Rose-tinted

THE last time Valerie Woodings visited Harrogate Theatre she was just one of the audience. Tomorrow, she’ll be the star of the 110th anniversary “production” by unveiling a plaque honouring the former Grand Opera House as one of the country’s longest standing theatres still in business today.

The former actress – now in her 97th year, as she terms it – belonged to the White Rose Players, one of the first repertory companies in the country and one which put Harrogate on the theatrical map in the Thirties.

Jarrow-born Mrs Woodings, who comes from a theatrical family, returned to live in Harrogate after her husband’s death. One of her daughters, Penny, continues the family link with the theatre as a board member and fundraiser for the refurbishment programme.

Mrs Woodings began acting under her stage name Valerie Skardon when she was 18. She was in her early 20s when she joined White Rose Players in weekly rep, performing one play at night each week, while rehearsing the following week’s production by day Among the famous names associated with the company are Sonia Dresdel and Trevor Howard, who worked in Harrogate in the Thirtiess, as well as Brian Rix, Dad’s Army actor Arnold Ridley and playwright John Whiting in the Forties.

At that point, the Players were being run by the wife and daughter of William Peacock, who had supervised the building of the theatre. The other credits for architect Frank Tugwell included Scarborough Futurist Theatre and the Savoy Theatre in London.

“Mrs Peacock and her daughter had an office right at the top of the theatre, which we used to call the holy of holies. They were very formidable ladies,” Mrs Woodings says.

She well remembers the Abdication drama of 1936 – not least because it caused a bit of a crisis among the White Rose Players, too.

“We were all looking forward to the coronation of the new king. Harrogate was in a state of celebration with bunting in the streets and photographs of the King in the windows,” she recalls.

“We were scheduled to perform a well-known play that had been in London for a long time, but the story was rather similar to that of Edward and Wallis Simpson. It wasn’t appropriate to put on “Mrs Peacock and her daughter called us all up – Sonia Dresdel, Philip King, me and one or two others – to the holy of holies for this meeting.

They decided to do away with putting on that play, so we all had to buckle down and learn new parts.”

She worked in Harrogate for about six months. “It’s going back quite a long way but, as you can imagine, I lived a rather busy life learning lines. One thing I do remember is living in a house at number one Oak Terrace,” she says.

“A lady called Agnes Bolam took in all the theatre people. I wouldn’t call them theatrical digs because it was far more superior to that, like a small hotel. Her daughter was only a tiny tot, about three years old, a wonderful little girl who turned out to be a mayor of Harrogate.”

Friday night was “posh night” at the theatre, she remembers. “Everyone used to come in cars and we had an attendant at the front of the house, not exactly in livery, but suitably dressed, to open the car doors for people.

“We used to have men in dinner jackets and ladies in beautiful furs and diamonds in the audience.

From the stage we could see all these glittering jewels and gleaming white shirt fronts.”

Born in Jarrow (“a very prosperous place then because of the shipbuilding”), she and her family moved away after her father joined up to serve in the First World War. She went to boarding school where “I took control of all the theatre stuff”.

Her first work as a professional actress was at Bridlington and Scarborough in rep. She later worked in radio in Manchester, including BBC’s Children’s Hour, and on television, where she appeared in the early days of Coronation Street.

Her family, the Skardons, owned both the Lyceum Theatre and Sadlers Well in London.

In 1940, she married actor/producer Edward Lyndon Woodings, after she met him auditioning for a play.

Ask about her favourite roles and she has no hesitation in naming Eliza Dolittle in Pygmalion, which she played in the opening production at Sheffield Rep, and a lesser-known play called Escape Me Never.

SHE still appears at Harrogate Theatre – but as an audience member, not an actress.

Last year she went to see a touring production, Van Gogh in Brixton.

“I was looking forward to that and had been given a lovely seat, but my hearing is not good and that day I was celebrating because I had got a digital hearing aid. I sat there ensconced with my friend and couldn’t hear a word. Fortunately, I knew the story,” she says.

Tomorrow, she’ll be centre stage as she and Harrogate’s mayor, Councillor Pat Jones, unveil the heritage plaque – 110 years to the day Harrogate Grand Opera House opened with a charity performance of A Gentleman In Khaki, about soldiers fighting in the Boer War.

The theatre survived a savage cut in its Arts Council grant two years ago to go from strength to strength with record attendances and an ambitious refurbishment plan. Following restoration of the public front-of-house areas, the theatre will announce tomorrow plans to improve backstage facilities.

Chief executive David Bown points out that Harrogate Theatre has been a vital part of the national touring circuit for over a century. “To ensure another 100 years of success, it’s important that we address the mechanics of the building and provide performing facilities fit for the 21st Century,” he says.