Memories of a Musical Director

My family has been associated with the Whitehaven and District Amateur Operatic Society since the early nineteen hundreds when my father, Alfred Robertson,  was pianist for their shows in the old Theatre Royal, Roper Street.

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When the Society restarted operations after the Great War of 1914 – 18 my father was made Musical Director and the first show of the reconstituted company was “The Mikado” in 1922.

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I didn’t come on the world until the mid twenties, and I must have been 2 or 3 when I was first introduced, with some trepidation on my part into the company of the bewigged, bewhiskered, uniformed and crinolined group of people who made up the ‘on stage’ part of the Society, much the most numerous of course.  This was at the splendiferous Grand Hotel, which stood roughly where Tesco’s car park can be found nowadays.  The occasion was the Saturday after matinee tea.  Following the matinee performance all the company proceeded, still fully costumed because the final evening performance would shortly follow, to the Grand Hotel for the communal meal.  I was taken along by someone or other and found it difficult to recognise even my mother who was part of the assembled multitude.  Like Little Red Riding Hood’s grandmother everyone seemed to have frighteningly large eyes, the result, of course, of make up emphasising the particular features but somewhat disturbing not the less to a small child.  I think on reflection the show must have been “Princess Caprice” of 1927 or possibly “My Lady Molly” the following year.

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Those were the years of the old Theatre Royal on Roper Street, on a site now occupied by Michael Moon’s bookshop.  The Roper Street façade was not particularly prepossessing – not much more than a blank wall with apologetic entrance doorways and a large stage door for dealing with scenery etc.  I was only once inside the theatre proper, at a performance by the Society of the musical comedy “The Boy” in 1930.  At this distance of time I can only vaguely recall the interior; a general impression or red décor from my position up in the circle somewhere.  Fortunately a few photographs were taken during the twenties of the stage with the Society performing an item – it must have been at a dress rehearsal – so we can get an ides of how things were.  Of the show “The Boy” I can recall very little, though I remember Joe Roe being prominent in the main part, a lively Fred Astaire figure in top hat and tails.  He was to take many comedy leads in shows during the thirties.

Also “The Boy” was the final show the Society was able to perform in  the Theatre Royal which had been the venue for its shows since it began.  For 1931 and a number of years subsequently they had to use the Queen’s Cinema, on the site of which is a supermarket.  The Queens had a large stage when the screen was out of the way, more than adequate for any amateur production.

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I remember seeing the first show there in 1931. That was “Sybil” with attractive music by Viktor Jacobi.  Set in Russia before the Revolution it was full of Grand Dukes and Duchesses, officers of the Imperial Guard and all the usual chocolate soldier paraphernalia of much of the musical comedy/operettas of those times.  I can recall gorgeous costumes and a large and beautifully groomed dog appearing at one point on the stage.

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Our family GP, Dr Teddy Ablett, was the Grand Duke.  His imposing figure and rich voice earned him a succession of leading parts in those halcyon days of the twenties when the streets of Whitehaven played host to bull nosed Morris Cowleys,  Armstrong Siddeleys and the like.

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In the period under review the producer of these shows was the formidable lady, Madame Forbes Wilson, always addressed by all and sundry as ‘Madame’.  This lady was successful in terrifying everyone into instant and absolute obedience.  Good for her!  Even as a small child such as I, was instinctively kept quiet when she was about.  By all accounts this system brought results.

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A few years ago I had an interesting conversation with the late Louis McKay at her home in St Bees.  As Louis Ramsay she was one of the bright young things of the Operatic Society during the twenties, and, both comely and lively she played several leading roles, usually to admiring acclaim from the local press.

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On the occasion of my visit to Mrs McKay I had a tape recorder with me and took the opportunity of asking her questions about the ‘old days’ and in particular what it was like working under Madame.

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T R  What do you remember about the old theatre?

L McK  Well it was marvellous.  The audience were all around you and because it was small it was very friendly.  People queued for more than three quarters of an hour before to get in and when we arrived it was quite a thrill to pass the queue and think we were real actors going in the stage door which was a sort of trap door that went down underneath the theatre.  After the Saturday afternoon performance a Cumberland Motor Services bus picked us all up, fully costumed, outside the theatre and took us to the Grand Hotel where we had tea, then we assembled outside the hotel to have our photographs taken, then back to the theatre in the bus for the evening performance.  It was a great night.  There were two boxes on the side of the stage.  The girl’s boy friends came and the last performance was a riot, the boys used to throw things down onto the stage in the second act, like roses and even kippers!

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TR  What do you remember of Madame Forbes Wilson?

