More about Mervyn
Various society newsletter editorss have been contacting us asking about Mervyn’s career in order to write obituaries. There is a very succinct biography penned by Mervyn himself on this website, reproduced below.
Mervyn Gould didn’t quite run away with the circus, but did do his first show whilst still a VIth-former. When the Regal Boston had a stage, fly tower, and dressing rooms built on in 1963, to replace the demolished New Theatre, he got a job as A.S.M. in the opening show, Babes in the Wood. After the Boston run he got leave from the new term, and toured with it to Crewe, Buxton, and Leake. In 1965 he went up to Marjons, King’s Road Chelsea, to read History and join the swinging 60s scene (not convincingly as he wore corduroy twills, suede shoes, hacking jacket and cravats – but a hell of a change from the Fenlands), and worked as a Showman in the West End. After scraping through Finals, he did summer seasons, pantos, and tours, interspersed with residencies at both provincial and West End theatres. These included a season at Bury S. Edmunds Theatre Royal – the only theatre not only surrounded by a brewery but owned by it – three seasons at the historic music hall Sunderland Empire, and a year as Deputy Chief Engineer at the Palace on Jesus Christ Superstar. For 17 years he was Technical Tutor and House & Stage Manager at Loughborough University Theatre, and then took early retirement to research and write on theatre and cinema architectural and technical history. He started writing in the early 70s, and since then has been published by Tabs, Cue: Stage Lighting International, The Stage, Focus, the Mercia Bioscope, and other journals. He has produced two books – Loughborough’s Stage and Screen and, most recently, Boston and Spalding Entertainment. Four exhibitions on entertainment history have been arranged and designed by him. At present he is working on booklets on the stage and screen history of York, Crewe, Burton-on-Trent. He hopes to resume work this year on his projected Ph.D. thesis on Richard Thornton and the birth of Moss’ Empires. He became secretary of Mercia in 1992, and some years later assumed the Administrator title. The society has honoured him by electing him an honorary life member.
Since he wrote the above back in 2006, he had also written two further books (York Cinemas and Basingstoke entertained) as well as completing Gil Robottom’s unfinished manuscript for Coventry Picture Palaces. In 2007, he agreed to take part in an interview for the Theatre Archive project, an oral history of people working in (& visiting) theatres between 1945 and 1968. A transcript of his contribution can be found online here which is well worth reading as it provides further enlightenment of his background and temperament.
Mervyn Stockbridge Gould
14/11/1946 – 29/10/2009
