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Catalogue

Durham Dramatic Society

Reference: D/DDS 1/5/ Catalogue Title: Durham Dramatic Society Area: Catalogue Category: Charity and Society Records Description: Photographs

Covering Dates: 1929-1991

Access: open

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Catalogue Description

Durham Dramatic Society

The first recorded meeting of the Amateur Dramatic Society (the Amateur was dropped later to take advantage of more favourable terms when performing plays by G.B. Shaw), was held on 15 November 1928. Membership was to be open to members of the Health Department of Shire Hall, Old Elvet and also to any gentlemen outside the department. There were thirty members of whom seventeen took acting parts. The annual subscription was 2s.6d., later raised to 5s. with travelling expenses paid from the funds. Rehearsals were held in the Nalgo Club Hut, or a room at the Garden House or in members' homes. For fifty years the booking of seats was organised through Donkins, the tobacconist in the Market Place.

In the early years there were close links with the Shire Hall music society, who provided interval music and also shared in joint productions 1934-1936. Members also took part in the Shakespearean productions of Eric Barber on behalf of the Durham House Settlement.

The Society joined the British Drama League in 1929 and competed regularly in its festivals with considerable success, reaching the National Finals in the 1950s coming second in 1955 with the production 'Ye Gods'. It was during this period that the society had over four hundred members of whom fifty took acting parts. The competitive tradition is successfully maintained by award-winning productions like 'Zoo Story' at Sedgefield Festival in 1991.

In the 1930s a variety of activities developed including the tradition of annual dinners, news bulletins, play reading circle, library (discontinued in 1931), wireless group to listen on Monday evenings to weekly talks on drama and a concert party in October 1939. The war had a decisive effect on the Society.

Initially membership was affected by call up and civil defence requirements, so the monthly social meeting was started in order to retain members. However, the Society's producer, Mrs. Margaret Marshall, was made head of the Durham Area of Voluntary Entertainment Service. This was the start of a very hectic period when plays and concerts were performed on a variety of stages, sometimes under fire and once before an unresponsive audience who turned out to be newly arrived Polish airmen who knew no English. The war years also saw the establishment of a Junior Section in 1944.

Meetings were to be held once a month, prior to the monthly meeting, and to be spent teaching the art of stagecraft. Then, when the standard was good enough they would perform short curtain-raisers before the Society's main plays. This tradition was extended in 1953 when, at the request of the County Drama Organiser, Miss D.P.W. Carr, the Society gave performances of Theatre for Children.

After the war, in 1946, the Society became a limited company. Difficulties with rehearsal and storage led to the purchase of the old British Restaurant in Back Silver Street. [This was built around 1800 and had been used as a printing works with printing machines in the basement and the first floor specially strengthened by two extra pillars in the basement so that rolls of paper could be stored]. This was used as club and rehearsal rooms but difficulties remained with productions. Initially productions were held in St. Margaret's Hall, Crossgate, then in the hall of Whinney Hill School which necessitated sets being taken down each night. From 1968 use of the Assembly Rooms restricted productions to dates outside university terms. The dream of their own theatre met with various setbacks until the proposal to alter the club rooms was accepted. The development of the theatre [see: D/DDS/1/3/106] culminated in the opening of the City Theatre by Mrs Margaret Marshall in November 1986. The first production was 'Seasons Greetings' by Alan Ayckbourn which heralded an active and successful period in the history of the society.

