The following page details the history of our group. This has been written by our very own Honorary President, Brian Traynor who has dedicated most of his life to the group. He has some acknowledgements to his work which are detailed at the end of this piece, however he has a particular acknowledgement which he wishes to be noted:

Peter Burt (RIP), my uncle. During the many conversations we had over the years about the Group he suggested that the history of the Group should be written. He made it plain that, in his view, I was the man to do just that. Over the years he never accepted my excuses that I didn’t have the time. I’m so pleased that during this lockdown I’ve found the time to meet his wish and this History of SSPAOG is dedicated to him.

The group would like to note its thanks to Brian for taking time to complete this project. We now have a concrete piece of writing which we can share with generations to come. We are so grateful.

Thank you.

THE EARLY YEARS

1951-1967

The supreme enthusiast who launched Shotts St Patrick’s Amateur Opera Group in 1951 was also a cleric, musician and persuader extraordinaire. Father Ian McLaughlin needed all of these attributes when he confidently declared that his parishioners could stage a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta. His confidence was based on the knowledge that many of his male parishioners were members of the excellent and very active church choir, sang in Dolorosa Marzella’s thirty strong girl’s choir or had been involved in concerts and plays produced by Misses Molly and Isa Ellis (including success in drama competitions). An orchestral cello player himself, he set about finding out what other musicians were in the Parish that could join him to provide the necessary orchestral accompaniment. With the exception of the Leader (who came from Newmains) all the other orchestra members were from Shotts. He then sought to convince all these people that getting such a show on stage was without doubt possible. On 9th May 1951, our first production took place in the Miners Welfare Hall in Dyfrig Street – HMS Pinafore. The show was on the road! Other Gilbert & Sullivan shows soon followed in the 50s – The Mikado, Pirates of Penzance, Iolanthe and the Gondoliers.

our history

The cultural histories of communities are peppered with arts contributions. Shotts is no different and has been influenced by different types of bands, drama groups, choirs and dancing schools. Normally those contributors represent their individual arts silos – bands play, drama groups act, choirs sing and dancers dance but rarely does an organisation embrace all of those disciplines at the same time. An exception in this town is the above named organisation.

In those early days the productions were amateur in the true sense of the word with simple home-made costumes, rudimentary scenery, a reliance on voice projection as opposed to microphones, very basic stage lighting which was susceptible to fusing, make do props, minimal make up, and simple stage movement all of which were compensated for by the sheer enthusiasm, talent and the excellent singing of the cast and principals. Our reputation for first class (four part) choral singing was born in those early productions and has been maintained and demanded by a succession of Musical Directors to the present day. Additionally we utilised full orchestral accompaniment comprising strings, woodwind, brass and percussion for all our shows – Fr McLaughlin’s insistence on using this was to remain with us for many years to come.

Gilbert & Sullivan operettas were hugely popular in the 1950s and 60s. The Group regularly went “on tour”. We performed in Fauldhouse, Blackburn ,Motherwell, Lanark, Airdrie and even Glasgow where the Gondoliers was performed in 1955 in St Mungo’s Hall. The highlight of these “tours”, however was the annual visit to Hawick, where after a day spent in the border town the Group performed to a knowledgeable and highly appreciative audience and were subsequently wined and dined in such style that the return journey home was both enjoyable and memorable to say the least!

Anecdotes abound about those formative early days – like our lead baritone forgetting to bring his borrowed Boys Brigade drum for the Gondoliers and having to perform his solo using a McFarlane’s biscuit tin with two bits of firewood replicating drumsticks, like the lead tenor clumping down the stage with his foot through a fish box dislodged from a somewhat flimsy piece of stage furniture, like the soprano who fainted in the dressing room between solos with the audience entirely unaware and the ladies chorus in an absolute tizzy and like the two male principals who got their dialogue horribly mixed up, started laughing, couldn’t stop their uncontrollable mirth then eventually dropped to their knees and crawled off the stage to the delight of the audience who found the scene totally hilarious.

