Review: Showcase 50 at the Sheppey Little Theatre
- sheppeyscene
- Oct 28
- 3 min read
Updated: Oct 31
By Bel Austin
The place to be on Saturday night was Sheppey Little Theatre.
On offer was a programme of home-grown talent coming together to produce a show celebrating half a century of entertainment.
Yes - it really was 50 years to the day that Sheppey’s community theatre opened its doors to the first concert on October 25, 1975.
Happily, an appreciative audience helped to roll back the years, watch energetic youngsters strut their stuff and listen to established groups singing in harmony.
It was an informal evening with veteran Derek Friday, chairman of Sheppey Entertainment Association, compering the acts in a smart, white tux or in his country yokel smock raising laughs with his Newington Concert Party colleagues Kevin Hayre and David Stevens.
NCP’s fourth member Clare Derek also gave a solo sketch called Thereby Hangs A Tail.
The opening seventies disco dance routines by Starquest School of Performing Arts, which are based at the theatre, set the pace with Jack, the one lone male, fitting easily into the troupe.
They returned with musical tributes to the Wizard of Oz, Queen and Abba.
Youth group The Manic Monkeys introduced a tiny bit of magic as they took the audience on a theatrical history lesson from early Greek tragedy to a more modern Muppets-inspired comical puppet routine to the tune Row, Row, Row The Boat.
The women-only eight-piece Sounds Familiar are always easy on the ear and their selection of Halloween-inspired songs while clad in mysterious dark cloaks added more than a little nostalgia beginning with I Put A Spell On You and ending with Little Shop of Horrors.
The 21-strong Isle of Sheppey Singers, looking smart with green bowties for the chaps and green scarves for the ladies, tugged at the heart strings with their choice of music including Come Follow The Band and the Lambeth Walk. Janet Ransley accompanied them on piano.
The four-piece Newington Concert Party, led by compere Derek, gave us a five-song medley including crowd favourite Sweet Caroline.
The nine-piece Meyrick Minstrels proved the show must go on. The recent loss of their leader Yvonne Walker weighs heavily on them. But they painted on smiles and sang their socks off with a six-song medley including Hernando’s Hideaway, complete with effective torch routine, and Abba’s Thank You For The Music.
The whole company returned to the stage at the end of the night for an emotional rendition of There’s No Business Like Show Business.
Among those invited to the golden anniversary bash were deputy Lord Lieutenant Paul Auston (who was represented by Lady Melville), Sittingbourne and Sheppey MP Kevin McKenna, Swale mayor Cllr Karen Watson and her husband Allan and theatre patron Elizabeth Tullberg, a former Kent Deputy Lieutenant.
On stage there was no pomp or ceremony just "ordinary "people enjoying the best in entertainment Sheppey had to offer.
As the evening wore on it, was small wonder that "ghosts" of personalities who had once trodden the theatre's boards were brought sharply into focus.
Too many to mention, but they had their names in roll of honour in a souvenir booklet compiled by volunteer Jeremy Thornton selling at £10.
It includes everyone from visionaries and performers to backstage staff and volunteers who helped turn a neglected church Sunday school hall into a working theatre with stage, raked seating and bar in the basement.
Saturday proved that whatever setbacks half a century might throw up, the show must go on.
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