Catalogue Contents

Photographs (Ref: D/DDS 1/5/1-71)

Photograph of Fiona Bexon, n.d.
(1 photograph, black and white, 16 cm x 21.5 cm)


Photograph of Gwen Bowles, n.d.
(1 photograph, black and white, 16.5 cm x 21.5 cm)


Photograph of Marion Clapham, n.d.
(1 photograph, black and white, 16.5 cm x 21 .5 cm)


Photograph of Peter Dawson, n.d.
(1 photograph, black and white, 16.5 cm x 21.5 cm)


Photograph of John Foster, n.d.
(1 photograph, black and white, 16.5 cm x 21.5 cm)


Photograph of Marjorie Gardiner, n.d.
(1 photograph, black and white, 16.5 cm x 21.5 cm)


Photograph of Marjorie Gardiner, backstage, n.d.
(1 photograph, coloured, 9 cm x 9 cm)


Photograph of Tom Gardiner, n.d.
(1 photograph, black and white, 16.5 cm x 21.5 cm)


Photograph of Fred and Betty Goodyear, n.d.
(1 photograph, black and white, 21.5 cm x 16 cm)


Photograph of John Hall, n.d.
(1 photograph, black and white, 16.5 cm x 21.5 cm)


Photographs of Molly Hughes, n.d.
(2 photographs, black and white, 8.5 cm x 12 cm)


Photograph of Kate Lawrie, n.d.
(1 photograph, black and white, 16 cm x 20.5 cm)


Photograph of David Lee, n.d.
(1 photograph, black and white, 10 cm x 12.5 cm)


Photograph of Margaret Marshall, n.d.
(1 photograph, black and white, 13 cm x 17.5 cm)


Photograph of Michael Smith, n.d.
(1 photograph, black and white, 16.5 cm x 21.5 cm)


Photograph of William Welton, n.d.
(1 photograph, black and white, 20.5 cm x 25 cm)


Photograph of unidentified actress, n.d.
(1 photograph, black and white, 16.5 cm x 22 cm)


A sheet of photographs of Nessie Armstrong, Marjorie Gardiner, Teresa Hagger, Gerry Parks, Colette Reynolds, Peter Storey, Anne Tomlinson and Lesley Turner, n.d. [1970s]
(1 sheet of photographs, black and white, 20.5 cm x 25.5 cm)


Photograph of a scene from one of the first productions [Probably "The Man In A Bowler Hat", by A.A. Milne], n.d. [1929]
(1 photograph, black and white, 25.5 cm x 22.5 cm)


Photograph of Betty Goodyear and Bill Drysdale in one of the performances given for V.E.S. [Voluntary Entertainments Service] during the Second World War, n.d. [1939-45]
(1 photograph, black and white, 9 cm x 14 cm)


Photograph of a group of members of the society, taken at the side of an omnibus on a rural road, n.d. [1940s]
(1 photograph, black and white, 11 cm x 6.5 cm)


Photograph of a group of members of the society, taken in front of a church door, n.d. [late 1940s - early 1950s]
(1 photograph, black and white, 11.5cm x 6.5 cm)


A group of society members taken at Whinney Hill School, n.d. [pre 1968, possibly 1950s]
(1 photograph, black and white, 14cm x 9 cm)


Photographs of scenes from Robinson Crusoe II, January 1947 (2 photographs, black and white, 22 cm x 16.5 cm and 1 photograph, black and white, 9 cm x 14 cm)


Photographs of Bob Armstrong, Elsie Ayre, Austin Cleary, Freda Cullan, Thelma Dowson, Bill Drysdale, Charles Frazer, Marjorie and Tom Gardiner, Joan Hall, Marion Johnson, Charlie Lovejoy, Mary Lynn, Ron Rickerby, Phyllis Thompson and William Welton in scenes from "1066 and All That", by Sellar and Yeatman, January 1950
(3 photographs, black and white, 14 cm x 9 cm)


Photograph of Betty Goodyear, Jörgen Holmboe and Margaret Marshall in a scene from the one-act play "It's Autumn Now", by Johnson, 1950
(1 photograph, black and white, 14 cm x 9 cm)


Photograph of the cutting of the twenty-first birthday cake by Miss Sword (one of the original members), with Miss Cockburn, Mrs Marshall and Mr Welton, 10 December 1950
(1 photograph, black and white, 38cm x 30.5 cm)


Photograph of Nessie Armstrong, Bill Brearly, Austin Cleary, Tom Gardiner, Fred Goodyear, David Usher and Alex Varden in a scene from "Make Believe", by A.A. Milne, January 1951
(1 photograph, black and white, 14 cm x 9 cm)


