Grand Theatre, Walsall

The Walsall Observer, and South Staffordshire Chronicle, 18 May 1929, advertised that at the Grand Theatre from Monday 20 May ‘The Fortescue Players will Present The Great Comedy-Domestic Drama Neither Wife Nor Maid By Norman Worcester. Cast includes:- Norman Worcester, Jack Pearson, John Watty, Howell Webb, Lewis Nanton, Frank Stoner, Olive Yorke, Louis Nanton, Lala Price, Jenna Lyndon, Dallas Yorke’. Although the play was advertised here as 'by Norman Worcester' it was attributed to Ernest R. Abbott and, this time accurately, to Ada Abbott when the same, or a successor, company performed it ten years later.

The Walsall Observer, and South Staffordshire Chronicle, Saturday 7 December 1929, advertised the Fortescue Players in The Black Sheep of the Family at the Grand Theatre in the week beginning Monday 9 December, except that The Knife of Death would be played on Friday night only. ‘Cast includes:- Norman Worcester, Digby Hayes, John Watty, Howell Webb, Lewis Nanton, Frank Stoner, Kitty Maude, Louis Nanton, Mona Grey, Genna Lyndon, and Dallas Yorke’. In a news report in the same issue of the newspaper The Black Sheep of the Family was described as ‘an intensely human drama’ that would be performed for five nights. The author of the play is not named, so there is no certainty that it was Gladys Hastings Walton, but no other play with the same title was licensed by the Lord Chamberlain’s Office.