London has a rich and vibrant theatre scene, and this includes a number of amateur companies and venues.
This interview is the second in a series travelling around the capital to highlight what’s going on in non-professional theatre in the capital, and how these companies and venues work.
Today, I chat with the The Questors’ artistic director, Alex Marker. The Questors can be found at the Questors Theatre, Ealing.
Can you tell us something about how The Questors started, and how it has evolved into what it is now?
The Questors Theatre was begun by a group of 17 friends in 1929 who just wanted to put on a show.
After a few years of nomadic existence we started renting a disused church building in Mattock Lane, Ealing.
We fitted it out with old cinema seats, lighting, improved the stage and operated that as a theatre from 1933 until it was demolished to make way for our new purpose built theatre in 1964.
This was after we had bought the plot of land that the church stood on in the early 1950s.
You are based at your own theatre in Ealing. What’s that like as a venue to perform and develop shows in?
We are very lucky in that we have a building that is equivalent in size and resources to that of a professional regional repertory theatre.
We have two performance spaces: The Judi Dench Playhouse (with an average seating capacity of 350) and the Stanislavsky Studio (with a seating capacity of 80 to 100), three rehearsal rooms, on site sewing rooms, a wardrobe store, props store and a fully equipped carpentry workshop; not to mention the all important Grapevine theatre bar.
What about your programming? What would a typical season look like and how do you choose which productions to stage?
We stage 18 productions of our own across a season (split evenly between the two spaces) and in between these there are a variety of other companies who hire our spaces.
We try to programme a varied season of plays and events (To include: ‘The classic the rare and the new’) so that hopefully there is something for everyone.
This coming season started with a play about cloning by Caryl Churchill [A Number] and a thriller set in pre war France.
By the time we get to our annual pantomime we’ll have done so by way of a rarely performed Edwardian play and the all-female cast production Emilia.
Throw in a post Christmas Ibsen and later in the season a production of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and you’ll you gain a sense of how wide ranging our programming is.
Some play suggestions come from our membership and our pool of directors, others come from the artistic team.
My job as Artistic Director is to try and stitch these together (rights permitting!) into a coherent whole.
What kinds of audiences are attracted to your shows? Do you aim for a particular demographic or type, and how do you go about reaching them?
Our audiences are the people of Ealing… and beyond!
Some plays are smaller in scale or will only appeal to a specific audience so these choices tend to go in our studio theatre. We use the playhouse for the plays that we think might garner a wider audience.
A lot of people know about us because we have been going for 96 years now, but we are always seeking to reach new audiences (So, if you are reading this and have never heard of us why not pop along!).
Do you think the amateur theatre scene is in a good place now? What would improve it?
Interestingly we saw a 14% increase in our audience footfall last season and that’s at a time when many professional theatres (especially the fringe sector) are having huge problems financing and programming productions.
However, like all specialist interest and preservation groups, we could do with a few more members to help keep the show(s) on the road.
It’s one thing having an audience wanting to turn up and see stuff but as an amateur theatre I am constantly aware that the whole endeavour relies on a group of people coming together to make the magic happen.
That said, we are a stage where many unsubsidised professional companies can no longer afford to mount productions with more than a handful of actors on stage.
Consequently, larger cast classic plays will become a rarer event in the wider world, however, we can continue to produce them.
Rising ticket prices in the professional theatre might also be part of the reason that larger audiences are coming to see us.
What are the main advantages and challenges of working in amateur theatre?
People will only give as much time as they can give, however, conversely that is also our strength.
I have also worked in professional theatre over the last 25 years and in that time I have encountered some very professional amateurs and some very amateur professionals.
I have seen many instances over the decades where the amount of care and dedication on an amateur production far exceeds that which I have encountered in the professional sphere.
What has been The Questors’ proudest moment?
It’s very hard to pick a specific proudest moment when there are 96 years worth of plays, projects and events to choose from.
When our playhouse was opened in 1964 it was the first new theatre to be designed and built since before World War 2. We were one of the first theatres in the country to experiment with doing away with footlights and have a dimmable theatre lighting system.
Then there are the authors that started out at our theatre including: Tom Stoppard, James Saunders, Peter Whelan and more recently Henry Lewis whose production (which began as a 6 minute sketch in one of our youth theatre classes) The Play That Goes Wrong has gone on to become the longest running West End comedy.
Then there are many of the productions we have done over the years that really stood out, however, it would be invidious of me to pick out specific examples.
Looking ahead, can you say something about the company’s plans?
We staged our first outdoor production [Emma] for many years last season and we intend to continue with this and develop other ways of getting out into the community at large.
Last season we also staged our first large scale musical (My Fair Lady) for a while, which also proved to be a huge success, so you can expect something on this scale in the 2026/27 season.
On a more prosaic front we have more roof works to raise money for (one of the downsides of maintaining a large ageing building!).
Further down the tracks we have our centenary looming, so we’ll have to try and pull off something pretty big for that!