THESE young dancers rubbed shoulders with the stars.

They were the Vera Legge Moonbeam Babes who took part in Jack and Jill, the pantomime at the New Theatre, Oxford, in 1956-7.

The show that year starred comedian Charlie Chester and also featured Sid Plummer, Bert Brownbill and the Tiller Girls.

As usual, it was the theatre’s biggest money-spinner of the year, with a large number of families flocking to snap up tickets for the show, which ranged from two shillings to 8s 6d.

Oxford Mail critic Adrian Mitchell, who attended the opening night on Boxing Day, described the show as a “mixture of musical, revue and children’s entertainment”.

He wrote: “Charlie Chester, who appears simply as Cheerful Charlie, is an accommodating uncle who is pleased to have jokes played on him.

“The chorus of ‘Hullo Charlie’ swells louder each time he appears and his moment of triumph comes when he not only persuades the audience to sing California Here I Come, but induces large sections to join him in imitating the California train.”

The critic was particularly impressed by the Moonbeam Babes’ performance as “wooden footed penguins” and with Erica Yorke, making her first appearance in the role of principal boy as Jack. Miss Yorke, wife of the theatre’s managing director, John Dorrill, became a regular at Oxford pantomimes.

We don’t know the names of any of the girls in the picture. Can anyone help?