For 25 years I was fortunate enough to be part of the enchanting Grange Theatre family. Looking back through all the programmes, I can’t believe that I appeared in 35 plays!! Fred with his inimitable charm, had ‘chatted me up’ in the bar when I had been to see a production in 1981 and asked me if I would be their “Miss Jean Brodie”……. the beginning of one of the happiest periods of my life. Fred and Val created such a magical world, and we who knew and loved them were privileged to have been part of the unique realm that was the Grange Theatre. I know I am not alone in finding the other world by entering the portals of the Grange – Lewis Carroll’s Alice isn’t the only one to have found that magic door! Oh the memories!! The delight when Fred would phone to announce the read through of the next play….. the assembled cast sitting around the dining room table with our mandatory sherry, scrutinising our new scripts, the joyous expectation of the next 3 months of rehearsals and finally the two weeks’ of the show. And what a show it always was!! Fantastic backstage boys – lighting and sound of the highest order….. The constant amazement at Fred’s excellent and imaginative sets taking shape, Val’s perfect choice of music and effects, and the finest collection of ‘amateur’ actors one could imagine. Professionalism was not only striven for, but achieved.
What camaraderie there was – the splendid actors I was fortunate to play alongside; the fun of over the years being cast variously as their wife/mistress/mother/daughter. So many names, and so many memories. The brilliant Neil Canning – he of the perfect comedy timing – Lindsey, Martin and Sandra Jacques, Peters Buckman and Burley, Jim Harper, Denise Glazer, Elaine Donnellan, Bruce Cunningham, Brian Clarkin, Rob Gorton, Catherine Glynn, Adam Hurst, Mark Brown, Liam Sebag-Montefiore, Carol and Vic Ince……oh the list is endless. My late daughter, Helen, appeared with both me and my husband Bruce in Chekhov’s “Wild Honey” and my daughter Caroline played beside me as my stage daughter Sorrel in Noel Coward’s “Hay Fever,” and so our little Finlay family group always felt very much a part of the larger Grange Theatre family.
But all good things have to come to an end…..I took part in the very last production at the Grange Theatre, Val’s adaptation of “The Shell Seekers”. In all the parts I have played over so many years, I had never before had a role which required me to actually die on stage. But the very last thing I ever did on that beloved stage was to breathe my last as Penelope Keeling. Little did I know what a prophetic moment it actually was and that I would never again tread those boards.
What joy and precious memories Val and Fred and the Grange Theatre have left behind. I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.