In those early days, in the 1950s, Gilbert and Sullivan operettas were invariably performed as the Group’s annual show and they were enthusiastically supported and attended. From 1958 to 1967 the Group did not produce an annual show. The reasons for that are not entirely clear and was probably a mixture of the fact that Fr McLaughlin had left the Parish, Wee Bill Sweeney our first Musical Director had died in 1955 and impending marriages or pregnancy prevented many of the female chorus from rejoining – all of which contributed to a loss of impetus. To fill the void many Opera Group male members joined an all male Black and White Minstrel singing group, which started in the late 1950s and continued until the mid 1960s. Their shows were extremely popular and they competed in and won the Scottish Daily Express national Gay Town competition in 1960. They performed in many well known Scottish venues such as the Pavilion Theatre, and Odeon Cinema in Glasgow, the Usher Hall and Princess Street Gardens in Edinburgh. Many of the members of the Minstrels were also Opera Group members. In 1967, however, the Opera Group revived. They were encouraged to do so to contribute to the celebrations to mark the centenary of St Patrick’s Parish and to take part in the Shotts Civic celebrations both of which were to take place in 1968. The availability of an Auditorium at the new Calderhead High School building led to the resumption of rehearsals with a view to producing the Pirates of Penzance in November 1968. One notable development in relation to this revival was that the Group, which had previously been a purely Parish organisation, was very happy to welcome anyone who wished to join, parishioner or not. This proved to be the start of a period of substantial change and evolution for our Group.

REVIVAL, EVOLUTION & CHANGE (1968 – 1989)

In November 1968 we duly moved the location of our annual show to the Auditorium in Calderhead High School in Dyfrig Street where there was an in built stage with basic lighting infrastructure and the ability to house an audience of approx 200. Unfortunately the stage did not have standard theatre dimensions or drop heights which meant that our Stage Crews had to take on the task of building stage flats from scratch and installing them in the auditorium. This involved a huge amount of planning, joinery and scenic painting work on many evenings (2 or 3 nights weekly some two months prior to the show) and then installation of the flats which took the better part of the full week immediately before show week. Additionally during that same installation week stage back cloths which we hired had to be adapted to suit the unusual drop height. A monumental amount of time consuming work for all those who were stage crew members. This was to remain a feature of stage crew work for the next 42 years till our move to Howden Park in 2010. Despite that, stage crews throughout those years, gave freely and willingly of their time and effort. Without that work our shows just would not have made it on to the stage. The move also allowed us to start and experiment with enhancing the stage lighting. Our lighting technicians had their work cut out as the electrical load capacity for the auditorium and the stage was limited but by dint of ingenuity and hard work they managed to improve the lighting to an acceptable level.

In 1974 we decided to venture outwith the world of Gilbert & Sullivan for the first time by producing Franz Lehar’s The Merry Widow. The fact that the show demanded full orchestral accompaniment and we had continued to utilise that in all our shows since 1968 was very much part of the decision to try a Viennese operetta. In 1975 we performed our first Musical Review (Showtime ’75) with, for the first time, no orchestra, and followed this in 1976 by producing our first Musical (Viva Mexico) with orchestral accompaniment restored. They all proved popular both with our audiences and our cast and the period from 1978 to 1988 saw us perform a mixture of G&S (6 shows), Vienesse Operettas (4) and 1 Musical . Cast and audiences obviously had their own favourites shows but perhaps worthy of mention for their wonderful music and excellent Principal and Cast performances were Yeomen of the Guard (1984), The Gondoliers (1986) by G&S, Johann Strauss’ The Gypsy Baron (1981 & 1987), Die Fledermaus (1985) and Lehar’s Merry Widow (1983).

