Memory of Plymouth Palace Theatre

A local resident share her childhood memories of Plymouth Palace. Plymouth Palace exterior crop "In about 1958/9 my family had been living in Rio de Janeiro, and I was about 6 years old. Sadly, my parents split up and when my mother brought us back to the UK we were housed in a street very close to the theatre. The street had been badly bombed during the war, all around us were bombed out houses and rubble. The flat we were given had no bathroom or toilet so we had a tin bath and outside loo, as you can imagine it was pretty grim.

As children we didn’t really appreciate how bad it was and we lived one street away from The Palace. We discovered this gem when exploring the area and decided to come back when it was open.

Tommy Trinder was appearing and I had just joined the Puffed Wheat gang, so I knew who he was, we stood outside listening through the doors, when a stage hand came out and saw two little girls, my sister aged 7 and me, with our ears to the doors and he let us in the backstage area.

We had never been to a theatre before so as you can imagine, we were absolutely mesmerised by the whole place. We had to remain quiet while we watched the show, but looking around at the grandeur of the auditorium, the faces of the audience and all the lights, I was hooked on the magic for life.

We went back quite a few times before we were rehoused and we saw Arthur Askey, Tommy Cooper and other shows that travelled the country. The interior was like a palace to us and it was a truly magical escape from grim reality".

Julie Reay, Plymouth resident