Archive #32/65: Cultural Highlights through the 1970s

This caused the Rector Jim Pine to comment at the end 1976: “Lindisfarne does well at sport, our academic standards are sound enough, debating and public speaking flourish but culturally we’re barely alive”.

The appointment of Nigel Evans in 1977 was intended to remedy this situation as he was given the brief to produce concerts and plays. The first offering from Mr Evans was Harold Pinter’s “The Caretaker” in 1977. This was considered a very challenging play for school boys and indeed the reviews seem to reflect this opinion.

They ranged from, “Terrible!” and “Not the right sort of play for a school group.” To “Incredible!”, “Fantastic!” and “Thoroughly enjoyed it”. All these comments were reported in the Chronicle by Greg Sims who went on to say that everyone involved had “a lot of fun and a good time”. The need for more cultural involvement seems to have been a common theme in the 1970’s as the next Rector, Mr Hill, who took up the reins in 1978, reported that, “There is a need to improve the range of cultural activities in the school”.

This problem seems to have been convincingly overcome in 1979 when two plays were presented by the college. The first of these was “Hobson’s Choice” and reviews in The Hawke’s Bay Herald Tribune and the Daily Telegraph were uniformly glowing. Encouraged by the success of the senior production, the juniors went on to present a production of Oliver. This was produced by Mr Francis and the adult roles were taken by members of staff including Mr. Storkey as Mr. Bumble.