MUSICALS IN THE MILLENIUM AND BEYOND (1990-2019)

In 1990 and 1991 we performed our last G&S shows utilising orchestral accompaniment – the Mikado and Iolanthe but audience attendance was poor particularly for the latter. We also found difficulty attracting the size of cast we needed and wanted. This prompted a further evolutionary change. The West End, Broadway and the larger regional theatres in the UK were attracting huge audiences to Musicals. That obviously reflected audience tastes and consequently attendance. The Musical Director, Producers/Directors and the Committee at the time saw this as a way to improve audience attendance figures and to attract greater cast numbers. At the same time the Group recognised that there would be a difference in the amount of four part singing available in Musicals as opposed to Operettas but they took a strategic decision that it should always be our aim to optimise the amount of part singing in any show we performed. It was vital that we did not dilute our reputation as a first class singing group and it would be incumbent on our current and all future Musical Directors to ensure that we did not deviate from the principle of achieving excellent four part singing laid down by our founder Fr Ian McLaughlin, our first Musical Director Wee Bill Sweeney and those MDs that followed him. It was, however, to usher in huge changes to onstage production with greater movement/dancing. We appointed a Choreographer to work hand in hand with the Producer/Director and we encouraged our stage/technical people to experiment with and try to greatly improve our use of sound and lighting. In this respect the Group created the post of Technical Director who had responsibility for developing and enhancing them. Additionally, as opposed to musical accompaniment by a full orchestra, we started using a Band which was much smaller in number and consisted of electric keyboards, guitars woodwind, brass and percussion. All of this did not happen overnight. Rather it was a work in progress from 1991. Our Technical Directors did make considerable progress between 1991 and 2009 and would have developed further had they not been frustrated by the sound/lighting infrastructure limitations in the Calderhead HS Auditorium.

The seismic changes described in the preceding paragraphs undoubtedly worked (following a relatively slow start in the early 1990s) because both audience and cast numbers improved. Really popular among those Musicals performed were Carousel (1994), Guys & Dolls (1995), South Pacific (1996), The Broadway Pirates (1997), Godspell (2000), Beauty & The Beast (2010), Jekyll & Hyde (2013), Sunshine On Leith (2016) and CATS (2018).

Arguably the most popular of all the musicals performed was Jesus Christ Superstar which we performed in St Patrick’s Church building itself in 2005 as part of the Church Building centenary celebrations. Sponsored by the Parish Centenary Committee, in association with our Group, this certainly caught the imagination of our cast and we extended an invitation to past members to join us as a “seated” chorus. Although not involved in the production on stage, they were strategically seated next to our Musical Director and the Band and greatly enhanced the choral singing. The then Parish Priest, Fr Brian Lamb, allowed us to professionally install a stage, a lighting grid, sound and lighting equipment in the Church which ensured that the scene was set for a memorable show. We filled the church for 5 nights. The feelings of exhilaration, excitement and pride were tangible during these performances – something that will live long in the memories of the cast, our technical, backstage and front of house teams as well as the packed audiences who attended. Truly amazing, unique and never to be forgotten!

SHOTTS TO LIVINGSTON & TECHNICAL DEVELOPMENT

2010 brought the closure of Calderhead High School which necessitated a move out of our theatrical home in Shotts to the Brian Duguid Auditorium, of the Howden Park Centre in Livingston. The custom built theatre with comfortable raked seating for 300 housed our first show there – Beauty and The Beast. It was always our intention to return our annual shows to the newly built Calderhead High School but alas the stage facilities in the new auditorium were too small to accommodate the musicals we performed. Reluctantly we had to give up the plan to relocate to Shotts and to the present day we remain in Livingston. Thankfully since our move to Livingston our Shotts audiences have followed us and have been supplemented by West Lothian and Livingston locals who seem to like our shows.

Evolution and change was not solely restricted to the types of shows performed or the venue. Every aspect of successfully putting our shows onstage has undergone huge change. Professional scenery is now hired or built but latterly we have employed experienced Set Builders and a Scenic Artist to give our Production Team the stage environment they want. We now take advantage of the superb theatre infrastructure available in the Brian Duguid Auditorium at Howden Park and the huge technical advances made in sound and lighting systems to enhance the show experience. Principal players operate with personal radio mics. Each instrument in the band has a personal mixer and the collective sound generated by the principals, chorus and band is fed into a sound system and desk controlled and balanced by a professional Sound Engineer. Stage lighting is controlled by a computerised system where cues from the script are input to the system and lighting changes generated by the touch of a button.

All of the foregoing is the responsibility of the Technical Director and the Group’s Technical Team. They liaise closely with the Director and Musical Director to understand and deliver their stage Set, Sound and Lighting needs which are in turn communicated to the Set Builders, Scenic Artist, Lighting Technician and Sound Engineer. They additionally arrange the hire of all sound, lighting, stage (cloths/furniture), pyrotechnic equipment and the purchase of the materials for the Set Builders and Scenic Artist to enable them to produce the show Set. They arrange for the transport of all hired equipment and the Set to and from the theatre for Get In and Get Out of the theatre just prior to and just after the show. Just like their predecessors who worked in the old Calderhead HS, they work long and extremely unsociable hours and do so freely and willingly.

We have unquestionably become more “professional” or as professional as amateurs can be in our approach to staging and delivering our shows. Given the superb standard of professional shows produced in UK theatres we had little choice but to try and progress from truly amateur to more professional performances because that is now the “norm” or what audiences expect. Not to have done so would have resulted in declining audience numbers, reduced income and the threat to the continued existence of us as a going concern. An amateur music/drama company cannot survive financially unless it puts “bums on seats”. Achieving that is easier said than done and depends on annually choosing a show which will attract audiences and sufficient cast to stage it. A licence to perform a show is required from those companies who own the rights to the show. We all know the shows we would like to do (Les Miserables, Miss Saigon, We Will Rock You etc.) but rights holders do not issue licences to amateur groups particularly for those hugely popular shows either in the West End, Broadway or on tour in the UK. Occasionally they release some of these shows for a very limited period, taking into account the location of the theatre (Sunshine On Leith is an example) but these are few and far between and it is left to individual groups and companies to find shows available to amateurs which suit them best. We have been fortunate in having experienced people on our Show Selection sub-committees who have consistently been able to do that. Since our move to Howden Park in 2010 audience attendance has been consistently high and includes sell outs on four occasions. We must be doing something right!

Finance & Staying Alive

As a local group involved in the amateur theatre for the past 70 years we have been continually faced with the problem of lack of finance. This had particularly been the case since our revival in 1968. Relying solely on ticket income from our annual shows was never a solution. We survived; but not without a struggle. Membership fees, annual grants from our local authority councillors, national organisations (e.g. the Co-op, the Coalfields Regeneration Trust Fund), donations from local businesses (through the purchase of adverts in our Programmes) and us setting up a Patrons scheme to encourage financial support from cast, relatives and supporters of our thespian efforts helped but never entirely solved the problem. Consequently survival was an ongoing struggle. Additionally our attempts to become more professional, described in preceding paragraphs, and particularly improvements to sound, lighting and stage presentation had an associated and not inconsiderable cost.

Eventually, in the late 1990s and into the millennium, we had to attract additional income to offset that. This involved us presenting a further show each Spring normally a musical review with a considerable amount of four part singing. It was very hard work for our Musical Director in terms of producing choral arrangements and difficult and demanding for the cast to learn the music and lyrics in a relatively short rehearsal span. On the other hand they thrived on the challenge and thoroughly enjoyed the music. These Spring shows which took place in St Patrick’s Parish Centre with regular visits to Corstorphine in Edinburgh and Fauldhouse were popular, well received and well attended. They did ease our financial difficulty, to a certain extent, but a variety of other fund raising activities had to take place to generate additional money to enable us produce our annual show in October/November each year. It was just enough and kept the show on the road.

Recruiting Young People

During this same period we were also aware that we had not been attracting young recruits (aged 16 to 20) to our Group. Following the move to Livingston in 2010, the Committee turned its attention to addressing that problem and coming up with a coherent strategy to solve it. We concluded that perhaps one of the reasons was that people were unaware that a music and drama organisation existed in the town. Even if they were aware, it was likely that teenagers were turned off by the word “Opera”. A more fundamental approach was needed! Having included children previously in both our Spring and Annual shows, we recognised that there was a considerable reservoir of young talent in our community and there was little to no opportunity of them displaying that singing/acting talent live on stage (with the exception of dance schools and school shows). It had always been in our mind to try and produce a children’s show. Developing an interest in music and drama through involving children from the town and the surrounding areas in junior musicals might eventually solve our teenage recruitment problem. We therefore decided to stage a children’s musical (Aladdin Jnr) in April 2013 with children aged between 8 and 15 + years. Those in the cast would be drawn from local primary schools in the town and the surrounding areas and two Senior Secondary schools (Calderhead HS and St Aidan’s HS Wishaw). Our choice of venue was the Auditorium in the newly built Calderhead HS which we had been unable to use for our annual adult shows. Discussions took place with Linda Park, the Head Teacher, who was anxious that the local community made use of the excellent facilities available in the newly built school. This included the auditorium which had first class theatre infrastructure able to more than adequately host a junior musical.

It had always been in our mind to try and produce a children’s show. Developing an interest in music and drama through involving children from the town and the surrounding areas in junior musicals might eventually solve our teenage recruitment problem. We therefore decided to stage a children’s musical (Aladdin Jnr) in April 2013 with children aged between 8 and 15 + years. Those in the cast would be drawn from local primary schools in the town and the surrounding areas and two Senior Secondary schools (Calderhead HS and St Aidan’s HS Wishaw). Our choice of venue was the Auditorium in the newly built Calderhead HS which we had been unable to use for our annual adult shows. Discussions took place with Linda Park, the Head Teacher, who was anxious that the local community made use of the excellent facilities available in the newly built school. This included the auditorium which had first class theatre infrastructure able to more than adequately host a junior musical.

It was agreed that the show should be presented as a Community Arts Project under the joint auspices of Calderhead HS and Shotts St Patrick’s Amateur Opera Group We were, in turn, confident that there was the necessary show production experience within our Group to successfully stage the show and so it proved to be the case. Aladdin Jnr was followed annually each Spring by Honk Jnr, Little Mermaid Jnr, High School Musical Jnr, Hairspray Jnr, Beauty And The Beast Jnr and Mary Poppins Jnr in 2019. Each of those shows sold out. Interest from local children to take part has been huge and the Group’s adult cast is now being augmented annually by those too old to take part in the Children’s shows. The Community Arts Project shows have now replaced our Adult Spring shows and provide an excellent teenager recruitment stream and a valuable source of finance.

MANAGEMENT OF THE GROUP

The move from Shotts to Livingston in 2010 worked well for us but it became apparent in the years that followed that we needed to look critically at the management of our organisation. That is the Committee’s responsibility. Many operating procedures had been in existence for around 40 years and had never changed. Were we doing things in the most efficient manner? Were we critically looking at our costs? Was the work of getting our shows on stage equitably spread? Was the Committee meeting too frequently? It became apparent that costs were too high, decision making was slow, some people did have too much to do and others too little and we were not hugely efficient in how we did things. Additionally, as an organisation, we had legal responsibilities to fulfil with regard to, for example, Child Care, Equal Opportunities. Did the Group’s Constitution (in existence and unchanged since the early 1970s) adequately reflect those responsibilities? A sub-committee was asked to review all of the foregoing. They identified what work needed to be done to get the show on stage year on year, broke that down into areas of responsibility for Committee members (Leads) who would in turn appoint their own teams with sufficient people (not necessarily Group members) in them to get all the work done. The intention was that Committee Leads would make decisions relating to their area of responsibility without reference to the main Committee for approval (other than Group constitutional/strategic changes or those involving significant financial spend which would require main Committee approval). Governance of and assistance to the Leads would be provided by an allocated Group Official. These changes were incorporated in an updated and rewritten Constitution which was approved at our AGM at the beginning of 2020. The size of the Committee was reduced from 18 to 13 (5 Officials and 8 Leads) as was the number and frequency of main Committee meetings. Such significant changes take time to bed in and cannot happen overnight. This is therefore currently a work in progress which will be reviewed by the main Committee in the coming years. No doubt changes will be made in the light of experience but there are positive signs that the work is more evenly spread, decision making quicker and that costs have been substantially reduced to the extent that our financial results year on year are in the black.

post coronavirus pandemic (2020-today)