L McK  Well she was a real character.  She came early on in the production and instructed the committee how she wanted the show produced and then Dr Ablett took us through the script and carried out the stage directions according to Madame’s plan.  Madame arrived three weeks before the performance.  Once she entered a rehearsal you could hear a pin drop, nobody had to speak.

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TR  What was she like to work for?

L McK  Well she was quite brutal, her language left a lot to be desired because she was not averse to swearing at us.  She, of course, had played Katisha in the D’Oyley Carte production of “The Mikado”.  She was an excellent producer.  When we arrived for the dress rehearsal  Madame insisted on making up the chorus girls herself.  We thought she was very heavy handed with the make-up and used to rub some of it off when we got back to our dressing rooms which were very small in the Theatre Royal.  Madame used to wear fantastic dresses herself.  She wore a bandeau around her hat with a large feather in it and a long cigarette holder for her cigarette and stood at the side of the stage during the performance.

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TR  Was she the prompt?

L McK  Well, yes she SHOUTED the prompt from the side of the stage

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TR  I believe she lived in Ulverston?

L McK  That’s right.  But when she came here she lodged with a lady on Duke Street opposite the old Town Hall.

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TR  Yes, I remember being taken to that house by my mother when I was a small boy.

L McK  The lady with whom Madame lodged escorted her to the theatre every evening and brought her her mid show drink etc.

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During the thirties various producers (now termed directors) were employed by the Society.  I remember Dr Teddy Ablett himself produced “The Cabaret Girl” in 1933.  The book and lyrics for this musical comedy were by George Grossmith – once one of the Savoyards and PG Wodehouse, creator of Bertie Wooster and the immortal Jeeves.  The music was by Jerome Kern of “Showboat” fame.  “The Cabaret Girl” has one or two good numbers in it, notably “Dancing Time”.  Interestingly enough, a few years ago, I picked up a bound copy of the vocal score in Michael Moon’s bookshop for the princely sum of 30p; I was amazed and delighted to find it was, in fact, Teddy Ablett’s own producer’s score for the 1933 production.  Being a producer’s score it had blank white pages between the successive pages of music.  This was for the purpose of the producer making notes about the movements of the personnel and of the chorus as a whole,  and of course useful for sketching out plans of the stage layout and marking where everybody stands at the commencement of a particular sequence.

These instructions abound, such as “Gravvus (what a peculiar name!) throws Maryton (that’s better) up onto piano where she sits legs stuck out in front of her”  I trust he managed this every night and there were no miscalculations!  As his final instruction to the young couple singing and dancing the vigorous “Dancing Time” Dr Ablett wrote “No encore unless absolutely demanded.  Quite strenuous enough and much more to come: Mark that, much more to come!”  Perhaps that was the medical man rather than the producer speaking, and no doubt his advice would gain the whole hearted support of the principals.

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Among other finds in the score some sheets of manuscript with music written on in my father’s meticulous hand  (something I haven’t inherited, although he was writing with a decent fountain pen called an Otto which he kept for years).  The score also has in it a list of Society members who were playing the various parts.

The thirties saw the Society turning for the first time to shows from the Sigmund Romberg, Oscar Hammerstein stable.  These tend to be big shows with much scene changing and they require a lot of leading vocalists. “The Desert Song” was produced in 1935 and “The New Moon” the following year.  I saw both these shows from the circle in The Queens and was very impressed with their respective scenarios.  Moroccan Riffs and French soldiery in the first with the mysterious Red Shadow, a sort of North African Robin Hood, who thrillingly turned out to be the seemingly effete Rene Birabeau, son of the General and a young man whom everyone despised – of the same pattern as Baroness Orczy’s sop Sir Percy Blakeney who turned out to be the Scarlet Pimpernel saving innumerable French aristocrats for the guillotine and wonderfully played by Leslie Howard in the films about that time.  Great Boy’s Own stuff!

 

“The New Moon was 18th Century and nautical.  Both shows had memorable tunes and foot tapping sequences.  I think my favourite number was “Softly as in a morning sunrise” from “The New Moon” which demanded a tenor not shy of high C’s back by male voices capable of singing a beautiful sotto voce when required.  Yes “The New Moon” was in many ways a haunting show.  I was also in love with the young leading lady, Isabelle Gilhooley (though she was twice my age!) so perhaps that explains a lot.

