As a collector of vintage theatre ephemera, I thought it might be interesting in our current celebration of great theatre to take inspiration from some of the vintage programme’sin my collection and shine a light on some of the great theatre productions from the past.
The subject of this particular Throwback Thursday is the West-End production of Mame, a show that was revived at Manchester’s Hope Mill Theatre in 2019 starring Tracie Bennett.
Page selections from the 1969 Theatre Programme of Mame.
50 years earlier, Ginger Rogers, former silver screen dancing partner of Fred Astaire starred in the title role of Mame in London’s West-End.
Presented by Bernard Delfont and Harold Fielding in association with Fryer, Carr & Harris, Mame was a book by Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee with music and lyrics by Jerry Herman.
The original title for Mame was My Best Girl and based on the 1955 novel Auntie Mame by Patrick Dennis as well as a 1956 Broadway play, by Lawrence and Lee.
Pages from the 1969 programme of Mame featuring Ginger Rogers in the title role.
Mame gained great success on Broadway in 1966 when it starred Angela Lansbury, however when the production arrived in the London West-End in 1969, it would star Ginger Rogers.
Mame would run for 14 months and continue into 1970. The production was also performed in the presence of Queen Elizabeth II
Other actors to feature in the production were Margaret Courtenay as Vera Charles, Burt Kwouk as Ito, Tony Adams as Patrick Dennis and Victor Woolf as the Stage Manager.
If you recall going to see the above production or have any photographs or memorabilia we would love to hear from you. Please email us at entertainmentsouthwales@gmail.com
Ginger Rogers remembered – further reading: