One To Another - 15 July 1959
"The 59 Theatre Company Season will continue until July when a new Lyric Revue will be presented on Wednesday July 15th, for a season of eight weeks." The dramatic intensity of Danton's Death and Brand would be followed at the Lyric Opera house, Hammersmith, by "this Revue, which is already in preparation (and) will consist of material written by new or little known writers and composers not usually associated with this form of entertainment."
One To Another starred Beryl Reid ( who was then mainly known as a radio comedienne in shows like Educating Archie) with Patrick Wymark providing continuity from the 59 Theatre season. The show also "introduced" Joe Melia who had been "spotted" at the Cambridge Footlights and would go on to appear in Mario Zampi's Too Many Crooks (1959) . One To Another was devised and designed by Disley Jones and directed by choreographer Eleanor Fazan, with her husband Stanley Myers ( theme from The Deer Hunter) as Musical Director. The revue also starred Sheila Hancock, Patsy Rowlands, Ray Barrett, Tony Tanner, Barbara Evans and Roddy Maude-Roxby.
The Revue was successful enough to transfer in a revised version to the Globe Theatre from Wednesday 19th August 1959.The Times said NF Simpson's sketch Gladly Otherwise, about a statistician calling on housewife Beryl Reid gave Patrick Wymark, "another splendid chance to be one of Mr Simpson's talkative mouthpieces." . Simpson, the newly discovered star of the 'Theatre of the Absurd' also contirbuted Can You Hear Me featuring Wymark, Tonny Tanner and Roddy Maude-Roxby. The show premiered Trouble In The Works by Harold Pinter, in which Wymark and Tony Tanner (Stop The World I Want To Get Off) played an employer and Foreman whose roles reverse as the Foreman tries to explain why the workers are unhappy with the products they are working on. Pinter also contributed The Black and the White in which Beryl Reid and Sheila Hancock played two old women who sit in a cafe with their bowls of soup, passing the time with conversation ( think Granpa Simpson).
The show's opening number was written by William Sansom and Humphrey Searle, who was a friend of Wymark's having lent him a flat at Ordnance Hill while Wymark was appearing in The Tempest and The Black Arrow. Searle would later compose the music for the Royal Shakespeare Company production of The Duchess of Malfi. The Revue proved a showcase for the performers and writers with other sketches being written by John Mortimer, Bamber Gasgoine, David Nobbs, and Alistair Sampson. Songs were by Robert Benchley, Serge Gainsbourg and Patrick Gowers.