Repertory Theatre - Audience and Management

Audience and Management

From the audience's point of view, local communities would become fans and champion their favourites who would be treated as celebrities. And sometimes entire families would make a visit to their local rep as part of the weekly routine like going to church, and for the young ones, it became a part of their future appreciation for live "legitimate" theatre.

During the forties, fifties and sixties, two impresarios dominated the field of British rep, mostly in the North. They were Harry Hanson and his Court players, and Frank H. Fortescue's Famous Players, with Arthur Brough in Folkestone for the South. Their system was the toughest of all, for if you joined one of their companies, it could mean "twice-nightly" shows, and a new play to learn every week. Rosemary Harris tells of her 50 consecutive weeks of doing just that at Bedford rep. It cannot happen any more, due to the restrictions of British Equity which came to mandate just 8 shows a week, including perhaps two matinées. Fortescue, who died in 1957, was known to be a strict and upright man. When Pygmalion was playing at one of his theatres, because Eliza says "Not bloody likely!", "FOR ADULTS ONLY!" would be posted in the front of house. Or perhaps he was afraid of the Lord Chamberlain, Her Majesty's official censor whose duties were abolished in 1968.