1998 Tom the Piper’s son

In this year, Dennis Willis joined, with his daughter Kelly. He was cast as The Pieman, a very minor role appropriate to a new entrant who’d never appeared on stage before. However, eight weeks before the show, someone dropped out and producer Ken Fielding promoted Dennis to playing Buckett the comic villain. Dennis went on to do 17 years. Kath Ivermee was assistant producer.

This show marked the the last appearances of Joan Carr and Kathy Allan, though Kathy stayed on doing off-stage jobs for a couple of years. Carolyn Young also left, having done 21 years, though she re-joins in 2012.

The chorus sang “Ascot opening day”. They all had impressive looking umbrellas, but were in fact just a cane with material and didn’t open.

Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be a video of this show, the only one we’re missing since videoing started in 1986