A short history of the group, by Jim Wardle
Ovingham Drama Group was established 50 years ago in 1976 by Jim and Ann Wardle – and they’re both still here! They’d recently arrived in Ovingham, a village full of people involved in numerous activities and eager to be entertained. The first meeting was in 1975 and first production 1976 Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit” which was a resounding success. Strangely, it turned out this had been the swansong of the previous drama group 17 years earlier!
This has been followed by 50 great years of plays, dramas, comedies, pageants, revues, music halls, pantomimes, murder mysteries, radio plays, Goose Fair entertainments and more. Performing in – and winning on occasion! – many drama festivals and receiving several awards from the national organisation NODA.
Early productions were in the W.I. ‘Hut’ – sadly now demolished with no blue plaque to tell of them or us – and from which we were in effect evicted for rather taking it over, using it more than they did! We transferred to the RR and have remained there ever since. There was no stage, but being young and foolish we simply built one and took it down for every production. All stage materials initially being stored up the road at Mount Huly and later across the burn at Bleach Green, carried by willing hands to and fro every time.
In those early days we put on 3 productions a year, often with queues at the door and even having to turn people away. The church was one of our big fans. We performed 2 pageants for them over the years celebrating the history of the village from Roman and Saxon times, the building of the church, up to Thomas Bewick and the present day.
Some of our most worthy dramatic productions were performed in the church:
- Oh What a Lovely War
- The Lark
- A Man for All Seasons
- The Crucible
- Roses of Eyam
When we started, most of us were in our 30’s, 50 years later most of us are nearer the 80 mark! BUT, glad to say we are starting to acquire a younger group of members and with our latest production “Robinson Crusoe” we had a wee bairn in his 20’s.
We probably managed our first pantomime “Cinderella” in about 1980. It took so much effort we only managed it every 2 years. Now it’s our mainstay and a pantomime every year – even occasionally written by one of our talented members. We’ve always been fortunate with our wealth of talent other than actors. Our stage builders/ managers (we even had tiered seating in the WI), designers, artistic set painters, prop creators, wardrobe mistresses, lights and sound men and a continuous string of wonderful musicians ending with our current one of about 10 years who swears it’s the highlight of his year.
If our success – or survival?! – is due to anything, I’d say it’s our love of theatre and our desire to have a good time and to entertain. To do our best but never to take ourselves too seriously and to quote a line from a certain play “When I say we’re going to have some fun, we’re going to have some fun”! We’re one big happy family, but we need to be bigger and younger, COME AND JOIN US!