Audrey Noble Archive

Personal and professional papers of the actress Audrey Noble (1915 - 2016). The collection mainly comprises press cuttings, production photographs, and correspondence from colleagues and admirers. This material was gathered by Noble and initially arranged into two albums (AN/1). These cover her career from its start with the Rapier Players in Bristol in the late 1930s up to the mid-1970s, by which point she was working for several regional companies as well as appearing on various television programmes. Loose press cuttings from the mid-1970s to mid-1980s, when she retired from the stage (AN/5/1-3), may well have been collated with the intention of being presented in a similar album form. Correspondence (AN/2), memorabilia (AN/3), photographs (AN/4) and programmes cover her career from the post-war period up to the early 1980s. The theatre historian Shirley Brown, who befriended Noble in 2002, collated the later material concerning Noble's centenary celebrations. Very little of the collection concerns Noble's personal life, with the exception of documents reflecting her religious beliefs (AN/8).

Audrey Noble was born in Bristol in 1915. Elocution lessons in her teens afforded her a walk on part in a production of Hamlet at the Prince’s Theatre, Clifton. At 17 she enrolled in drama classes run by Mervyn Johns of the Rapier Players and was soon invited to work as assistant stage manager for the company at the Little Theatre. She made her first appearance with the Rapier Players in the late 1930s and took small parts until their chief character actress was called up and Noble was elevated to the position. She joined the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) in 1941 and toured the UK as well as appearing in ENSA productions in France, Brussels and Germany.

After the war Noble worked in rep as a reliable and popular character actress for numerous UK companies. She returned to the stage in Bristol on several occasions: in the 1950s and early 1960s at the Little Theatre, and then joining Bristol Old Vic company for seasons in the 1960s and 1980s.

Alongside her stage career, Noble also worked in television and radio, most notably a regular role in Crossroads in the 1970s. Her final stage performance was in Bristol Old Vic’s production of Tartuffe in 1985. Noble died in Bristol in 2016, a few months after her 101st birthday.

The Audrey Noble collection was repackaged, conserved and catalogued in 2017 as part of Bristol Old Vic's "Protecting and Sharing the Heritage of Britain's Oldest Theatre" project, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Several other collections related to the Bristol Old Vic are held at the University of Bristol's Theatre Collection and Bristol Archives. These were also catalogued as part of the project between 2017 and 2020.

The Audrey Noble collection is arranged in 10 series, mainly by document type, reflecting Noble's own arrangement of material.

Open

DPA may apply to some records

Undefined

Material collated and kept by Audrey Noble before being passed to theatre historian Shirley Brown.

None expected

Oral history interviews:

OH/0000029 by Shirley Brown highlighting Noble's memories of training with Mervyn Johns and Marian Page; the Rapier Players productions at the Little Theatre, Bristol (1938-42), army theatre in London in 1940 and other memories, recorded in 2002. Together with a Garrison Theatre recording from 1945 of the play June Mad from the time performing with ENSA.

OH/000030 and OH/000033 two interviews by Maureen Brown, recorded in 2003.

Books:

Tales From Hollywood by Christopher Hampton, see TC library holdings.