Hole In The Wall

The original Hole in The Wall was indeed in Newcastle Street, in the 60's. Near the corner of Beaufort Street, sharing a back laneway with the Orange Lodge. Wily old Frank later aquired acess to the laneway, [because the Lodge Secretary forgot one year to chain off the lane for one whole day/year].

I think it was an old hardware shop, with store rooms behind. The stage was the store room behind the front shop & set in the hole, with the wall being the proscenium.

I think from memory the name came about from general conversation between cohorts Coralie Condon [Franks Financial Partner], Joan Sydney, Bill Ward & Maury Ogden, while they were knocking out the hole in the wall. 

Frank Baden Powell started it orginaly, with a season of the ' Old Time Music Hole', that was that popular it bedcame the flagship of the Frank Baden powell Enterprises. Changing it's name to just the 'Old Time Music Hall'. He then branched out with Coralie Condon & opened one in Fremantle & a number of 'Dirty Dicks' & a 'Diamond Lills Wild West Saloon in Beaufort Street at the old Civic Theatre.

The Hole in the wall theatre branched off & moved to around 22 Southport Street, as mentioned by Jeff & Don. I think when Frank eventualy  fell off the perch, it was flogged off, when his eastate was wound up. I think the orginal idea was to afford work for perfromers in Perth & went on from there.

I thought that the performance room in the kebab shop was underground, not upstairs. The basement had a history, in the popular memory at least, of housing intimate and experimental shows. I was part of a number of discussions in 2001 (?) about using this basement to mount a spoken word/dance/just intonation show about squid myths. In the event, none of the collaborators seemed to understand what any of the others were talking about, the idea bit the dust and shortly afterward the basement was sealed for OHS reasons.

If this is not the same venue - or kebab shop - that hosted The Hole's last days, then this just proves how rich and how secretive the performance history of Northbridge actually is. 

My last memories of the place were of the production meetings for Lily's Secret and Jack Love Me, which Homestead and Inspiral took over to Brisbane in 2004. 

When I was running The Disk, I was told of a book-length history of The Hole that was currently in preparation. I cannot remember the name of the author, nor the name of my source (though it may have been one of the university presses). Did this book ever come to fruition? 

There is a great oral history project to be found in the theatre history of William St, and of Northbridge as a whole. Does anyone know if such a thing is actually happening? Curtin and LISWA were both interested in this sort of thing at the turn of the century. Are they still? Is The Blue Room? Is anyone?

Noel Christian

Thanks for that Craig.

A few corrections regarding the State Theatre Company drawn from a great little record of this period; a small volume of interviews broadcast on 720 6WF by Peter Holland, talking theatre. I remember hearing several of these broadcast. This slim paperback records interviews with Bill Dunstone, Andrew Ross, Alan Becher, Angela Chaplin, Barry Moreland, Edgar Metcalfe, David Britton, David Hough, David Williams, Geoff Kelso and Ray Omodei - who was the first and only artistic director of the State Theatre Company, not Aarne. Although I believe Aarne and Ray were the front runners for the role.

Liberally plagiarising Holland's introduction (any omissions or errors are my own), the decision to establish a State Theatre Company was  taken in 1990 by then Labor Minister for the Arts, Kay Hallahan MLC. The company was supposedly formed from the combined resources of the Hole in the Wall and the WA Theatre Company in 1991. The appointment of Ray Omodei as artistic director was one of several highly controversial issues surrounding the company. Holland's introduction notes that three board members resigned at the time of Omodei's appointment.

The company completed a full year's programme in 1992 at the Subiaco Theatre Centre but on 11 March 1993 after only two productions the directors announced that the company had ceased operation. The company's request to the state government for advance funds due later that year had been rejected. The same day, Arts Minister Peter Foss, in the newly elected Liberal government announced a review into the theatre industry in WA.

Whatever the controversy surrounding his appointment, Omodei in his interview mentions that the State Theatre Company was promised $1.2m - equivalent to the combined funding of both original companies - but "got six hundred thousand, plus some extra bits that were bled in on a non-regular basis".

Cheers
Grant

--
Director, actor and administrator of this website

Being born and raised in that part of town, I can certainly remember the Hole In The Wall on the corner of Stirling Street. It's an indelible part of my childhood memories, like the tram lines at that intersection, the huge animated Flintstones car and family atop the roof of the car sales yard on the opposite corner, and the bandstand in the park where the Salvation Army used to play on Sundays.

Incidentally, going back a couple of decades to the war years (my grandmother told me), there was another 'Blue Room' in what is now known as 'Northbridge'. It was a somewhat notorious nightclub on the corner of Newcastle and William Streets and was, apparently, the scene of many a scandal involving Perth women and American servicemen. Was today's Blue Room named after it...I wonder?

Per Ardua Ad Astra