a young Charlie Chaplin who was recorded as being company call boy in 1902. Chaplain later starred at the Grand in one of his first acting debuts as Dr Watson's pageboy in Sherlock Holmes. In 1909 the Grand was chosen for a spectacle of quite a different kind, when the president of the Board of Trade, Winston Churchill addressed the Budget League from the theatre's stage. Nine years later Prime Minister, David Lloyd George played to a full house when he opened the Government's General Election campaign. Until the early 1920s, the Grand was a touring theatre. It had no resident corps of actors but rather played host to a huge number of visiting professional companies, and also to various local amateur groups. During the recession all this changed and the Grand became a repertory theatre, initially under the direction of Leon Salberg. This shift in emphasis meant that the superb stage and remarkable backstage facilities became available to a whole new generation of aspiring professionals, many of whom went on to become household names. During the thirties, forties and fifties, many future stars including Kenneth More, Peggy Mount, June Whitfield and Leonard Rossiter developed their talents in front of a discerning Black Country audience. Another famous daughter of Wolverhampton, and the Grand in particular, was Gwen Berryman, who later found nationwide fame playing Doris Archer in the well known BBC Radio series The Archers. 1939 - 1980 The Second World War hit the theatre badly. Rationing and shortages of materials meant that shows became austere and it was increasingly difficult to fill the house. Although post-war euphoria brought with it increased audiences, by the fifties the days of large repertory companies were numbered. There were of course some memorable moments, such as the Grand's diamond jubilee production in 1944 of South Pacific, featuring a young Sean Connery, but by then large rep companies were dying out. The main problem was television. Across the country, provincial theatres were losing audiences and rep companies were disbanding. The Grand avoided closure by changing its format once again and 1959 saw the return of touring companies including Michael Caine and Terence Stamp in a production of The Long, The Short and The Tall, but even these failed to counteract the steady decline in audiences. The late fifties and sixties also saw the return of variety shows and many famous stars appeared, notably singing