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Twilight of the Touring Revue by Donald Auty
An extract on the Grand Theatre, Doncaster in 1955.

"The next week was at the Grand Theatre Doncaster. The Juvenile lead also left the show at the end of the Bilston week because Dave could not afford him any longer and I had to take on his duties as well as those of stage manager. I was a lot slimmer in those days.

I arrived with the scenery at the Grand Doncaster on Monday morning at nine o'clock and thought I was at the wrong theatre. A show called Memories of Old Ireland was billed there. I looked closer at the bills and saw that it featured the same names as 'Don't be Shy Girls' so it must be us. Dave explained when he came in that he changed the name when there was an Irish element in the town. The show content was exactly the same.

Doncaster was a better number three date so the bill was strengthened that week with an elderly comic called Phil Strickland who, like Joe King, had been a stalwart of the number three theatres for many years. Part of his routine was to look down into the orchestra pit and say, 'I see you have fresh straw down there tonight.' The musicians union shop steward at the Grand was the trombone player, who was very militant. When Phil did this the entire band walked out. It cost me two crates of beer and a profuse apology from Phil before they would go back into the pit.

Business was better at Doncaster and I had a bit of an adventure with one of the dancers so I cheered up a bit. The next week we went on to the County Theatre in Bedford and became 'Don't Be Shy Girls again.' There was a big electrical factory in Bedford that was staffed almost entirely by Italians who were the nucleus of the theatre audience because of the nudes. One of duties was to dress as a French Apache, now that I was also juvenile lead, and speak a commentary whilst the curtains opened and closed on the nude. Nudes were not allowed to move so the curtains had to be closed whilst she changed poses and opened again when she was ready. My job was to fill in the time for this with my commentary. On the Saturday night second house the Italians threw everything that they could get their hands on at me and I retired from the stage rather quickly."

Text in quotes above is an extract from an article kindly written for this site by Donald Auty.

If you would like to find out more about the Doncaster Grand or can help with the campaign to restore and reopen the Theatre please visit the Friends of the Doncaster Grand's website here...

Mexborough Hippodrome, Mexborough, Doncaster, South Yorkshire.

Formerly The Prince of Wales Theatre

Above - The Mexborough Hippodrome in its original incarnation as the Prince of Wales Theatre
Courtesy Alan Chudley.

The Mexborough Hippodrome originally opened as the Prince of Wales Theatre on the 18th December 1893 and was built by G. H. Smith.

The Theatre closed in 1939 and demolition of the building was started but the war intervened and the Theatre wasn't completely demolished until 1973.

The Mexborough Hippodrome by Alan Chudley

During my theatrical wanderings, as a young man, I often used to rummage around buildings that were once theatres but no longer welcomed a new company every Monday morning. My National service took me occasionally into Mexborough, where I found that I had time on my hands. Walking along the High Street there in 1949 I saw what looked like a half demolished theatre building; I asked about this in a shop opposite the building and was told that indeed it was a former Theatre, The Mexborough Hippodrome, no less, which had failed just before the last war and had closed. The theatre was purchased with a view to demolition; for the widening of the High Street, the theatre was half demolished when the war broke out and the scheme abandoned. The family of the shop owners had been associated with the Hippodrome, and from what they told me, visits to the local Newspaper, plus my own knowledge of things theatrical I was able to add Mexborough Hippodrome to my collection

The theatre was opened by a Mrs. Livesey as The Prince Of Wales Theatre on 18th December 1893, the first show being a play; "Grelley's Money". The architect of the theatre was Mr. George Henry Smith, who was also associated with The Tivoli Hull and the City Varieties Leeds. The theatre had Stalls, Dress Circle, Gallery and boxes and was said to seat over 1,000. The stage floor was 50' wide, 30' deep and the grid was 44' high, and unusually for a theatre of this ilk, The Prince of Wales sported a paint frame. These days when a new theatre opens, much play is made of the technical equipment; so it was with the Prince of Wales, who boasted the Stage was illuminated by, Tollerton's patent Flashing Lights, these would have been the Gas battens suspended over the stage - in a theatre of this size there would have usually been three of these plus the footlights. Tollerton was the Gas engineer at the Grand Theatre Leeds and had patented the system, Housed in a sheet metal casing there would have been three lines of gas pipes, the lower one about ½ an inch in diameter this would have carried a small number of pilot lights always on, above would have been a second slightly larger Gas pipe for the so called flash lights, a quarter turn of the gas cock and the pilot lights would light these, above the Flash lights would be the main fish-tail burners, another turn of the gas stop cock, and the stage was illuminated.