Photographs of Bill Brearley, Betty Brown, Winifred Dodds, Thelma Dowson, Marjorie Gardiner, Betty Goodyear, Jenny Harle, Nan Hunter, Marion Johnson, Charles Lovejoy, Shiela Rowland, Helen Sowerby and Phyllis Thompson in scenes from "Great Day", by Storm, April 1951
(5 photographs, black and white, 14 cm x 9 cm)


Photographs of scenes from "The Town That Would Have A Pageant" by L. Du Garde Peach, January 1952.
(5 photographs, black and white, 14 cm x 9 cm, and 1 photograph, black and white, 20 cm x 15 cm)


Photographs of Lily Barker, Jenny Harle, Jörgen Holmboe, Charlie Lovejoy, Mary Lynn, Margaret Marshall, Jennifer Robinson, David Usher, Alex Varden and William Welton in scenes from the production of "Bess of Hardwick", by Margaret Dixon, 1952
(7 photographs, black and white, 9 cm x 14 cm)


Photograph of Margaret Marshall (producer) with Nessie Armstrong, Lily Barker, Bill Cockburn, Tom Gardiner, Lily Heslop, Lawrence Hutchinson and Jim Temple, n.d. [1952?]
(1 photograph, black and white, 14 cm x 9 cm)


A mounted set of photographs of Isabel Everard, Robert Gardner, Charles Lovejoy and Mary Lynn in scenes from "English Flummery", by G.F. Palmer, 20 - 21 February 1953
(1 card, 33 cm x 33 cm, with 5 photographs, black and white, 9 cm x 12.5 cm)


Photographs of Margaret Bailes, Audrey Beveridge, Edith Curl, Marjorie Gardiner, Bobby Gardner, Lesley Hedley, Elizabeth Heslop, Marion Jones, Charlie Lovejoy, Gwyneth Simpson and David Usher in "Palace Footmen", 2 July 1954
(2 photographs, black and white, 14.5 cm x 9 cm)


Photographs of Austin Cleary, Bobby Gardner, Jean Johnstone, Charlie Lovejoy, Mike Smith and Helen Sowerby in scenes from "The Rising Sun", by Herman Heijermans, 27 - 30 October 1954
(3 photographs, black and white, 14.5 cm x 9 cm)


Photograph of Betty Goodyear and Ronald Rickerby in "The Brontes of Haworth", by Elizabeth Goudge, November 1955
(1 photograph, black and white, 9 cm x 14 cm)


Photograph of Dorothy and Arthur Bramwell, Bobby Gardner, Lawrence Hutchinson, Charlie Lovejoy, Tom Ridley and Jim Temple working on the props and set of "I Remember Mama", by Van Druten, October 1957
(1 photograph, black and white, 20cm x 16 cm)


Photograph of Dorothy Bramwell, Bobby Gardner, Betty Goodyear and Helen Sowerby in a scene from the production of "I Remember Mama", by John Van Druten, October 1957
(1 photograph, black and white, 16 cm x 18.5 cm)


Photograph of Mrs Margaret Marshall (producer) and the cast of "Roar Like A Dove", by Lesley Storm, with John Slater, the adjudicator of the Harrogate Competitive Drama Festival, 24 February 1962 [the play had won the Harrogate Hotels and Restaurants Association's Silver Challenge Cup for the best production of the festival]
(1 photograph, black and white, 14 cm x 9 cm)


Photograph of Margaret Marshall (producer) with Winifred Dodds, Marjorie Gardiner, Doreen Hill, Kathleen Oates and Peter Storey, in rehearsal for "Watch It Sailor", by Philip King and Falkland Carby, 13 - 16 January 1965
(1 photograph, black and white, 14 cm x 9 cm)


Photograph of Winifred Dodds, Molly Douglas, John Foster, Tom Gardiner, Kathleen Oates, Peter Storey and Helen Sowerby in "The Paper Chain", by Cary and Butler, April 1969
(1 photograph, black and white, 17cm x 11cm)


