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Our Comments...
This part of our Sir William
Nottidge feature will bring back some
memories... thanks to Ken Allen and his collection of Sir
William Nottidge school magazines of the 1950s! As you can see, the publication
was called 'The
Quiver'
The
page on the right contains the lead article for Issue No 1 on 19
December 1956 and it describes the school play - The
Admirable Crichton. The
Crichton story was based on a 1902 stage play called 'The
Perfect Butler' by J M Barrie (author of 'Peter
Pan').... and it later became a famous 1950s film in which
Kenneth More played the title role. The
story unfolded on a desert island following a shipwreck. It was quite
a social statement at the beginning of the twentieth century because it highlighted the role
reversals that might occur when social hierarchies based on
wealth and inheritance are replaced by societies based on ability and
'survival of the fittest'. In some ways, it predicted the
demise of the aristocracy. By the 1950s, the 'three tier'
British class system was in decline but there was still enough
of it around for our older readers to recall. Thus,
The Admirable Crichton was quite an ambitious production for a
school. It was also a smart bit of 'upstaging'! Kenneth More's
film was released in 1957.... some weeks after the Nottidge
staged its play in the run in to Christmas 1956! However, there
had been an earlier film version in 1918 and a TV adaptation in
1950. I
wonder if any of our readers remember taking part in the
Nottidge production! Use
the Page Buttons to step through the pages. |
