Exmouth Players

The Exmouth Players open the world premiere of R.F. Delderfield’s comedy Once Aboard the Lugger. The playwright Delderfield is interviewed and champions what is known a ‘rep’ or repertory theatre and this piece was written to tour the regions. If plays were shown in the West End or on Broadway the rights would have to be released and small companies could then buy the rights in order to perform the play. The Players started in 1928 and are resident at the Blackmore Theatre.

Rep depends on the same group of actors drawing on a alternating repertoire of plays, classical and new. The last time the Exmouth Pavilion was sold out for the Players was in 1946 for Ronnie’s Worm’s Eye View also penned by Delderfeld and starring comedian Ronnie Shiner (1903-1966). Ronnie’s reference in this interview to the common market, precursor to the European Union’s single market, is timely “This is what the French are going to do to us - they might come over ‘ere in motor boats and pinch all the lobsters and things”. Ronnie Shiner appeared alongside Flanagan and Allen in his first film Wild Boy (1934). He appeared on stage in Worm’s Eye View from 1945 to 1947 giving over 1,700 performances.