THANKS For The Memories celebrates the Centenary Year of the Bristol Hippodrome put on by the Bristol Light Opera Company and Bristol Musical Youth Productions.

The show starts in 1911 with Oswald Stoll explaining to the foremost theatre designer of the time Frank Matcham that he wanted to build ‘the grandest theatre outside London’ and he had 18 months to do it – we now know that it was an unqualified success.

In two and a half hours BLOC and BMYP took us on a magical journey covering the first 100 years – 1913 La Dame Aux Camelias and the Suffragettes, the 1930’s featured Gracie Fields (Lucy Bradshaw), the 40’s saw The Tiller Girls in The Bristol Blitz which was followed by Understage in the Blitz.

Rapidly on to the final scene before the interval was VE Day with flag waving and passionate singing of There’ll Always Be An England and We’ll Meet Again. During the Babes in the Wood panto in 1948 disaster struck with a backstage fire causing so much damage the theatre had to close for 10 months, on to the 70’s the theatre was threatened with closure and saved thanks to the ‘Save the Hippo’ campaign. Bringing us up to speed we relived our memories as the cast brought us highlights that included Hair, The Music Man, Guys & Dolls, Mary Poppins, Joseph, The Sound of Music and Les Miserables.

An evening of pure nostalgia superbly delivered by a cast of well over 100 very talented individuals.