Applauding 90 years of award-winning community theatre at Southwick Players

The amateur theatre group has members from Worthing, Shoreham, Southwick, Hove and Brighton, many of them concentrating on backstage support rather than acting.

It all started at a meeting chaired by Charles Walker at Southwick Town Hall on Friday, July 25, 1935. It was agreed Southwick Amateur Players would be launched and it was suggested the Players should have their own theatre.

Mr Walker replied: "I hope that Southwick will be able to provide a 'barn' as a permanent home.”

The plan was to turn a flint building on Southwick Green into the Barn Theatre. As soon as the Thursday after the inaugural meeting, there was a gathering to discuss preliminaries for the theatre but in the end, the Second World War put paid to the plans. The building was instead converted into houses at a later date.

The Players’ first officers were elected at another meeting, a week later. The first production was in March 1936, Emergency Exit by Sussex Playwrights Club member Gordon Brice-White.

The play was performed at Southwick & Shoreham Senior Girls School over two nights and among the cast were Gordon’s sister Venetia and brother Stanley.

Venetia later married another cast member, George Baker, and the couple continued as lifelong members of the Players.

Stanley was the main driving force behind setting up Southwick Community Association in 1945, after the war, and he remained at the helm as secretary until his retirement in the 1990s. Southwick was one of the first towns in the country to have a community centre and it has been the Players' home for more than 70 years.

They have a long history of winning awards, starting with best play at the British Drama League Festival in 1936. This autumn production was 4 One Act Plays, The Colour Question, Tennis Party, Rizzio’s Boots and The Gardener.

There was controversy the following year, when the company staged Young Soldiers by Gordon Brice-White in October 1937. Owing to the nature and tone of the piece, Players president Kenneth Loader resigned in objection but it was well received by audiences and went on to win second place in the Sussex Rural Drama Festival.

There followed a number of successful productions until 1939, when the Players, like the majority of drama companies, closed down due to the war.

The company was reformed on February 1, 1946, and his been going strong ever since. For the past ten years, members have been working hard on digitising the archive for the Players' website www.southwickplayers.org.uk and 'filling in the gaps', leaving just one or two 'holes', mainly pre-war.

For a while, regular productions took place in various halls in the Southwick area but The Barn Theatre at Southwick Community Centre became the Players' permanent home as soon as it opened in 1951. In the early days, the raked seating was made using raised platforms, with an army of enthusiastic volunteers placing the chairs and fixing the legs individually.

One of the longest-serving members is Sue Gullen, who has been involved with the Players since 1967, as an actress and more recently as a director, committee member and social secretary for many years.

An only child, she moved to Southwick with her parents, Peter and Mary Gullen, when she was ten.

Sue said: "We moved because of my father's job. He wanted something to do and someone he worked with said the Players were always looking for someone to help build scenery. He was a practical person. The other option was the rifle club!"

Peter's first play involved set construction for The Sun and The Shadow in 1966. He was then stage manager for three more plays the same year and designed the set for another.

Sue said: "My mother also joined and did props and wardrobe, so I was involved from an early age, even though I wasn't old enough to join. I was the gofer!"

Mary preferred to be behind the scenes but she did make a few appearances on stage, mainly in crowd scenes or the chorus.

Sue, however, has been in a large number of plays, starting as the parlourmaid in Pygmalion in 1969. Her first big part was Mary MacGregor in The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie in 1973.

Sue said she wasn't always very good with her lines in rehearsals but when it came to the performance, it always 'just happened'.

It was Pygmalion that got her father into acting, too, bringing him on to the stage instead of being behind the scenes. Peter was stage manager for the play and his role was officially '2nd Bystander'.

Sue recalled: "They wanted a bystander, so he got involved and that was it. He went on to direct and he wrote pantomimes. He would try out the lines on us and if we didn't laugh, we were in trouble. He was a bit too subtle with some of his jokes, really."

Peter was a quiet man but his grandfather did the bookings for the Brighton Dome and his cousin was a well-known classical singer, so theatre and performing were part of the blood.

Sue said it was a great life but it was also a commitment, with each play taking about three months to put together and rehearsals at least twice a week.

She recalls one time when she was the prompt on stage, hidden behind a picture during the performance. She suddenly realised the cast had completely lost their place, moving on about eight pages in the script of a murder mystery.

There was little she could do, they were so far off where they should be, but they did manage to loop back and get themselves on track. "The audience would never had known."

Another long-standing member is Frank Horsley, who has played many character parts over the years, having joined the Players in 2005.

Nowadays, there is a well-stocked bar and a café counter for refreshments but Frank well remembers the 'tea and biscuits' days of the mid-1970s, when he was in the audience as a reviewer for the Herald.

The ladies would come in with their trolleys to serve cups of tea from enormous teapots during the interval. The trolleys were wheeled from the kitchen into the auditorium and they had to be quickly cleared up before the start of the second act, so the sound of washing up did not spoil the performance.

Debbie Creissen, president of Southwick Players, said: “Since 1935, Southwick Players have been at the heart of the local arts scene, delivering high-quality amateur theatre that entertains, inspires, and brings people together.

"Over the years, we have received numerous accolades, including many Brighton and Hove Arts Council Drama awards and recognition for outstanding performances and innovative productions.

"Our commitment to excellence in all aspects of theatre production, and to the development of young talent through our youth group (SPY) has made us a cornerstone of community theatre in Southwick and the surrounding area, celebrating both classic and contemporary works from Pantomime to Ibsen.

"Looking ahead, the Southwick Players continue to embrace exciting new ventures, promising fresh and ambitious productions that showcase local talent. In this, our 90th anniversary year, our dedication to creativity, inclusivity, and theatrical excellence remains stronger than ever. Here’s to many more years of outstanding performances!”