Eastern Daily Press 23rd March 1981
Winning Recipe for variety concert
A sell-out concert
in the High School hall, Stalham, on Friday night was a two and a half hour
festival of music, song, dance and mime. The show was to raise funds for the new
adventure playground on the memorial recreation ground, an effort sponsored by
Stalham Community Association.
Compered by Richard Jackson, one of the prime movers in the association, the
evening started with the Stalham Youth Theatre providing a smooth mixture of hit
show songs, combined with guitars and dance in confident style.
Stalham Youth Band, organised and conducted by Gerald Thirst, started with The
Magic Flute and kept up the magic throughout.
The performance was prodigious when one considers that the players' ages range
from eight to sixteen and that some like self-assured little Helen Cassidy,
eight, of 16 Millside, Stalham, have only three months experience. Gerald Thirst
and his son Timothy, of East Ruston, are well-known in band circles in East
Anglia, and seem to have the makings of a great town band of the future.
The High School Singers kept the tempo going, and next on show were the Janet
Sutherland School of Dancing from Martham, who whisked the audience back to the
twenties with their charleston and Forty Second Street routines.
Stalham Players - the old hands of the show - gave a clever and humorous
performance of mime, in an evening of as varied entertainment as Stalham can
have seen for a long time.
It is too soon to say how much was raised for the adventure playground, but the
packed audience were given excellent value.
P.H.