FREDDIE ‘Parrot Face’ Davies was the star of this Oxford pantomime. He is pictured with the Vera Legge Juveniles, who appeared with him in Jack and the Beanstalk at the New Theatre in 1977.

As usual, the show played to packed audiences during its six-week run from Christmas until early February.

On the first night, two children whom Freddie invited on to the stage stole the limelight.

One little girl assured him sweetly but firmly that Father Christmas had not visited her home.

Memory Lane this week

Not to be outdone, the little boy standing next to her insisted that the handsome watch he was wearing was not a Christmas present, just the strap had come from Santa.

Oxford Mail theatre critic Don Chapman wrote: “The laughter, understandably, was louder than at any other time in the evening.”

He added: “The show has most of the ingredients we have come to expect of a good modern pantomime – spectacularly pretty scenery, good singing and dancing, and a lot of comedy.

“The show proceeds pleasantly enough from the opening sequence in Tyrolean Ambrosia to the winter wonderland wedding on which the curtain falls and there are lots of pleasing diversions along the way.

“Freddie Davies has his set pieces – a good band act with a big bass drum, a droll song with Daisey, the pantomime cow. But it is his casual, relaxed style as Simple Simon that is most appealing.”

Children from the Vera Legge dance school were regular performers in New Theatre pantomimes. They were praised for their performance of Eidelweiss on the bells and the “well-drilled enthusiasm” they showed in their numbers with Freddie Davies.

The show that winter also featured Joyce Blair as Jack, Maggie Bourgein as Princess Marigold and two dames – Ken Wilson as Dame Trot, who executed “a graceful clog dance and a nice piece of fooling with a deck chair”, and Audrey Jeans as Queen Semolina, who “teamed up with Ken for traditional comic interludes like the paste and paper sketch and provided a comic foil for Freddie Davies”.

Does anyone recognise any of the girls in the picture above? Please write and let me know.

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