Wings: The Epic Story of the Royal Air Service - Programme, 1947
Title
Wings: The Epic Story of the Royal Air Service - Programme, 1947
Date
5 May 1947
Description
Full programme for Wings, a show using music and words to tell the story and history of the Royal Air Force.
What's the story?
Ralph Reader was an actor and theatrical producer, perhaps most famous for setting up and establishing the Gang Show in the 1930s.
Wings was produced by Reader in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, on behalf of the Air Council, who according to documents relating to the production saw it as:
‘an experiment in recruiting technique and an attempt to see whether money allocated by Parliament to the Air Council for recruiting and publicity purposes can produce dividends of recruits though the medium of a theatrical pageant’
Dated 30 July 1947, for performances at the New Theatre Oxford, just two months after its Nottingham shows, a press release states:
'Everyone today is air-minded. “Wings”, the mammoth show which comes to the New Theatre Oxford on Monday August 18th tells the story of Flying, of man's triumph over the air, from the first tentative beginning up to the present day. In a quick changing, colourful series of scenes … as big as anything Drury Lane itself has staged, when no less than three hundred people people are upon the stage … it has the No. 1 Regional Band of the R.A.F. and the R.A.F. Dance Orchestra. It is full of colour, with glowing scenery by Charles Reading and beautiful costumes by Charles Judd … and produced by Britain's leading producer, Ralph Reader, who is also responsible for the original music. Mr. Reader's great series of successful productions and gigantic pageants are well-known, and in “Wings” he has surpassed himself …“Wings” has a splendid cast. There are fifty first class professional performers with a background of two hundred and fifty specially picked airmen and airwomen. … there are plenty of well known names, such as John Forbes-Robertson, a descendant of the great actor of that name; Brian Nissen, who made a great success in that long running play “The Watch on the Rhine” and is also under contract to J. Arthur Rank, the film magnate. It should be noted that “Wings” is not an all-male show – there are plenty of girls.'
Notable in the cast is the then unknown Tony Hancock. Hancock had served in the RAF during the war and this show marks one of his earliest performances on the stage, before his big rise to fame.
Wings was produced by Reader in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, on behalf of the Air Council, who according to documents relating to the production saw it as:
‘an experiment in recruiting technique and an attempt to see whether money allocated by Parliament to the Air Council for recruiting and publicity purposes can produce dividends of recruits though the medium of a theatrical pageant’
Dated 30 July 1947, for performances at the New Theatre Oxford, just two months after its Nottingham shows, a press release states:
'Everyone today is air-minded. “Wings”, the mammoth show which comes to the New Theatre Oxford on Monday August 18th tells the story of Flying, of man's triumph over the air, from the first tentative beginning up to the present day. In a quick changing, colourful series of scenes … as big as anything Drury Lane itself has staged, when no less than three hundred people people are upon the stage … it has the No. 1 Regional Band of the R.A.F. and the R.A.F. Dance Orchestra. It is full of colour, with glowing scenery by Charles Reading and beautiful costumes by Charles Judd … and produced by Britain's leading producer, Ralph Reader, who is also responsible for the original music. Mr. Reader's great series of successful productions and gigantic pageants are well-known, and in “Wings” he has surpassed himself …“Wings” has a splendid cast. There are fifty first class professional performers with a background of two hundred and fifty specially picked airmen and airwomen. … there are plenty of well known names, such as John Forbes-Robertson, a descendant of the great actor of that name; Brian Nissen, who made a great success in that long running play “The Watch on the Rhine” and is also under contract to J. Arthur Rank, the film magnate. It should be noted that “Wings” is not an all-male show – there are plenty of girls.'
Notable in the cast is the then unknown Tony Hancock. Hancock had served in the RAF during the war and this show marks one of his earliest performances on the stage, before his big rise to fame.
Type
Programme
Location of item
Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall Nottingham
Rights
Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall Nottingham
Contributor
Researcher: David Longford
