"...And Again": Brown's Around March 07

The evening is based on a typical Second World War show by ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association in full, though sometimes referred to by disgruntled troops as Every Night Something Awful) featuring the songs, comedy and music of the time.

Producer Duggie Chapman has brought back four members of last year’s company in Steve Barclay, Mervyn Francis, Tony Leyton and Andy Eastwood, plus singer Shelley James and the band of Martyn St James, and the cast will be magically transformed into the likes of Bing Crosby, George Formby, Anne Shelton, Gracie Fields, Donald Peers, Vera Lynn and Max Miller.

Chapman, who is a Blackpool impresario and has spent a lifetime in the entertainment business, came up with the idea for “We’ll Meet Again” after noticing a decline in the numbers of older folks in audiences at evening performances of his shows. He experimented with matinee-only performances and found them a resounding success. “Following talks with individuals and organisations catering for our senior citizens,” he says, “I found that many older people fear going out at night and have problems with public transport and so on, and therefore tend not to go to theatres. Matinees get round these difficulties and present a greater ease of organising parties from retirement homes and the like.”

And has this approach been successful? “I have found that mature audiences are drifting back in large numbers for this sort of daytime variety production” he says. “And not only that, but younger folk are coming along more and more now that they have discovered we feature so many lovely sing-a-long songs”.

Wowing the audiences last year, in particular, were multi-instrumentalist and singer Andy Eastwood, described as Britain’s greatest exponent of the ukulele, former Black and White Minstrel Mervyn Francis and singer Tony Leyton, who specialises in the songs of Bing Crosby and Donald Peers.

The show is a bright and breezy wartime revue featuring tributes to some of the greatest entertainers of the Forties, and for those who remember that time, the show will bring back memories of the great stars who kept us smiling through some of our darkest days. And don’t think you have to be of a certain age to enjoy it; this post-War baby found last year’s production highly entertaining and also moving.

“We‘ll Meet Again“ - now in its fifth year - has been seen and enjoyed by an estimated 250,000 people and after three national tours and three summer seasons, the show has gained a following of dedicated fans who hail it as today’s finest re-creation of traditional variety.

Throughout the spring of 2007, the show will visit over 70 venues in the UK and it’s a rare honour for Aberfeldy Town Hall to host this occasion. Despite Duggie Chapman’s stated beliefs mentioned earlier in this article, it’s an evening performance, beginning at 8 pm, and tickets are £12.50 (£10 concessions) and available from Wade‘s Newsagents, Bank Street, Aberfeldy and The Sheep Shop, 69 Atholl Road, Pitlochry. For more information ring 07899 667963.

And if you’d like to read about the music and songs of that time, I can continue to recommend two magazines which you won’t find on general display in W H Smith’s.

In Tune International describes itself as “the only monthly magazine in the world for lovers of the Golden Age of popular music from the Thirties to the end of the Fifties.” Its regular features include a comprehensive CD review section and exclusive news of forthcoming releases in this country, plus original articles on the artists, musicians and composers of the period. It’s available by subscription only, so contact Gerry Stonestreet at Flat 9, Milchester House, 12 Staveley Road, Eastbourne BN20 7JX or by e-mail it’s gerry@stonestreet13.freeserve.co.uk or check the website at www.GnuDawn.co.uk/intune.

Also worth searching out is Memory Lane, an excellent quarterly magazine which specialises in the music of the 1920s through to the 1950s, with the emphasis on the British Dance Bands and vocalists of the 30s and 40s. It’s published four times a year and you can send a £1 coin for a sample copy to Memory Lane, PO Box 1939, Leigh-on-Sea, SS9 3UH or e-mail editor@memorylane.org.uk or have a look at the website on www.memorylane.org.uk.