HOW many readers remember the night the curtain came down on the Burnley Vic?

The final performance at the town's Victoria Theatre took place one Saturday evening in March, 1955, and from early evening queues had formed along St James's Street to see the last act of the venue which had been entertaining townsfolk since 1886.

As the play, Hobson's Choice ended, Jesse Linscott and John Morphet who had been in charge of the theatre for some years, met one of the audience who had actually seen its opening 69 years previously.

She was Mrs Lucy Baldwin, who was invited backstage to meet the cast.

The Vic was the first purpose-built theatre of quality in Burnley, and had the theatrical name of the Victoria Assembly Rooms and Opera House' and was built on the site of Tunstill's mill.

The opening show, referred to at the time as a grand concert' took place in September, 1886, before a full house.

The stars of the show were singer Mademoiselle Antoinette Trebelli and Mons Wladimir Pachmann, a celebrated Russian pianist.

The venue attracted top class performers and every year there was a traditional pantomime.

Its neighbouring theatre, the Empire, however, had a more popular appeal, with performances from Houdini, female wrestlers and even lions!

By 1932, Burnley's theatres had switched exclusively to showing movies, while the Vic concentrated on vaudeville acts and revues.

In 1937 the variety show was broadcast from the stage over the northern region radio for the first time in a programme that included the Colne Orpheus Glee Union and in 1939, 25-year-old Thora Hird made her first appearance at the theatre.

During the war years, the Sadler's Wells Opera, Sybil Thorndike, husband Lewis Casson and ballerina Margot Fontaine, were among those who trod the boards.

By 1947 the theatre was the only one in the town offering professional entertainment and in the ensuing years many television stars appeared, such as Norman Vaughn, Bill Waddington, who went on the become Percy Sugden in Coronation Street, Roy Castle and Barry Took, among others.

During the last two years of the theatre's life, the Lawrence Williamson Players put on a series of plays, including Babes in the Wood for Christmas 1954, in which they incorporated a troupe of 20 youngsters from the Joyce Heap dance school.

l The life of the Vic' was researched by the late local historian Leslie Chapples.