You can see a more complete programme scan here and here, but it’s still difficult to read the detail.
The show was put on in 1943; my parents had married the previous July but were both serving in the armed forces, at opposite ends of the country, and only saw each other for brief 48 hour passes if they were lucky. I’m not sure if this period co-incides with Mum’s stint as a clerk at the War Office, but they also saw Gone With the Wind at the Ritz at this time and it could be that Dad had travelled down to spend a few hours with his wife. It was their first year of marriage and they would have wanted to spend as much precious time together as possible. Keeping the programmes and tickets for these two ‘dates’ would have been important reminders for them.
The postcard on the left is my own (original) autograph of Morecambe and Wise from some time in the 1960s.
Almost fifty years after my parents’ theatre date, my own husband took me on a trip to the same Prince of Wales Theatre. This was to see the musical, 'Aspects of Love’ starring Michael Praed, who I remember at the time I had a bit of a weakness for.
I notice the dates of the tickets are almost exactly twenty-five years ago, and so would have been a birthday treat for me from my own Love. On pages 33 and 34, there is a short history of the Prince of Wales Theatre from its beginnings in January 1884, and I was delighted to see that ‘Strike a New Note’ gets a mention.
For more memories, tattered or otherwise, book your seats at this week’s Sepia Saturday, where the great showman Louis Armstrong, seated at his theatre dressing table, was our picture prompt.