Ray Johnson Film Archive
Entertainment ‘Double-Decker’:
Gertie Gitana - "The Star who Never Failed to Shine" -
plus “the Potteries’ Own” Theatre Royal remembered: the home of Variety
Born in Stoke-on-Trent, Gertie was one of our greatest Variety stars. She became "The Tommies' Favourite Songbird" during WWI - the equivalent of WWII’s Vera Lynn - and some of her songs were so popular the soldiers at the Front adopted them and added their own lyrics. Archive film footage helps tell her story, we then chart her career through to retirement in the 1950s - when a street in Hanley was renamed "Gitana Street” in her honour - and we hear several of her own recordings of her songs, including her greatest hit "NELLIE DEAN”.
Next to Gitana Street is The Theatre Royal - the Potteries' greatest Variety theatre. Designed by the great theatre architect Frank Matcham, the THEATRE ROYAL brought entertainment and star names to Stoke. Reminiscences, re-enactments plus actual film footage of turns by famous stars who performed there in the early and mid-20th Century. Plus a special appearance by KEN DODD - who gives a moving and entertaining tribute to MIKE LLOYD, who rescued and re-opened the theatre when it was threatened with demolition in the 1990s. Al this adds together to create a fitting tribute to "the Potteries' own" Theatre Royal and one of Stoke's greatest stars.
**PLEASE NOTE THERE WILL BE A BREAK BETWEEN SCREENINGS**
No trailers or adverts. Films start prompt.
Community day films are drop in free events.
No trailers or adverts. Films start at 11am prompt.
MAC Community days brings you a programme of accessible film all in a bid to break barriers and create a happy place for our community. MAC Community days are in partner ship with Able Stoke, North Staffs Pensioners' Convention, and Staffordshire Sight Loss.
