REVUE TO GO ON

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29193, 2 May 1960, Page 10

REVUE TO GO ON

Transfer To St. James

A large team of students from the University of Canterbury, assisted by friends, worked throughout last night so that the revue, “Purple Patches Uplifted,’’ can be staged in the St. James Theatre this evening. An emergency meeting of the revue committee was held at 9 p.m. yesterday to make arrangements for the show to continue. It will now be staged in the St. James Theatre for the original season, except for next Saturday evening which was to be the final night. The St. James Theatre seats 300 more persons than the Civic Theatre so that the curtailment of one night will make no difference to the number of persons who will be able to see the show. Some performances which

were previously booked out will now be able to accommodate 300 more persons. The revue committee has requested those persons holding tickets for Saturday evening to transfer them to an earlier evening.

Sets and properties were removed from the Civic Theatre last evening almost as soon as the firemen had left and were taken to the St. James Theatre in hired trucks.

The set painters are confident that all the backdrops will be ready for this evening’s performance. The wardrobe staff spent last night washing and ironing the costumes and making five new ones to replace those which were damaged in the fire. The seating arrangement at the St. Janjes Theatre is very similar to that in the Civic Theatre so that patrons will be able to obtain identical seats without having to change their tickets. A local firm has agreed to supply the materials for the new backdrops.

Many Offers Of Help The chairman of the revue committee (Mr Bob Scott) said last evening that assistance had been obtained from a large number of persons who had offered to do all they could to see that the revue was staged as scheduled He expressed the committee’s appreciation to all those who had so willingly given assistance. The revue’s main loss at the fire was its backdrops which were extensively damaged. The president of the Students’ Association (Mr Adrian Brokking) said the association had slowly but carefully been building up its own stock of backdrops at the rate of one a year until they were valued at about £4OO All the revue costumes, with the exception of about five, had been saved, said the producer (Mr D. R. Hindin). During the fire Mr Hindin managed to shift the costumes from one dressing room to another further away from the blaze. The set pieces used in the production have been saved and two large rostrums have been slightly charred. Properties stored in a back room were not damag'd.