Showcase

About Showcase Musical Theatre
Showcase is an amateur Musical Theatre company based in West London. We regularly rehearse in Ruislip and perform at various venues in West London, most notably the Compass Theatre in Ickenham.

Showcase is the trading name of Southall Operatic Company, which is a charity registered in the UK, registered charity number 297157.

A brief history of Showcase
Showcase was formed in 1947 a couple of years after the second world war had finished. At that time (and only until very recently) the company was called “Southall Operatic Company”, and as can be guessed from the companies title, opera was the type of production performed.

The first performance in 1947 was “The Mikado” which opened on the 22nd October 1947 at Southall Community Centre, finishing on 25th October, the price of seats being 5/-, 3/6 or 2/6 (25p, 17p or 12p). Up to December 1999 we were still performing at Southall Community Centre with a concert for the boroughs elderly population.

Several years after it’s inception Southall Operatic Company amalgamated with a variety company that also used The Community Centre for it’s performances and rehearsals, and for a while it was known as Southall Operatic and Variety Company, later on still it became part of the borough of Ealing’s evening class program with the added bonus that the accommodation costs as well as the MD’s, rehearsal pianist’s, and producers fees were all paid for out of the evening class fees, (what ever happened to that arrangement?.) At this time the name was changed to Southall Operatic Company, the company is still on the go 60+ years later and still looking for new members.

Around about the year 1998 the company name was changed to “SOC” as it was felt that the word “Operatic” in the old company name of “Southall Operatic Company” may be putting off prospective members as they would naturally assume we are an operatic company when in reality we are a light musicals company as can be seen from our past productions page. In August 2001 at our AGM it was decided that as we now had no connection with Southall we would change our name to update it, and the name Showcase was chosen. Note that ShOwCase contains the letters S-O-C and so we retained the link with our previous identity.

Having moved around to various rehearsal venues, we have now left Southall, and our regular Friday night rehearsal venue is in Ruislip.