 

In 1937 something new occurred.  It was Coronation Year; the year in which George VI was crowned and which brought to an end a period of confusion caused by Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson.  Partly to mark the Coronation and the new era of stability it heralded it was decided to stage Edward German’s “Merrie England” for several summer evenings outside in the open in the Castle Park.  The bandstand, happily still with us, was used as a base and background as it were which a large stage built our immediately in front of it.  The company performing thereon was much augmented by children from the Central School, near Howgill Street.  There appeared to be almost unlimited room – a rare state of affairs with most societies.  The Masonic Hall was kindly on loan for dressing room purposes and only a short walk away from the scene of operations.  July can so often turn itself into a monsoon month that the risk of bad weather must have been great, not to say horrendous.  But it held out manfully on the whole.  I remember a summer show on one occasion just before operations commenced when the assembled orchestra dived hurriedly beneath the front of the stage taking their instruments with them except for the piano and tympani which were immovable and marooned.  Fortunately it was only a temporary matter and the show was ale to go one.  With its background of trees and effective lighting as twilight came on the whole thing was pageant like and arresting.

 

Harry Schofield was the producer, a stocky figure in hiking shorts, managing his large numbers the confidence and good humour.  The music and scenario – not to mention some of the pretty Central School girls of roughly my own age as an added bonus – haunted me for weeks afterwards.  I was also fascinated by the fact the central characters in “Merrie England” were ‘real’ personages from English history; Raleigh, Essex and the great Gloriana herself, Queen Elizabeth I. I didn’t, of course, pause to think that the ‘real’ exalted personages of history, now gone to earth as it were, would have been unlikely to have acted towards each other as their imaginary counterparts did on stage and Edward German’s music would have sounded strange indeed to their ears.  "Teashop Tudor” as someone once initially termed it.  Never mind, Edward’s choral music, as in fact it is, sounded splendid, especially outdoors backed by the greenwood  trees of the Castle Park, and when the ghost of Herne the Hunter appeared suitably illuminated from behind one of the trees, it was more than somewhat hair-raising, even though at the bottom of one, one knew it was only Jack Wattleworth or some other familiar figure dressed up.

 

In front of all this stretched the lawns carrying ranks of chairs on which the audience sat, the more sceptical among them nursing umbrellas.

 

Harry Schofield brought a ‘stranger’ to the Society in the person of Freda Pears, who played the part of Queen Elizabeth I and did so very impressively with a fine presence and a rich contralto voice to match.  She came from Crewe which, I think, was Harry Schofield’s home town.

 

The production of “Merrie England” was repeated a couple of years later in the ominous summer of 1939 when the 21 years of peace since the Kaiser’s war was about to be brought to a close.  As far as I can recall the same cast took part in the new production as in the old one with one exception, the case of the soprano lead, the part of Bessie Throckmorton.  This was now taken by Olive Groves, a professional singer of some note who regularly broadcast as well as being in demand for live concert work.  Though I wasn’t part of the show I was delighted to ‘live again’ the excitement of this production, from the old Trinity School, Howgill Street (now demolished, but interestingly enough opposite the old Assembly Rooms, now Howgill Centre where much of our present rehearsals takes place), to the actual staging, again on a large built out platform from the park bandstand. One innovation in this production was that at the end of the show, characters dressed as heralds appeared on the very roof of the bandstand and one person read out, most impressively,  the speech of the dying Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, in Shakespeare’s Richard II.

‘This royal throne of kings, this scepter’d isle,

This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars” etc

How many of those listening to these words were remotely aware that, before a couple of months had passed, another World War would be upon them?  Perhaps a few, perhaps none.  How many of the valiant “Yeoman of England” singing and strutting so confidently about the stage had the slightest foreboding that they would, before long, be bearing other weapons than stage props, halberds and broadswords, or that the erstwhile “moat defensive to a house” which had been the English Channel of old, would be of no account to enemy bombers bent on devastating “this other Eden”.

 

With hindsight, looking back over the years, all this gave a particular poignancy to the second staging of “Merrie England” in that fatal summer of 1939.  I can recall it quite vividly to this day.  The large bill advertising the show remained on the wall of the Whitehaven Bus Station throughout the war and for several years later.

 

The Spring of 1939 was the last performance given by the Society in the Queens Cinema until eight years after hostilities had ceased.  The show chosen was “The Gondoliers”.  The previous year “The Mikado” had been presented, someone had made a short film of part of the performance and this, I believe, is still around somewhere.  Years ago I saw this briefly;  a silent film with figures flitting to and fro across the stage, performing various numbers, mouths opening and shutting in dumb show, as they performed to “a soundless clapping host”.

