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4. “Then a soldier ... Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard”
Alan Livermore was at pains to point out that he had not always been bearded and a glance at past production photographs will confirm that in his earlier days with the BATS he sported a dashing moustache. He has, however, been known to use strange oaths on occasion, and he was a regular army officer until 1938.
During his army service he produced a big variety show in Egypt, and when he left the army he soon became involved with amateur drama. The group he joined was the Folkestone and Hythe Operatic and Dramatic Society (The FODS). This was a very large Society with 250 actors, which played in two converted Victorian houses, and now has a converted church in Sandgate.
In 1960 the BATS had found a permanent clubroom, in London Road, which was christened The Belfry. The number of acting members was small, around nine to a dozen, and this limited the choice of plays. There were, however, several successful productions, and the nucleus of faithful members kept the Society going. Alan joined in March 1962, and a year later became the Hon Secretary.
Lucy Lea was the Society’s Chairman in 1965, when the current despondency led her to suggest that the BATS should be disbanded. When this was not agreed she resigned the post and Jean Tucknott became Chairman. John Cannan and Alan Livermore fought to build up the Society. They alternated as producers for the BATS, and were opposed to the policy of using professionals, believing that an amateur group should be capable of tackling all aspects of production. Since then only two professionals have produced for the BATS, David Blake and Bruce Bennett. Alan’s first production was “The Chalk Garden” (1964) which had in the cast, Lucy Lea, Leslie Lea, Charles Couldrick, and Avril West.
Also in 1965 an attempt was made to form a Bexhill Theatre Guild. The Chairman and Secretary of each of the local groups met at Jean Tucknott’s house in Egerton Road, and tried to agree on a formula. Unfortunately they disagreed over money questions, and the well-known parochial feeling about retaining each group’s identity killed off the idea. The pity of it was that the Guild might have had the ex-cinema premises in Town Hall Square as its intimate theatre. Those who favour groups having their own small theatre, as Alan and others certainly do, will realise what a missed opportunity this was.
The BATS found a more suitable home in 1966 when they took over as a clubroom, a cellar in Collington Mansions, which remained “The Belfry” until the move to the Granary in 1981. Alan became the Chairman in 1967 and remained in that post for 18 years. By the end of that year, the total membership had increased to 91, of whom 34 were acting members. Regular club meetings were being held in addition to rehearsals, and theatre visits by the group were becoming a feature of the social scene.
Having its own clubroom and rehearsal room and an expanded membership presented the opportunity and created the need to enable more of the acting membership to take part in performances. A third three act play was mounted in 1965, not at the De La Warr but at St Peter’s Community Centre, and this provided more chance for younger and less experienced actors to tread the boards.
In addition to being a member of the BATS, Alan Livermore was also an actor and producer with the Eastbourne Shakespeare Society, which staged the plays both outdoors and at The Hippodrome. All local drama groups mounted some form of special performance in 1972, which was Bexhill’s Charter Year (the 200th anniversary of King Offa of Mercia granting a charter for the building of St Peter’s church around which grew the town of Bexhill.) Alan proposed to the Rother District Council that the BATS should perform an outdoor Shakespeare play in the grounds of the Manor Barn in Old Town. The play chosen was “The Taming Of The Shrew”.
As a one-off special production, and because of the need for a large male cast, actors from other local groups were invited to take part on a personal basis, although the major part of the cast were BATS. Stanley Bullock from LCB Players played Petruchio to Sheila Hawkins’ Kate. Leslie Smith and Eric Shand-Tully from St Peter’s Players were guest players. The natural amphitheatre around the lily pond was filled with spectators, while the lawn and path were used as the stage by the actors clad in costumes hired from the RSC. The colourful production was a great success, and that same year Alan had arranged for another production in the following August, “The Merry Wives Of Windsor”, thus starting an annual Shakespeare production by the BATS in The Manor Gardens.
When it became an annual affair, and generally cast mainly if not entirely from BATS members, it was agreed that the casting should be conducted in the same way as the Pavilion plays and that the producer should be formally chosen by the Committee. In practice Alan continued to produce the play in most years. The 1977 “Much Ado about Nothing” was directed by Eric Stevens when Alan became ill; the 1980 “‘Midsummer Night’s Dream” was again directed by Eric with Gordon Leonard producing, and the 1984 second staging of “Twelfth Night” was by Christopher Lacey. Alan also produced the only indoor Shakespeare performed by the Society: the 1980 “Macbeth”.
In all the years of outdoor Shakespeare the BATS have generally been extremely fortunate in the weather. Although the cast has more than once been rained on (the audience too, of course) and a break sometimes taken early, there have been very few cancelled performances. Between the blowing down of the set at the first “Shrew” and the torrential rain of the second “Shrew”, there were some glorious summers like 1975 when “All’s Well” was also performed at Battle Abbey. And there have been many incidents to remember, happy or hairy, by the various of BATS who have taken part. The 1974 production was taken to The Glebe, at Burwash, where a frantic search took place for a mysterious piece of scenery numbered 32a. It turned out to be an innocuous piece of hardboard serving to fill a gap. Julia Dance as The Princess Of France in the 1979 “Love’s Labours Lost” used up a lot of arrows in firing from her bow, because once shot into the shrubbery they were next to impossible to find. Cats and dogs have from time to time wandered into the performance, and having more than once colourfully painted the grass in touching up the set, during Jubilee Year we set part of it on fire. The indoor “Macbeth” was not without incident. Several of Nick Bloomfield’s adversaries suffered grazes and chopped-off staves from his enthusiastic wielding of his broadsword, while the ghost of Banquo in the shape of Alan Bucksey received a fearful crack on the head at one performance from a tankard hurled by Derek Watts playing the title role.
In the first years of outdoor Shakespeare the cast used the small stalls behind the building, open to the air, for dressing rooms, but later tents were borrowed and reduced the distance travelled for quick changes. The sound equipment formerly hired each year was bought from its former operator, and we began to handle our own lighting as well. Thus equipped the BATS can look forward to open air productions for as long as we have audiences to which to perform.
Although the Bexhill groups had not formed a Theatre Guild, the Hastings groups had during the 60s, and the BATS helped in the conversion of the Stables Theatre and donated the cost of some seating, besides later taking some of the Society’s De La Warr productions there.
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