Bequiffed popstars, high kicks and quips about being paid in the old money for your hits. This and much more nostalgic merriment is on offer at any Talking Pictures TV festival, and its latest visit to Monmouth was no exception. Julia Deli was in situ to take it all in – here’s part one of her two-part article.
Operating from a shed in their back garden, when Noel Cronin and daughter Sarah Cronin-Stanley started Talking Pictures TV in 2015 they likely didn’t expect to become the UK’s largest independent broadcasting company. Dubbed ‘Shedflix’ by some devotees, the Cronins – film conservators and lovers of all things vintage – arrived as many viewers were looking for alternatives to mainstream broadcasting and streaming.
TPTV’s film festivals show just the same care, and the third weekend of July saw their fourth visit to Monmouth’s Savoy Theatre. The curtains open on Saturday morning to an audience that’s travelled from far and wide. Teaming up with TPTV for several years, Lola Lamour brings showbiz glamour and music from the 1920s to the 50s, getting us in the party mood with a singsong of classic tunes.
Hollywood high kicks and amazing costumes herald the Aston Belles’ energetic ‘flappers’ set before Mike Reid takes to the stage, claiming we’re in “the theatre famed for the most ghostly apparitions…” He duly introduces our first reel: a previously lost episode of late-50s pop show Oh Boy!, with the quivering quiffs of Marty Wilde and Cliff Richard grooving with the sharp-suited Drifters and Lord Rockingham’s XI.
Our first dive into comedy history has standup and archivist Andre Vincent telling the stories of ‘funny women of Wales’. Take Neath’s Maudie Edwards: born in 1909, she performed at the Blackwood Miners’ Institute, opened for Sinatra at the London Palladium, and spoke the first line on the first episode of Coronation Street.
Cardiff’s Tessie O’Shea was headlining in Blackpool from 16, and in demand for her cheeky humour her whole life. As a character actress and comedian, Deddie Davies has appeared in shows like My Hero, Coogan’s Run and Stella. From more recent decades, there’s Carmarthen’s Helen Lederer (Vincent: “yes, she’s Welsh – not a Sloane Ranger”), Sian Gibson from Mold, Bridgend’s Ruth Jones and the Holyhead-born Dawn French… but two stars we think of as truly Welsh are not, Vincent says. “They were both in Richard Burton’s Under Milk Wood – but Glynis Johns was born in South Africa, and Ruth Madoc’s from Norwich!”
Swansea’s Stefan Pejic is here for an exclusive preview of Cooper – The Musical, in which he becomes Tommy Cooper, capturing the great man’s silliness and pathos: batting teabags into the audience whilst singing “have a drink on me”, fluffing tricks using some of Cooper’s actual props. The messy tomfoolery leads to janitors Cronin and Reid having to sweep up after him with a big stage broom…
After lunch, the Aston Belles – in bobby-sox and polka dots for a 50s dance medley – precedes Kiki Dee and Carmelo Luggeri, who open with the passionate chords of Star. Yorkshire-born Dee tames her powerful vocals into tenderest tones for a bluesy acoustic Don’t Go Breaking My Heart, telling us “I got a Spotify award for this song recently – it’s reached a billion hits. I made about three-and-six for it back then…” The gospelish You Can’t Fix The Maybe is followed by a spellbinding version of Neil Young’s Harvest Moon and the set-finishing I’ve Got The Music In Me: “It’s a song for all of us, and I’ve been singing it for 60 years,” says the vocalist.
Interviewing her afterwards, Mike Reid asks how Kiki Dee became a songstress. “My brother played American soul and rock’n’roll records, which I absorbed. I was singing at the Leeds Astoria, was spotted, and got my first record deal at 16. Then I was doing backing vocals for Dusty Springfield, and on Love Affair’s Everlasting Love.”
She was signed to Tamla Motown, the first female artist on their books. “It was incredible. Suddenly, I was in the States with Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, in an elevator. When I was recording vocals for the movie Stir Crazy, Marvin was cutting Sexual Healing in the studio next door.”
