Tag: Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama

From Cefn to the Café – Remembering Jane Freeman

Anyone over a certain age will fondly remember the long-running BBC comedy series ‘Last of the Summer Wine’. One of the longest serving and best remembered characters was the ferocious Ivy in the café, often bellowing ‘What the blood and stomach pills?’ before usually bashing Compo over the head with a tin tea-tray. The magnificent actress who turned, what could have been a one-dimensional character, into one the country’s most well-loved comedy creations was Jane Freeman.

Jane Freeman was born Shirley Ann Pithers in Brentford, Essex on 12 June 1935, to Arthur, a railway engineer, and Joan (née Dewhurst). Her father died in an accident on the London Underground when she was nine and, in 1945, she moved to Merthyr Tydfil when her mother married Russell Evans, a solicitor, and the family settled in Cefn-Coed, with the young Shirley taking her step-father’s surname and adopting Jane as her first name.

Having enjoyed acting in plays at Vaynor and Penderyn School (notably in Shakespeare’s ‘Twelfth Night’, playing the role of Malvolio!), she trained at the Cardiff College of Music & Drama (now the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama).

The programme for a 1951 production of Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ at Vaynor & Penderyn School. In the cast list is Jane Evans (Jane Freeman) as Lady Bracknell. Courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm
A photograph from the production. Jane Freeman is unmistakable at the centre of the front row. Photo courtesy of http://www.alangeorge.co.uk/index.htm

After graduating in 1955, she moved to London before joining the Gloucestershire-based all-female Osiris Repertory Theatre touring company, changing her name to Jane Freeman. In her 18 months with Osiris, Jane played around 40 parts in roughly 1,000 performances.

In 1958 she joined the Arena Theatre, Sutton Coldfield, where she began to attract attention, and was seen as Margaret More in the inaugural production of the Welsh Theatre Company – Robert Bolt’s ‘A Man for All Seasons’, at the New Theatre, Cardiff in 1962.

Following repertory theatre in Dundee (1966-7), she joined Birmingham Rep (1967-78), where Michael Simpson arrived from the BBC to become its artistic director. They married in 1971 and Simpson returned to the BBC, eventually directing Freeman in two Play for Today productions – as a snooty seaside landlady in ‘The Fishing Party’ (1972), in which John Comer also appeared, and as the mother of Alan Bleasdale’s Liverpool schoolboy of the title in ‘Scully’s New Year’s Eve’ (1978).

In 1971 she was cast in the new BBC Comedy ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ opposite John Comer as Ivy and Sid –  owners of the local café. Appearing in the very first episode, she went on to appear in 274 further episodes of the series over 37 years – the only cast member besides Peter Sallis to appear throughout the entire run of the series.

John Comer and Jane Freeman and Sid and Ivy.

Although best known as Ivy, Jane made many other TV appearances, most notably in the first series of ‘Blackadder’ (the first series actually being called ‘The Black Adder’) as the peasant woman Tully Applebottom, who almost committed bigamy with Rowan Atkinson’s Prince Edmund, to spare him marriage to Miriam Margolyes’s Infanta; and also as Mrs Kimble in ‘Silas Marner’ in 1985.

Despite her television fame, theatre remained her first love. When television filming commitments allowed, she could be found playing a number of strong, usually northern, matriarchs in ‘Billy Liar’ (Nottingham Playhouse, 1980), touring productions of J.B. Priestley’s ‘When We Are Married’, Michael Frayn’s ‘Noises Off’ (1987) and Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke’s ‘Situation Comedy’ (1989).

She scored a personal success as the sharp-tongued Emma Hornett (a role made famous by Peggy Mount) in Philip King and Falkland Carey’s ‘Sailor Beware!’ at the Lyric, Hammersmith (1991), subsequently touring with it in 1992 and 1993. Later theatre appearances included Pam Gems’ ‘Deborah’s Daughter’ (Library -Theatre, Manchester, 1994) and tours of William Ash’s adaptation of Emily Bronte’s ‘Wuthering Height’s in 1995 and again in 1998.

After her husband Michael’s death in 2007, Jane continued to work, despite suffering a neurological condition that affected her hands and feet, and she passed away after a battle with cancer on 9 March 2017.

Harry Evans – A Musical Giant

Harry Evans was born on 1 May 1873 in Russell Street, Dowlais, the son of John Evans (Eos Myrddin), a local choirmaster and his wife Sarah. Harry had no formal musical training, but was taught the Tonic Sol-fa system by his sister; such was his prodigious musical talent however, that he was appointed organist of Gwernllwyn Chapel in Dowlais when he was only 9 years old. The elders of the chapel encouraged the young Harry and arranged for him to receive music lessons from Edward Laurence, Merthyr Tydfil.

Harry Evans

In 1887 he was appointed organist of Bethania Chapel, Dowlais. He succeeded in passing all the local examinations of the Royal Academy and of the Royal College of Music, London, with honours. He was by that time anxious to devote himself entirely to music, but his father, who wished him to receive a more general education, obtained a post as pupil-teacher for him at the Abermorlais School; here he passed some South Kensington examinations in arithmetic, science, and art.

Although he passed the Queen’s Scholarship examination (for pupil-teachers), his health broke down and he was unable to proceed to a training college. In July 1893 he became A.R.C.O. (Associate of the Royal College of Organists), and from then on gave all his time to music.

An advert for Harry Evans’ services from an 1895 edition of The Merthyr Times

In 1898 Harry Evans formed a ladies’ choir at Merthyr Tydfil and a male choir at Dowlais. The male choir won the prize at the National Eisteddfod held at Liverpool in 1900; and when the National Eisteddfod came to Merthyr the following year, he conducted the Merthyr Tydfil Choir in a performance of Handel’s Israel in Egypt. Following a further success at the National Eisteddfod in Llanelli in 1903, Evans retired from competition and accepted an invitation to become conductor of the Liverpool Welsh Choral Union.

In 1913 he became musical director at Bangor University College and, in the same year, local conductor and registrar of the Liverpool Philharmonic Society. He also became, at this time, conductor of the North Staffordshire Choral Society. By this time many experts regarded him as the best choral conductor in the country, and he was invited to conduct Granville Bantock’s choral symphony, Vanity of Vanities, which the composer dedicated to him.

As well as his work as a conductor, Harry Evans was a one of the most well respected adjudicators at musical competitions, and he was much in demand in that capacity at musical festivals throughout the British Isles. Also a composer, his fullest compositions were Victory of St Garmon, produced at the Cardiff Festival in 1904, and also the cantata Dafydd ap Gwilym ; he also wrote several anthems and hymn-tunes, and arranged Welsh folk-songs and airs for choirs.

During 1914 Harry Evans’ health began to deteriorate, and his doctor advised complete rest, but it was soon discovered that he was suffering from a brain tumour. He underwent emergency surgery from which he never fully recovered, and on 23 July 1914 Harry Evans died and the tragically young age of 41. He was buried at the Toxteth Park Cemetery in Liverpool. After his death, a hymn-tune named In Memoriam was composed by Caradog Roberts in his memory and included in several Welsh hymnals.

Throughout his life Harry Evans’ main ambition was to establish a music college in Wales; had he lived he might have realized his ambition – the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama was established in 1949 as Cardiff College of Music at Cardiff Castle.