News, sport and entertainment from the Bournemouth Echo and Dorset Echo.

Show scenery needs a new home

From the Echo, first published Friday 29th Mar 2002.

BRIDPORT dancing impresario Bernard Gale is looking for a home - for the beautiful scenery backdrops painted by George Biles for shows at the Palace Cinema.

Mr Gale thinks the famous sign painter was self taught and that he painted the backdrops originally for the operatic society, a lot of them for Dulcie Gibbs' shows.

Mr Gale said: "We used to hire it out a lot of time for different shows and then he said he was retiring and wanted to sell them."

They were all designed for the Palace and the artist took local scenes for his inspiration, as well as fantastic scenes of the Canadian Rockies, Chinese scenes and the Tower of London. The bluebell wood always provokes the same reaction in people who feel they could quite literally walk through it, it's so beautifully painted, said Mr Gale.

At the moment the priceless backdrops, and the `flats' that go at the side of the stage, are stored by the pantomime players but the conditions are not ideal.

"I just wondered if anybody had any storage space to keep them for the town. I think they belong to the town because he was such a clever man. They must have been a labour of love, we used to pay him a pittance to hire them. It's amazing to think what people did for their fellow townsmen.

"He found local and national fame for his inn signs. He actually painted pictures of local scenes in panels in the Palace Cinema. We wanted to try and restore them, they are still there under emulsion. He also painted a lovely panoramic view in Gundry's canteen of Colmers Hill and all and then along came magnolia emulsion and it was gone. He must have worked at a terrific pace. It seems such a shame. He was a legend in his time."

The theatre scenes are rolled up at the moment so although the length of the storage space is critical Mr Gale doesn't think they would take up too much room in the corner of a warehouse somewhere.

"If you had a big warehouse they would not take up a large area. We just need a corner of a big warehouse.

"I think they are worth preserving because they are part of the town's history. It is not very often you get anything in the performing arts that you can preserve. Once a dance is danced, it's over, or a song is sung it's gone but art you can preserve."

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