At Torbay Theatre we have lost our “Lord High Interferer” – Jill took on this Mikado-based moniker in the last ten years or so: when she no longer wanted to be in sole charge of a big show, she offered herself as an extra pair of eyes, sitting beside the director, noticing details, making gentle suggestions, always warm and encouraging, present at almost every rehearsal.
She has been one of our most valued and most professional members since she arrived in 2004. Jill lived in the theatre her whole life: she saw Sir Lawrence Olivier and many other stars on-stage in Blackpool as a child, trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts, then taught English and Theatre Studies at Blackpool Collegiate, her own High School. She moved to Singapore when she married her Airforce husband, Douglas – of course joining the local theatre group – and later to Torbay. Wherever she lived she acted and directed: she had a special love of Shakespeare, and she made everything fun. At Torbay Theatre she was on-stage, and directing – Blithe Spirit and Ladies in Retirement, as well as co-directing, being an active committee member, and at one stage, bailing the club out financially.
Club Night wasn’t Club Night without one of her monologues from Joyce Grenfell or Victoria Wood (No, don’t do that Sidney, it isn’t nice!), and for years she was co-director and/or prompt for our July School-holiday children’s plays. I was privileged to co-direct The Great Piratical Treasure Hunt with her in 2023, and she was a joy to work with, her wealth of knowledge and personal culture palpable, her joy in life and real interest in every person she met standing out. We had a tradition of accepting all children who turned up to the audition – it was usually about a dozen – but when 35 turned up that year, Jill couldn’t bear to turn any away, so we had a very full cast and lots of work for Wardrobe!!
Jill wrote her own eulogy – “Story of my Life” – telling the tale of a happy, well-lived life, with humour and energy, full of theatre everywhere she went, and ending her funeral with Joyce Grenfell and Norman Widsom’s comic song “Narcissus: The Laughing Song” – what an ending! Theatrical right to the end.
Torbay Theatre is not the same without you Jill, but it continues to flourish in part because of your input, for which many thanks.
