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Marking 50 years, Nakul Pur, Aiden Sugrue, Mandy Smith, Trish Toomey and Ella Celderazoo |
From butcher’s shop origins, theatre group meets to stage a special reunion celebrating 50 years of drama
FROM their origins in a derelict butcher’s shop to triumph at fringe festivals, the Hopscotch Players looked back on 50 years of drama on Saturday. The Somers Town theatre group hosted a reunion party at Basil Jellicoe Hall in Drummond Crescent.
More than 100 members, both past and present, gathered to toast the club’s inspirational founders, Phyllis Joy Bass and current director Yvonne Filleul.
Linda Frost, born in Somers Town, flew from Spain especially for the occasion.
“I don’t usually get excited by school get-togethers, but when I got the invitation for this reunion I was jumping up and down,” she said.
Miss Filleul traced the Players’ story back to 1943. Following the Blitz, youngsters often played unsupervised on bomb sites for want of constructive activities, so Save The Children Fund set up Hopscotch Junior Club.
She said of the original Eversholt Street premises: “That old meat store was a great leveller. Everyone had to bend down to avoid being clocked on the head by meat hooks. Even Countess Mountbatten bowed when she came to visit, though she didn’t mind.”
Under the guidance of Mrs Bass, who died in 1980, children learned to knit, skip and cook. The club warden is fondly remembered by long-standing Hopscotch members.
“Mrs Bass always dressed in black and told us she was a witch, which gave her an air of calm authority,” said Lindsey Monaghan of Somers Town.
Drama entered the curriculum in 1957 when Mrs Bass invited Miss Filleul to direct a production of Sleeping Beauty for a cast of 50 children.
The director’s hardest task was finding a male lead to stay the course.
“They all enjoyed thrashing through the forest with cardboard swords, but baulked at the all-important
moment when they had to wake Sleeping Beauty with a kiss,” Miss Filleul recalled.
Countless award-winning productions followed, including prizes for best original play, best actor and best supporting actor at the 2003 Spelthorne Festival.
After Save the Children stopped funding the club in 1979, the group struggled to find permanent rehearsal space. “We had to rehearse in the back of a cab once,” Miss Filleul explained.
Thanks to supportive families, the Players are still going strong in their new premises at Basil Jellicoe Hall.
According to playwright Aiden Sugrue, friendship is the secret of the group’s success.
“You hear about prima donnas and tantrums, but that wouldn’t happen here. People started as children and now they’ve got their own kids involved,” she said. |
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