THE Keighley Hippodrome, a theatre nobody wanted 60 years ago, enjoyed a golden age ironically during the Second World War.

During the early years of the so-called phoney war, entertainment was determinedly light-hearted with revues like Black Out the Blues, Why be Serious? and Laugh for Victory. Some were saucy, such as Stars and Strips, Oh! You Girls and Nuit de Joie, featuring "the lovely night of joy girls".

From the grim summer of 1940, however, famous acts came to boost morale – Rob Wilton, Norman Evans, Rawicz and Landauer, Charlie Kunz, Joe Loss and Jack Payne.

Henry Hall's Guest Night was broadcast from the Hippodrome in September, 1940.

There were rare cultural treats. The Royal Carl Rosa Opera Company gave seven operas in six days in 1942, and Sybil Thorndike starred with the Old Vic Theatre.

From 1943 there was a two-year run of quality plays like Hobson's Choice, Pygmalion, The Corn is Green and John Drinkwater's Abraham Lincoln. Tod Slaughter appeared in the melodrama Maria Marten, or The Murder in the Red Barn.

In 1945, with the end of the war in sight, comedy returned with Albert Modley and We Were in the Forces featuring "a cast of over 30 artists, discharged from HM Forces".