1955: Chic Murray helps the panto season get into full swing

RUSSELL LEADBETTER

DECEMBER 1955, and the seasonal theatre season in Glasgow, as elsewhere, is in full swing.

The photograph shows a scene from Just Daft, the festive offering at the Empire Theatre, with Duncan Macrae and Chic Murray as Teddy boys, flanked by Robert Wilson and Dave Willis. The production also featured Jack Anthony.

At the Alhambra Theatre, the panto was Cinderella, starring Alec Finlay and Stanley Baxter, alongside Reg Varney (later to become known to millions of TV viewers for his roles in The Rag Trade and On The

Buses) and Kenneth Mckellar. There was also what the theatre billed as a “Stupendous Star-studded cast.”

“The ‘Cinderella’ story,” the Evening Times’s theatre critic had noted earlier in the month, “is presented in a series of spectacular song and dance scenes and some truly striking fashion parades by ugly sisters, Alec Finlay and Stanley Baxter. Reg Varney is a Buttons of unusual talent and some originality; and Kenneth Mckellar ranges the world in an interlude of song.”

Lois Green played Cinderella and Joy Turpin, Prince Charming.

Jack Radcliffe and Olga Gwynne, together with Andy Stewart, were in Dick Whittington, at the Royal; Babes In The Wood were all the rage at the Pavilion, with Denny Willis; and the Metropole had Swing O’ The Kilt, with Clark & Murray (Grace Clark and Colin Murray), Nicky Kidd, and the “sensational water spectacle”, Bursting The Dam.