Hazel Vincent Wallace (1919 – 2019)
Hazel Vincent Wallace became a stage artist at the end of World War 2 and helped found the Under Thirty Theatre Group in London to give young actors and playwrights a chance of footlights experience. She set up the Leatherhead Theatre Club at the former Ace Cinema (Victoria Hall) in High Street, Leatherhead, and from 1951 the Leatherhead Theatre Guild Ltd, which ran highly commended repertory productions for capacity audiences. When the Crescent Cinema in Church Street closed she worked with colleagues to replace it with a brand new theatre which opened in 1969 named after her friend Dame Sybil Thorndike. This too was hugely popular for many years until all public funding was withdrawn in the 1990s and the theatre had to close. It re-opened under new management and owners in 2001 as simply the Leatherhead Theatre.
Interview date: 4 October, 2018
Venue: Barnes, London
Interviewer: Tony Matthews
Clip 1: My origins
I was born in the Midlands surprisingly because my mother came from Devon and my father came from Scotland. But they finished up in the Midlands which was horrifying to my mother who was used to Devonshire and its cleanliness. The Midlands were known as Black Country and it was!But my sister and I – she was two years older than me – we had a wonderful education there and wonderful friendships. There were wonderful people in the Midlands – very warm hearted. Then I went to university, to Birmingham.
I was born on 8 December 1919. So I have a birthday coming up which is a 99th birthday.
Clip 2: Under Thirty Group and Unity Theatre
My own personal stage roles, yes during the Second World War I was of course in war work and I was in personnel work in war factories. But every evening – this is when I was working in London – I would travel to the Unity Theatre which was one of the few theatres that had kept going during the war but it wasn’t and couldn’t be professional. But it was very left-wing which didn’t worry me one bit. The main thing was every evening I was working there producing and playing in musicals and plays. So I was happy to be still connected with the theatre.
You founded the Under Thirty Theatre Group.
Well, I didn’t found it. It was founded by another actor from RADA – the Royal Academy – but I met him soon afterwards. He and friend of his had started a group called the Under Thirty Theatre Group. Well I joined the group and I liked it and I thought it was excellent. It was doing very good work. We were doing Sunday night plays, new plays, in the West End. Quite a lot of young actors were launched from those productions. One of them was Claire Bloom (1931- ), for instance. That was during the Second World War. I was working every evening in the Unity Theatre which has a wonderful history of its own which is worth looking into. It was a left-wing theatre which didn’t bother me because I wasn’t politically minded anyway.
[The Unity Theatre grew from the Workers’ Theatre Movement, formed in the East End to bring contemporary social and political issues to a working class audience. The Unity Theatre club itself was formed in 1936 at Somers Town in what is now the borough of Camden. By the end of the theatre’s first decade it had spawned 250 branches nationwide. There was a ban on theatre at the outbreak of war but once lifted, the Unity Theatre remained active hroughout the war. The company also provided groups of entertainers to tour factories and air-raid shelters. The Camden premises burned down in 1975 but productions continued sporadically until 1994, when the site was sold for social housing. Unity Mews on the site commemorates the theatre.]
The important thing is that by then I was working in London – Croydon – doing personnel work and every evening I travelled up to London in the blackout and then travelled back again at midnight afterwards and appeared in their productions – produced and appeared as an actress and a singer. I was a good singer.
Can you name any of the productions?
Well they wouldn’t mean anything to you. One was Robin Hood. It was a musical. There was a play by Ted Willis which was about temperance and I was the heroine. I have photographs to prove it. I did everything. I was very versatile.
Clip 3: Starting in Leatherhead
After the war in 1949 you founded the Leatherhead Theatre Club at the Ace Cinema.
No, it’s more complicated than that. I met an actor called Oscar Quitak (1926- ) who had founded something called the Under Thirty Theatre Group which I admired so I joined it and helped to organise it and we produced these plays in London on Sunday nights very successfully. We took an office in Suffolk Street in London which was in a Georgian house exactly opposite the stage door of the Haymarket Theatre. So it was in a wonderful position. We became very, I think, famous because we were the only club for actors at that time. They used to come on after their productions had finished in the West End and come on and have supper there and a pretty riotous time, I might tell you. It was very popular. No such thing now. On the basis of that club, which had a very strong membership of young actors – like Peter O’Toole (1932-2013) for instance who was a member and umpteen others – we decided we wanted to have a little theatre of our own. That’s when one of us heard about the Leatherhead Theatre which had tried to have a production there but it was no good. They didn’t know what they were doing. But the little theatre held 300 people and it was in the High Street at Leatherhead, which was only a village in those days. But we could see the potential and we – me and some other fool – took a lease on this theatre and we somehow made it work. It became enormously successful.