Photographs of Julia Curtis, Dorothy Ferguson, John Foster, John McKinnell and Margaret Marshall in scenes from "The Importance of Being Earnest", by Oscar Wilde, April 1971
(4 photographs, black and white, 9 cm x 9 cm, and 1 photograph, black and white, 25.5cm x 20.5 cm)


Photographs of Nessie Armstrong, Lily Barker, William Drysdale, John Foster, John McKinnell and Catherine Mines in scenes from "Gaslight", by Patrick Hamilton, 29 September - 2 October 1971
(6 photographs, coloured, 9 cm x 9 cm)


Photographs of Lily Barker, Dorothy Bramwell and Christine Coulson in scenes from "Hay Fever", by Noel Coward, March 1973
(4 photographs, coloured 9 cm x 9 cm)


Andrew Holroyd, Julia Geary and John McKinnell in photograph of a scene from "I Am A Camera", by John Van Druten", October 1974
(1 photograph, coloured, 12.5 cm x 9 cm)


Photographs of Nessie Armstrong, Elaine Botone, Dorothy Bramwell, John Foster, Marjorie and Tom Gardiner, Susan Hayes, Thomas and William McKinnell, in scene from "The Dolls House", by H. Ibsen, September 1977
(1 photograph, black and white, 25 cm x 20.5 cm, and 3 photographs, black and white, 16.5 cm x 12.5 cm)


Photographs of Dorothy Bramwell, Peter Clapham, Marjorie and Tom Gardiner,John Hall and Paula Mason in scenes from "A Christmas Carol", January 1978
(3 photographs, black and white, 7.5 cm x 11.5 cm)


Photograph of Dorothy Bottone, Teresa Hagger and Tom Gardiner in "The Bride and The Bachelor", by Millar, 12 - 15 April 1978
(1 photograph, black and white, 12.5 cm x 17.5 cm)


Photographs of Marjorie and Tom Gardiner with props from "The Bride and The Bachelor", 12 - 15 April 1978
(1 photograph, black and white, 16.5 cm x 21.5 cm)


Photograph of the set of "The Bride and The Bachelor", 12 - 15 April 1978
(1 photograph, black and white, 24 cm x 18.5 cm)


Photograph of Joss Bamford, Fiona Bexon, Dorothy Bramwell, John Foster, Tom Gardiner, John McKinnell, Peter Storey and Lesley Uprichard in scenes from "The Fox Trap", by John Foster, September 1978
(10 photographs, black and white, 17.5cm x 12.5cm)


Photographs of Alistair Bradley, Tom Gardiner, Joan Hall, Clive Holroyd and Anne Tomlinson in scenes from "Sweeney Todd" by Austin Rosser, based on the original by George Dibdin Pitt, January 1979
(6 photographs, black and white, 9 cm x 13 cm)


Photograph of Lesley Turner as a character in "The Provoked Wife", by John Vanburgh, April 1979
(1 photograph, black and white, 12.5 cm x 17.5 cm)


Photographs showing Fiona Bexon, Michael Cuckson, John Foster, Tom Gardiner, Paula Mason, Kathleen Oates, Gerry Park and Anne Tomlinson in scenes from "Wanted - One Body", by Raymond Dyer, January 1980
(14 photographs, black and white, 18 cm x 13 cm)


Photographs of Alistair Bradley, Marjorie and Tom Gardiner, Joan Hall, John McKinnell, Gerry Parks and Anne Tomlinson in scenes from "The Happiest Days of Your Life", by John Deighton, April 1980
(3 photographs, black and white, 13 cm x 9 cm, and 3 photographs, coloured, 13 cm x 9 cm)


Photograph of cast of "The Happiest days of Your Life", by John Deighton, and review article from Durham Advertiser, 18 April 1980
(1 newspaper cutting, 18.5 cm x 12 cm, and 1 newspaper cutting, 18 cm x 105 cm)


