top of page
The life of a performer on an ever-changing stage
All images courtesy of Vanessa Bond
“I could not work in an office. I just went with the flow. It was always new, even if it was the same character it was always different.”
Cinderella, Dorothy, and Glinda the Good Witch are all names she has gone by in her career. But today Vanessa Bond is herself, sitting on the sofa in her home in Burnt Oak.
Her house is cozy, not too big, not too small. Her living room has a sense of calm about it - it could be the cream coloured carpet, sofas and walls. Or the photos displayed around the room, some of herself, her family, others more obscure. Or it could be the aroma of the cranberry and raspberry tea she made before sitting curled up on the sofa, resting her head in one of her hands.
At 72 years old she has had a long career in theatre, seeing it change and evolve as each decade passed. But as is often said age is but a number, and this is certainly the case for Vanessa. Her bright blue eyes sparkle whilst talking about her career in the performing arts, animated about the memories she has and the changes she’s witnessed. Her long blonde hair is brushed perfectly straight with a neat fringe to finish it off - if no one knew any better they’d think she was twenty years younger than she is.
But Vanessa is a free spirit, young at heart, which explains why she has yet to retire, working as a tour director in London and abroad all year round. But she does admit her performing days are behind her.
“It was probably about 10 years ago, it was a pantomime in Telford,” she explains of her last performance. “The industry was changing, and for me getting older the parts weren’t there, and I didn’t go into pure acting, that wasn’t my thing. And even for a pure actress you’ve got to be a Judi Dench or a Maggie Smith to get the plum parts.”
Even so, Vanessa had around 50 years in the industry before taking her encore. After being advised to learn ballet at four years old for having weak ankles, she instantly found her passion, soon taking up almost every dance style under the sun. At 15 she auditioned for two stage schools, and was accepted into both.
“I chose the one that did all around dance, singing, drama, the whole bit because that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to perform.”
She was also highly qualified, completing the Royal Academy of Dance (RAD) in ballet to intermediate level, and the Imperial Society of Teachers and Dancing (ISTD) in ballet, tap, modern and national dancing all to advanced levels by age 19. And it wasn’t long before she found herself in her first job in the summer of 1967.
“There were auditions being held in Luton, there was this place called Caesar’s Palace, and they needed dancers. We started working before the end of the school year, and we actually got into trouble. They weren’t happy that we didn’t stay until July and we got a job instead.”
From there Vanessa’s career only seemed to get better. “I was always the lead,” she laughs.
At the start of her career theatre in the UK was cleanly split into the summer season between May and September, and pantomime season from November to March. “[In summer] you’d do a different show every Saturday because people went on holiday and Saturday was a turnaround day. So you’d alternate the shows from old time music hall, maybe a play, and an entertainment show.”
During pantomime season Vanessa performed “all the pantomimes”, including Cinderella, Alice in Wonderland, and Dick Whittington. “In-between those I worked for another company and toured playing Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz for about 10 years. And when I got too old for Dorothy I played Glinda.”
But by the end of the 1970s the industry had already started changing. Pantomime season went from four months to five weeks, and the summer season lost some of its structure. “I think things started to change when people weren’t holidaying in the UK anymore, and were travelling abroad”.
 |  |  |
|---|---|---|
 |
Vanessa (middle and right in centre images) is trained in a number of dance styles, including ballet, tap and national dancing
With the seasons changing, life as a performer changed too. In the early 1970s Vanessa was often working with the same people, seeing them at auditions or meeting up after work.
“When you do a show you instantly become a family because you’re thrown together for rehearsals, for the show, you’re in digs together.”
Theatre digs, Vanessa explains, was where anyone working in theatre could live whilst working in a particular area. “These were usually women or married couples and they’d have rooms in their houses. They were cheap, but they knew you were coming in at midnight to eat after the show, and there was no hassle about it. Suddenly all these theatrical digs started to disappear as the business changed from these long seasons to just one or two nights in places.”
The people renting their rooms to performers couldn’t survive on short stays, leaving more expensive bed and breakfasts the only option for some. And with Vanessa working everywhere from Torquay and Scotland to the Isle of Man, working in theatre became more of a challenge.
Vanessa also noticed many theatres were becoming council-run. “I’d say in the 80s that started. In many cases they might even pull down the old theatre and build one that could also be a conference hall, could be everything. So it didn’t have the feel of old theatres anymore.” Because of this, she says theatre staff became more focused on getting the job done.
“They’re treating you like an office worker, and you’re not,” Vanessa explains. “Because that’s what they know. It might be someone who’s worked in a council office and said ‘just go to the theatre and unlock the door’. So the whole atmosphere changed.”
Vanessa and her co-workers were never in a rush after a show, and the staff allowed them to unwind before heading home. “Once it became council-run the guy who looked after the stage door...well either there wasn’t one or he’d work nine to five. Rather than someone who loved working in theatre and being a stage doorman, who knew your name, knew everybody, knew who should and shouldn’t be there. It became very impersonal.”
Vanessa still visits a few theatres every now and then, some filled with memories of her career, others newly refurbished. “If I had the money I’d open a little theatre, but it’s not an easy thing to go into anymore. And it’s to do with people not having holidays in the UK, so they don’t go to the summer seasons, and stay in the warm watching television instead of going out to the theatre.”
This may be the case for many local theatres, but the West End is getting bigger, brighter and more popular every year. Yet Vanessa is not all that keen. “I do like to go outside of West End shows, because you can see how they’ve worked for it, whereas with the West End you can see money thrown at it, the big glitz and glamour and the big names, that really doesn’t do anything for me.”
Vanessa has worked with stars herself, including Lulu, Esther Rantzen and Lynda Baron, but says the rise in the number of celebrities with no acting background starring in pantomimes around the UK is changing the way the shows are perceived.
“That was actually part of the demise really for some of the summer seasons and pantomimes. You think pantomime is an easy art but it’s very difficult, and they started to bring in these famous names who hadn’t got a clue, and it just became a farce. It certainly got people into theatre, but it lost the art of pantomime.”
 |  |
|---|
Vanessa (centre and left) photographed in local newspapers whilst performing pantomimes at the theatres
With maintaining an audience a priority for most theatres, Vanessa believes they might be trying too hard. “It feels like it needs to settle down a bit. I can’t imagine we’ll ever lose live theatre, but it’s also the way audiences react, they’ve lost respect,” she says of many viewers unable to sit without checking their phones.
But all this aside, Vanessa misses performing, also stepping down from the Royal Choral Society last September after 22 years. “I wasn’t having to learn a song or a script so that was difficult,” she explains when she stopped performing 10 years ago. “But that’s when I focused on doing the tour directing. So I still got the travelling out of my system, just in a different way.”
Vanessa loves the industry, from the countless auditions to performing in front of a new audience every night. She never thought about choosing her career, “it was just that’s the way it was always going to be”. She only stopped when it felt right, and to her the positives outweigh the negatives. Vanessa started dancing aged four after a doctor told her to. Would she have had the same career if it wasn’t for that doctor?
“Yes. Oh absolutely, I would have found it definitely. It would have found me.”
bottom of page