Shining Hours

Eric Jones Evans (1899 - 1989) was a medical practitioner, actor, playwright, and one of theatre's greatest enthusiasts. As a young man he qualified as a doctor and served as a Surgeon Probationer in the Navy during the First World War, after which he set up practice in Hampshire.

His obsession with the theatre, however, remained and in 1919 he joined a repertory company at the Grand Theatre, Southampton. He maintained a medical practice in Fawley, near Southampton, and closed his surgery on matinee days to perform. In 1928 he formed his own company which he maintained until the outbreak of World War II. For this company he wrote and appeared in a number of his own melodramas, chiefly adapted from the novels of Dickens and George Eliot.

Photo: University of Bristol Theatre Collection