“Don’t put your daughter on the stage” …… seven years of the Chorlton Repertory Club ... part 1

The Chorlton Repertory Theatre Club is one of those half-remembered stories. 

Enjoying the theatre programme for January 15th-20th, 1951

It was where some of our well-known actors and comedians first strutted the boards including Avis Bunnage, Joan Sims, Harry Corbett and Ronnie Barker and over the years was at home in both the Lloyds Hotel and the former Conservative Cub

Cast of All The Year Round, April 7th, 1951

And here I am indebted to Ida Bradshaw who first told me of its existence, offered up a short history of the club and preserved fifteen theatre programmes from 1951-52.

She told me the “club was established in 1946and although it had no theatre of its own, offered up a weekly repertory performed by a professional company.  Initially it used a large room connected to the Lloyd’s Hotel and then moved to Chorlton Conservative Club.

It was the brainchild of two actors.  James Lovell and Arthur Spreckley.  The club played to full houses in Chorlton.  However, problems pre-empted by the sacking of Lovell began to mount and by 1951 the club was making a loss.  Membership was dissolved and blame was laid at the door of television and bad weather.  But Alan Bendle observed that ‘of the 1952 performances, perhaps only six of the 52 were successful’

A professional producer was employed in 1953 who immediately gave the company notice.

In 1954 the Chorlton Theatre Club became home to Piccola Theatre Company, which brought to Manchester  a group of young actors, designers and directors, many of whom were to leave their mark on the world of theatre.

For two seasons productions included The Women Have their way [ Frank Dunlop] and Maria Marten in the Red Barn [Richard Negri] provided an early opportunity to assess the talents of individuals who were to become more familiar to Manchester audiences”.

Drama off stage, February, 1949

And there is much more.  

The Manchester Guardian carries 131 references to both theatre companies, and it makes for fascinating reading because amongst the reviews of performances, there is the starling announcement that the club committee had “terminated the contract of the manager producer …. Mr. James Lovell”.

And if that wasn’t enough of a dramatic turn worthy of its own drama productions, just a month later  “the management committee …. was yesterday voted out of office at a special general meeting it had called to secure a vote of confidence” to rebut a call by 283 members of mount an investigation of the said committee..**

A thank you, October 29th, 1951

Now I have to say it all sounds very exciting with “some seven hundred people attending the meeting at the Princess Ballroom, Chorlton-cum-Hardy”, the revelation of huge financial losses and the possibility that the “spring programme ‘would lead to insolvency in four to six weeks’”

All of which was compounded by accusations that committee was pursuing a vindicative policy.

And with tensions mounting the Committee declared “that there was another booking of the hall and the members had to clear the furniture before leaving” , a challenge met by shouts of no confidence in the committee, a demand for a vote to replace it with a new one.

All of which I didn’t know when I began leafing through the 14 programmes, looking for references to local companies who provided props, smiling at the problems of fuel shortages and impressed by the planned  theatre improvements.

Introducing a viper, July 16, 1951

And along with various Christmas socials and fund raising activities there was the raffle for a “Beautiful Television, which may just have been a viper introduced by the club with its promise of varied entertainment in front of the fire with no recourse to a trip out on wet cold night.

A play a week, October 29th, 1951

There is so much more, but sadly I fear the Club has all but moved  out of living memory.

But if the grownups are now in short supply there may be a few of their children who went along to performances of “Christmas in the Market Place” which promised to be “A most delightful and happy Yuletide play for young and old” which were to run from Boxing Day 1952 through to January 3rd 1953.

So there is much still to do.  

Starting with the stalwart cast listed in each of the programmes, looking through all 131 references in the Manchester Guardian along with more from other Manchester papers, and finally tracking down a scrap book and perhaps the records of the club.

And as a start I know that Jean Parry the star of  All The Year Round in 1951 came from Salford was born in 1925 and died in 2005, and I have three pictures of her cast member Jean Ryder from 19159.

It's a start.

Theatre Comfort, October 29th, 1951

Location Chorlton

Pictures; selection of theatre programmes of the Chorlton Repertory Club, 1952- 1953, from the Ida Bradshaw Archive and extracts from the Manchester Guardian, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Chorlton Repertory Dispute, Manchester Guardian, February 8th, 1949

**New Repertory Committee A Chorlton Vote, Manchester Guardian March 1949

So ……… who pinched the tennis courts by the Lloyd’s Hotel?

Now, everyone knows that the Lloyds has a bowling green, which will date from soon after the hotel was built in the late 1860s.

The Lloyds, 1970

Thomas Ellwood, our own historian writing in 1886 said that along with the bowling green there “is a bowling club which meets every Wednesday during the season”.

Adding “recently a lawn tennis club has also been started”.

This I suspect had something to do with Mrs. Crabtree who ran the pub in the 1880s and by all accounts “improved the place considerably in various particulars” and it may have been her who encouraged the bowling green members to build their own club house and as an enterprising woman with an eye for business also laid out a lawn tennis court on the open land along side Whitelow Road.

The growing population brought in by the housing boom centred along the Edge Lane/Wilbraham Road corridor and around what until recently was the “Four Banks” stimulated a growth in both cultural and sporting groups, and Mrs. Crabtree’s tennis courts may have played to that interest.

The Lloyds in 1894

But none of the maps dating from the 1880s onwards show the presence of those tennis courts, and while the same maps do not indicate other courts which were in place by the late 19th century and survived into the1900s, it suggests that ours did not last long.

Certainly, by the mid 20th century the site had become a car park, and so the mystery remains.

And a mystery not helped by the lack of any reference to the tennis courts in the rate books.

Mrs. Ada Crabtree is there as the tenant of the pub from 1884to1887, followed by Richard Crawshaw, but no tennis green which as an asset should have turned up in the Rate Books.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; The Lloyd Hotel with that public lavatory, 1970, A Dawson, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass the Lloyds in 1894 from the OS map of South Lancashire, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, https://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Ellwood, Thomas, Inns, Chapter 23, History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, South Manchester Gazette, April 17 1886

Lunch time at the Lloyds …..

The Lloyd’s is one of those big pubs with heaps of history and a popular venue.

And on Friday there were the happy regulars who told me that they were “always here” and pointed to a picture of the Lloyd’s Three by the bar.

Added to these there was a family who had popped in for a quick half an hour before heading off on a journey with a suitcase, the woman with her phone and the man with his pint.

And as I snapped away, they were joined by a party on a late lunch meet up, bumped into Alan and watched as couples fell into the pub for a lazy drink and chat.

Location; The Lloyds

Pictures;  Lunch time at the Lloyds, 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson