NEW FARNHAM REPERTORY Actors' Company 

. . . a large grey van arrived in Farnham's Castle Street. The next morning its occupants were directed to an early 16th century barn-like structure, set back from the road, and on December 5th the Farnham Players raised the curtain for the first time with its opening production, 'You Never Can Tell' by Bernard Shaw. The Castle Theatre was launched and for the next fifty years repertory flourished in Farnham.

The Castle Theatre

Princess Margaret opens the Redgrave Theatre

Sir Michael Redgrave (right) studies the model of the new £250,000 theatre, with Sir Bernard Miles (left), a patron of the new theatre, and (centre) the architect, Frank Rutter.

The theatre only seated 167. If you want to work out how it was all fitted in, visit the Pizza Piazza, set back from Castle Street on that same spot. By 1965 plans were afoot to create larger premises. Amounts varying from £10 for a nominal brick to £25000 were received from numerous individuals, and brick by brick, seat by seat, the Redgrave theatre was built, incorporating an 18th century building, now listed, called Brightwell House.

The Theatre was opened in May 1974 by Princess Margaret, with 'Romeo and Juliet', the first of many fine productions. The greatest highlight was the production of Noel Coward's 'Cavalcade’, with a cast of 12 professional actors and 312 local volunteers, forerunner of the way NFRC works now.

The 90s were increasingly sad years for the Redgrave, and the slide from repertory eventually resulted in the closure of the theatre. Ownership passed to Waverley Borough Council, which received bad advice leading to the disastrous decision to abandon repertory for a hotch-potch of plays, films and allsorts, running for short periods. Audiences stayed away in droves and the Redgrave closed in 1998.

At the end of that year, with Ian Mullins, first director of the Redgrave at the helm, the New Farnham Repertory Company was formed. In the first year Ian and local professional actor Malcolm Rennie fought to establish the company, which has since presented summer seasons in St Andrews Church, in the open air and in a marquee in Farnham's Library Gardens and Brightwells Gardens. (Past productions)