Alastair Sim

Memory: Late 60’s and 70’s Memories

Photograph Exterior CFT with car - Photographer English Heritage - Date unknown

My parents brought me and my two sisters to the Festival Theatre regularly in the late sixties and through the seventies.  We felt the height of sophistication  – we wore long dresses in those days! – and loved it every time.  We got to see some wonderful productions, and marvellous actors – Keith Michell as Cyrano de Bergerac, Joan Plowright, Joanna McCallum, Alastair Sim and Patricia Routledge in Dandy Dick, Dorothy Tutin, Derek Jacobi and Timothy West in A Month in the Country, Alec Guinness as Shylock in the The Merchant of Venice – and so many more I can barely remember!  It nurtured in all of us a love of theatre which continues to this day. We were very lucky – happy memories!

From: Nicky Hyde

 

Memory: The Magistrate (1969)

1969 the magistrate

John Clement’s superlative production of Pinero’s farce was the showcase for Alastair Sim’s greatest onstage performance ever, as Aeneas Posket. His tour de force included an unscripted sequence where he spent several minutes simply washing his face – getting soap in his eyes, losing his towel, etc – in itself a class act in comedy. Add to this Patricia Routledge’s performance as Agatha Posket, her star then in the ascendancy, in the first of her many Chichester appearances. The Chichester run was followed by a highly successful run at the Cambridge Theatre in London. Surely one of Chichester’s greatest.

From: Laurie Slade