The Chelsfield Players
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      • NSFW
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      • Arsenic and Old Lace
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      • A Chorus Of Disapproval
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      • Garden
      • A Ghost On Tiptoe
      • Hobsons Choice
      • House
      • The Importance of Being Earnest
      • Intimate Exchanges
      • Lady Windermeres Fan
      • Loot
      • Lucky Sods
      • Mars & Venus
      • The Merry Wives Of Windsor
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream
      • Murder In Company
      • My Three Angels
      • New Directions
      • Over My Dead Body
      • Our Country’s Good
      • Out Of Focus
      • Party Piece
      • Proscenophobia
      • Ring Round The Moon
      • The Rivals
      • Steel Magnolias
      • Stepping Out
      • Strictly Murder
    • 1990-99 >
      • Bedroom Farce
      • Blithe Spirit
      • California Suite
      • Deadly Nightcap
      • Dial M For Murder
      • Dick Turpin
      • Gosforths Fete
      • Hay Fever
      • An Inspector Calls
      • The Late Edwina Black
      • Lord Arthur Saviles Crime
      • Miranda
      • Move Over Mrs Markham
      • Not Now, Darling
      • Pleasures And Perils
      • Round And Round The Garden
      • Seasons Greetings
      • Some Confusions
      • Something To Hide
      • Tartuffe
      • Time And Time Again 1993
      • Time And Time Again 1999
      • Time, Murderer, Please
      • Tons Of Money
      • The Weekend
      • When One Door Closes
      • The Woman In White
    • 1980-89 >
      • Anastasia
      • The Barretts Of Wimpole Street
      • The Brontes
      • Busybody
      • Caught Napping
      • A Friend Indeed
      • Full Treatment
      • Gaslight
      • Mother Goose
      • Murder In Company
      • Nightmare
      • Outside Edge
      • Pink String And Sealing Wax
      • Pygmalion
      • Rape Of The Belt
      • Relative Values
      • Return To Victoria
      • Separate Tables
      • Shut Your Eyes and Think of England
      • Suddenly at Home
      • A Tomb With A View
      • Treasure Hunt
      • When We Are Married
    • 1970-79 >
      • The Aspern Papers
      • Brush With A Body
      • The Chiltern Hundreds
      • The Circle
      • Dandy Dick
      • Dear Charles
      • Fish Out Of Water
      • The House Of Bernada Alba
      • The House On The Cliff
      • An Ideal Husband
      • Ladies In Retirement
      • A Letter From The General
      • The Matchmaker
      • The Rivals
      • The Royal Pardon
      • The Schoolmistress
      • Shadow In The Sun
      • Someone Waiting
      • Spiders Web
      • They Came To A City
      • Wanted: One Body
    • 1960-69 >
      • 1066 And All That
      • Aladdin
      • Antigone and The Critic
      • As You Like It
      • Billy Liar
      • The Bread Winner
      • Breath Of Spring
      • Charleys Aunt
      • A Christmas Carol
      • Cinderella 1965
      • Dick Whittington
      • Flowering Cherry
      • Frost At Midnight
      • Hay Fever
      • The Hollow
      • The House By The Lake
      • Macbeth
      • Man Alive
      • The Merchant Of Venice
      • Midsummer Mink
      • A Midsummer Nights Dream
      • Pantomime 1960
      • The Pen of My Aunt, The Women Have Their Way
      • The Pleasure Garden
      • Pygmalion
      • Rookery Nook
