The Daffodil Theatre Heritage Highlight

The Daffodil Children’s Theatre

When the new Daffodil Children’s Theatre opened at the 1972 Royal Easter Show, Humphrey Bear was the star of the show, supported by a group of ‘Daffodil Junior Australians’ aged from 5 to 15.

The aim of the Theatre was to present a varied program of entertainment by a collection of creative and theatrical talents from a cross section of communities representing life on the land. Show goers could sample country and western music, gospel, folk, ballads, Ukranian national dance, Swedish folkdance, ballet, modern dance, English Morris dancing, Scottish highland dance, Polynesian dance and many more acts from home and abroad.

By 1975 the music shell, with a seating capacity of 2,000 and sponsored by the well-known Daffodil margarine brand, was in full swing. Blinky Bill and the Muddle-Headed wombat put on a show twice a day for the little ones and entry was free. In 1977 the talented ‘Kids of the Kingdom’ and a number of their famous Disney cartoon pals, came direct from Disneyland, USA. With a medley of famous Disney tunes they performed at the Daffodil Theatre on most days during the Show. In 1979 a talent quest, compered by TV personality Gordon Boyd and sponsored by Daffodil Margarine and Roselands, used the Theatre to host its heats.

A decade after it opened, the Daffodil Theatre was still providing a refuge for tired showgoers and some fabulous free entertainment. Opening at 11am each day, on big crowd days its last shows wouldn’t end until 9pm at night. Lucky theatre goers in 1984 got to see leading Australian artists including John Paul Young, Marcia Hines and Renee Geyer.

In 1985 sponsorship of the entertainment space changed and the Daffodil Theatre became known as the Colgate Theatre. Channel 10’s popular Johnny Young and his Young Talent Time members kicked off the program in the newly named theatre and so a new era of Show entertainment was launched.