Clip 4: Exchange agreement with Canterbury
In 1953 you had an agreement with the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury for an exchange.
Yes. The Arts Council had at that time a very interesting policy to exchange companies so that you played for a week at your home theatre. Then you took that production over to – as it was in our case – Canterbury and played it there for a week and then rehearsed the next one. Dare I say you were there for two weeks. It was a bit complicated but it meant we had two companies which both played for two weeks and gave us that extra rehearsal time. I would say it was a rather frenetic time because we were travelling by train and you never quite knew if you were going to get there or if the set was going to get there. But it was a great success in Canterbury.
Clip 5: Council backing and expansion in the 1950s
From 1954 you had a non-profit company with Leatherhead District Council and local residents.
No, the council contributed financially. Not a very high contribution but they did give a little bit of money towards it and showed active interest in it which was very useful. I was very pleased about that. But we had established the theatre as being possible – having potential – when we opened it in 1951. It took about two years to settle in and by then we were playing to full houses. In those days it was a weekly repertory where you played a play for a week while you rehearsed the next one and it was very hard work. I was playing and directing as well as running the theatre. So I was an actress and a director and a manager all at once.
Can you mention any famous names who performed at the theatre?
There were many. There was Peter O’Toole and there was Peter Bowles (1936- ) for instance was in the last play that I was in. There was Alec McCowan (1925-2017) and Penelope Keith (1940- ) was one of my people that I started their career. Another one was – alas recently died – Gillian Lynne (1926-2018), choreographer to Cats. Brilliant. I started her on choreography. I did a lot of recognising potential in actors who could go on further into directing or doing choreography and encouraged them to become more interesting people as a result.
Do you remember running a grand theatrical ball held each year to raise funds at the Burford Bridge Hotel?
We used to have theatrical balls but they were just to raise money. We did everything for raising money because by then we knew that our little theatre holding 300 people simply wasn’t big enough. It was packed out, sold out every time we opened a production and we eventually became three-weekly, not weekly. We went up from weekly to fortnightly and then three-weekly. We were so popular that we were sold out before the production even opened.
Clip 6: Planning the Thorndike Theatre
We knew we had to have a bigger and better place and we knew what we wanted to be there was the Thorndike Theatre. But we didn’t know then that it was going be called the Thorndike because we hadn’t even got a design for it. However it is a long story but a fabulous architect collaborated with me and our stage manager to design a lovely new theatre with everything we wanted. We wanted a studio theatre attached to it which we eventually named after Lord Casson (1875-1969), Sybil’s husband. We not only wanted a studio theatre, we wanted an art exhibition which changed with each production. A beautiful place in the mezzanine where the bar was. They could have a drink and look at the pictures. Those two came from there [indicating]. We sold quite a lot from there. We showed a lot of very good artists there. Of course we could also do films and we did concerts and we did virtually everything you can think of. We also did a lot of work with young people in schools and in education.
Clip 7: Dame Sybil on the scene
Can you talk about how Dame Sybil Thorndike (1882-1976) became involved?
Well we designed this theatre with the architect who was the best designer of the time and I knew we must find an interesting title. I had always admired Sybil as an actress and a person. She had a fantastic personality. She never stopped laughing for one thing. She had a wonderful sense of humour but she was also a brilliant actress. So when we had our design it was put into a model – a beautiful model – it was taken by myself and the designer and our chairman up to Chelsea where Sybil was living. We went there on a Sunday morning and she and her husband looked at the design – we have pictures of them here – and loved it. I asked her if she would have the theatre named after her. I have a very precious letter saying yes, I would like it to be named after me but I would also like to play in that theatre. I am happy to say she was in the second play that we did at what she called her own theatre. It was a new play about an old woman on the streets with the carrier bags that they took around with them. She didn’t mind being in rags and looking a mess. She played the part brilliantly. Her greatest success, she used to come forward every night for the curtain call and give a little speech. One night she stepped forward and her Directoire knickers fell on her feet. She looked down and she laughed the biggest laugh you have ever heard in your life. She thought it was fabulous. She was that sort of person. Of course she came to every production and she encouraged us enormously with her support. She was fabulous.
