Barry Band: The most successful stage show ever seen in Blackpool prior to London

Actress Flora Robson, seen here at Durham University, in 1958

Most of the starry nights of Blackpool's showbiz story won't be found on the internet.

Who appeared here? What did they appear in? Where? And when?

As Michael Caine is supposed to have said, not a lot of people know.

Names may be remembered – but dates are the problem. I was once assured by a visitor that he and his wife had been on honeymoon in Blackpool in September, 1953, when they saw Frank Sinatra at the Opera House. They couldn’t have. Sinatra sang there in July that year.

Advert for Me and my Girls at the Grand Theatre, Blackpool

The irate visitor said: “Are you telling me I don’t know what I did on my honeymoon?”

As Eric Morecambe did say: “There’s no answer to that.”

But we’ll carry on picking events from my Blackpool theatre histories, in this case for our Grand Theatre highlights in the 125th anniversary year. Take, for example, the most successful stage show ever seen in Blackpool prior to London.

It was the musical comedy Me and My Girl, which toured to the Grand for the last week of October 1937, before opening at the Victoria Palace on December 16 for a run of 1,645 performances.