The entertainment at this time would have been mainly Melodrama plus the annual Pantomime, but the biggest draw card during this time must have been a visit from Colonel Buffalo Bill Cody with his wild west show ;"The Klondyke Nugget". Cody seemed to present this show in the open air during the Summer and in theatres during the winter months, the Mexborough visit being in November 1902. Cody's Ballyhoo was to enter Mexborough on horseback with his performers dressed in their stage costumes of Cowboys and Indians. Apart from the show, he would have given sharp shooting demonstrations. One trick was catching the bullet on a plate, a trick which killed Chung Ling Soo at the Wood Green Empire in 1918. The trick was quite simple, a rifle was aimed at the performer holding a plate who had a bullet hidden in his hand, which he dropped on to the plate when the riffle was fired, the bullet falling into a side chamber in the rifle; at Wood Green, the bullet fired as normal with fatal consequences. Cody had a close shave at the Theatre Royal Bury St. Edmunds when a bullet fired into the wings narrowly missing the stage crew. When in the mid 1960s and after many years as a beer barrel store the delightful little Theatre Royal Bury St. Edmunds was being restored as a theatre, an elderly gentleman who knew the theatre for many years showed me the very spot in the stage-house wall where Cody's bullet had landed.

Sometime during 1910 Mrs. Livesey sold the theatre to George Smith's family, who in 1915 renamed it the Hippodrome and introduced a policy of twice nightly Variety. Although many well known artistes appeared here in Variety, most of the shows were the revues which were the staple diet of the number two variety theatres. One revue that did play the Hippodrome was ; "Mr. Tower of London" which stared Gracie Fields and was presented by Archie Pitt, this revue which was to make Gracie Fields famous when Oswald Stoll booked the show for an odd week into the Alhambra Theatre in Leicester Square London ( the Odeon now stands on the Alhambra site ) in 1923. However, the Mexborough engagement was only the revue's third week, it opened at the Coliseum Long Eaton (St. James Theatre / Scala cinema,) when on the first night every thing that could go wrong, did go wrong, there was an inquest and it was decided that Archie Pitt's fly-blown sketches were the fly in the ointment and that Gracie fields would be given more to do in the revue, so during her stay in Mexborough she would have been rehearsing the new material very hard; Archie Pitt was a hard task master. Twice nightly variety plus pantomime was presented for the next decade, when audience figures began to sag. At this time the Mexborough amateur Opera society started presenting popular musical comedies of the day and the Stephen Venner Repertory company played 12 weeks seasons for a number of years, they played twice nightly and presented two plays each week for 3 nights each.

After about 1930, the Hippodrome seemed to have periods of closure when no advertising was taken in the local papers. An attempt was made to turn the Hippodrome into a cinema with little success, towards the end of 1932 the Hippodrome was leased to Terence Bryon who for about 18 months presented a repertory season, after which the Smith Family closed the Hippodrome. In 1936 a company from Manchester partly refurbished the Hippodrome and installed new lighting equipment. As the New Hippodrome they reopened the Theatre in March 1936 with twice nightly Variety, their first bill was Billy Reid and his Accordion Band. The venture was at first successful, but within two years this firm failed and the Hippodrome closed for the last time. The Price of Wales is dead, Long live the Prince of Wales; The Hippodrome is dead, long live the Hippodrome. A decent theatre which did not deserve to die.

The above text was very kindly written for this site by Alan Chudley.