I have received an email that the HITW was originally in South Port Street, West Leederville, in the seventies.

www.meltheco.org.au

It was indeed in Southport St a small intimate theatre in the semi round,but this was not its original location.The first "Hole", as I recall,the one with the actual hole in the wall between two rooms, was in Newcastle St or thereabouts and opened in the late sixties.

I would have thought you would have a clear memory of "Shirley Valentine" It starred Amanda Muggleton and the nude scene was rather confronting in the small intimate setting.But then she probably wore bathers for the high school students.

I am ashamed to say that I don't ever recall going to The Hole in a sober frame of mind - nor leaving it that way. It has become one of those venues that has slipped into an alternative geography - I remember it well but couldn't take you there. The real Perth - perhaps the real Earth - is the one that we dream.

I remember Frank Johnson nude in Upside Down at the Bottom of the World, but not being a schoolkid at the time I cannot say whether or not it was confronting. I remember the verve of the performances, however. It was one of those shows that sticks, no matter how fuddled the mind.

Noel

The original Hole in The Wall was indeed in Newcastle Street, in the 60's. Near the corner of Beaufort Street, sharing a back laneway with the Orange Lodge. Wily old Frank later aquired acess to the laneway, [because the Lodge Secretary forgot one year to chain off the lane for one whole day/year].

I think it was an old hardware shop, with store rooms behind. The stage was the store room behind the front shop & set in the hole, with the wall being the proscenium.

I think from memory the name came about from general conversation between cohorts Coralie Condon [Franks Financial Partner], Joan Sydney, Bill Ward & Maury Ogden, while they were knocking out the hole in the wall. 

Frank Baden Powell started it orginaly, with a season of the ' Old Time Music Hole', that was that popular it bedcame the flagship of the Frank Baden powell Enterprises. Changing it's name to just the 'Old Time Music Hall'. He then branched out with Coralie Condon & opened one in Fremantle & a number of 'Dirty Dicks' & a 'Diamond Lills Wild West Saloon in Beaufort Street at the old Civic Theatre.

The Hole in the wall theatre branched off & moved to around 22 Southport Street, as mentioned by Jeff & Don. I think when Frank eventualy  fell off the perch, it was flogged off, when his eastate was wound up. I think the orginal idea was to afford work for perfromers in Perth & went on from there.

A history as I remember it:

The Hole was at 180 Hamersley Rd (now the Subiaco Arts Centre) from '84 until the big shake up in Perth theatre that happened around '90/91.

The WA Theatre Company (which was based at the Playhouse) was in financial strife, as was the Hole In The Wall company. Artistic Directors were sacked, boards were restructured, basically the two companies were merged to try and solve their difficulties... into an entity called the State Theatre Company of WA. It was based at the Hamersley Rd complex. Aarne Neeme was the Artistic Director.

(The TIE company attached to the WA Theatre Co [Acting Out] had already become independent and moved to the ground floor of Subi. It soon became Barking Gecko. The company that was formerly called Swy Theatre, under Alan Becher in Murray St, moved to the vacated Playhouse and became the Perth Theatre Company. Eventually Yirra Yaakin Aboriginal Theatre took over the Murray St Venue. Musical chairs...!)

The State Theatre Co merger only lasted a couple of years. They had a highly productive ensemble structure and produced a lot of shows in a short time, perhaps burning out their resources..! It was disbanded. By then a new company had sprung up at the Octagon...Black Swan Theatre Co. They were the ones to inherit the Subi venue for many years, under Andrew Ross.

Somehow, the Hole In The Wall Theatre still retained a board structure, and re-emerged as a company under Ray Omedei (who had been the Artistic Director for most of its Subiaco tenancy). They had a small venue in William St, upstairs over a kebab shop (diagonally across the road from where the Rechabites is), as well as performing in a variety of other locations. They survived for quite a few more years on a project-by-project basis.
I don't know what happened to them after that. I can't remember any appearances after about 2000-2001.

Cheers,
Craig

~<8>-/====\---------

I thought that the performance room in the kebab shop was underground, not upstairs. The basement had a history, in the popular memory at least, of housing intimate and experimental shows. I was part of a number of discussions in 2001 (?) about using this basement to mount a spoken word/dance/just intonation show about squid myths. In the event, none of the collaborators seemed to understand what any of the others were talking about, the idea bit the dust and shortly afterward the basement was sealed for OHS reasons.

If this is not the same venue - or kebab shop - that hosted The Hole's last days, then this just proves how rich and how secretive the performance history of Northbridge actually is. 

My last memories of the place were of the production meetings for Lily's Secret and Jack Love Me, which Homestead and Inspiral took over to Brisbane in 2004. 

When I was running The Disk, I was told of a book-length history of The Hole that was currently in preparation. I cannot remember the name of the author, nor the name of my source (though it may have been one of the university presses). Did this book ever come to fruition? 

There is a great oral history project to be found in the theatre history of William St, and of Northbridge as a whole. Does anyone know if such a thing is actually happening? Curtin and LISWA were both interested in this sort of thing at the turn of the century. Are they still? Is The Blue Room? Is anyone?

Noel Christian

The Hole in the Wall Theatre was established by Frank Baden-Powell and John Gill in 1965 in the old Braille Hall on the corner of Stirling and Newcastle Streets. the first play was The Knack directed by John Gill. Originally created as a 142 seat theatre-in-the-round, the Hole was intended as a break away from the conventional theatre scene. Baden-Powell and Gill alternated as directors. In 1967 they presented a theatre restaurant style musical which went on to become the Old Time Musical Hall. In August 1968 the new Hole in the Wall opened in a converted warehouse in Southport St Leederville. The first play was a Day in the Death of Joe Egg directed by John Gill.

Being born and raised in that part of town, I can certainly remember the Hole In The Wall on the corner of Stirling Street. It's an indelible part of my childhood memories, like the tram lines at that intersection, the huge animated Flintstones car and family atop the roof of the car sales yard on the opposite corner, and the bandstand in the park where the Salvation Army used to play on Sundays.

Incidentally, going back a couple of decades to the war years (my grandmother told me), there was another 'Blue Room' in what is now known as 'Northbridge'. It was a somewhat notorious nightclub on the corner of Newcastle and William Streets and was, apparently, the scene of many a scandal involving Perth women and American servicemen. Was today's Blue Room named after it...I wonder?

Per Ardua Ad Astra