Pantomime in Croydon
Pantomimes are a key event in the Christmas calendar for many local families and often a child’s first experience of the magic of live theatre. Many of Croydon’s entertainment venues have staged a pantomime with a variety of headline stars, dazzling special effects and plenty of cheering and booing.
Our archives hold a small collection of theatre bills relating to the Theatre Royal in our collections and reviews of pantomime performed there in 1888 can be found in the British Newspaper Archives. Our earliest collections of programmes are from the Grand Theatre which opened in 1896. The newspaper archives show a production of Cinderella in 1897/8 which was sold to the Grand Theatre Islington and the production was repeated at Croydon and well received in 1898. The following year, Red Riding Hood was the festive production in December 1898 and into January 1899. Another production of Cinderella in 1903 is advertised to be performed at the Palace of Varieties, later known as the Empire.
The Davis Theatre which opened in 1928, primarily as a cinema although it was built with an orchestra pit stage to allow live performances as well. Advertisements for performances of ‘Little Miss Muffet’ in December 1947 provide evidence that pantomime performances were popular and attracted audiences to a range of theatres across the Croydon area.
in 1959, both the Grand and Davis theatres closed, leaving a gap in local theatre provision in Croydon. The Pembroke Theatre, Croydon’s theatre in the Round was the only remaining public theatre. In December 1961, they produced a musical version of ‘A Christmas Carol’, featuring a young Martin Jarvis as one of the ghosts. When interviewed for the Fairfield Collection project, Martin remembered making a wrong move when exiting in the darkness and ending up in a snowy car park rather than the warm foyer
Traditionally held in the Ashcroft Theatre, the first Pantomime at Fairfield Halls was Sleeping Beauty produced by Cyril Fletcher and Betty Astell who also had a long-standing relationship with producing pantomimes at The Grand. The duo produced, and starred in, pantomimes in the Ashcroft Theatre between 1962 and 1969 including Mother Goose, Aladdin, Jack and the Beanstalk starring Jim Dale, and Cinderella.
1970-1972 saw a more unusual string of Christmas performances with A Christmas Carol, Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass produced, as did 1983 and 1984 when the Ashcroft hosted productions of The Wind in the Willows and Treasure Island respectively. Some of the more traditional pantomimes at Fairfield included productions of Aladdin, Dick Whittington, Babes in the Wood and Jack and the Beanstalk. These productions have included many star names, such as Barbara Windsor (Dick Whittington, 1978), Nicolas Parsons (Dick Whittington, 1985), June Whitfield (Babes in the Wood, 1990), Dave Benson Phillips (Aladdin, 1994), John Challis (Peter Pan, 2003), Shirley Ann Field (Cinderella, 2010) and Larry Lamb (Aladdin, 2011) to name a few. Over the years there were a few actors who returned to the Ashcroft several times: Lorraine Chase (1988, 1993, 1996), Stephen Mulhern (2001, 2005, 2015) and Quinn Patrick (2011-2014).
There have been two occasions when the annual Christmas pantomime was not held in the Ashcroft Theatre, 1998 and 2019. 1998’s production was Peter Pan starring Brian Blessed as Captain Hook and Kirsten O'Brien as Peter Pan. The move to the Concert Hall enabled Peter Pan to fly across the auditorium from one of the boxes to the stage, a spectacle that could not be done in the small Ashcroft Theatre. Similarly, the 2019 Production of Cinderella starting Tim Vine, Ore Oduba and Cat Sandion meant that, again, the larger space was able to be played with, leading to designers creating a pantomime “for the 21st Century” using large LED screens to provide the backdrops instead of the traditional cloth.
In total, Fairfield Halls has seen productions of Mother Goose, A Christmas Carol, Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass, Treasure Island and The Wind in the Willows; 2 productions of Robinson Crusoe; 3 Productions of Sleeping Beauty and Babes in the Wood; 5 productions of Peter Pan and Snow White; 6 productions of Jack and the Beanstalk and Dick Whittington; and 8 productions of Aladdin. The most frequent production is Cinderella which has been performed a total of 11 times. In 2021 Fairfield Halls hopes to present Beauty and the Beast for the first time.
Pantomime has also been performed for many years at the former Stanley Halls in South Norwood. St Marks Players, a local amateur group, moved from their church hall to perform on the stage at the halls for the first time in Aladdin in 1962. These productions grew in complexity over the years, rehearsing from September and performing for three weekends in January. Scripts were written by members of the group and as well as many marvellous pantomime animals and glittering costumes. They raised over £32,000 for charity in their 50 years of productions up to 2009 and many local residents and their children will have great memories of attending the annual pantomime with their families and friends.
Pantomime has been a large part of Croydon’s festive entertainment over the years and we look forward to welcoming it back to Croydon in some form in 2021.
by Lindsay Ould, Borough Archivist & Gabby Bush, Archive Volunteer
January 2021
