Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for . . .” The usual method of requesting applause isn’t quite the style of Gyles Brandreth, the urbane and jovial compère of Seventy – Not Out! But this being the second of two gala evenings celebrating the Playhouse’s 70 years in Beaumont Street, much applause was properly requested for past Playhouse actors, backstage staff, management, and volunteer ushers. On the whole, however, the “Darling, you were wonderful” type of theatrical luvviedom was miraculously kept at bay.

This was an occasion for memories. Brandreth began with his own first visit to the Playhouse, to see that grand old theatrical warhorse Sir Donald Wolfit “roaring and ranting”. The plot called for the actor playing Wolfit’s son to murder his father, but the actor concerned forgot the necessary dagger and kicked him instead, Wolfit had to improvise: “That boot,” he wailed piteously, “T’was poisoned”.

There were return visits from a selection of the many actors who have started or advanced their careers at the Playhouse. Among several others came Belinda Lang, panto dame Simon Green (unrecognisable in a sober grey suit), Nigel Tully, David Wood, Richard Durden, Annabel Leventon, Freddie Jones, and poet Chuma Nwokolo, who represented the Playhouse’s strong recent association with South Africa. Daniel Halissey, and terrific, gyrating local break-dance group Flaw R Tists represented the younger generation. Halissey, currently a student at the Oxford School of Drama, undertook the daunting task of playing a scene from Shaw’s You Never Can Tell opposite Diana Quick.

Everyone present will have had their own favourite moments, but mine were two Pinter scenes, consummately delivered by Toby Jones (pictured) and Jason Watkins. First they reprised their roles in the Playhouse’s landmark production of The Dumb Waiter, then they shone in Pinter’s wonderful scene in which a union shop steward complains to the boss about the engineering components his members are required to make. No ordinary mortals could get their mouths round the tongue-twisting names of the components involved. Also great value was distinguished actor Oliver Ford Davies, currently appearing at Stratford. “In 1962, I rashly played Falstaff on this stage,” he told us, before providing an extract. Later, he was wonderfully deadpan in the veteran music hall sketch featuring a workman who repeatedly wallops his unsuspecting colleagues with a plank as he turns left, then right. Truly variety has been the spice of the Playhouse’s first 70 years of Beaumont Street life.