That’s Entertainment
Welcome to our entertainment exhibition from the Museum of Croydon. Let me introduce myself. My name is Lindsay Ould and I’m the Borough Archivist. I’ve lived in Croydon for over sixty years and I’ve always loved attending a theatre performance since I was a small child. I was lucky that my parents took me to a wide range of different genres – amateur and professional pantomimes, ballet, big band concerts, musicals, outdoor productions and this led to me joining several local amateur groups as well as performing with school choirs and drama societies here in Croydon.
The archive collections here at Croydon reflect the long history of theatre in Croydon. We know that the annual fairs held on the Fair Field in the centre of Croydon included travelling theatre shows and that records still exist of productions at Croydon Theatre in the eighteenth century although the details do not show exactly where this theatre was located.
In researching some of these theatres in Croydon, I have been able to locate images of most of them as well as to use our newspaper archives to find reviews of some of the festive productions that entertained Croydon’s residents. For most of the theatres, we hold collections of programmes for their productions and have been working with a group of volunteers for several years to list some of these collections. In 2016, we were fortunate to receive Heritage Lottery Funding to work with Fairfield Halls to transfer their collections to the Museum and Archives which resulted in many programmes being added to our existing collection and our volunteers working with these and the Fairfield Diaries to create a database of plays, concerts and events held at the Halls between 1962 and 2016.
These volunteers moved on in 2018 to work on sorting and listing the Grand Theatre programmes in our collections, a task currently on hold while we are closed but one we hope to continue once we are able to open again. Alongside this collection are programmes from venues past including the Davis Theatre, The Empire, Croydon Repertory Theatre, initially at the Greyhound and The Pembroke, whose records provide a fascinating insight into the range of entertainment provided in Croydon and the work of playwrights no longer popular with today’s audiences. The Warehouse theatre closed in 2012 and I have great memories of the Dick Barton Christmas Shows as well as a wide range of new writing and opportunities for experimental theatre.
The Stanley Halls, built in 1903 offered a flexible space for concerts, lectures, community events and entertainment where it continues to this day. The venue has recently been renamed Stanley Arts and aims to be one of South London’s premiere arts and performance venues, providing our local community with a vital home for cultural expression and discovery. As a radically inclusive space it seeks to foreground under-represented voices, providing artists of colour and LGBTQ+ creatives with a platform to reach out to audiences across South London and beyond.
The venue holds its own archives and trustee Judith Burden has written a blog about the development of concerts held in local houses, which had large enough spaces to allow live performances for a ticketed audience. The demand for these would have influenced William Stanley to see the need for a public halls to expand the popularity of such offerings in South Norwood.
Now, with a new look in 2021, Stanley Halls has become Stanley Arts and aims to be one of South London’s premiere arts and performance venues, keeping the community at the heart of it. Visit their website now and sign up to their newsletter to keep up to date with all of their events and performances.
The Fairfield Halls has continued to offer entertainment to suit all tastes from its inception in 1962. The Fairfield Collection website, initially set up to celebrate 50 years in 2012 had a make-over in 2018 and you may like to browse the website to bring back memories of classical, pop, drama or sporting events from the past.
This winter, though we have been unable to attend plays, pantomimes or concerts due to the pandemic, we hope you will enjoy sitting back and being transported to Croydon’s Theatres, past and present to virtually experience festive entertainment for yourself.
If you have memories that you would like to share with us, we’d love to hear from you – Oh yes we would!
In putting together this online exhibition, I’d like to acknowledge the support of Lizzie Mould, Judith Burden and Gaby Bush who researched or wrote blogs for this exhibition. My thanks also to the team at the Museum of Croydon for their support in putting this exhibition online.
Lindsay Ould, Borough Archivist
January 2021
