This photograph was taken during the 1962 celebration marking the 300th anniversary of Mr Punch’s first recorded appearance at Covent Garden, as noted in Samuel Pepys’s diary. Harry William Whanslaw, seen on the left, wrote a series of articles for Chatterbox in 1923. Their popularity led the publisher to invite him to expand the material into a book, resulting in the publication of Everybody’s Theatre in 1924.
The book came into the hands of schoolboy Gerald Morice, who began corresponding with Whanslaw. Morice encouraged him to reply to every reader who had contacted him and to invite them to come together for a shared meeting of minds. Whanslaw followed this advice, and at the subsequent gathering held at 17 Rupert Street, London, on 29 April 1925, the British Model Theatre Guild was formally established.
