Page 32 - The Palace @ 100

The Future Of The Palace

Extract from souvenir programme 1971:

Tommy Thomas
Future of The Palace
Remembers...
‘The new Palace re-opens as a town centre focus
“In the 1950s after I won
for every kind of activity in the expanding
a talent competition I was
community. It will be the home of entertainment
asked if I would appear
for every taste, from concerts and plays to dances
each night throughout the and pop; and by day the theatre can be
following week and transformed into a centre for business.
promised a part in a
forthcoming film.
Civic receptions, industrial conferences and
similar uses will fit into the projected patterns.
The week at the Palace
theatre simply flew by, Redditch Urban District Council will sponsor the
and, on the last night professional entertainment in the theatre’s
Barry Faber and Daffydd
programme. But the musical and stage
Havard, the competition
contributions of the amateur groups will be an
promoters, congratulated
important part of that programme. The first three
me on my performance.
months will see amateur performances of the
Mikado, Sigmund Romberg’s romantic musical
To reassure me of my The Student Prince and Jane Eyre. Sandy Powell
participation in the tops the bill in the first of a series of old time
forthcoming film they music hall bills to be presented by the Council.
introduced me to a visiting
fellow cast member, Restored to life after so many years, the Palace is
Anthony Newley, who had well equipped to play its part in bringing live
not yet met and married
entertainment back to our town centre.’
Joan Collins. Sadly he
studiously ignored me.

I never did get the place in
the film.”
‘An intimate and quite pleasing Auditorium
with restrained Neo-Classical plaster-work’

The Theatre Trust “Guide to British Theatres “

1970s
Page 26
Page 32