The Keighley Amateur Lyric and Dramatic Society staged a production of W. S. Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan’s ‘The Yeomen of the Guard (or The Merryman and his Maid)’ at the Hippodrome theatre in Keighley from 18th to 23rd October 1909.
The story is set in the sixteenth century and revolves around Colonel Fairfax, a condemned prisoner in the Tower of London, and his attempts to secure a wife before his execution for sorcery. He manages to escape the Tower disguised as a Yeoman and much confusion ensues before all is righted by the end.
It starred Arthur Greenwood as Colonel Fairfax, with E. G. Moulding, James Pearson, Willie Boyes, J. R. Hammond, H. Connelly, John Merrall, C. A. Greenwood, J. Greenwood, B. Hardacre, H. V. Wilkinson, Miranda Sugden, Ethel Bird, Miss Lambert and Mrs Heaton. The musical director was W. S. Wilkinson and the stage manager was W. G. Bedford. Scenery was hired from the Northern Theatres Co. Ltd. and was specially painted by F. G. Venimore.
The Keighley Amateur Lyric and Dramatic Society had only formed a year previous (in 1908) and the theatre had only been renamed the Hippodrome earlier that year (in 1909). Prior to that it was known as the Queen’s Theatre, although both names remained on the front of the building, and many programmes and adverts continued to refer to the ‘Hippodrome and Queen’s Theatre’.
This souvenir programme was a collaboration between photographer H. Charlton of Lawkholme Crescent, and the printers Wadsworth & Co. of The Rydal Press, Russell Street. The programme was donated to the Keighley and District Local History Society by Tim Neal in 2022. A second copy was received by the History Society from an anonymous donor later in 2022. Both copies are held in the History Society’s physical archive. The full document can be viewed on the History Society’s Flickr site.