Clip 8: The theatre opening by Princess Margaret
Do you remember the grand opening of the Thorndike Theatre in 1969?
Oh I remember it yes. Well I organised it. Approaching Princess Margaret wasn’t too difficult through our chairman who had connections with the Palace and she was very pro theatre. She loved the theatre. We convinced her it was a good theatre and it was going to be right and it was going to have all these extra things like the art exhibitions and the studio theatre etc etc. So she agreed to come and open it on the first night. Which she did with her husband of that time, Lord Snowden. She was the sort of person who was sometimes very happy and sometimes very difficult. Luckily we were on a day when she was very happy. She enjoyed the whole evening. In fact when the curtain came down on the play there were some rather attractive young men in it. She said (when the curtain came down she met them all): “Now we’ll have a party.” She said firmly. We hadn’t got anything organised but I managed to get various people rushing around with sandwiches and things and her secretary said to me: “That means she has really enjoyed it because if she hasn’t she will just get in the car and go home!” But she said we want a party, they had a party. So that was quite extraordinary for it to happen out of the blue and none of us got home until well after midnight. But the Thorndike Theatre was launched very happily and was very successful.
Clip 9: Back to the old name
It continued for a long time before the change of ownership.
The only time that the name was changed was when it had to stop producing plays. Although Sybil by then had gone I knew that she wouldn’t want her theatre to continue to be named after her if it wasn’t producing any plays. It had lost its grants from the Arts Council and even from the local council. There was a slump at that time and all the grants just disappeared. So there was no way of carrying on and I just quietly took the name away and gave it back to Leatherhead as it used to be.
Clip 10: Return of repertory
This year for the first time in 30 years or so another repertory company has been performing there.
Well victory! I hope they succeed because they have no money coming in from outside. No grants. I always found that you have to have a certain amount of subsidy to keep you going with a steady foundation. It would be upon that that you took your risks. If you don’t take risks you are doing something for nothing. So it’s back to Leatherhead Theatre and it hasn’t been doing plays. It has just been having something coming in on one night or two nights or concerts. A varied, very varied programme. I admire them for keeping going. I really do. I think they have done wonders. They are now trying and have formed a company which I hope will be doing plays because that’s what the theatre-goers in Leatherhead are asking for. If ever they saw a play coming to the Thorndike – Leatherhead Theatre – it would be well supported. So I hope that the fact that they are trying to get together a company again. I mean we never did have a company. We directed plays in our theatre when I was there, cast from people in London. Each play was cast by a director so we didn’t have a company in the sense of someone signing up for a whole year or anything. No, everything was cast as well as possible so that you had the best play with the best director and the best cast you could possibly get that was available at that time.
Did you hear the new repertory company, named after Sir Michael Hordern, put on a production of Yes Prime Minister from the TV series?
Well I heard they were doing it and thought what a lovely idea because we all enjoyed that on television. I do admire how the management at Leatherhead Theatre have kept going. I admire them enormously. If you’ve got a steady subsidy grant from the Arts Council, for instance, and also from your local authority you’ve got a very firm foundation for doing exciting work. Then you get exciting actors and exciting directors etc. Of course that got lost over the last few years. Now they are trying to revive that and I admire them enormously for their courage and tenacity and I hope they have great success.
Do you think the name Thorndike will ever come back to Leatherhead?
No I don’t. Not unless it has the same policy as when I was there. Which was to present the best plays with the best directors with the best casts. Being close to London was a great great asset. We had all the actors in London to try to get the very best cast for every play. That’s how we became so successful. We had such a good reputation. But when the grants during the slump were taken away from so many theatres it was a terrible death blow to many of them and I admire those who are now trying to revive what they had before. I really admire them for their courage. I hope with all my heart they will find support in Leatherhead who were a very good audience to play to.