All-star Variety Show @ The Auden Theatre, Holt. By Keith Cutler.

All-star Variety Show @ The Auden Theatre, Holt

By Keith Cutler

Since 1983 the Aldborough Show Committee has organised annual charity shows and on Saturday at the Auden Theatre it staged a matinee and evening performance, involving a wide selection of professional and amateur stars.

These extended from Charlie Smithers, the veteran past King Rat of the Water Rats, the zany humour of the popular Simmons Brothers, Terry Burgess, who mystified the audience with his legerdemain, Michele Summers, the popular local soprano, singing songs from the shows, with Roy Hudd as top of the bill.

Amateur turns included the Cromer Smugglers, whose repertoire has expanded to a French whaling shanty and the 11-year-old guitar soloist Guitar George from Drayton, a trio led by Don Shearman and the group of four Norwich headmasters, known not surprisingly as The Four Heads.

Directed by Keith Simmons, the show played effortlessly through a plethora of comedy and music, with Roy Hudd as top of the bill giving impressions of favourite acts from the past including Harry Champion, Billy Bennett, Randolph Sutton, Bransby Williams and Bud Flanagan.

The show raised £4000 which was divided equally between the RNLI (Cromer branch) and the Grand Order of Water Rats.

An auction of an original signed script of the Roy Huddlines raised £210.