The Show Must Go On After Nuclear Attack: Morecambe Theatres During the Cold War
I think it was Shakespeare who said that the world is a stage and that all the people must play their part. (Or something like that.) What happens, though, if the world stage is plunged deep into the thermonuclear tensions of a Cold War? Then, the people must play their parts as Civil Defence planners, disaster preppers and survivalists. This is just what the theatre producers of Morecambe did during the height of the Cold War. No matter the genre – be it comedy, drama or real-life horror – the fear of atomic conflict was always lurking behind the words of stage writers, reminding mid-century audiences that the final curtain could fall on civilisation at any moment, and that there would be no encore.
Let’s explore how seaside theatres presented the nuclear threat on their stages, as well as learning why a Morecambe theatre bar may well have been the safest place to be if The Bomb had fallen…
‘An explosive show!’
As marketing strategies go, aligning your family-friendly variety show with the most destructive weapon ever created is not a good approach to take. Or so you’d think. In the 1950s and 1960s, an atomic chain reaction ran through Morecambe’s performance venues, seeing a plethora of shows and acts named after the weapon du jour. People looking for a boogie, for instance, could head down to the Alhambra Theatre, where on the 6th August 1953, they could dance the night away to the explosive beats of the Atomic Band Show. If, however, they were more in the mood for a good chuckle, they could choose to visit the Winter Gardens to see Tonight’s the Night, a comedy which, in 1952, was advertised with quite possibly the most bizarre piece of marketing in history:
“A COMING HIT!” announced the headline in the local newspaper. ‘President of the Morecambe Amateurs, Robert Altham, says that their new show Tonight’s the Night, starting at the Winter Gardens on January 28th, will hit the town “like an atom bomb”, with the difference that after it everyone will be full of enjoyment instead of dead!’
Now, if the play in question was an atomic black comedy in the manner of Dr. Strangelove, this odd piece of advertising might have made sense. Given that Tonight’s the Night was in fact a musical comedy about marriage, however, comparing your audiences to dead atomic bomb victims seems peculiar to say the least.
Perhaps the unconventional press release would have more appropriately suited a play which graced the Winter Gardens stage ten years later, and which by all accounts gave the summer season an ‘explosive start’. Summer Spectacular was a musical variety show with songs, dances and current affairs comedy. ‘Within minutes of the show opening at the Winter Gardens on Friday,’ the Morecambe Guardian tells us, ‘a fight broke out in the front stalls when a man walked out onto the stage with an atom bomb in a suitcase!’ I haven’t been able to trace the plot of the show, but reviews of the time suggest that it was ‘unusual’ and featured many mock explosions, so it’s safe to assume that one or two more atomic bomb larks appeared in the script.
Break A Leg (And Several Other Gruesome Injuries)
In January 1953, the Morecambe Civil Defence Corps met at the Town Hall to discuss ways to boost the numbers of their woefully understaffed volunteers. When someone suggested that people were reluctant to join Civil Defence because it was widely known that there was in fact no means of protection against the Hydrogen Bomb, the Chairman of the group, Alderman M. Benson, retaliated with his own explanation of the apathy. ‘In a seaside town like Morecambe,’ he claimed, ‘there are so many entertainments, like dance halls, pictures and theatres, and these are keeping people from joining Civil Defence.’ It seems to have escaped Alderman Benson’s notice that going to the dance hall for a rave-up is immeasurably preferable to learning how to dress third-degree burns and measure fallout plumes down at the Civil Defence HQ on a Friday night. Nevertheless, he grumbled that the people of Morecambe couldn’t ‘even be induced to join a Christmas Club, let alone Civil Defence’.
It may have shocked Mr. Benson to learn that far from diverting people from Civil Defence, theatre and amateur dramatics in fact enhanced enthusiasts involvement and enjoyment of the rather niche past time of nuclear war preparation…
The Trimpell Oil Refinery at Middleton, near Morecambe, was unique among local businesses by having their own dedicated workplace Civil Defence team, formed presumably in case the bomb dropped during the nine to five. On 15th June 1956, the Trimpell Oil Factory was ‘bombed’, with ‘thunder flashes and incendiary bombs’ exploding as the Civil Defence Corps swung into action. This, of course, was a mock-up of a nuclear attack, designed to test the team’s skills in dealing with an emergency. ‘While the fire services combatted the blazes started by the incendiaries’, the press reported, ‘squads went to work rescuing casualties, whose injuries were manufactured with the aid of putty, greasepaint and vaseline, and ranged from broken bones to cuts and bruises’.
The greasepaint used to create these injuries, together with the equipment for producing smoke blasts and flashes, were kindly donated for the event by the Royalty Theatre, Morecambe, because the Trimpell Civil Defence organiser, Mr. G. Dowson, was also a leading member of the Trimpell Amateur Dramatic Section. (How many social groups did this place have? It’s a wonder they got any work done.) The theatre shows which Mr. Dowson produced were staged for the public at the Royalty Theatre; it seems that he was able to use his connections to nab some make-up and special effects for use in his apocalyptic pantomime. A newspaper report of the event stated that Mr. Dowson was ‘very proud’ of the Civil Defence practice; whether he was referring to the performance of his volunteers or his own nightmarish set design, we will never know.
