Great War Theatre

Address: Bognor Regis, UK

Performances at this Theatre

Date Script Type
N/A I See You Unknown
26 Jul 1915 Searchlights Professional
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The Stage, 22 and 29 July 1915, listed Searchlights as On Tour: ‘July 26, Worthing (3), Bognor (3)’. That style of announcement would usually mean that Searchlights would be performed at Worthing on Monday-Wednesday, 26-28 July, and at Bognor on Thursday-Saturday, 29-31 July. However, the Bognor Regis Observer and the Worthing Gazette each advertised on Wednesday 21 July that Searchlights would be performed by Alick Chumley and A. Russell-Davis’s company at their local theatre (the Kursaal, Bognor, and The Theatre, Worthing) on the following Monday-Wednesday. Moreover, each newspaper advertised different plays for Thursday-Saturday. The Bognor Regis Observer advertised on 21 July that a play called Ann from the Criterion would be performed at the Kursaal on Thursday-Saturday, 29-31 July; and similarly The Worthing Gazette, 28 July, advertised the musical comedy The Dancing Mistress at the Worthing Theatre on Thursday-Saturday of that week. To add to the confusion, the Bognor Regis Observer and the Worthing Gazette each published on Wednesday 28 July reviews of the performance of Searchlights at their local theatre the previous Monday. Also The Stage, 29 July, noted both that ‘Messrs. Alick Chumley and A. Russell-Davis are here [the Kursaal, Bognor] this week with Searchlights’ and that ‘Searchlights was presented here [the Royal, Worthing] on Monday by Messrs. Alick Chumley and A. Russell-Davis’s company’. As Bognor Regis and Worthing are only sixteen miles apart it would have been possible for the company to give a matinée performance in one town and an evening performance in the other. However, only evening performances seem to have been given at each theatre. The Bognor Regis Observer on 21 July reported that the performances at the Kursaal would be on ‘the three nights commencing next Monday’ and it advertised on 28 July that the final performance would be at 8 that night; while the Worthing Gazette advertised on 21 July that Searchlights would be performed there ‘twice nightly, at 6.45 and 9 (no Matinee)’, and in the same issue reported that Searchlights would be performed at the Theatre ‘on the first three nights of the coming week, twice nightly’, and also referred in its review on 28 July to the reactions of the audience at ‘the first of several performances on Monday evening’. Another theoretical possibility, that the company could muster enough performers for different casts to appear at the two theatres at the same time, is supported by the fact that the local newspaper reviews name different actors in the parts of Mr and Mrs Blaine: R. M. Dulzeli [sic - Dalzell] and Rosemary Rees at Bognor; A. Russell-Davis and Deborah Norton at Worthing. But it is undermined by the fact that they name the same actors in the parts of Harry Blaine and Adalbert Schmaltz: Paul Hansell in the former role at both theatres; while the Claude Camforth who is named in the latter role at Bognor is presumably the same person as the Claude Carnforth who is named in the role at Worthing. A notice in The Stage, 29 July, also identifies in the cast at Worthing ‘Mr. Russell-Davis as Robert Blaine, Mr. Claude Carnforth as Sir Adalbert Schmaltz … and Mr. Paul Hansell as Harry Blaine’ (plus Mary Griffiths as Lady Schmaltz and Edith Pither as Phoebe). For the ‘two cast’ scenario to be a possible explanation it would mean that (a) one of the newspapers made a mistake in the names of the actors playing Harry Blaine and Adalbert Schmaltz; and (b) the touring company had enough people able to go on stage to mount two performances simultaneously at different theatres (for which there is no evidence at any other time).
19 Aug 1915 The Man Who Stayed At Home Professional
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The Bognor Regis Observer, 11 August 1915, advertised at the Kursaal Theatre in the following week Diana of Dobson’s on Monday-Wednesday and The Man Who Stayed at Home (‘The Play of the Moment’) on Thursday-Saturday.
1 May 1916 Sunshine Unknown
11 Sep 1916 The Man Who Stayed At Home Professional
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The Era, 6 and 13 September 1916, listed The Man Who Stayed at Home (Blue) as On The Road from 11 September at the Kursaal T., Bognor. ‘The first three nights of next week, with a matinee Wednesday at 3, will see a welcome return visit of the absorbing spy play from the Royalty Theatre, “The Man Who Stayed at Home.” The remarkable success achieved by this powerful play last year will be in everyone’s memory, and a repetition of the crowded houses to which Kursaal playgoers are now becoming accustomed, will suggest to the wary the advisability of booking well in advance’. Chichester Observer, 6 September 1916.
17 Sep 1917 The Man Who Stayed At Home Professional
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The Stage, 13 September 1917, listed The Man Who Stayed at Home (Red Co.) as On Tour from 17 September at the Kursaal, Bognor. ‘"The Man who Stayed at Home” … will pay a return visit to the Kursaal Theatre on Monday for three nights. "The Man who Stayed at Home' is one of the comparatively few plays which, written to meet a popular topical demand, turn out to be so full of good stuff that they continue to please after the demand has died down. Now “The Man who Stayed at Home” is such a capital play, such a clever combination of comedy, drama, character drawing and general observation. that it not only still gaily draws its crowded houses in the provinces, but will, we venture to prophesy, one of these days have a glorious resurrection long after we have all become well accustomed to the piping times of peace. Besides, somehow or other, it does remarkably well suggest the atmosphere of those early, never-to-be-forgotten days of 1914 – those days “a few months since, an age ago.” The cast includes Clifford Marle, J. Edward Pearce, Arthur Ellis, Malcolm Cumming, E. J. B. King, Hilda Franck (sic - Francks), Jean Stanley, Christine Cooper, Frances Waring, Ethel Coleridge, Edith Cuthbert’ (Bognor Regis Observer, 12 September 1917).
31 Jul 1918 Peg in the Park Amateur
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‘Judith Wogan's Company of Wandering Players can be seen and heard at the Kursaal for the last time to-night (Wednesday). This Company has given many performances to soldiers, which have been highly appreciated. They present two plays, “ Peg in the Park” which resembles “Peg o’ my Heart,” in which Miss Judith Wogan played as Peg, and “Pros and Cons,” one of the charming little plays for which Miss Gertrude Jennings, the authoress, is famous’. Bognor Regis Observer, Wednesday 31 July 1918.
3 Oct 1918 The Man Who Stayed At Home Professional
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The Bognor Regis Observer, Wednesday 2 October 1918, reported The Man Who Stayed at Home was due at the Kursaal Theatre on Thursday (the following day). Advertisements in the Bognor Regis Observer and the Chichester Observer, 2 October 1918, and the West Sussex Gazette, 3 October 1918, stated that the play would be performed for three nights with a Saturday matinée.
28 Aug 1919 Tails Up Professional
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Tails Up was listed in The Era, 20 August 1919, as On The Road at the the Kursaal, Bognor on 28, 29 and 30 August. The Chichester Observer, 27 August 1919, advertised Tails Up (‘now playing to enormous business at Comedy Theatre, London’ – sic) at the Theatre Royal, Bognor on Thursday 28 August for three nights and a Saturday matinee. Also the West Sussex Gazette, 28 August 1919.