The Coronavirus Pandemic prevented us from doing our annual shows in Howden Park in October 2020 and 2021. That was particularly disappointing given we had secured the licence from the Really Useful Theatre Group (RUG) to perform the show Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat in October 2021. The intensity of the pandemic, however, made that impossible and we requested and got permission to postpone the show till October 2022. Subsequently RUG withdrew our licence to do this show which left us with the task of identifying a replacement show. Unfortunately the emergence of the Omicron Coronavirus variant and the ensuing uncertainty caused us, in March 2022, to abandon our plans to do a show in Howden Park. Instead, in early April, we took a decision to stage a musical review in St Patrick’s Parish Centre in November and use this as our post pandemic “comeback” show. Given that we had been unable to celebrate our 70^th Anniversary because of the pandemic in 2021 we decided that this Review would incorporate extracts of music from shows we had performed in the 70 + 2 years of our existence. We also decided that we would involve children from our Junior Group in this show as they like the Adult Group had had to cancel their April 2020 (cancelled 2 weeks before it was due to go on stage), 2021 and 2022 shows as a result of the pandemic Furthermore we decided that the show would be fully choreographed and Fraser Wilson and Judy Brown would be the Production Team. We saw this show as an important step in getting the cast, the Production and Tech Teams working together again after almost 3 years inactivity. At the time of writing (December 2022) This Is Us was very successfully produced, sold out and set up both the Junior and Adult Groups to resume their productions in April and October 2023 respectively in Calderhead High School and Howden Park. We were further able to announce during This Is Us that the Adult group had secured the rights to produce Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. This is the first time this show has been released for amateur production.

CONCLUSION

Keeping an organisation like ours alive in such a small community as Shotts has been no easy task. We have had to face untold problems and difficulties that threatened our very existence. That we did so is down to the resilience, ingenuity and determination of the Group’s members and Committees throughout the years. At times of greatest need and difficulty, throughout the span of those years, they were greatly assisted by Lanarkshire 7th District Council, Strathclyde Regional Authority, North Lanarkshire Council, St Patrick’s Parish and our first Honorary President, Councillor James (Jimmy) Burns, as the Group teetered on the edge of oblivion. Our members and committees were driven by a desire to preserve an organisation cherished and enjoyed by previous generations of relatives and friends. They recognised and appreciated the struggles and the effort that had been made to keep the Group alive. More than that they themselves had a love of music and particularly singing that they had inherited from their parents and grandparents. Indeed we have many members today who are third and in some cases the fourth generation of founder members and that “family” factor very much binds us together as an organisation and acts as a strong motivator to preserve the Group.

Fr. Ian McLaughlin recognised the love of music and singing that existed in the Parish when he arrived in 1948. Further to that he knew there were talented vocalists who could produce good choral singing albeit in separate male and female ensembles in the late 1940s early 1950s but he was convinced that it would work in a mixed choral setting and that they could handle and make a good job of Sir Arthur Sullivan’s wonderful music. He could visualise a Gilbert and Sullivan Operetta on stage and his personality and determination made it happen. His appointment of Wee Bill Sweeney (his Church Choir Conductor) as our first Musical Director was a master stroke. Bill’s love of harmony singing and creating a quality sound transmitted itself to the founder members. They responded with joy and pride. In the years that followed his Musical Director successors were encouraged to maintain, enhance and develop the standards he had set. That is the case to the present day.

We have, however, evolved over 70 years to become an amateur group that not only sings, but acts, dances and entertains in a modern theatre environment. The pride and joy our founder members experienced when performing HMS Pinafore in 1951 is still very much with us today when we go on stage. Performing in that manner today is the way we honour and respect our Group predecessors.

Acknowledgements:

I have taken the liberty of using some of the material penned jointly by John Sweeney (RIP), Irene McKirdy (RIP), Mary Campbell (RIP), Terry Shelley (RIP) and myself in the Group’s 50th Anniversary commemorative pamphlet.

Francis McShane, Frances Burt, Terry Shelley (RIP), Mary Campbell (RIP), Aileen Shallow and Maureen Barr for historical information, personal input and editing assistance.

Cookie	Duration	Description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.

72 years strong