Genesis Theatre

Genesis Theatre were an amateur theatre group that existed from 1975 to 1982 in the Greater Manchester area. The name was taken from the book of Genesis, because when they started out they were literally at their beginning.

The group were known for attempting large productions more commonly associated with professional theatre groups (such as the Who's Tommy and an aborted first attempt at Jeff Wayne's the War of the Worlds) as well as several original musicals. They had several premieres amongst their productions, some being Amateur World Premieres, others simply Amateur North West Premieres.

The two key members were Chris Fogg (Writer and Director) and Chris Dumigan (Musical Director). However the most well known former members are Mike Shaft (who has a radio show on BBC GMR) and Louis Emerick (who appeared in the Channel 4 soap opera Brookside and more recently BBC's Casualty).

The most critically well received show was the Who's Tommy, which was the first North West stage presentation of the concept album and was approved by Pete Townshend. At the same time Townshend had given his sanction for a Southern Amateur company to present Tommy; they beat Genesis Theatre to the stage by a matter of a few weeks. It was their production that Townshend saw and eventually took to the professional stage.

There was an aborted attempt to put on the first theatre performance of Jeff Wayne's the War of the Worlds at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester. This needed a reasonable budget and a sponsor was found in Renault. However two weeks before the initial performance Renault were taken over by a new company, who - refusing to pay towards any sponsorship - withdrew their funding, and the show was cancelled. Interestingly it was never put onto the live stage until 2005, when Jeff Wayne finally toured with his own version of the complete musical.

Unsurprisingly the original musicals Stag and Marilyn are the ones discussed most often by former members.

• Stag is a complex story about the half-man half-beast god Herne the Hunter seducing a woman.
• Marilyn tells the story of an actress who plays the part of Marilyn Monroe] and finds her life tragically mirroring her predecessor.

In 1979 Mike Mansfield, who was well known at the time for TV programmes such as Supersonic, expressed an interest in the group. He provided the funding for the group to go into the studio and record Stag, this caught the attention of Robert Stigwood who was the then manager of the Bee Gees, who had recently peaked with their Saturday Night Fever album. There were reports that Chris Fogg and Chris Dumigan were about to be signed, but when the Bee Gees sued their manager, this stopped dead any hopes of Stigwood having the necessary cash to fund Stag, so the idea was permanently shelved.

Genesis Theatre effectively ended in 1982 when Chris Fogg moved from Greater Manchester to Somerset. It was generally felt that the group were no longer moving forward and had either missed their lucky break or it was never going to arrive after 7 years. Several principal members have since died, including Graham Brittain (Chairman), Nicky Baird (Principal Cast Member) and Mike Bonwick (Bass player).

Chris Dumigan still lives in the Greater Manchester area as do several other former members and there are regular reunions.

In 2003, Chris Dumigan wrote his memoirs of Genesis Theatre which are still waiting to be published, possibly online. There has also been some restoration work performed on the studio recordings of Stag and a live recording of Marilyn. Hopefully one day these will be released.