      • The Taming Of The Shrew
      • Tobias and the Angel
      • Twelfth Night
      • Waters Of The Moon
      • The Young Elizabeth
    • 1950-59 >
      • After October
      • The Browning Version, Elegant Edward
      • By Candlelight
      • Count Your Blessings
      • Eden End
      • Grand National Night
      • The Happy Prisoner
      • The Holly And The Ivy
      • The Late Christopher Bean
      • Libel
      • Martine
      • Our Town
      • The Queen and the Rebels
      • Thunder Rock
      • Young Wives Tale
    • 1936-49 >
      • Early 1940s plays
      • 20th Century Lullaby
      • And So To Bed
      • Berkeley Square
      • Cinderella
      • The Corn Is Green
      • Dangerous Corner
      • Distinguished Gathering
      • Duet For Two Hands
      • Elegant Edward (1940s)
      • The Ghost Train
      • Hassan
      • The Importance Of Being Earnest
      • Love From A Stranger
      • The Middle Watch
      • New 66 And All That
      • Night Must Fall
      • Noah
      • Pinocchio
      • The Rivals
      • Roberts Wife
      • This Happy Breed
    • Our History
    • Popular Playwrights
  • Join Us
    • JimSlips
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  • Home
  • Archive
    • 2020- >
      • The Absence Of War
      • Funny Money
      • A Frightful Evening
      • The Ghost Train
      • Jekyll & Hyde
      • Ladies Down Under
      • The Last Quiz Night On Earth
      • A Legal Murder
      • Silver Lining
      • Steaming
      • Underground
      • The Western Approaches
    • 2010-19 >
      • 1 Flat 3 Stories
      • Abandonment
      • Animal Farm
      • Carrington VC
      • A Christmas Carol
      • The Country Wife
      • Crown Matrimonial
      • Easy Virtue
      • Fawlty Towers 2013
      • Fawlty Towers 2015
      • Feed the Beast
      • FlatSpin
      • Hello, Is There Any Body There?
      • The Hollow
      • Ladies Day
      • A Lady Mislaid
      • La Musica & Perfect Partners
      • Love In A Mist
      • Maskerade
      • Misfits
      • Much Ado About Nothing
      • Nobody's Perfect
      • NSFW
      • The Railway Children
      • Salt
      • Sauce For The Goose
      • Six Characters In Search Of An Author
      • This Happy Breed
      • The Thrill of Love
      • Visiting Hour
      • A Wedding Story
      • Wind in the Willows Chelsfield
      • Wind in the Willows Edinburgh
    • 2000-09 >
      • Arsenic and Old Lace
      • Black Comedy
      • Cemetery Club
      • A Chorus Of Disapproval
      • Daisy Pulls It Off
      • Dangerous Corner
      • Fear and Fancy
      • Garden
      • A Ghost On Tiptoe
      • Hobsons Choice
      • House
      • The Importance of Being Earnest
      • Intimate Exchanges
      • Lady Windermeres Fan
      • Loot
      • Lucky Sods
      • Mars & Venus
      • The Merry Wives Of Windsor
      • A Midsummer Night’s Dream
      • Murder In Company
      • My Three Angels
      • New Directions
      • Over My Dead Body
      • Our Country’s Good
      • Out Of Focus
      • Party Piece
      • Proscenophobia
      • Ring Round The Moon
      • The Rivals
      • Steel Magnolias
      • Stepping Out
      • Strictly Murder
    • 1990-99 >
      • Bedroom Farce
      • Blithe Spirit
      • California Suite
      • Deadly Nightcap
      • Dial M For Murder
      • Dick Turpin
      • Gosforths Fete
      • Hay Fever
      • An Inspector Calls
      • The Late Edwina Black
      • Lord Arthur Saviles Crime
