Cover of programme for the stage show.

Stage production of hit 60s BBC television sitcom The Rag Trade.

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The sitcom ran on the BBC for 3 initial series between 1961 and 1963, written by Ronald Wolfe & Ronald Chesney. Hugely successful, it made stars of Peter Jones, Miriam Karlin, Reg Varney, Esma Cannon, Sheila Hancock and Barbara Windsor.

Set in Fenner Fashions, where the women machinists led by shop steward Paddy (Miriam Karlin) with her catchphrase "Everybody out!" battle tight boss Mr Fenner (Peter Jones) and his assistant Reg (Reg Varney).

In between Series 2 and 3 this stage show version was mounted at the Piccadilly Theatre, London. As per the TV show, the stage version of The Rag Trade was written by Wolfe & Chesney and featured the principal TV cast of Peter Jones as boss Mr Fenner, Miriam Karlin as shop steward Paddy, Reg Varney as foreman Reg and Esme Cannon as machinist Lily. However all the further supporting cast of young women that made up the machinists such as Sheila Hancock and Barbara Windsor were replaced. Taking their place in the stage play version were Rosemary Frankau as Doreen and Sheena Marshe as Sandra, who wishes to model. Other new characters for the stage play include Frank Coda as Paddy's boyfriend Frank, Stella Tanner as Olive, Carmel Cryam as Gloria, Kevin Brennan as Mr Miller an Australian buyer and Paul Stassino as Roberto, an Italian fashion designer. The stage play ran from 19th December 1962 till 23rd February 1963, towards the end concurrently with Series 3 of The Rag Trade on television which ran 5th January till 30th March 1963. The return of the TV series was largely to blame for the failure of the stage play. The idea here was that of stage impresario Bernard Delfont, who had tried the idea 3 years earlier in adapting popular Granada sitcom The Army Game into a successful Blackpool summer season stage show (I've covered this one too). Delfont took a risk that people would pay to see on the stage what they were watching for free on television, and whilst it wasn't on televison that worked. But once it did return to the screens why make the effort to go out in the cold of winter to see it on the stage? Had the TV series stayed off screens till the stage play finished it might have had more success. That said, it wasn't just the return of the TV series that nixed the stage play. Reviews were variable, most complimented the regular cast on doing their best with the material and finding a way to make it somewhat work but most of the criticisms were around a paper-thin plot around an Italian fashion designer and an Australian buyer and the fact that there just wasn't enough material to justify the two hour running time, four times longer than a regular TV episode, with complaints that it ran out of steam in the second half. Esme Cannon also commented in an interview that because this was still a fairly new novelty of adapting a TV show, "people didn't think of it as a real play". But people being able to stay in their warm homes and watch it on the box again was the death knell for the stage show and it was decided to bring it to an early close on 23rd November 1963, instead replacing it with a short season of the American gospel-singing show Black Nativity, which had been a hit the previous year,

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Whilst the end of The Rag Trade on stage, it wasn't the death of the format of stage adapting TV sitcoms, which would become very popular in the 70s and 80s as theatres desperately tried to get TV audiences back into the theatres with familiar faces and shows as the cinemas did the same thing adapting sitcoms to film.