In November and December 1993 the Bristol Light Opera Club, “in their 60th year”, presented Frank Loesser’s Hans Andersen, “a fairy tale musical”, at the Bristol Hippodrome, with Mike Purnell in the title role. The £1.50 “Diamond Jubilee” souvenir programme carries chairman Robert Hurst’s note that this was the Club’s 37th year at the Hippodrome, and a history of BLOC by vice-chairman John Ashton, in which founder producer John Edwards, “now in his nineties”, recalls: “I did not think it would go on this long or be so successful”. The Friday performance was a Civic Night attended by the Lord Mayor and the Danish Ambassador, and the chairman announced 42nd Street as the following year’s show.
Cast
- Hans Christian Andersen — Mike Purnell
- Jenny Lind — Lucy Harris
- Otto Pedersen — John Cousins
- Herr Max Klaus — Christopher Greaves
- Rector Meisling — Andrew Clarke
- Colonel Guldberg — Brian Harding
- Madam Louise Meisling — Tina Ayres-Hunt
- Jonas — Graham Burke
- A Policeman — Alan Holloway
- King Christian of Denmark — Robert Hurst
- The Queen — Adrienne Higgins
- Grandchild — Angela Day / Claire Huckle