      • Miranda
      • Move Over Mrs Markham
      • Not Now, Darling
      • Pleasures And Perils
      • Round And Round The Garden
      • Seasons Greetings
      • Some Confusions
      • Something To Hide
      • Tartuffe
      • Time And Time Again 1993
      • Time And Time Again 1999
      • Time, Murderer, Please
      • Tons Of Money
      • The Weekend
      • When One Door Closes
      • The Woman In White
    • 1980-89 >
      • Anastasia
      • The Barretts Of Wimpole Street
      • The Brontes
      • Busybody
      • Caught Napping
      • A Friend Indeed
      • Full Treatment
      • Gaslight
      • Mother Goose
      • Murder In Company
      • Nightmare
      • Outside Edge
      • Pink String And Sealing Wax
      • Pygmalion
      • Rape Of The Belt
      • Relative Values
      • Return To Victoria
      • Separate Tables
      • Shut Your Eyes and Think of England
      • Suddenly at Home
      • A Tomb With A View
      • Treasure Hunt
      • When We Are Married
    • 1970-79 >
      • The Aspern Papers
      • Brush With A Body
      • The Chiltern Hundreds
      • The Circle
      • Dandy Dick
      • Dear Charles
      • Fish Out Of Water
      • The House Of Bernada Alba
      • The House On The Cliff
      • An Ideal Husband
      • Ladies In Retirement
      • A Letter From The General
      • The Matchmaker
      • The Rivals
      • The Royal Pardon
      • The Schoolmistress
      • Shadow In The Sun
      • Someone Waiting
      • Spiders Web
      • They Came To A City
      • Wanted: One Body
    • 1960-69 >
      • 1066 And All That
      • Aladdin
      • Antigone and The Critic
      • As You Like It
      • Billy Liar
      • The Bread Winner
      • Breath Of Spring
      • Charleys Aunt
      • A Christmas Carol
      • Cinderella 1965
      • Dick Whittington
      • Flowering Cherry
      • Frost At Midnight
      • Hay Fever
      • The Hollow
      • The House By The Lake
      • Macbeth
      • Man Alive
      • The Merchant Of Venice
      • Midsummer Mink
      • A Midsummer Nights Dream
      • Pantomime 1960
      • The Pen of My Aunt, The Women Have Their Way
      • The Pleasure Garden
      • Pygmalion
      • Rookery Nook
      • The Taming Of The Shrew
      • Tobias and the Angel
      • Twelfth Night
      • Waters Of The Moon
      • The Young Elizabeth
    • 1950-59 >
      • After October
      • The Browning Version, Elegant Edward
      • By Candlelight
      • Count Your Blessings
      • Eden End
      • Grand National Night
      • The Happy Prisoner
      • The Holly And The Ivy
      • The Late Christopher Bean
      • Libel
      • Martine
      • Our Town
      • The Queen and the Rebels
      • Thunder Rock
      • Young Wives Tale
    • 1936-49 >
      • Early 1940s plays
      • 20th Century Lullaby
      • And So To Bed
      • Berkeley Square
      • Cinderella
      • The Corn Is Green
      • Dangerous Corner
      • Distinguished Gathering
      • Duet For Two Hands
      • Elegant Edward (1940s)
      • The Ghost Train
      • Hassan
      • The Importance Of Being Earnest
      • Love From A Stranger
      • The Middle Watch
      • New 66 And All That
      • Night Must Fall
      • Noah
      • Pinocchio
      • The Rivals
      • Roberts Wife
      • This Happy Breed
    • Our History
    • Popular Playwrights
  • Join Us
    • JimSlips
    • Links >
      • Newsletter
    • Get In Touch

