The Gainsborough evening news and Nicholas Vlieland

The Gainsborough Evening News

Barbara has been hunting in the pages of the Gainsborough Evening News, which had a regular column on productions from the King’s Theatre, where Nicholas Vlieland was producer and then producer-manager of the repertory company in the 1940s and 1950s, staging 270 different plays.

22 July 1952: Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, starring Nicholas as Maxim De Winter

29 July 1952: Nicholas plays in An Apple a Day, a comedy by Ralph Timberlake; a cutting of 5 August has ‘Author Praises “Rep” Company’, where Timberlake enthuses about the acting standards at the King’s Theatre

19 August 1952: ‘Terrific Success of Nicholas Vlieland’s 200^th Production’, Oscar Wilde’s An Ideal Husband; a cutting headed ‘Big Success of 200^th Production’ mentions ‘a full house and an audience that showed its appreciation’

28 April 1953: Nicholas and his company returned with Ted Willis’ No Trees in the Street, a noir piece set in the slums of London before the Second World War

November 1953: Nicholas plays Max Blacker in another Ralph Timberlake play, The Quiet Streets, again set in the morally uncertain climate of post-war Britain

15 December 1953: The professional players were given a week’s notice and the theatre temporarily closed during the run of The Tiger Lily, after Nicholas had had a breakdown following a collapse on stage

also in 1953
theatre programme from The King's Theatre, Gainsborough; the 1953 production of 'Moths' by the 'Kings Theatre Company' produced by Nicholas Vlieland;