The Grange Till Now


September 2011 marks the beginning of our 60th season of providing live theatre for the people of Walsall.

Such a milestone is not reached by accident of course.  It has been achieved by a combination of dedication, hard work and a single-minded commitment to fulfilling a dream.  These qualities were all embodied in the person who was to turn the dream into a reality: Kathleen Bullock.

During the Second World War she formed the 14th Rangers Company at St Paul’s Church, Walsall.  Drama formed an important part of their activities and a number of competitions were entered with conspicuous success.

When the war ended and the young men returned to their girlfriends, St Paul’s Players became a mixed company with productions being staged at St Paul’s Hall and Blue Coat School.

The Players and St Paul’s parted company in 1947 when the then vicar stated that he wished to vet the plays being considered for production, a suggestion that was anathema to Kath, and so the Studio Players came into being, performing at various venues within the borough as well as occasional forays into darkest Pelsall and deepest Brownhills!

This nomadic existence, and all the problems and stresses connected with it, began to have its effect on all concerned, and Kath’s dream of creating a theatre to be used by all the local amateur theatre groups began to take shape in her mind.  The search was on for a building to accommodate that dream.

It was found on Broadway North, the ruin of what had been, before the war, an exclusive tennis club.  At the beginning of hostilities it had been occupied by the National Fire Service, but by 1947 it was in the tenure of Walsall Council and being advertised as suitable for light engineering. 

Kath brought her not inconsiderable powers of persuasion to bear in an effort to secure a lease on the building, receiving strong support from local businessmen and particularly from the Mayor, Alderman Evans.

After much lobbying the lease was granted and the Studio Players took possession of the building in mid-1947.  During the next four years the Players laboured long and hard to completely reconstruct and rebuild the interior of the building whilst still staging productions at local venues in order to raise the much-needed cash which financed their endeavours.

In November 1951 the dream came true when the now renamed Grange Players at last trod the boards of their own Playhouse and presented Charlotte Hastings’ drama, Bonaventure, chosen as much for its appropriate title as for the theatrical quality.

During the next twenty years the Grange presented a consistently high standard of productions and performances which were recognised not only by faithful patrons but by the local press, so that, in

1971, when Kath Bullock felt the need to retire, she knew that there were enough directors, actors and backstage crew with the experience to carry the Grange into the future.

In 1980 a disastrous fire, caused by intruders, destroyed the dressing room side of the theatre together with irreplaceable costumes and props.  Fortunately, except for smoke damage, the stage area, auditorium and foyer were spared and, like the Phoenix, the Players rose from the ashes.  We went from strength to strength presenting award-winning productions, some of the more recent being, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, Alan Ayckbourn’s Confusions, Arthur Miller’s All My Sons and Death of a Salesman, John Patrick’s Everybody Loves Opal, Peter Whelan’s The Herbal Bed and David Haig’s My Boy Jack. We also presented the amateur premiere of Ayckbourn’s Absent Friends, the world premiere of the thriller, Deadline, and the British amateur premiere of Ronald Harwood’s Quartet.

Brassed Off, which starts our 60th season will be our 286th major production which is indeed a wonderful achievement but we must not rest on our laurels.  By constantly striving to improve both the quality of our productions and audience facilities we must remain determined to ensure that the dream envisaged all those years ago by Kath Bullock will remain a reality for many years to come.