Early to Mid- 1940s

Early plays of the 1940s
There is a grey area between Hassan in 1939 and This Happy Breed in 1947. Plays were performed, but we know little about many of them. Ellen George (later Blatcher) wrote a handwritten list of past productions going up to 1979, which suggests it was written over 30 years later and is subject to the vagaries of memory. So, when it contradicts the list shown on the reverse of the playbill for The Importance Of Being Earnest (1947), we are inclined to believe the latter.

Interestingly, neither list includes 20th Century Lullaby, widely cited as the Society’s first play in April 1936. Perhaps it was one of the readings performed in Mabel Fredericks’ play room and wasn’t considered by the founder members to be a proper performance.

We have also failed to find any evidence for The Madonna (1936), which was in the list of past productions on programmes during the 1980s but not listed since. A cutting from the Bromley & West Kent Mercury from July 1937 also mentions a forthcoming open-air performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Oxenden Wood Road by “Chelsfield and District Residents Association Dramatic Society”, but none of the actors’ names (BT Wedmore, Miss P Wood and G Logsdon) are familiar.

Oddly, Hassan had fallen out of the official list by this time, even though it was clearly the Society’s most ambitious production in its early years, with the programme for This Happy Breed stressing: “Open-air production, over 100 performers”.

The problem with the 1947 playbill is that it doesn’t include any dates. The problem with Ellen Blatcher’s list is that it implies six productions in 1947, which is surely too many, especially as Ellen’s daughter-in-law, Ann Blatcher, relates that the Players put on shows “while the bombs dropped”, so some of these shows might have been performed during the war (we are not aware of anyone bombing Chelsfield after 1945). Also, Ellen’s list places Love From A Stranger in 1951, but the 1947 playbill lists it as a past production, so either Ellen’s memory was faulty (she got the date for Berkeley Square wrong) or the Society performed it twice.

Other than 20th Century Lullaby, we know the dates of the 1930s plays for sure. Earnest and its predecessors, This Happy Breed and Noah, are also certain, and we are pretty sure (though not 100% sure) that New 66 And All That was produced in 1946. To be fair to the 1947 playbill, it states “some of the Society’s past productions”, which does imply omissions and allows us to place Cinderella (which one source places in December 1945) and Duet For Two Hands among the earlier plays. That presumption even makes room for The Madonna, though we are not yet ready to place it in the official archive.

One could infer some approximate dates from the cast lists if we had them. Fortunately some pictures have been annotated with names, so we can see that the cast of Love From A Stranger were all present in the 1930s and one, Joyce Stacey, never appears for the Society after 1946, implying the earlier date. However, Phyllis Nash, who appears in And So To Bed, does not appear again until 1954, which by the same logic implies a later date for that show (which also has a lavish set and sumptuous costumes that seem out of keeping with post-war austerity).

Perhaps both lists are correct but incomplete: we know that Elegant Edward was performed during the war and revived in 1955 because the pictures of the later production are mixed with photos labelled “wartime production”. If the Society did one production in the six years of war, it seems logical to assume that it did others. Perhaps these were small-scale productions in some of the larger houses in Chelsfield Park, and some might have been revived later with fully staged productions, as clearly happened with Elegant Edward.

So this gives us seven plays with uncertain dates but probably performed before 1947 and some of them surely performed during the war:

The Corn Is Green by ​Emlyn Williams
At least we have some pictures of this, which must mean a post-war production.

And So To Bed by JB Fagan
This romp was listed as a 1951 show despite being on a 1947 list of past productions. It could have been a reduced wartime production later revived as a full stage show.

Robert’s Wife by St John Ervine
Again, we are unable to date this play other than noting that there are enough photos to prove that it was performed after the wartime rationing of photographic film was ended.

Flare Path by Terence Rattigan
We have less evidence for this production than for any other: no playbills, no pictures; just the insistence of contemporary and later records that it is part of the Players’ canon, so it surely must have happened.

Flare Path was first staged in London in 1942. Set in a hotel near an RAF Bomber Command airbase during the Second World War, the story involves a love triangle between a pilot, his actress wife and a famous film star. The play is based in part on Rattigan’s own wartime experiences, and was significantly reworked and adapted for film as The Way to the Stars.

The Ghost Train by Arnold Ridley
The fact that we have photos of the production proves it must have been produced after wartime rationing of film was ended. Again, it might have been performed twice.

Love From A Stranger by Frank Vosper
An early production date is suggested by the presence of Joyce Stacey in the cast, who was a member of the Players before the war but does not appear after 1946. However, we have seen members return after absences of more than a decade, so this evidence is hardly definitive.

Elegant Edward by Edgar Wallace
The photo album showing the 1955 production includes photos of an earlier “wartime production”. Since this performance is not listed anywhere else, it allows for the possibility that other shows were performed during the war, perhaps in people’s houses during the day to adhere to blackout regulations.
Picture
Past productions list from the programme for The Importance Of Being Earnest, November 1947
Picture
Ellen Blatcher's list, c.1980
Picture
List of plays on a 2009 programme
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