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 The
seeds of The Leicester Gilbert & Sullivan Operatic Society started
in Blaby. During 1946 Miss Alice Hall had purchased a very large
ex-Army Hut and donated the hut and the land so the residents of
Blaby could use the building as a community centre, later nick-named
The Blaby Hippodrome. Ron Elliott was trying to sell Alice Hall
wood to repair and improve the Hut when she mentioned it might be
a good idea to perform a bit of G & S to help raise funds and did
he know anybody interested in that sort of thing? Ron and his life-long
friend Bruce Freckingham knew G & S inside and out and offered their
services.
This
company performed four operas and following a performance of Iolanthe
in 1949 the company was going to be disbanded. The producer of that
production, Doris How thought it was a shame to lose an excellent
company and her husband George, who was a member of the Old Wyggestonian
Cricket Club, suggested the society could continue by performing
at the Wyggestonian Boy's School with the profit going to the Cricket
Club. The Gondoliers was performed in 1950 under the name of the
Doris How's Company and that was the start of our present society.
During
1951 Deryck Marston had to obtain permission from the D'Oyly Carte
Opera Company to change our name to our present title as Gilbert
& Sullivan was still under copyright which the D'Oyly Carte controlled.
The Mikado was the opera that year and in 1952 the society transferred
to The Little Theatre for all future productions.
1955
saw the first double bill of Trial and Pinafore but tragedy struck
on the Thursday before the opening night when the stage and backstage
areas were razed to the ground by fire. The Wyggeston Boys School
came to our rescue and the show went ahead as planned, however there
was another hitch when the Defendant from Trial was taken ill, although
an understudy was just about to go on, the principal made a recovery
just in time. Following the fire at the Little Theatre, there was
no production the next year so the Society went on tour giving concerts
at various venues including The Towers Hospital.
In
1957 Patience was performed at the Y.M.C.A and back to Dover Street
for Ruddigore in 1958. Utopia Limited was performed by the Leicester
Gilbert & Sullivan Operatic Society in 1960. This was the first
production that century in Leicester and Leicestershire and has
now been produced three times during our fifty years which must
be almost a record for any Gilbert & Sullivan Society. A week before
the opening of Princess Ida in 1961, Goff Abbott, who was playing
King Gama collapsed and died eleven days later. Fortunately Charles
Pole undertook to play the part with only three days notice.
At
long last, The Sorcerer was performed in 1977 along with Captain
Billy which we later recorded and in 1979 Radio Leicester broadcast
the Saturday night performance of The Mikado live from the Little
Theatre, a first for any local operatic society. When The Grand
Duke was produced in 1981, we had completed all the works of Gilbert
and Sullivan.
Although
we have had our highs and lows we have enjoyed performing these
great works of Gilbert and Sullivan and have donated almost forty
five thousand pounds to various charities and very much hope to
continue doing so for the next fifty years.
Written
by Alan Freckingham
Taken
from our 50th Anniversary programme
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