THE BIRTH OF HOTPLATE
On a very sunny Good Friday in 1980, equipped with scrubbing brushes and a packet of Flash, I cleaned every square inch of the Upper Foyer kitchen to the strains of the St Matthew Passion on the radio. This was so that Judy Worsley (the then Membership Secretary) and I could start our experiment of running a snack bar for members coming straight from work, whether to act, stage manage, or simply to watch a performance. The simple fare we started with changed radically when the Chairman (Martin Bowley) asked if, one Friday night, we could feed up to 150 Little Theatre Guild members who were arriving for a week-end conference. The Hotplate took off after that and soon we were serving anything up to 70 meals in the limited time before curtain up.
Wok a Surprise!
We often tried to match the menu with the show: Bartholomew Fair meant delving into medieval fare — curd tarts and cottage loaves; and when The Questors were invited to put on a show in Japan (Black Comedy) we borrowed woks and produced three Japanese dishes. I remember looking up from serving to face a Japanese official from the Embassy. He was willing to try all three dishes, but we didn’t get any feedback!
Cottage Cooking
Inevitably, with a gas stove which never cooked and could only be coaxed into heating things up, we were essentially a cottage industry. Home-made was our reputation. Sunday matinée teas were renowned in Ealing largely due to one member’s prowess in cake-making. It was hard work particularly in the two hours before curtain up, but we had very many laughs — too legion to recount.
Never Too Late to Say Thank You!
After 10 years, having virtually “lived” every day at The Questors, I retired, handing over the reins to Jenny Veckley for the next 9 years, leaving her, unfortunately, to cope with the new Health and Safety Regulations. By 1990 I had, I thought and hoped, achieved my own objective, which was to provide somewhere acting and audience members could meet, mix and socialise — an alternative to the Grapevine Bar. Maybe I had, since only last year a lady came up to me in Waitrose regretting her failure to appreciate the Hotplate at the time and asking if it was not too late to say “thank you” now.
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