This year Elstree Productions – one of just two amateur drama groups in Borehamwood

 - celebrate their 40th Anniversary.  Quite an achievement for a group of friends in 1970 

got together to put on just one show.  No one ever imagined that in 2010 the group 

would still be going strong.

 Members came from not only Elstree and Borehamwood, but also Mill Hill, Edgware, 

Radlett, St Albans and further afield.  We all had one thing in common, a love of acting 

and entertaining.  We had all either performed in school shows or belonged to other

 groups and the company thrived for many years under the leadership of an amazing 

lady called Winifred Spruce, who had also run another successful company in Mill Hill 

for some years.  We specialised in musicals and plays and we performed in local halls 

in and around the area, finally taking up residence in the much-missed Civic Hall.  

 Our first show was the Gershwin musical “Lady Be Good”, which was staged at Holmshill 

School (now Hertswood School), which is the new home for The Ark Community Theatre. 

 From then on we presented many West End and Broadway hit shows at the Civic Hall, 

including “Chicago”, “Gypsy”, Cabaret”, “Sweet Charity”, “God spell”, “Oliver”, “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” and even the World Amateur Premiere of the notorious rock musical “Hair”, complete with that famous nude scene!  We attracted national newspaper attention for that show, as you can imagine – and surprisingly enough we sold out.

 Other venues that we used regularly included the Radlett Centre and the Abbey Theatre, St Albans.

 Over the years we presented dozens of shows, pantomimes and plays, ranging from  the dramatic “The Miracle Worker” to the farcical, including “There’s A Girl In My Soup”.  Our pantomimes were stunning as we had all the facilities of the Civic Hall and we presented most of the popular titles, including “Aladdin”, “Cinderella” (with real ponies for the finale), and “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”.  Our set designer worked for the BBC so our scenery was superb, and the cast performed two shows a day for over a week, and we sold out!

 As with all amateur societies members drift away, get married, have children and we were forever advertising for new performers.  The company ceased performing for a while in the 1980s but then rose again like the phoenix, with a new revitalised young membership and an extremely high standard of production with musicals including “Bugsy Malone”, “A Slice of Saturday Night”, “Return to the Forbidden Planet” and “Summer Holiday” (to name just a few) bringing about a resurgence in the local amateur scene.

For our 40th Anniversary show Elstree Productions presented the West End and Broadway hit comedy musical “Little Shop of Horrors” and  welcomed the local community to our new home for our performances at The Ark Community Theatre in Thrift Farm Lane, Borehamwood.The show ran for 4 nights only, on Wednesday March 24th until Saturday March 27th at 7.45 pm. Details on becoming a member of Elstree Productions please contact Josie Shingles on 0208 953 6560. 

Compiled by Brian Burton