Attention: You are using an outdated browser, device or you do not have the latest version of JavaScript downloaded and so this website may not work as expected. Please download the latest software or switch device to avoid further issues.
Object No. 27. 'Hamlet', is an evocative black and white photograph from the 1955 school play, the first production to be performed in the new Memorial Hall. The iconic figure of the sexton emerging from the ‘grave’, reveals the play itself but it also reveals a time of transition and modernisation.
The new facilities finally meant, “. . . no more makeshift [scenery] – however ingenious and character forming; no more two-hour imprisonments of a whole cast behind a backcloth; no more little momentary crises and awkward entrances and exits to remind the audience that this wasn’t really a theatre but Big School in fancy dress.”
Photo: a towering backdrop for Anthony and Cleopatra (1952)
The opening of Big School in 1881 had provided a large room in which occasional drama productions could be performed on stage in front of an audience of guests, parents and pupils. Scenes from plays and dramatic readings were popularly performed for Christmas theatricals in the early twentieth century but full productions did not become an annual event until the 1940s, with productions ranging from ‘The Green Pack' (1944), a murder mystery by Edgar Wallace, and ‘Tons of Money’ (1950), a farce by the writing team Evans and Valentine, to Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra (1952) and Macbeth (1954).
Staging plays in such a space demanded ingenuity. Photographs of later productions show elaborate sets that hide the fact that they were being performed in Big School. Only the disproportionate height of the scenery suggests that this was no ordinary theatre. Exits and entrances were particularly difficult to engineer and OBs who took to the Big School stage recall ladders attached to windows so that the cast could make their exits.
In contrast to Big School, the brand new Memorial Hall (1955) boasted a raised stage, curtains, accessible backstage and wings, and a trapdoor in the stage floor that could be used to good effect in the play chosen for the first production. It is easy to imagine the anticipation of all concerned in the lead up to the first performance.
Produced by Mr R E ‘Bob’ Jones, ‘Hamlet’ was declared by the ‘drama critic’ of the Brecon and Radnor Express to be “a fine production which reflects great credit on the producer, his large cast and the staff behind the scenes.” Unsurprisingly for this new dramatic venue, the technical crew are given a particular mention in the same review. “The scenery was exceptionally good - the apron stage, the walls of the castle and effective backcloths adding a great deal to the success of the production. Mr B H Turner deserves high praise for his energy skill and ingenuity in building and arranging these effects.”
Object No. 27 certainly signals a change of location. It also tells of a high quality production masterminded by dedicated staff and a cast of players who had rushed enthusiastically off the games field or out of the classroom for rehearsals and costume fittings. The dress code for audiences may have changed over the decades, but those who take to the stage are part of a dramatic tradition that has its origins in an earlier century and continues with equal dedication and enthusiasm to the present day.
Performances of 'Hamlet' in the new theatre were enjoyed and much praised by critics and audiences. The lead actor, D R Bradley (Hostel 1947-1956), shares his own recollections of the production.
‘Hamlet’ was, indeed, the opening production in the new Memorial Hall. We worked our socks off to make a success of it. As with all School plays it started with Bob Jones putting up a notice in the School House corridor for auditions, then we worked to a schedule he put up for rehearsals, blocked into Acts. We rehearsed after prep, I suppose - as well as on other half days and holidays - and this was quite intensive. I seem to remember going up to the darkened dormitory afterwards - when everyone else was asleep; and I certainly rehearsed my lines endlessly through what felt like sleepless nights.
I suppose I shall probably never forget my least distinguished moment in Hamlet. At the end of the play, on the line from Horatio (David Eddershaw) that 4 captains should “bear Hamlet like a soldier from the stage”, the instruction was that the lads were to put me on the plank kept ready for the purpose and put the general detritus on the stage on top of me - including the poisoned cup. And THEN put my hand on top of the lot. They forgot the hand. Picked me up. I felt the cup rolling off my stomach - and dead though I was, quickly reached up to catch it! The down stage arm unfortunately. So in full view of the audience. Worst of all, my brother was forced to come along that night to see my performance - and I think it’s the only thing he remembers about it.
