From Tuesday 8th to Saturday 19th November 1977 the Bristol Light Opera Club presented Offenbach’s La Belle Helene (“Beautiful Helen”), “an Operetta in Three Acts and a Prologue” with a new book and lyrics by Phil Park, at the Bristol Hippodrome, set “in an unlikely Ancient Greece”. Wyn Johnson produced, David Clarke was musical director and Roland Billson was choreographer, with Helen and Paris double-cast. The opening night was a “Charity Gala Night” in aid of the “Stars Organisation for Spastics”, attended by the Lord Mayor. The programme records the death on 19th October of the club’s chairman, Ken Jordan, “a faithful and popular member of B.L.O.C. for 24 years”, and announces “GIGI” for autumn 1978.
Cast
- Helen — Meirion Ashton / Judith Bright
- Paris — Roderick Young / Eric Arnold
- Juno — Cicely Meyer
- Minerva — Adrienne Higgins
- Venus — Susan Weaver
- Mercury — Jean Licence
- Leona — Teresa Davey
- Cressida — Diana Cole
- Calchas — Brian Harding
- Philocomus — Chris Chapman
- Nesta — Janet Grant
- Orestes — Alex Turasiewicz
- Ajax — Peter Bush
- Achilles — Alan Williams
- Agamemnon — Arthur Cox
- Menelaus — John Humphreys