“Taranaki Central Press’’ MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1937. “A DISGUSTING CIVIC BUILDING.”

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 360, 15 February 1937, Page 4

“Taranaki Central Press’’ MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1937. “A DISGUSTING CIVIC BUILDING.”

At the risk of being accused of repetition, we cannot refrain from mentioning again the deplorable Town Hall of Stratford. On this page we publish an interview with a visiting artist whose company played in the hall on Saturday night. As is mentioned in that report, the views of that artist were not inspired by any leading question. To a direct question he answered directly.

The experience of the revue company on Saturday night is not a new one for travelling shows which call at Stratford. That is why such visits are few and far between. It is a case of once bitten, twice shy.” Mr. George Wallace and his troupers will certainly not return here to play under such conditions again.

There is a real tragedy underlying the attitude of travelling theatrical companies to Stratford. And the tragedy concerns the residents of this town and district. It is one of isolation, being cut off from the entertainment world. For entertainment of the true type is part of life. If Stratford residents are to measure up to the standard of other parts of New Zealand they must be given opportunities of hearing and seeing something more than comes to them over the radio or on the picture screen. Artists of world fame could well be encouraged to come here on their New Zealand tours. The population warrants such visits, but the condition of the Town Hall prevents them. That is the tragedy, that Stratford will not move itself to expand its inner life.

Let us think well, too, of the concluding remark made by Mr. George Wallace in an interview —that we will never be able to develop our own local musical entertainment life while the present dilapidated and unsuitable building is the only one available. There are towns much more isolated geographically than Stratford. They suffer from a lack of visiting shows for that reason. But they build a civic centre and develop their own entertainment life. Here we do neither. We just stagnate in that direction.

Let the town throw off its apathy. We know that widespread support has been offered our own comments on the condition of the present buildings. And we know, too, that should the Borough Council make but the slightest move, the support of most citizens would be forthcoming. Is it too much to ask that some of the old plans for a new Town Hall should be taken from their hiding-places and that a genuine attempt be made to repair the shocking lack in Stratford’s civic life which comes from the dilapidated “barn’’ now doing pitiful duty as a Town Hall?