Ken Ford
To see all the programmes I've collected before 2015 please visit my original website at www.kenford.me.uk
Some are from shows I've seen, others I've bought or had passed on to me by others.
Because of the 'lockdown' restrictions I was only able to see two shows and two concerts during the year. I also have a programme for a third show, City of Angels, which I was due to see on 16th March. I arrived at the Garrick Theatre half-an-hour after the decision had been made to close London theatres. However the Front of House Manager very kindly gave me a programme for the show!
Below is the original artwork I have acquired for a 1930s Hippodrome charity concert.
Here are both sides of a flyer for the London Palladium High Speed Variety, 1933.
I also added the folowing programmes to my collection:
Three attractive art deco style programmes.
An earlier programme from the Gaiety Theatre Manchester (1912) and a postcard envelope.
These four art nouveau programmes from the 1890s were all printed by Harmsworth & Co of Covent Garden.
I got a little nearer to having a complete collection of all the London Hippodrome programmes from 1912 to 1957. (I now have 82)
These two are from 1912 and 1933.
The three programmes below were passed on to me by Valerie Greaves - they had belonged to her father.
I bought these two because I have the cast recordings of the shows.
I saw this musical in 1951 and have shown the programme on my older website. Now I have the souvenir brochure of the show.
This New Cross Empire programme from 1925 is unusually colourful for one produced by a suburban theatre at that time. The 2000 seat theatre was demolished in 1958 but when I frequented the Royal Albert pub across road in the 1960s there was a reminder of it: a whole wall was taken up by a mural of the theatre.
In the 1930s the Howard & Wyndham theatre group used this style of programme for their many theatres. I have 5 similar ones on my older website.
The Victoria Theatre in Burnley where this 1950 pantomime took place was the wartime base of London's Old Vic Theatre Company
I bought these two programmes because of their attractive covers. Although they are both from the 1950s, they have an Art Deco look about them.
They are both for variety shows: top of the bill at the Palace, Hull was Jimmy Young and the show at Bradford Alhambra starred The Deep River Boys.
