Shropshire Magazine

The Festical Drayton Centre is at the very heart of the town community.

Neil Thomas looks at a shining example of a community project celebrating its silver jubilee

Geoff Vernon had a vision, rather ambitious in its way. A Victorian Methodist chapel was for sale in his home town of Market Drayton and Geoff thought it would make a great theatre. As chairman of the north Shropshire town’s annual summer festival, Geoff had some experience of spearheading community projects. He had even extended the festival by organising a series of one-off events during autumn and winter, typically one-actor shows featuring theatrical luminaries.

Geraldine McEwan, Sir Bernard Miles, Richard Pascoe and Barbara Leigh-Hunt were among the stage and screen names he attracted to Market Drayton. The ballroom at the ivy-clad Corbet Arms Hotel was generally the venue, but Geoff reasoned that Festival Drayton would exercise more control, particularly over booking dates, if it owned its own theatre. It was the key, he thought, to attracting even more big names.

So when the chapel in Frogmore Road came on the market, Geoff seized the initiative, attracted by the fact that the building already housed an upstairs gallery which would be ideal for elevated theatre seating. Local councils were approached, the community was galvanised and a packed public meeting debated the proposal, eventually agreeing to take on the daunting project of buying and converting the 1857 building.

That meeting was 25 years ago.

Geoff Vernon and volunteers. Centre manager Glyn Jackson is back row centre.

Today, Festival Drayton Centre is a magnificent community focal point - a theatre, cinema, gallery, coffee shop, meeting place, conference centre, dance and exercise studio, in the heart of the town. Bought by the people, run by the people, for the people.

It is the story of a wonderful evolution over a quarter of a century of a disused and rather downcast building into a thoroughly used, bright and modern one, achieved through tireless fundraising and selfless effort by an army of volunteers.

Their work, coupled with grants, donations and backing from the local authority has helped to expand the centre, with land bought on either side enabling modern extensions to be built.

Around 90 volunteers, ranging in age from 14 to 90, help to run Festival Drayton Centre today, a fact that Geoff Vernon is immensely proud of.

“I think it demonstrates just how much people have bought into the idea of it over the years,” he says. “It has been very much a community effort. A project like this simply has no chance of succeeding if people don’t get behind it and make it happen. So many people have been involved over the years and what is here today is a testament to them.”

Geoff is still at the helm as Festival Drayton Centre chairman and appears, at the age of 66, to put just as much into it as he ever did.

“I suppose the fact that I’m retired helps,” he explains. His wife Sheila has also been a tireless worker for the cause since the project’s launch and there are several others who have given many years commitment.

It is, though, such a big operation these days that it was decided a full-time paid manager was needed and, in January last year, Festival Drayton Centre became an employer when Glyn Jackson was given the post. Glyn, though, was no stranger to the set-up, having been a volunteer helper for 16 years.

“I became interested in helping when I was in the army based at Tern Hill and I used to perform here with the Divisional Band,” recalls Glyn. “I think I started off by doing bits of decorating back in around 1992.”

He has huge admiration for the ever-modest Geoff Vernon. Waving a thumb in Geoff’s direction, he articulates what many people in Market Drayton have long thought: “If it wasn’t for this man, none of this would have happened.”

Geoff (left) and campaigners outside the chapel building at the outset of the project.

Prudence

Geoff, in what seems like another lifetime, was manager of the now defunct Market Drayton branch of Trustees Savings Bank when the project was launched, and his later career was in the financial services industry. This brought an air of fiscal prudence that benefited the initiative from day one. All available grant aid was identified and sought and when local authority loans were taken out they were duly repaid.

Episodes in the 25-year-old life of the centre project are as vivid to Geoff as though they had all happened yesterday.

“There was the public meeting, chaired by the mayor Mabel Salter, that set the ball rolling in July 1984; the hectic period between then and 1987 when we were fundraising; the opening of the theatre in November ‘87; and the visit by the Princess Royal in 1988 to perform a ceremonial opening.”

In its infancy the centre was essentially a theatre, with a small meeting space. Some well-known faces trod that early makeshift stage - the Radio presenter Desmond Carrington gave a tour de force in a one-man show about the life of Edward VIII, while talented comedienne and actress Sheila Steafel brought the house down with a wonderful cabaret show.

Festival Drayton already had a reputation for looking after star performers and this was enhanced, as Geoff had hoped, by the flexibility of having its own theatre.

One famous face who proved a huge hit was The Princess Royal. Crowds lined the streets to welcome the Queen’s only daughter and she was clearly enamoured of the new centre.

“She was only meant to stay for 20 minutes and ended up staying for 50 minutes. It was a wonderful day,” says Geoff, beaming at the memory.

