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Dateline: 23rd December, 2010
Drunken Stars and Unpaid Performers Allegations Both pantomime productions from Bolton-based Halle Productions have cancelled performances this week amid public allegations from both sides of a star performer going on stage drunk and producers not paying their performers. The story broke on Monday with a piece in The Sun claiming that Bruce Jones—Coronation Street's Les Battersby—was sacked from his role as Baron Hardup in Cinderella at Hyde Town Hall due to his drinking. Jones has previously admitted a twenty-year battle with alcoholism and was sacked from the soap in 2007. Producer Michael Hizer told the paper, "Bruce hasn't fallen off the wagon because he's never been on it. When we hired him his agent said he was clean but he regularly sits in the pub until closing time and comes in the next day stinking of booze. Bruce kept forgetting his lines and was unprofessional. I'll never work with him again." Hizer's story was backed up by the production's Cinderella, Casey-Lee Jolleys who played Stacey Hilton in Coronation Street and is also Hizer's wife and business partner in Halle Productions, but other members of the cast came to his defence, calling him "utmost professional" according tothe Manchester Evening News. Jones's agent Tony Hyland is reported as saying, "Any suggestion that Bruce is back drinking is totally wrong and an absolute lie. Bruce has walked out because they haven't paid him a penny since the show started. He's owed thousands." Jones claims he offered to work for free to save disappointing people who had bought tickets. The official statement from Halle's solicitors Morgan Brown Cahill said, "The Cinderella pantomime at Hyde Town Hall has been cancelled until further notice due to unforeseen cast problems. All the monies paid for tickets through Quaytickets will be refunded directly by them. All tickets that were purchased directly at Hyde Town Hall will be refunded within 24 hours of proof of purchase being provided to the box office." Over in Hartford, a performance of Halle's production Dick Whittington at Grange Theatre was cancelled after six principal cast members walked from the show alleging non-payment of wages. All six were replaced for the Wednesday performance, with the role of Alice Fitzwarren being taken by Jolleys. Actor John Garfield-Roberts was playing Captain Fitzwarren in the production. He told the BTG that the cast had not been paid for three weeks—he said they were told either that Internet banking wasn't working or that Quaytickets had not released the ticket money yet—and when they confronted the company manager last Friday asking for the situation to be clarified were told they would be given the amount they were due on Tuesday. Roberts alleges that Hizer met the actors on a car park before the performance on Tuesday and told them there was no money to pay them, and so six of the cast decided to leave the show immediately. He also alleges that none of the performers in Cinderella have been paid and that the story about Bruce Jones's drinking was a "smoke screen". Halle Productions was set up in 2009 by Hizer and Jolleys with Gary and Helen Aspinall of Hyde-based scenery hire company Scenechange. The Aspinalls resigned as directors in January 2010 after the company's first production of Cinderella at The Grange Theatre in which Jolleys once again took the title role. Hizer and Jolleys are also partners in The Academy North West in Bolton and the forthcoming Stageworks Salford. David Chadderton
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