Return of the District Six crooners
Jayson Jay King has gathered together some of District Six's surviving crooners and put together the theatre production, Golden Crooners, which will be playing at the New Space Theatre, at 44 Long Street, Cape Town from 15 April to 1 May, 2010.
In an era that saw the end of the Second World War and the launch of major appliances such as the colour television and microwave, saw the rise of the singing style known as crooning. Crooning became popular with the likes of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Nat King Cole and their ballads became the theme songs on the corners of District Six when they where sung by Cape Town's very own crooners.
The Golden Crooners include Terry Smith, Roderick Gilbert, Ruth Marley, George Samm and Bernard Damons as the music director. They will pay tribute to original crooners such as Frank Sinatra, Shirley Bassey, Matt Monro, Nat “King” Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holliday, and Sammy Davis Jnr. The production, although set in a living room of the ordinary folk on the Cape Flats, eventually transforms into a magnificent cabaret stage, imitating a set in Las Vegas.
Racially divided country
The original Space Theatre was founded in Bloem Street in May 1972 by theatre photographer Brian Astbury and his actress wife Yvonne Bryceland. They then relocated in 1976 to the YMCA building, 44 Long Street. The Space Theatre established itself as a defiantly non-racial venue in a racially divided country, which is a perfect setting for a show such as the Golden Crooners. Now, 36 years later, the Space Theatre is being relaunched as the New Space Theatre and the Golden Crooners will be the first show on the new annual line-up.
The show runs from Tuesdays to Saturdays and starts at 8pm. Tickets are available at R120 a ticket at Computicket and all Shoprite Checkers stores. For more information, go to www.newspacetheatre.co.za or contact +27 (0)21 462 5269.
