JKG History Page

John Kilby Green & the History of the Toy Theatre

Chapter 10 – Pollock’s Museum

• Pollock’s Toy Museum

The toy theatre wasn’t to end with the demise of Benjamin Pollock Ltd and perhaps it was only through Keen’s modern designs that enabled it to continue. For in the mid 1950s a young mother, Marguerite Fawdry, needed some wire slides for her children’s toy theatre productions to be performed on their “Regency” stage. She wrote to the receiver asking if she could purchase some from the liquidated stock. She was told “no” as all the stock etc, was in storage, but she could buy the lot if she so wished. This is what she did, with a small down payment put up by her father-in-law, she acquired the stock of sheets and plates, not realising quite what she would find. There was enough to set up a small shop, but Marguerite decided to go one step further and set up “Pollock’s Toy Museum”, using the theatres and scene sheets as the starting point of the collection. In a very short period “Pollock’s Toy Museum” soon became a significant attraction in the back streets of London (44 Monmouth Street, near Covent Garden), quietly standing between the tower-blocks and general rush of the twentieth century London, whilst displaying much quieter times inside.

Like Alan Keen before her, Marguerite Fawdry had plans to revitalise the toy theatre world, but her plans were modest by comparison and were limited mostly to using the stocks and plates in her possession to produce new works and on a much more realistic budget. She was a woman with a shrewd business brain and was always mindful of the limited market she traded in.

Mrs Fawdry did bring out two new plays, both in 1956, “The Massacre of Penny Plain” and “The Flying Saucerers”, but after these she reverted to using plates in her possession.

1956	The Massacre of Penny Plain	Test by Reginald Reynolds Drawings by Hugh McClelland	Penny Plain
1956	The Flying Saucerers	Test by Reginald Reynolds Drawings by Robert Culff	Penny Plain
1960	Richard III	Green	Penny Plain
1960	Combined Green’s Victoria Theatre with Aladdin play.	Green (Abridged)	Tuppence Coloured
1961	Cinderella	Green (Abridged)	Tuppence Coloured
1961	Jack the Giant Killer	Green (Abridged) George Speaight re-wrote text to bring closer to Jack & the Beanstalk, rather than the Giant Serial killer Jack.	Tuppence Coloured
1963	Aladdin	Green (Abridged)	Tuppence Coloured
1963	Blackbeard the Pirate	Green (Abridged)	Tuppence Coloured
1963	Children of the Wood	Green (Abridged)	Tuppence Coloured
1964	Othello	Skelt	Penny Plain
1965	Harlequinade	Extracted from Green - Text by George Speaight	Tuppence Coloured
Book Format – Re-releases and New abridgements
1972	Aladdin	Green (Abridged)	Tuppence Coloured
1972	Cinderella	Green (Abridged)	Tuppence Coloured
1972	Children in the Wood	Green (Abridged)	Tuppence Coloured
1972	Blackbeard the Pirate	Green (Abridged)	Tuppence Coloured
1972	Jack the Giant Killer	Green (Abridged) George Speaight re-wrote text to bring closer to Jack & the Beanstalk, rather than the Giant Serial killer Jack.	Tuppence Coloured
1972	Harlequinade	Extracted from Green - Text by George Speaight	Tuppence Coloured
1973	Daughter of the Regiment	Green (Abridged)	Tuppence Coloured
1974	Corsican Brothers	Green (Abridged)	Tuppence Coloured
Combined Theatres and Plays (Large Card Book Format)
1971	Green’s Victorian Theatre with Cinderella	Green (Abridged)	Tuppence Coloured
1971	Redington’s Britannia Theatre with Ali Baba & the Forty Thieves	Green (Abridged)	Tuppence Coloured
1971	Green’s Regency Theatre with Sleeping Beauty	Green (Abridged)	Tuppence Coloured
1972	Richardson Booth with St George and the Dragon	Green with Mummers Play	Tuppence Coloured

Cover for the 1963 Pollock version of Jack the Giant Killer

This list is not exhaustive. I will add to it as I find out more.

The abridged versions of Cinderella and Aladdin were subtly different from Keen’s versions, using different scenes, but I believe the book of words to be the same.

In the late 1960’s a few of Green’s plays with Green’s imprint were re-printed from the original plates by Fore’s of Bond Street. These were the “Collector’s Series” with very limited print-runs (maximum of a dozen). They were expertly done, but the plates had deteriorated due to the storage techniques used by Keen, causing corrosion to the zinc plates. The corrosion could not be corrected in the printing process. Despite the quality of the Fore’s prints, there were few takers. Most collectors were far happier to purchase the remaining clean lithographic single sheets with Pollock’s imprint. In a catalogue of the time you could purchase 100 assorted sheets for 10/-. I suspect that collectors today would be happy to pay £100 or more for such a bundle. That would be the equivalent of 10,000% inflation over 30-40 years, an excellent investment if one had the foresight to purchase such a collection.

During the 1960’s Mrs Fawdry re-boxed the “The Regency Theatre”. The mould for the Bakelite proscenium frame must have been in her possession, as this model was in brown Bakelite, whereas the Keen version was black. The proscenium sheet was more highly coloured than before, but to all intent and purposes this was the same kit.

(On the left a 1946 “Keen version” of the Regency Theatre and a 1960’s Mrs Fawdry’s version on the right)

## Note the reduced scale orchestra on the 1960’s version, so as to include the full orchestra ##

## Note the mahogany veneered wood of the original 1946 model compared to the plain plywood of the later model ##

When stocks ran out of “The Regency Theatre” in the late 1960’s Mrs Fawdry produced a complete book-form kit for a theatre and play designed by Peter Jackson. This started with “The Victoria Theatre”, another of Green’s works and very similar to “The Regency Theatre”. The abridged “Cinderella” or “Aladdin” plays were added. All this was produced on thick card so that the purchaser could build the theatre and perform a play using just a knife and glue. An almost identical version was produced, using an abridged colour version of Green’s “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”, and using Redington’s “Britannia” proscenium. A slightly different version was produced using “The Regency Theatre” this time with an abridged coloured version of Green’s “Sleeping Beauty”. The final fling in these combined theatre and play productions was “The late Richardson Booth” with a heavily edited and re-worked version of Green’s “St George and the Dragon”.

1971 Pollock’s “The Victoria” Theatre with “Cinderella” Play

1971 Pollock’s “Regency” Theatre with “Sleeping Beauty” Play

1972 Pollock’s late Richardson’s Booth with St George & the Dragon (The Mummer’s Play)

From this time on all playbooks were printed in several languages in an effort to capture the passing tourist market and class their sales as educational thereby avoiding certain sales taxes.

Marguerite Fawdry died in September 1995.

In 1969 the museum moved to new premises and “Pollock’s Toy Museum” still exists there today at 1 Scala Street, just behind Goodge Street underground station, with the Post Office Tower looming behind.

(All images on this page have been published with the kind permission of “Pollock’s Toy Theatres Ltd”)

(Visit “Pollock’s Toy Theatres Ltd” web-site here)

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