Although Alec Day is called Stage Manager, he is, in effect, the Theatre General Manager – Leo referred to him as the ‘chief carpenter’ – and the S.M.’s job of setting the stage is done solely by me, and from the moment the curtain went up, theoretically, I was in charge. So now, the stage is set. Leo inspects it and touches it up, passes it, and the overture starts.

As it deserved to be, Shooting Stars, in spite of its childish story, was not only a fine success, but quite the most ambitious attempt so far made on the Chungkai stage. True, the greatest applause came at the end of one scene when one of the lamps petered out and the curtain fell down when they attempted to draw it; and to this day, Leo doesn’t know that in the Board Directors scene, where they are meeting to consider the ransom note, I had left two life-belts from the previous yacht scene still hung up on the walls. But Shooting Stars made Leo’s reputation, and was only a beginning.

In this early period, the theatre went through a managerial crisis. The Lieut.-Colonel who presided on the committee resigned because his advice on a certain matter was not taken and the theatre was left under Alec’s chairmanship, and not a senior officer was on the committee at all. It was intended by Alec to ask the Q.M., Major King, who was very interested in the theatre, to take the Colonel’s place, but before he could do that, other people approached Bill King and suggested that a public meeting should be called in order to form a smaller and more professional committee, because the present committee was too youthful and inexperienced, and a small core of ‘business men’ would obviously be better. As, when the Colonel resigned, Alec had become the General Manager, I had been elected to the committee as Stage Manager, and of course Leo was a member too. So we all prepared for a highly irregular meeting that was called for May 1st, 1944, Major King in the chair.