Biography of Valery Hovenden

Valery Hovenden, (born Barnes, England 07/04/1902 dies London, England 01/12/1992), studied at the Royal Academy of Music, then RADA, then worked with the Lewis Casson Company. In the 1930s she travelled with her husband, a civil engineer, and in World War II joined the WRNS. She formed companies of Wrens in the Orkneys and in Scarborough and directed them in plays performed at naval stations. After the war she taught at PARADA, and to give her students public exposure, founded the Hovenden Players, a company initially of 20 actors, and later the Hovenden Theatre Club. Valery functioned as Managing Director, Artistic Director, Play Director, Actor, Wardrobe Mistress, Publicity and PR, Office Manager, Catering Manager and Barman, and cleaning woman; as well as foster mother to many actors. The Company first performed Goldsmith's "The Good Natur'd Man" in a house in Cheyne Walk, in 1950, and aspired to perform appropriate period plays in various National Trust houses - Bodiam, Cliveden, Sissington - but were not given permission for this. Initially in the cellar of the AIA Gallery in Lisle Street, London, they revived rare classic plays from Bell's collection, and presented new plays. Thirteen years later, after moving first to St Anne's Soho Clergy House in Shaftesbury Avenue, and then Garrick Yard in Covent Garden, they had presented about 130 productions including 38 new plays, 26 by new authors. The Hovenden Theatre Club was then sold, and in 1964 Valery attemped to found the Hovenden Showboat: a Repertory Company to tour the canals of England on barges - one with the Company of about eight on board, one to be the theatre, the third to provide the motive power. Sadly this scheme was not realized, and Valery left for Tortola in the West Indies where she tried again to organize a travelling showboat, and started an acting school. She married for a second time, a Canadian Brigadier, and lived in Canada until returning to London in 1973, widowed again. She there set up a regular series of poetry readings which continued until her death.