'Theatre has staged finest actors whilst keeping pantomime tradition alive'

David Lepper, Labour MP for Brighton Pavilion, said what was most impressive about the theatre was its record of putting on stage the world's finest actors while keeping alive the pantomime tradition.

He said: "One of the best things about coming to Brighton in the late Sixties was the number of great actors and actresses I remember seeing at the Theatre Royal Brighton."

They included Laurence Olivier, Alec Guinness, Ralph Richardson, John Gielgud, Joan Plowright and Dame Flora Robson - "all the great actors of that generation".

Mr Lepper said: "Usually you only got to see actors of that quality in London. It was great to live in a place where almost every week there was an actor of world standing performing. I used to go very regularly."

One of the memorable performances he witnessed was Charlton Heston starring as Sir Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons.

The MP also recalls singer Eartha Kitt treading the theatre's boards in one of her few stage appearances.

But while the roll call of quality actors helped cement the Theatre Royal Brighton's reputation as a serious arts venue, the theatre did not neglect the importance of providing good family entertainment.

Mr Lepper said: "The other great thing about the Theatre Royal Brighton is the pantomime. We used to go with our own children, then there was a bit of a gap and more recently I've gone back as an MP."

More recent memories include seeing ex-model Twiggy in Jack and the Beanstalk and Eastenders star David Roper as the baddie in Aladdin.

Mr Lepper is stepping down as MP at the next General Election but he expects he will keep coming to the pantomime - just as soon as his two-year-old grandson is old enough.

Comedian Toby Park, performer and score writer for the Brighton physical comedy act Spymonkey, has trodden the boards at Theatre Royal Brighton six times.

Spymonkey has performed in about 20 countries around the world and has won massive praise from critics everywhere from The Stage to The Houston Chronicle and the Melbourne Age.

Mr Park said: "Standing on the stage at Theatre Royal Brighton is amazing because you have got banks of people wherever your eye line goes. Right down to your feet and up to the gods you have got people.

"For us with comedy, anywhere you look you have got people in your eyeline, which is fantastic. You can feel you are walking in the footsteps of some absolutely amazing people - Olivier, Gielgud. It really was a great honour to perform there.

"We did six performances. We would love to go back."

Spymonkey is hoping to bring its new show Bless to the Brighton Festival, possibly in the Theatre Royal Brighton, next year. Mr Park said: "It is all very much in the planning stages. Hopefully they will show Bless, which we have been developing for the last few months."

They took the show to Brighton's Gardner Arts Centre before it shut, and to Switzerland and Canada.

Bless is a "divine comedy" about saints and goodness in mankind.

It is Spymonkey's third collaboration with writer and director Cal McCrystal, of Mighty Boosh, Peepolykus and Cirque du Soleil.

Margaret Rudwick, 72, from Brighton said she had been going to shows for 50 years.

She said: "I just love theatre.

"I don't think it has changed all that much here in that time.

"It has still got good things to see and that warm atmosphere from the velvety seats.

"I like that it is old - it suits us older people!"

Peter Elliott, 68, of Brighton, said he often came for matinee performances.

He said: "I just like coming out for the afternoon and have a meal afterwards.

"I really like colourful shows with lots of music. One that sticks in my memory has to be the Irish Dancing when I ended up trying some moves on the stage.

"We always sit in the front row so I got dragged up but I didn't do very well - I don't think they were worried I was going to steal their job."

Mary Reeves, 79, from Brighton, said she had been coming to the theatre since she was a teenager.

She said: "I remember being absolutely besotted with a film star called Tyrone Power.

"A friend and I went to see him in something then waited outside the stage door for hours for him to come out. When he did my knees buckled. He just walked past with a lady friend and smiled at us. I couldn't ask for an autograoh because I felt too weak."

Peter Tuddenham, 85, from Brighton, is an actor who provided the voices of Zen, Orac and Slave, computers on the science fiction TV show Blake's 7.

He also starred in a production of Charley's Aunt so was excited to come and see it performed again at the TRB.

He said: "It is good to see the same classic shows come back again and again."

Molly Hopkins, 84, from Hove, said: "I like it here because it is an old theatre - not a modernised building with no character. It makes all the difference and the whole experience fuller."

Mavis Norman, 68, from Peacehaven, said: "I like the musicals the best, the sound is great inside the theatre and it is a real experience.

"Some of the amateur shows are as good as the professional ones as well."

Helen Black, 26, of Bevendean, Brighton, is a writer who has been working in the theatre for seven years. She said the theatrical world inspired many of the plays she wrote as well as being a good place to meet actors and arts people who can put on her plays.

She said: "It can be very inspiring working here but the most interesting are the regular customers.

"There are some who come every week and they are really nice. It makes me look forward to getting old because they make it seem like so much fun, getting dolled up and coming to the theatre.

"I've met some really lovely - and not so lovely - actors too. The worst are those who have just got their first part or whatever and are getting a bit ahead of themselves.

"The best are the ones who have been doing it for years and have more to be pompous about but just aren't.

"Penelope Keith is one of the ones like that - really lovely and posh."

Mary Goody is exhibitons officer at Brighton museum.

She said: "I'm curating an exhibition about the history of the theatre.

"I think the building is unique. That way you can have quite a lot of people watching but all closely and intimate to the action on stage.

"I don't think there are many other places in the country to which attracts such big names. In London, in the past, certain actors would be connected to certain theatres but everyone came down to the Theatre Royal Brighton.

"The dressing rooms have changed position over the years but it is lovely to think of all the actors who have sat in front of those mirrors applying their make-up and waiting to go on stage."

Tristan Sharpe and Bettina Lustrum are from performing arts company dreamthinkspeak.

They mix performance with various media. They work in a variety of settings from Theatre Royal Brighton to a disused paper factory in Moscow.

Mr Sharpe said: "At the TRB we did a piece called UNDERGROUND, inspired by Dostoyeksky's Crime and Punishment.

"We used the entire theatre, including the foyers, dressing rooms, stage and understage. The audience followed the action around the theatre and could go anywhere they wanted - except the auditorium!

"The backstage of the Theatre Royal Brighton is a wonderful, labyrinthine collection of spaces that have slowly grown through the neighbouring fishermen's cottages over the years. This made it perfect for our kind of work: the orchestra pit became a vodka den, the scene dock a police station, the dressing rooms an apartment block and The Argus hospitality room a small chapel!

"It was an unforgettable experience for all of us involved."

Bettina Lustrum said: "Theatre Royal Brighton is a stunning building full of secret rooms and surprising details. Every Brightonian should have done a backstage tour at least once in their life; every school kid in Brighton should be made to see the hemp house, it's a local treasure."

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