Photographs of Kate Lawrie and Michael Smith in a scene from "Private Lives" by Noel Coward, October 1985
(2 photographs, coloured, 15 cm x 10 cm)


Photographs of Helen Bond, Peter Dawson, John Ewens, Lynn Jordison, Bridget Roberts, Elaine Wilson and Ian Woodhouse in scenes from "Suddenly At Home", by Francis Durbridge, January 1986
(6 photographs, coloured, 15 cm x 10 cm)


Photograph of Marjorie Gardiner, Jennifer Gill, Joan Hall, Patrick Kelly, Andrew Lane, John McKinnell and Michael Smith in a scene from "The Winslow Boy", by Terence Rattigan, April 1986
(1 photograph, coloured, 15 cm x 10 cm)


Photograph taken at the opening of the Durham City Theatre, with Kate Lawrie, Tom Gardiner, The Mayor and Mayoress of Durham (Councillor and Mrs James Mackintosh) and Margaret Marshall, November 1986
(1 photograph, coloured, 15 cm x 10 cm)


Photograph of Ian Woodhouse and Peter Dawson in a scene from the opening production at the Durham City Theatre, "Seasons Greetings", by Alan Ayckbourn, November 1986
(1 photograph, coloured, 15 cm x 10 cm)


Photograph of the audience (including many members of the society) on the opening night of the Durham City Theatre, November 1986
(1 photograph, coloured, 15 cm x 10 cm)


Autographed photograph of Mrs Teresa Hagger as Stella Drury in "House Guest", by Francis Durbridge, January 1990
(1 photograph, black and white, 16.5 cm x 21.5 cm)


Photograph of Marion Clapham, Jennifer Gill, Teresa Hagger, Philippa MacIntyre, Ted Moulding, Michael Smith, Janet Snowball and Ian Woodhouse in a scene from "Pack of Lies", by Hugh Whitmore, 6 - 10 November 1990
(1 photograph, coloured 15 cm x 10 cm)


Photographs of George Bywater, Debbie Cordon, Claire Laidman, Kate Lawrie and Jane Willis in a scene from "The Cherry Orchard", by Anton Chekhov, February 1991
(2 photograph, coloured, 15cm x 10 cm)


Photograph taken in the library of the Sunderland Echo of Michael Smith, Lynn Jordison and Janet Snowball, re-enacting their roles in "Alphabetical Order", by Michael Frayn, April 1991
(1 photograph, black and white, 19 cm x 25.5 cm)


Photograph of John Duffin, Teresa Hagger, Lynn Jordison, Michael Smith and Ian Woodhouse in a scene from "Alphabetical Order" by Michael Frayn, April 1991
(1 photograph, coloured 15cm x 10 cm)


Photograph of Debbie Cordon, Audrey Fiddian, Jennifer Gill, Tess Hagger, Joan Hall, Marion Hampson, Charlotte Hay, Judy McKinnell and Barbara Woodhouse in a scene from "Daisy Pulls It Off", by Denise Deegan, 9 - 13 July 1991
(1 photograph, black and white, 15 cm x 10 cm)


Photograph of the awards won by the society's production of "The Zoo Story", by Edward Albee, in the Sedgefield One-Act Festival, September 1991
(1 photograph, coloured, 15 cm x 10 cm)


Photograph of Katy Baker, Kate Lawrie, John McKinnell, Graham Nanson, Michael Smith, Janet Snowball and Ian Woodhouse in scenes from "The Circle", by W. Somerset Maugham, 29 October - 2 November 1991
(3 photographs, coloured, 15 cm x 10 cm)


Photograph of Marion Clapham, Ted Moulding and Barbara Woodhouse in a scene from "The Farndale Avenue Housing Estate Townswomen's Guild Dramatic Society's production of Macbeth" by David McGillivray and Walter Zerlin Jr., 28 January - 1 February 1991
(1 photograph, coloured, 17.5 cm x 12.5 cm)