Here's another wonderful guest blog from my Coronation Street Blog editor, the talented Glenda Young. In this post Glenda writes about her local theatre, the Sunderland Empire and its rather sad links with the King of Carry On, the late great Sidney James...
I’m a huge panto fan. Oh yes I am!
(etc). And as a huge Coronation Street fan, I’m particularly excited
about going to see this year’s Christmas pantomime at my local theatre – the
Sunderland Empire. The panto at the Empire this year is Aladdin and
stars Terence Maynard from Corrie who played baddie Tony Stewart in the
soap. In the panto, Terence takes on the role
of baddie Abanazar and I’ll be sitting there booing and
clapping and shouting and screaming with the rest of them. Oh yes, I love
panto, it appeals to my inner five-year-old like nothing else on
earth!
And I also love my local theatre. The
Sunderland Empire http://www.atgtickets.com/venues/sunderland-empire/history/ is
a very special place to me. As well as going there regularly since I was a
child to see great shows, comedians, bands and pantomimes, it's also where I
graduated as a mature student on stage. And it's where my dad proposed to my
mam many years ago.
But Sunderland Empire might ring a different bell for
Carry On fans as it was where Sid James passed away, on stage on the first
night of a play he was starring in.
It was on Monday April 26 1976 when Sid James died. He
was starring in a smutty comedy called The Mating Game at Sunderland
Empire. When Empire manager Roy Todds phoned the show’s producer,
Bill Robertson, to tell him the shocking news that Sid had died, Robertson
thought it was a joke. "Sid James has just died in Sunderland," said
Todds. "Don’t worry, everybody dies in Sunderland," replied the
producer.
The Empire audience had even greater trouble realising
that what it was witnessing was not a scripted piece of comedy. Sitting next to
Sid on the stage was actress Olga Lowe, an old friend from his early days in
his native South Africa. She returned to the Empire to film a documentary about
Sid and she told the Sunderland Echo: "I came on, said my first lines and
he answered as normal. Then I sat on the sofa with him. I said my next line and
he didn’t answer. His head had slumped and his eyes had gone back into his
head. I thought it was a gag. Well, you would with Sid. He was such a
rascal."
Olga began to ad lib. Sid did not respond. Her ad
libbing became more frantic. Realising something was seriously wrong, she edged
out to the wings and told the crew to bring down the curtain. Stage hands ran
to fetch technical manager Mel James. Mel told the Sunderland Echo: "It
was the only time I have had to ask if there was a doctor in the house."
Still the spirit of humour lingered. Mel’s request
brought a laugh from an audience. He asked again: "In all honesty, is
there a doctor in the house?" There was indeed a doctor present - sitting
in the front stalls. Usherette Irene Young met him and escorted him to the
stricken actor. But still it seemed ludicrous. "The doctor came out and he
thought it was a gag," says Olga. "But Sid was in a coma. The doctor
called the ambulance and I believe he died on the way to hospital." She adds:
"It was awful. Ten minutes earlier, before the show, he had been the same
old Sid, larking about and laughing. After the curtain came down we sat in the
dressing room, with a drink supplied by the theatre, not knowing what to say.
We were all so shocked."
It was later reported that he had died on stage of a
heart attack. He was 62. Sid’s wife, Valerie Ashton, was with him in Sunderland
that night and was present throughout, standing in the wings. It was an open
secret, however, that Sid had been having an affair with his Carry On films
co-star Barbara Windsor.
In a separate interview with the Sunderland Echo,
Barbara Windsor spoke about Sid when she visited the North East to publicise
her autobiography and she reckoned that Sid would be turning in his grave if he
knew the circumstances of his death. She said: "It (touring to provincial
theatres like The Sunderland Empire) was everything Sid hated. He liked his
films and his television. The only time he did theatre was if he could have
some lovely location. Like he would go to Australia and sail around the Far
East to get there and stop off at Bangkok ... then come back via America. Many
years after he died I was playing Birmingham and the old guy on the stage door
said: ‘I look at you, Barbara, and I remember Sid so well. The last time you
was (sic) with him was in this theatre and he came back a few years later and
he looked desperately ill.’ Everyone said to him: ‘Don’t go up to Sunderland.
He looked so ill, so unhappy. He went up to Sunderland and the rest is history."
According to showbiz legend Sid has never left
Sunderland Empire. Soon after his death, actors began to report strange
happenings in the late star’s dressing room, rumours that have always been
denied by the theatre management. One who hinted at a disturbing encounter with
Sid’s spirit was Les Dawson, who was in panto there. After his encounter with
the ghost of Sid James, Les vowed never to return to the Sunderland
Empire.
The Empire is now listed as one of the most haunted
places (if you believe in such things) in the UK due to the ghost of Sid James
haunting the backstage area.
Last year my husband and I went on a backstage tour of
the Sunderland Empire. You can see my pictures from the visit here >http://flamingnora.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/the-sunderland-empire-backstage-and.html I
didn’t notice or feel anything particularly odd about the backstage areas, no
ghosts, no spirits, nothing. But it did become apparent that our
tour guide and Empire employee did indeed believe that there was something
supernatural going on. Whether she said this just for publicity purposes, or if
it’s really the belief of those in the theatrical professions, as – let’s face
it – they are prone to a bit of drama and superstition, who
knows? My husband, however, couldn’t resist winding the guide up and
did his best Sid James chuckle, which he does very, very well. Buy him a pint
and he’ll do it for you too, he considers it his party trick. The
poor guide almost jumped out of her skin, my husband chuckled, I apologised and
we left quick-sharp.
__
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