entertainment venue that had over the decades enjoyed and endured fortunes as mixed as those of a nail biting drama.
Cheltenham’s New Theatre and Opera House opened in Regent Street on October 1, 1891 with a performance by Lily Langtry. Small of stature, though huge of reputation, the celebrated actress took centre stage and delivered a specially commissioned (and very long) poem in rhyming couplets, which began:
“Hail Sylvan city, for thy vanished stage,
With us at last - a golden age. Tis strange that Thespis hence so long should roam,
Where could he find a more congenial home?”
It continued in that vein into the middle distance and beyond.
The theatre was designed by architect Frank Matcham, who was also responsible for the London Palladium and built in just six months.
Ellen Terry, George Robey, John
Gielgud, Margot Fonteyn and numerous luminaries have performed on its stage and when the Everyman had a repertory company from 1960 to 1995 Penelope Keith, Steven Berkoff, Windsor Davies, Josephine Tewson and William Gaunt were all at various times members.
Richard Burton appeared on stage in a play called “Dark Summer”, as did Roger Moore in “Miss Mable”.
The first talkie film seen in Cheltenham was screened at the theatre. This event took place in October 1929 and allowed local audiences to hear what Ronald Coleman’s voice sounded like as he played the part of Bulldog Drummond.
The theatre had recently been bought by a cinema company, which intended to install a silver screen and end live performances.
But then the building was bought back by the previous owner and the boards were once more trod by thespians.
By the 1950s the theatre was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. Beset by financial problems it closed in 1955, then received a temporary reprieve when bought by Cheltenham Corporation.
Four years later closure came again and that could have been curtains for theatre in the town, but fortunately an association of public-minded people re-opened the theatre in 1960, since when it’s been called the Everyman.
The question of finance, however, remained an issue that split local opinion into two factions. There were those who appreciated the value of the theatre as a cultural asset and in opposition those who considered it a drain on ratepayers’ pockets.
Reporting on a meeting of the borough council’s finance committee in February 1970, the Echo’s front page headline announced “Everyman gets subsidy of £500 a week”.
One councillor at the meeting said “They are obviously putting on a lot of highbrow stuff and not getting the people in”. To which another replied “What are you suggesting? Do you want blue films?”
After the Second World War some bright spark had the idea of concealing the splendid, decorative brickwork of
the building’s facade under a coating of render, probably because it was thought cheaper than repointing.
This marred the appearance of the façade until in 1983 the theatre closed for three years for a major rebuilding and refurbishment programme in conjunction with the building of the Regent Arcade on what had been the Plough Hotel site.
Thanks to this work in the 1980s, the exterior of the theatre looks pretty well now as it did when built 130 years ago.
In 2011 a 17-week restoration of the auditorium returned its interior to the original splendid condition, which was described by Ken Dodd at a performance he gave at the Everyman in the 1990s as “like being inside a birthday cake”.
In recent times, barring the exceptional circumstances of the past year due to the pandemic, the Everyman’s fortunes have been happy and healthy.
The annual pantomime attracts sellout audiences who come from far and wide to see what is widely considered to be a production that can hold its own with any staged in London or elsewhere.
Tweedy the clown is established as the local version of a national treasure and with a performer of his calibre in the cast the panto makes an invaluable contribution to the financial well being of Cheltenham and Gloucestershire’s much-loved professional theatre.
» TALL stories have long been a way to attract publicity, as this advertisement that appeared in The Citizen in July 1963 reminds us.
“Showing for the first time in Gloucester. The Cuban two-headed giant. Eight feet seven and a half inches in height. This man is an extraordinary freak of nature. Showing at the Fun Fair, Gloucester Park 27 July - 10 August”.
This horror from Havana was certainly not the first freak to visit the city. A couple of centuries before visitors to the New Inn in Northgate Street could pay a few coppers to see Maria Theresa, who was billed as “The Corsican fairy”.
Literally the opposite of a tall story, though metaphorically qualifying as one, this minuscule maiden was said to be 27 years old, weighed 26 lbs and stood two feet ten inches tall.
In the latter half of the 18 century the landlord of the New Inn, Northgate Street, was John Nelson. He was a showman by persuasion and staged regular events at the hostelry, some of a bizarre nature.
These included a waxworks exhibition of George III and other members of the royal family, which drew large crowds.
The New Inn’s reputation for occasional freak shows started in 1749 when a mermaid “captured off the coast of Mexico” was exhibited for two weeks.
Hardly less remarkable was Zaro Agha, who claimed to be 156 years old and the longest lived soul this side of Old Testament days. This gent toured the country with Bertram Mill’s circus and came to Gloucester in June 1931.
The old boy was taken on a flight over the city in an aeroplane belonging to Mr A W King of Westgate Motor House and piloted by local photographer Rex Walwin.
The remarkable Mr Agha had been married 11 times, fathered 35 children and had over 500 grandchildren.
The Gloucester Journal reported that a local farmer named Joe Thompson arrived at the city’s market in August 1835 with two lots to sell. A Newfoundland dog and his wife.
Mr and Mrs Thompson had marched up the aisle three years before, but according to Joe, the marriage was not one made in heaven. ”She’s been a born serpent” he told the amused market day crowd. “I took her for the good of my home, but she has become my tormentor. A domestic curse. A nightly invasion and a daily devil”.
The crestfallen farmer then offered this advice. “Avoid troublesome women as you would a mad dog, a roaring lion, a loaded pistol, cholera, Mount Etna and any other pestilent thing in nature.” The only (almost) good things Joe had to say about his spirited spouse were “She can read and milk cows”.
A city gent named Henry Mears offered Joe 28 shillings for his wife and the dog. They shook on it and the deal was done.
Thomas Robinson was a prominent city politician in Victorian times. First elected to the council, he became leader of the local Liberals, was mayor four times, MP for Gloucester and knighted.
In trade directories of the time, Sir Thomas Robinson’s occupation is given as “Manure merchant”, which the cynical might think appropriate for a politician.
In the swingin’ 60s Unidentified Flying Objects (UFOS) were spotted in the skies above Gloucestershire on a regular basis. In September 1960, for instance, local newspaper reports stated that on the 11th of that month at about 9pm a UFO shot from the sky at great speed, lighting up the countryside for miles around as it fell to Earth.
Jodrell Bank and the Air Ministry suggested it was a meteorite, or satellite entering the atmosphere.
The station master at Longhope told The Citizen “It was like a rocket falling from the sky. It had a galaxy of stars behind it and it lit the whole place up when it exploded like a hydrogen bomb”.
Equally stirred by the experience was a 14-year-old lad cycling home from a Scouts meeting in Redmarley. “I could not have stood the heat for any length of time. It was a large round
ball which illuminated a large area with its blue light. Then suddenly a tail shot out to the left and the ball disappeared shooting straight out across the sky at speed”.
On the evening of June 26, 1965 “A luminous cigar shaped thing” was seen in the sky over Hucclecote by a local couple who we’ll call Mr and Mrs E. “It was very low and made no sound and my husband said it had portholes down the side” Mrs E told the reporter. Another witness spoke of “An illuminated train in the sky”.
We should bear in mind that hallucinations were not uncommon in the 1960s for reasons that we need not go into here.