Page 18 - The Palace @ 100

The War Years

In 1939, at the beginning of the war the Palace closed
Colin Wheeler in common with places of entertainment elsewhere, but
Remembers...... by 1940, was fully in operation with the usual
entertainments.
“My first memory of
visiting the theatre was
Films continued throughout the war, with occasional
in 1937 when as a very
visits by a Forces Concert Party. Mavis Bennett
small child my dad took
organised a series of Sunday Concerts, with famous
me to see the Great guest artists: Webster Booth and Anne Ziegler,
Levante, an Australian Flotsum and Jetsam.....
and internationally
famous magician and Before the war ended, Elsie Siddele Downing had
illusionist.
founded her School of Dancing and started a series of
pantomimes and revues, moving to Bridley Moor
I can remember some of School Hall after the closure of the Palace as a theatre.
the tricks he performed, She must have raised thousands of pounds for charity,

including the coin
besides giving hundreds of children an experience they
snatch and the sixpenny
will never forget. Some of them became professional
Woolworth tin kettle
dancers, including Mary Clarke, who was for a time
trick.. He concluded the captain of the Television Toppers.
show with a spectacular
firing of a girl from a
cannon situated at the
rear left corner of the
stage into a net on the
front right corner.”

The Redditch Standard,
9 November 2001

‘Actress Felicity Kendall
began her stage career at
the Palace - she played
Puck when her father
Geoffrey brought The
Shakespeare International
Theatre Company to the An early artists view of the Palace in Alcester
Palace in the late 1940s.’ Street..
Artist unknown

1940s
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