We're always fascinated to hear from our OJs. And this month was no exception, when actor and director, Christopher Gaze (Fleur-de-Lys - 1970) responded to our email about Hamlet and other Shakespearean plays at Hurst.

“In the summer of 1966, at age fourteen, I auditioned for the school play, Much Ado About Nothing, and was cast as Ursula. This was the last year that boys played the girls’ roles. It was my first venture into Shakespeare, and the rehearsals on the stage became a sanctuary for me. I watched, I learned, and I fell in love with the language and the world of William Shakespeare. I did not find the words complicated, and I seemed to have a facility for making good sense of the text. I recall the evenings of rehearsal when it was just us on the stage with the master who directed the production. I listened intently to the boy who was playing Beatrice, and he said the line, “There was a star danced and under that was I born.” It was a divinely simple line, and it seemed to be written for me. The genius of Shakespeare took hold of me during those young, halcyon days. 

The stage set was all hand-painted by Francis Russell Flint; it was a work of art. He was our art master and, like his father, the legendary artist Sir William Russell Flint, he was a marvellous painter. When my mother and father came to see the production with my sister, my father’s old housemaster, Mr. Mason, who was now my history teacher, came over in the intermission and told them what very pretty two daughters they had! These were giddy, innocent days."

After playing in the Shakespeare productions at Hurst from 1966 to 1970, Christopher then went to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and has enjoyed a life in the theatre since. He began a Shakespeare Festival in Vancouver in 1990 and it's become one of the biggest theatres in Canada. All from his involvement in theatre at Hurst! 

The photos show Christopher as Ursula in Much Ado About Nothing (1966). Mrs Bury fitted the wig on him!