 

It had been 15 years since the Society had staged a Savoy opera.  They had recommenced operations after the First World War with “The Mikado” in 1922, followed by “The Gondoliers” the following year.  Since then they had abandoned Gilbert and Sullivan for a sizeable spell.  Instead popular shows of the twenties and thirties had been given and airing, ostensibly to attract large audiences.  A number of these pieces were quite ephemeral with unmemorable music and librettos full of jaded jokes (I have some of the scores) and in the fullness of time they have faded into oblivion from which I very much doubt whether they will ever return.  I can think of a few: - “The Rose of Araby”, “High Jinks”, “Havannah”, “Falka” etc – all gone with the wind.  If a piece carries a credible story and the words and music have some ‘inner spark’ in them which lifts them above the commonplace,  particularly so in the case of the music then I think it will tend to survive.  My own view, for what it is worth, is that Gilbert and Sullivan will go on, so I believe will Rogers and Hammerstein.  It’s perhaps a little early to predict concerning Lloyd Webber and other more modern productions which depend so much on sheer spectacle but Time which makes fools of us all, will tell, I expect.  Favourites of mine like “The Boy Friend” and “Salad Days” I hope will make it though I cannot feel over confident even about these.

 

During the war years, and for some time after, that is from the summer of 1939 until the autumn of 1952 no shows were produced by the Whitehaven and District Amateur Operatic Society.  Activity recommenced in September 1952.  1953 was the Coronation year of Elizabeth II and to mark the event. As “Merrie England” of 1937 had marked the enthronement of her father the Society had decided to mount “The Gondoliers which including as it did its sparkling “Regular Royal Queen” number was an appropriate choice.

 

This show marked the first appearance on stage of both myself and my wife Betty.  She was the much more important of the two, as she played a key part, Tessa, while I was Francesco and had no less than 4 bars of music to sing when the men finally make an entrance in that wonderful opening number of 52 pages of continuous music.  Sullivan never wrote anything better than this opening sequence of “The Gondoliers”.  In any case with its delicious ‘Italianate’ setting “The Gondoliers” is always a delightful show to take part in and I remember this occasion in 1953 with this first show of a new era.  There was a pretty devastating sense of loss when the curtain finally came down on the last performance on the Saturday evening of May 2nd.  In Betty’s case  and in mine it was our first show and there’s nothing quite like your first show for the despair and feeling of emptiness when it ends and is beyond recall except in the memory.  So it seems for many people who took part for the first time in that production.

 

One more show, “The Desert Song” of 1954 marked the end of the Society’s association with the Queens Cinema.  The following year they had to seek pastures new  in the shape of the small theatre in the Miner’s Welfare complex at Kells.  Rudolf Frimls “The Vagabond King” was proposed but fell through for various reasons and “The Mikado” was put on from scratch in a matter of weeks with John Dennis directing.  This show saw the stage debut of my sister Elizabeth who played a 17 year old Yum-Yum with Betty as Pitti-Sing and Joan Seal as Peep-Bo.

 

After the following show in 1956 which was Richard Tauber’s colourful “Old Chelsea” my father retired from the musical directorship but resumed for a second spell in 1960.  By that time we were theatreless and had to resort to the new Civic Hall -–the present Solway Hall with stage and orchestra pit being still in the future.  A small low stage was built at one end of the hall – now the Dunboyne – and an area for the orchestra was ‘fenced off’ on the floor next to the stage.  The available dimensions, not least height, meant only shows requiring simple sets and only one change of scenery could possibly be attempted, which confined the Society virtually to Gilbert and Sullivan.  ”HMS Pinafore”,  “Iolanthe”, “The Gondoliers” and “The Mikado” followed in yearly succession, the last mentioned proving to be my father’s final show as he died in October1965.  So it turned out he started and finished his career as Musical Director with the same show.  In all he conducted 30 shows for the Society.

 

I had been pianist for the Society since 1960 and on my father’s death I was asked to take over as MD. and Ken Phillips became pianist.  My first show was Ruddigore in 1966, the last to be put on in that small Civic Hall.  The next year the Society moved to Rosehill where there were concerned with accommodating and moving the large male chorus on what was quite a small stage.

 

Our final show at Rosehill, at least for the time being, (we did “Salad Days” there many years later) was the combined Trial by Jury” and “HMS Pinafore” the latter seeing my 11 year old son Edward as the Midshipman.

 

At last in the September of the same year the new Civic Hall was completed and we opened this with “Merrie England” performed by a large company.  To me still with sharp memories of the 1937 and 1939 performances of this show in the Castle Park it seemed strange to be doing it indoors – quite safe of course weatherwise, but still lacking something which only natural surrounding could provide.

 

We have been in the Civic Hall ever since, and having arrived there I think it is probably time to draw these random memories and reflections to a close.  To date I myself have conducted 35 shows for the Society, the great majority of these having been staged in the Civic Hall

 

Edward G (Ted) Robertson

1993