A Review of HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK
by 'NGM'
The Breconian Easter 1955
When they opened the new Memorial Theatre at Stratford, after fire had providentially destroyed the old one, the play chosen to show off the new building was the first part of Henry IV. It was a complete fiasco. There wasn’t enough acting space on the stage, the dressing rooms were too far away, the doorways were too narrow, the front row of the stalls was yards from the stage, the cast were depressed and half-hearted and the audience couldn’t hear.
O fortunate Christ College! Look on this picture and on that. No more makeshifts (however ingenious and character forming); no more two-hour imprisonments of a whole cast behind a backcloth; no more little momentary crises and awkward entrances and exits to remind the audience that this wasn’t really a theatre but Big School in fancy dress. There is no getting away from it: with all the kindly feeling and agreeable associations that have gathered around memories of great shows in Big School - Macbeth, Antony and Cleopatra, Henry IV, As You Like It - the Dramatic Society had outgrown it, and the scale of recent productions demanded a school theatre. And the first production in the new hall has triumphantly justified its erection.
They say that you can’t go wrong with Hamlet and that no actor has ever failed in the part of the Prince. It may be so goodness knows, there is such prodigality of poetry and situation and movement and exploration of humanity in the play that you feel it would release its power if read aloud by the Mothers’ Union in the parish hall. Nevertheless, there is a thing that happens in a good production; a moment at which the figures on the stage and the words spoken, the mechanisms of lighting and scenery, the music and the effects, and the response of the listening audience, are all somehow fused into one experience. The play, which has been certain printed words, is released into life. This happened, on the first night at least, when I saw it; and it seems that it was even better on the second.
It only remains to glance at certain of the ingredients in this feat of co-operation, First, in this play, must come the one lonely figure around which all the action moves. DR Bradley, playing a male part for the first time, steered nicely between the delicate china vessel of the romantics and the ruffling renaissance egotist of the modern school. He gave us instead an entirely credible figure, endowed with a sensibility and intelligence to bring about his plight, and a final impulsive activity (informed with ruthlessness) to achieve his release from it. The reading of the part showed a remarkable maturity. Opposite him - a mighty opposite for once - was the dignified Claudius of MJD Probert. Possibly there was about him a little too much of the divinity that doth hedge a king, and not enough of the drunken voluptuary; but this reading gave us a great moment in his scene with the rebellious Laertes (DT Hurst). Here again was a certain originality: the brassy assurance of Laertes in the early scenes (one almost fancied a cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth) prepared us for the unscrupulous readiness of this ‘very noble youth’ for poisoned and unbated rapiers in the last resort.
BS Chamberlain, in the curious equivocal part of Gertrude, conveyed enough of her well-meaning silliness to make us sorry for all childish sensualists exposed to the blast of reality, and JDS Cobb, by sensibly trusting to the words of his part and not overacting, not only survived the nunnery-scene and the mad scenes, but was genuinely moving in conveying the defenceless quality of Ophelia. Another instance of determined and triumphant underacting was AD Davies’s Polonius. There was senility in the hang of his helpless hands and the angle of his flat feet: but there was also the ruin of mere astuteness and political shrewdness : the man who had always known about everything and understood nothing. DGT Eddershaw, last year’s Malcolm and this year’s Horatio, repeated his portrayal of the figure who must be the centre of repose. Of the subordinate characters, the gravedigger (DS Snazell) dwells most delightfully in the memory, if only for the sake of the vast grin which rose from out of the earth like Venus from the foam. And there was adequacy everywhere - soldiers, courtiers, fops, strolling players, all played their due part in enriching the play’s texture.
One cannot help thinking that this is Mr Jones’s best production yet. The cuts were mainly those of the Folio, and the staging enabled the action to be swift and continuous. Mr Turner had once again performed prodigies of ingenuity with stage, scenery and lighting, this time with the aid of, and not in spite of, the building.
