The Complete Plays: See The Pretty Lights (1965)

Production Details
Title:
Author:
New Play:

Venue:
Location:
Staging:
See The Pretty Lights
Alan Plater
Yes

The Library Theatre, Scarborough
Concert Room
Round
First performance:
Opening night:
Final performance:
12 August 1965
12 August 1965
25 August 1965
Company Details
Director:
Lighting:

Stage Manager:
Alfred Bradley
Clive Goodhead

Valerie Fletcher
Character
Norman
Enid
Actor
David Jarrett
Pamela Craig
Why is this play significant?
This is the first world premiere of an Alan Plater play to be produced by the Scarborough company. Plater (1935 - 2010) was a very successful northern stage and screen writer.
Notes
○ See The Pretty Lights was presented as part of a triple bill (entitled Out Of Thin Air) alongside The Governor's Lady by David Mercer and The Day Dumbfounded Got His Pylon by Henry Livings.
○ This marked the first premiere of a play by famed northern playwright Alan Plater at Theatre in the Round at the Library Theatre, Scarborough.
○ The following year, Alfred Bradley recorded the play for BBC Radio featuring the same cast of David Jarrett and Pamela Craig. It was broadcast on 27 March 1966.
○ The Governor's Lady and The Day Dumbfounded Got His Pylon featured a special guest appearance by Eileen Derbyshire - better known as Emily Bishop (nee Nugent) in the long-running British television soap opera Coronation Street. By the time she performed in Scarborough, she had already been in the television show for five years; a rare case of star casting in the company!
○ See The Pretty Lights , due to its star casting, was not performed in rep but, unusually, for a single two-week run.
All research for this page by Simon Murgatroyd. Image copyright: Scarborough Theatre Trust