Normansfield Theatre Visit: Report

THIS EVENT HAS TAKEN PLACE

Saturday 24 October 2009
Normansfield Theatre, Teddington, Middlesex TW11 9PS | map

On Saturday 24th October, some thirty STR members and guests assembled in the Langdon Down Centre at Teddington to hear Dr Peter Longman talk about the "re-awakening" of the remarkable Normansfield Theatre there.

The theatre was opened in 1879 as an entertainment hall-cum-chapel for the staff and patients of the hospital founded by the pioneering Dr John Langdon Down, for whom "Down's Syndrome" is named. The stage is virtually that of a Georgian theatre, with grooves and shutters, but set within a Victorian proscenium arch. The extraordinary thing is that almost all of the original stock scenery has survived - flats, cloths, even some props. As Peter explained, this was because it was a private theatre; had it been a public one it would all have been repainted, rebuilt or dumped over the 130 years since its creation. Its rediscovery must have been like the opening of Tutankhamun's tomb!    

I hope a full account of the lecture, with more photographs, will be posted here in due course.  Meanwhile, if you haven't seen the Normansfield Theatre, it is open to the public at certain times.