Grande dame of Showtime retiring

She’s synonymous with grassroots musical theatre in Dundee over the past half-century. Folk singer Margaret Mather founded the city’s groundbreaking Junior Showtime company when she was a single parent in 1968. Since then she has taught thousands of kids to sing and dance down the decades. Now aged 84, orphanage-raised Margaret has finally decided to call it a day for health reasons.

She is doing it in typical style, preparing for her final show, which will feature performances from multi-generational artistes closely associated with Dundee’s former citizen of the year.

The all-inclusive talent school’s early years saw it based in former YMCA premises in the city’s Constitution Road.

Then local stage figures Davie Cooper and Stuart Pearce struck a deal with Stars On Sunday legend

Jess Yates – he ran ITV’S own Junior Showtime at the time – to lay on summer seasons at the then-fledgling Whitehall Theatre.

“The council used to bring pensioners up from England and they’d book them into the university to stay,” Margaret recalls.

“Once a week they’d come along to the venue for Dundee Junior Showtime.

“They supported the children so well – it was quite an amazing start.

“Another celebrity they brought to summer seasons was Phil Mckay from the big TV show Pick A Number.”

A hugely emotional evening is being anticipated on Thursday, when the likes of Christine Low Dancers, Singing Cabbies, Tayside Makaton Choir, Rachel Weir, Mccann Irish Dancers and DJS Ragamuffins will perform highlights from classic musicals under the guidance of director Paul

Clancy. Young-at-heart Maggie admits retiring is a wrench after so long in showbiz.

“We’re still here, but I cannot go on forever – I might want to, but I can’t,” she says.

“We travelled to Russia and a few other countries, while Butlins used to book us down south as well.

“But the main thing is the Dundee people took the children on the show to their hearts.”

Margaret says she’ll miss her weekly involvement with the kids most of all.

“New children come in with wonderment on their faces and look at you as if to say, ‘What can you do for me? Can you give me the magic that other children have received?’” she smiles.

“When you see that look it means everything. No child is ever turned away, no matter what their wee problems might be.

“To build something like this up you have to sacrifice a lot of your own time and your own self, but for me it’s been a labour of love.”

The keen writer, who’s penned a book about Showtime, says her creation is being left in safe hands, with her ex-pupil Nicky O’rourke – a nurse and dance instructor – taking over the reins.

“I was brought up in the Overgate and didn’t have any special training,” adds Maggie. “It was the Salvation Army that helped me, and when you’ve had a beginning like that you feel you ought to give something back to families – and I’ll keep on with some work.

“Showtime was never a money-making thing or highbrow, it was just about giving a helping hand and that’s why it took off in Dundee.

“Our doors were always open and I was lucky to have great people with me who volunteered to help.”

Whitehall Theatre, November 24. Tickets on 01382 322684.

END OF AN ERA: Margaret Mather, who founded the Junior Showtime company in 1968, is retiring later this month.