Throughout the weekend, multiple bits of vintage footage – once lost, now newly restored – are scattered between the variety acts. A film about cycling proficiency with the wry Roy Hudd, half an hour of dry humour from John Cleese and Adrienne Posta; more poignantly, a rediscovered comic training film starring Penelope Keith and Anthony Head, who both sadly died earlier this year.
Noel Cronin announces our next screening: the first episode of the beautifully shot series African Patrol, with John Bentley as a compassionate cop. “Lovely man, John Bentley,” Noel says. “He gave up acting at the height of his career to run a sweet shop.”
Adorable Dora was the lockdown project of West End musical star Rosemary Ashe – who, on finding an old cassette of Dora Bryan, felt an urge to document the life of a widely-loved actress with a turbulent offscreen life. Ashe takes us through the jokes and showtunes that masked Bryan’s loss and later troubles with addiction; after undergoing electro-shock therapy and signing up to AA, she would reemerge in the 1980s. Ashe’s appearance here got a standing ovation from the Monmouth audience.
The huge bass baritone of Cardiff-born Anthony Stuart Lloyd fills the Savoy to the rafters. The man with the Rolls-Royce voice brings a set of Howard Keel showtunes and Welsh favourites alive: working with the Welsh National Opera and starring in countless musicals, he’s the epitome of classical crossover singers. We wrap up the day’s events with a previously lost 1968 episode of This Is Tom Jones. Filled with songs, actors and comedians of the day, it’s been perfectly scheduled; we emerge from our immersion in yesteryear with light hearts, eager for tomorrow.
The layout of Monmouth town centre conveniently positions many of its architectural glories together for a Sunday morning stroll. There’s the Monnow Bridge (dating from 1270) to marvel at, topped with a medieval gatehouse and next door to St Thomas’ church, the former Anchorite monastery built in 1170. Yards away is the ornate gothic town square cross, looking at the Victorian sandstone drinking fountain. Like many ancient droving towns on the borders, the wide streets contain brick, stone and half-timbered buildings.
Shading the Savoy is the Anglican St. Mary’s Priory Church – a mixture of Norman and Victorian architecture, on a site originally founded for the Celtic church by eighth-century Breton Gwethenoc. The scent of frankincense drew me in, where I spoke to a fellow festival-goer David Hilton, a freelance cameraman from London.
“It’s my first TPTV event, and I came because it’s great to hear stories from the other side of the lens,” he says, “the actors, the creators and broadcasters. The festivals give people a chance to explore towns new to them and meet likeminded people. As we’re doing now!”
Back in the venue, I chat to my seat neighbour Jane – a local who’s been hearing about the film festival for the last three years at her place of work, the Tourism Information Office. “This year, my friend from dancing told me her dad would be speaking here – Lionel Fanthorpe. I’d met him once and found him fascinating – so after hearing so much about the event, I had to come!”
Since TPTV’s last visit to Monmouth, perhaps the biggest occurrence in the town was the dramatic floods last November. “The South Wales Fire & Rescue teams were out,” recalls Jane, “and I saw the Hardwick roundabout was afloat, but I managed to get back to Monmouth. In the early hours of the morning, the Monnow River poured over into Monnow Street, flooding all the properties and businesses. We all know the Wye can break its banks, but the Monnow hasn’t flooded since the 60s.
“This filled two-thirds of the main street. It was waist-high in Waitrose! People were stuck upstairs in their houses. Nobody expected any of this. It was devastating for businesses and everyone in town. The Shire Hall – which was about to close for refurbishment – was suddenly a humanitarian centre. Emergency environmental health meetings took place; if you worked for the council, you could be deployed anywhere to help.
“A community room was set up on day one, full of donated clothing, nappies and essentials. Your heart was breaking for the poor souls coming in covered in mud. The leisure centre was full of people who had nowhere to sleep, business support agencies offered advice, Mind set up a daily drop-in centre for weeks. Dehumidifiers were loaned out; the Mayor’s fund helped people in need and there were benefit concerts for those who’d lost everything.
“People rallied round and the supermarkets managed to open for Christmas. Now every time a shop reopens, it’s a big thing in the papers; whenever there’s positive news, it feels like such a big win.”
Talking Pictures Festival Of Film & TV, Savoy Theatre, Monmouth, Sat 18 + Sun 19 July
words JULIA DELI
