The Chesil Theatre Walk

Thursday 9th July

If you’ve ever been to the Chesil Theatre for a performance, then you will know it is not very big: you go straight from the street into the auditorium and the bar space is ‘cosy’. But, until Peter Liddiard gave us his fascinating talk yesterday evening, I had no idea just how small it was. In fact, it is amazing to see what they have done, using every inch of space for a dressing room, the stage manager’s ‘area’, the bar and much needed storage space, even going as far as hanging chairs on nails on the wall to keep them out of the way. Part of the storage space - housing dozens of old telephones amongst other things - is a small room at the top of an almost vertical ladder. It’s extraordinary that they manage to produce such great shows from such a tiny space !

Peter also gave us a brief history of the building. I must say I had no idea that it was ‘only a hundred years younger than the Cathedral’, nor that it had still been in use as a church until World War II. The Trust is rightly proud of the fact that it then helped the (then) Winchester Dramatic Society to save it from demolition - and an image of the building now serves as the Trust’s emblem. And the Society now has exciting plans for expansion.

The cherry on the cake was an impromptu visit by ‘Benedick’ from their forthcoming production of ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ (14th - 18th July on the Pilgrims’ playing fields), who explained to us his ‘shorthand’ method of learning his lines: just write down the first letter of each word and that will be enough to bring the words back to you - I’m not sure that that would work for me !

Many thanks to Peter for a wonderful glimpse into a remarkable world of dedication and creativity.