As make-believe fallout began to drift across the ballroom, the teams rolled out maps on the dancefloor, marking areas of destruction with the aid of stage spotlights. Adding to the drama, a large scaffold had been erected in the room to represent a two-story building. Moaning casualties, again vividly injured thanks to make-up and fake blood, were winched down on stretchers by members of the rescue section who scaled the structure. The watching crowd were said to be ‘thrilled and awed’ by the competition, which ended with a triumphant Lancashire beating Southport by 401 points to 331. Celebrations couldn’t last long, however; the wreckage of the ‘nuclear attack’ had to be hastily swept away for the weekly Saturday dancing at 7.00pm. Talk about dancing your worries away.
Where would you want to be if The Bomb dropped? Snug at home, sitting on the sofa? Tucked up in bed, oblivious to your impending death? Many people, myself included, feel they’d like to spend the duration of the four minute warning in a pub or bar, getting bladdered as the bombs burst. As it happens, if you’d been caught in a nuclear attack while holidaying in Morecambe, indulging in a drink in the bar may well have been the safest place to be. To find out why, we have to wind the clock back from the Cold War to the Second World War.
In 1940, as World War 2 transitioned from phoney war to firing war, and as the threat of air attack by the Luftwaffe grew, public demand for air-raid shelters reached fever pitch. Local councils began digging trenches, while many building owners suddenly saw the life-saving – and money spinning – potential of their existing underground spaces. One such basement crying out for the bomb shelter treatment was hiding beneath the dancefloor in the Winter Gardens Ballroom.
At ‘great expense’, the Winter Gardens directors transformed their huge expanse of underground space into a ‘first class, modern air-raid shelter’, able to accommodate a whopping 2,500 people. The shelter was advertised as ‘absolutely proof against any type of incendiary or high explosive bomb’, thanks to its 5’6″ reinforced concrete and steel girder ceiling and blast proof sheet metal doors. The ventilators and windows were solidly bricked up with 9″ thick blocks. Most importantly of all, the Winter Gardens was the proud home to ‘the only licensed air-raid shelter in the British Isles’, complete with a ‘modern up-to-date cafe bar where during any raid stimulating drinks [could] be served’. Never has there been a better excuse for going to the pub; it could save your life!
After the Second World War, the bomb shelter was redecorated and renamed the Parisian Bar, offering visitors a subterranean drinking experience. Later, in 1970, the Winter Gardens was taken over and the Parisian Bar was transformed into an amusement arcade called the Crystal Room. The ventilation shafts remained bricked up, and the steel girders on the ceiling were more visible than ever before, gaudily decorated in true seventies fashion with glowing neon lights. The support pillars, originally designed to keep the roof up in case of a direct bomb hit, were painted a dramatic black and festooned with gold Crystal Room lettering.
It’s doubtful that many people were aware of the arcade’s wartime origins while they were playing on the penny slot machines. Perhaps most people had forgotten that it was originally a bunker. The irony here is that the Winter Gardens arcade, built to second world war specifications, adhered closely to Cold War guidance on how to protect a building from nuclear weapons. Here’s some advice from 1963’s Advising the Householder on Protection from Atomic Attack:
— ‘Choose to shelter in a room on the ground floor or basement with as little outside wall as possible. The further you are from outside walls and the roof, the better the protection.’
— ‘The windows are the weak point in a fallout room and will not be properly protected until they have been blocked up. Remove the frames and block up the openings. Lay a double thickness of bricks if possible.’
— ‘Block up ventilation points opening into the fallout room with any heavy materials: bricks, sandbags or containers filled with earth.’
The Winter Gardens basement fulfilled many of these needs. Advising the Householder also highlighted the importance of maintaining a fourteen day stock of drinking fluids in the shelter; the licensed bombproof basement had a plentiful supply of ‘stimulating drinks’ to fall back on. Admittedly, 90% of this was alcoholic, but beggars can’t be choosers in nuclear war.
The Winter Gardens Ballroom was demolished together with its bomb shelter in 1982, just as the Cold War was beginning to hot up again. The building’s owners claimed that the historic structure was dangerously unsafe and irreparable. Lack of maintenance meant that parts of the ceiling in the basement had begun to collapse, and the roof above was at risk of caving in. Given that the Ballroom wasn’t even capable of withstanding the rigours of Morecambe’s wild weather, it’s likely that an even distant atomic blast would have seen the opulent complex collapse into a huge pile of rubble, sealing all the people sheltering in its basement in a living tomb. The occupants would have had little choice but to prop up the bar, sipping fallout dust-infused cocktails until oblivion came.
A night out at Morecambe’s nuclear bomb bar was one you would never manage to stumble home from at the end of the night. Still, the show must go on.
Rebecca Shaw
Sources
- Morecambe Guardian, 6 July 1940; 6 October 1953; 5 July 1963.
- Morecambe Visitor, 16 January 1952; 6 August 1952; 7 January 1953; 30 September 1953; 13 June 1956.
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