14 Jul 2021
Written By Matthew Eastley

School for Scandal…1968 Play

Three actors in the 1968 school production of The School for Scandal. But who are they?

After the great Adrian Jarvis left in 1966, the production of the annual school play fell to Fr Cyril ‘The Voice’ Trueman. Jarvis was a tough act to follow but, by all accounts, Trueman did it brilliantly.

After Adrian bowed out in 1966 with Macbeth, Fr Trueman put on TS Eliot’s play Murder in the Cathedral in 1967.

He followed that up with RB Sheridan’s The School for Scandal in 1968, a fast-paced comedy which captures the flavour of gossip in so-called ‘polite’ society.

It featured brilliant performances from two of the finest actors St Mary’s produced with third former Paul Higham (originally Garbet) as Lady Sneerwell and the irrepressible fourth former Chris ‘Aggy’ Doran as Crabtree.

The play was staged across five nights between 30 January and 3 February 1968 and was a triumph.

I am fortunate and grateful that Michael Seymour shared a number of photographs of this play with me, one of which is reproduced here. I’m keen to know the identity of these three lads so, if you recognise any of them, please let me know.

What strikes me is the quality of the costumes which were supplied by Star Studios of Clapham Common and also Mrs Higham, who I’m assuming is Paul’s mother. (Paul incidentally went to St John’s Cambridge in 1974 and later became a County Court Judge in Melbourne, Australia)

Fr Shorttle built the set, helped by Martin Downey, Ian Duncan, Peter Jones, George Kopczyk, Sean Gibbs and Antony Robson; Terry Smith did the lighting assisted by Anthony Bradley, Paul Dumbleton, Michael Reilly and David Skinner; Neville ‘Spike’ Wilkinson looked after the sound, while Maths teachers Fred McAndrew and John O’Mahoney were House Managers.

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