Recently I had the pleasure of being contacted by Michael Seymour who was the secretary of the St Mary’s Photographic Society in the 1960s. Michael had managed to find some coloured slides he had taken from some old school plays and kindly shared them with me.
Among the slides were a number taken during the 1965 performance of The Imaginary Invalid, the 1673 three-act satire by the brilliant French writer Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name of Moliere.
This was the penultimate production overseen by drama and English master Adrian Jarvis before he departed St Mary’s in 1966. These were very much his productions.
The great picture above shows three members of the cast. I think it’s safe to assume that the character on the left, holding some sort of ear trumpet to his ear is Argan, The Imaginary Invalid, played by sixth former Philip Ebden.
I’m not at all certain who the lads are playing the female characters but the programme suggests they are two of the following: Paul Dumbleton, Stephen Grant, Stephen Winter or James Conneely. Any help in identifying the lads would be gratefully received.
he play was staged in the main hall at St Mary’s over five nights between 25 February and 6 March 1965. As usual future deputy head Terry Smith oversaw the lighting and Neville Wilkinson was in charge of sound effects, with his wife, Norma, listed as Musical Repetiteur alongside the popular Marist Father ‘Pop’ Cassidy.
Ernest ‘Chippy’ Harding masterminded the stage construction and painting and the set was designed by art master Brian Pratt. Bernard ‘Eccles’ McLauchlin was Associate Producer alongside Spanish and Languages teacher Sidney Kenny-Levick while Chemistry Master Doug Wingfield was Stage Director.
This longish play required two 15 minute intervals with refreshments served in the Biology Laboratory.
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