Book Review: In Our Time – Continuing the story of the Leicester Drama Society

IN OUR TIME: Continuing the story of the Leicester Drama Society (The Book Guild)

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

Leicester Drama Society, which celebrates its centenary this year, is a fine example of just how significant a contribution well-managed amateur theatre can make to community life.

A hundred years ago three friends met in a Leicester café to discuss the formation of a drama society. The aims were high: they wanted to improve artistic standards of theatre in the city and to educate public taste.

Well, they clearly did just that because they are still here, a century later, with an impressive track record. Every show since 1922 is tabulated in the final pages of this book.

Since 1932 LDS has owned and occupied The Little Theatre in Grove Street, often affectionately known as “The Little”. The company also eventually acquired additional premises nearby which provide rehearsal space and other facilities.

A history of LDS’ first 60 years was written by John Graham and published in 1982. Now this new book continues the story and is, in a sense, a pandemic product.

The forced darkness of the theatre for long periods in 2020 and 2021 allowed the seven stalwarts, who compiled the book, the time to go through the company’s detailed, thorough and clearly very well maintained archives for information.

The book is picture-led and the range of work this company has produced in the last 40 years is extraordinary. LDS does about 12 productions a year including a season opener, nine plays, a pantomime and a season closer.

Plays have been taken over the years to the Minack in Cornwall, Dolman Theatre in Wales, Questors Theatre in London and to Buxton Opera House.

And they’ve have included everything from Wings (1982), Stepping Out (1993), Side by Side by Sondheim (1997), Pygmalion (1989), Arcadia (2002) and Goodnight Mister Tom (2018), among many dozens of others.

The building has been renovated and improved several times to bring it up to date with, for example, modern fire regulations and after a backstage fire in the 1950s.

LDS has a thriving youth theatre on Saturday mornings and lets the theatre out to a number of local companies (sadly fewer than there used to be) for single week runs during the year.

Threaded through the book, alongside the narrative history and the photographs are accounts of, and by, professional actors who have either cut their teeth at The Little or returned to it at a later career stage.

Richard Caddell, for example, is patron. He recalls taking parts during his childhood because his mother was a LDS member. He then worked on stage with Herbert Mason who told the young Cadell about the Magic Circle… which led ultimately to Sooty and a career as a magician.

Actor Penny Brownjohn says LDS was an addiction for her until she went to Rose Bruford and Margaret McEwan adds that she found life long friends and had more fun than she could ever have dreamed of at LDS before she went to LAMDA.

Andy Nyman recalls being driven home from a rehearsal by his parents and seeing with excitement a poster for the show he was in at The Little.

LDS’ willingness to move with the times is noteworthy. The Little installed disabled access as soon as it could. They now run pre-show touch tours and have a hearing system to enable audio description – thanks to a 75% grant from Leicester City Council and donations from local businesses.

This upbeat, confident, attractively produced book convinces me that LDS is well set up for its second century, undaunted by minor hindrances such as world wars and global pandemics.

Susan Elkin