In 1992 the first expansion of the centre was made possible with the purchase of a parcel of neighbouring land. Then, in 1997 land on the other flank came on the market and was secured with the aid of a loan from the former North Shropshire District Council, which had been involved since the mid 1980s and knew it was a safe bet.

An £800,000 project was launched to build on the extra land and received a remarkable boost - and a glowing endorsement of the hard work and professionalism of the Festival Drayton team - when business magnate Theo Müller, owner of the giant diary company Müller whose UK base is Market Drayton, pledged £100,000 of his own money on the strength of one visit to the centre from his home in southern Germany.

That kind of testimonial from such a hugely successful international business owner invariably attracts aid from elsewhere, helping to ensure the project’s completion. It has opened up the Festival Drayton Centre to a whole range of new uses.

Comedian Dave Spikey (top) with volunteers Anne Talbot and Jordan Ashley.

“The great thing about the centre is that it is so widely used by the town,” says Geoff. “The Green Room, as we call it, is a wonderful space full of natural light. There are regular keep-fit and yoga classes, there’s karate and Alexander Technique and Weightwatchers.

“The centre is a great meeting place. The coffee bar, run by volunteers, is generally busy and absolutely packed on market days. We can partition it off in the evenings for private meetings. For instance, the Chamber of Trade meets here. The centre is also fully licensed for pre-show drinks and the like.”

The theatre is still housed in the old chapel but thoroughly modernised. Flexibility is the key, with a huge stage area, a seven-metre-wide cinema screen and nearly 200 seats that fold away to create an open space. The state-of-the-art gallery has 48 seats and space for wheelchair users. Also on the first floor is an art gallery which stages regular exhibitions. “This has become one of the most popular areas of the centre and the waiting list to be exhibited here goes into 2011. It’s a social phenomenon,” says Geoff.

Outside there is a drinks terrace while the exterior walls are brightened by a monumental series of pictures depicting Market Drayton life by artist Nick Parry.

The cinema screens many of the latest releases and, with the nearest chain-owned multiplexes more than 25 miles away in Telford, Shrewsbury and Stoke-on-Trent, is not surprisingly very popular.

And star names continue to grace the intimate theatre. The magician Paul Daniels has visited twice, the writer, broadcaster and award-winning public speaker Gervase Phinn has presented two sell-out shows, while comedian and Phoenix Nights writer/star Dave Spikey was another Festival Drayton Centre coup.

More big names are on the way this month with a stage show entitled 100 Years of the Silver Screen, featuring star actor Robert Powell and Shropshire-based actress Gabrielle Drake.

Affectionate

Also featuring pianist Christine Croshaw and Clive Conway on the flute, the show on November 21 is billed as an affectionate and nostalgic romp through the first 100 or so years of cinema. We meet Charlie Chaplin, Mae West, Mickey Mouse, Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable and Groucho Marx among others, the journey sweetened by the music of Scott Joplin, George Gershwin and John Barry.

Gabrielle Drake, who lives in Much Wenlock, has played many leading roles on television, including Captain Gay Ellis in the cult series UFO, Nicola Freeman in Crossroads, Jill Hammond in The Brothers, and Lady Asharton in the Inspector Lynley series. On stage, her West End performances include Mrs Erlynne in Oscar Wilde’s Lady Windermere’s Fan and Monica in Tom Conti’s production of Noel Coward’s Present Laughter. Her one-woman show based on the life of Mrs Gaskell is currently touring the country.

Robert Powell’s extensive theatre credits include repertory seasons in Stoke, Scarborough and Bolton. He has worked in the West End, with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Tom Stoppard’s Travesties and at the Royal Court in Ubu Roi and Pirates. He played the title role in Sherlock Holmes: The Musical on tour, while more recently he toured with Alan Bennett’s Single Spies, playing both Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt.

On television he had a lead role in the groundbreaking TV series Doomwatch, as well as the title role in the BBC film Shelley. He was Jude in a BBC adaptation of Jude The Obscure and starred in the epic 10-hour television serial Shaka Zulu. He played Richard Hannay in two series of Hannay, reprising his role from the third movie version of The 39 Steps. He made five series of the comedy The Detectives with Jasper Carrott and is currently starring as Mark Williams in the BBC’s flagship drama series Holby City.

His 30 films include The Italian Job, Ken Russell’s Mahler and Tommy and, most recently Colour Me Kubrick with John Malkovich. He has best actor awards from both the Venice and Paris film festivals.

He also, of course, famously took the title role in Franco Zeffirelli’s much-admired 1977 made-for-TV biblical epic Jesus of Nazareth.

There’s a certain synergy to Jesus of Nazareth visiting an old church. But then, I guess, Robert Powell and the Frogmore Road Methodist Chapel have come a long, long way since then . . .

• For more information about Festival Drayton Centre visit www.festivaldraytoncentre.com, email info@festivaldraytoncentre.com or phone 01630 654444.

Centre volunteers in the theatre.