GEORGE, THE CAT WHO SHONE A SPOTLIGHT ON NZ THEATRE HISTORY

A painted papier-mache cat called George has shone an unexpected spotlight on the history of New Zealand theatre.

George came to Kiwi viewers’ attention when he appeared on the British TV show The Repair Shop, screened in New Zealand a few months ago.

His owner, Caroline Crabtree, told the Repair Shop team that he was made by her mother, Joan de Bethel, and that Joan and her husband, David, had been theatrical designers. Crabtree then surprisingly added: “My parents worked in New Zealand for two years in the 1950s.”

I was intrigued by this snippet and, after watching the show, I emailed Crabtree at her home in Britain.

She recalls that, at the age of 2, she arrived in Wellington with her parents on a blustery day in June 1957.

David de Bethel had been enticed back to the land of his birth by acting couple Richard and Edith Hannah Campion, who had founded the New Zealand Players, the country’s homegrown professional theatre company, five years earlier.

Docking in Wellington after the six-week boat journey must have caused mixed emotions in David, who had been born into a large Canterbury family but left for England, aged 21, “I gather, under something of a cloud”, according to his daughter.

“He was ‘arty’, rather flamboyant, a bit camp, and very European.”

Even on his return in 1957, his New Zealand family regarded him warily. They came to Wellington for a visit at one point and “according to my mother, it was a very awkward meeting”.

David led an extraordinary life after leaving New Zealand. A fluent German speaker, he had “wound up as a vice-consul in the diplomatic service during the war – in Bulgaria, if I remember rightly”.

He met Joan Burton at Saint​ Martin’s School of Art​; they married in 1954.

Three years later, they arrived in Wellington along with fellow passengers Russell Kerr, a Kiwi dancer, and his wife, June.

The Evening Post took note of both arrivals in Wellington, and photographed the de Bethels on a rooftop in the wind. The report mentioned the couple’s work with British comedienne Joyce Grenfell, and described David’s age as “a sparkling 49”.

The family moved into a house backing on to the Botanic Garden. “The garden had quite a steep slope, the house was built into the slope and there were possums living under the verandah,” Caroline says.

“Mum and I took the cable car down to Lambton Quay every day, she to work and I to kindergarten.”

For David and Joan, life in their new surroundings was not quite what they’d expected.

“Dad had thought that, in New Zealand, he would be in charge of a fully equipped design and costume department, whereas they found that almost no-one had much idea of what was required.

“Making a lot of costumes was difficult, because if they needed many yards of a particular fabric, the local store would only have the one roll, and the rest would have to be ordered from Europe – a three-month wait. After the West End theatre, it felt a little like a school drama group.

“Communication with friends and family in England was slow – up to three months for a parcel – so they rather felt as though they’d dropped off the planet.”

In London, David and Joan had been living within walking distance of Oxford St, in a cosmopolitan city full of theatres, museums and art galleries. They and their friends would discuss who was working with whom and what new shows were in rehearsal, and go to first-night parties.

On reflection, Caroline says: “Some people are good in pioneering situations and rise to the occasion, but this was not so with either of my parents.”

Despite this, their work would ensure them a permanent place in New Zealand theatre history.

They plunged straight into set and graphic design for a cheery revue: Free and Easy, starring Brigid Lenihan​ and Bridget Armstrong, Barry Linehan​, John Hunter, Bryon O’Leary​ and a young Ngaire Porter, who would later achieve fame in The Forsyte​Saga as Nyree​ Dawn Porter.

“I remember Nyree,” Caroline says. “She was quite beautiful. I was backstage at the theatre one evening while a performance was going on. I’m guessing it was first night, and also I was there because they were unable to find a babysitter.

“Mum and Dad were both busy, so Nyree, to occupy me, suggested she and I would be the call boy – the person who went around the dressing rooms to notify the actors a few minutes before they were due onstage.

“She was very kind, and very engaging. My mother kept in touch with her well into the 1970s.”

The de Bethels also worked on the ground-breaking Bruce Mason drama, The Pohutukawa Tree, performed in both Auckland and Wellington.

Their last production was in 1959: The Long and The Short and the Tall, an all-male play set in the Malay jungle in 1942. “Their contract fulfilled, they are on their way back to Britain,” the newspapers reported.

But they found the sorts of shows on which they used to work were no longer in demand and, in search of an alternative income, they started making painted papier-mache cats at their home in Sussex, southern England. George was the prototype in what became a line of collectible painted pets, later made in ceramics. “In the late 1960s and early 1970s, these were very popular,” Crabtree says.

When she arrived at the Repair Shop with George, he was in poor condition.

“It was not possible to handle him without little flakes of paint and papier-mache falling off, and the head was very wobbly. I knew that the cat had an interesting story, and is a one-off piece, so I thought they would be interested, and thankfully, they were. Kirsten [ceramics expert Kirsten Ramsay] did a wonderful job.

“The cat has a brooch painted at his neck, with ‘George’ on it. George was a real cat, a rather grumpy old tabby. When Dad first returned to London after the war, he was living in a flat above a restaurant. George just moved in, as cats do, so then when Mum and Dad set up home, George came too.

“My grandparents must have looked after him while they were in New Zealand, and then he was reunited with them on their return. He lived until 1962.”