HISTORY will repeat itself on stage next week when Blackburn Drama Club stages its latest performance.
For Terry Barber will be celebrating 50 years as a performer at the club by working with an actress he shared a stage with in his first ever show.
In 1958, Terry, of Fielden Place, Feniscowles, was a young sailor and Dorothy Perkins, of Preston New Road, Mellor Brook, a domineering mother-in-law in a performance of Sailor Beware.
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Now 50 years on they will be reunited in a production of The Matchmaker at Blackburn's Thwaites Empire Theatre with Terry playing a waiter and Dorothy directing the show.
Terry said: "When I first met Dorothy she was playing a tyrannical mother-in-law who terrorised the groom and also the best-man, played by myself. But I was to learn that in real life Dorothy is a unique person - she's professional in everything she does, she really is a stalwart of the stage."
Both Terry and Dorothy have fond memories of their early days of theatre.
"We staged all our shows in the YMCA which is upstairs in what is now the Sir Charles Napier pub in Limbrick, Blackburn," said Terry, 71. "It was such a small room you were practically on top of the audience."
And Dorothy - Blackburn Drama Club's longest-serving member with 55 years of acting and 45 of directing under her belt - recalled a time before front of house hostesses existed.
"When I first joined the club I remember we had to make cups of tea for the audience in the interval," she said. "We all had to carry a tray of tea and biscuits out and our backstage facilities were very sparse."
Dorothy, a former headmistress at Roman Road Primary School, Blackburn, has won numerous NODA (National Operatic and Dramatic Association) awards. In 2002 she was awarded the lifetime membership award marking 50 years of service.
She said: "I mostly direct nowadays - I gave up acting because I can't remember my lines anymore! I think being around young people has helped keep me young - but it also makes me feel very old at times!"
In the last 50 years Terry has directed and compered hundreds of plays, musicals and charity shows, as well as producing and appearing in many pantomimes.
"I moved to Blackburn 50 years ago when the Royal Ordnance factory in Maltby, Yorkshire, closed and I was transferred to the Blackburn factory at Lower Darwen," he said.
"The first thing I did when I arrived in the town was to join the drama club and I've been entertaining every since."
The Matchmaker, a classic American farce, is running at Thwaites Empire Theatre, Ewood, from Wednesday, May 14 to Saturday, May 17. For tickets call 01254 685500.
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