Alan Durband pounds by means of innovative seven-year tax-free covenants for the conversion of the building. It was a popular theatre specialising in local Liverpool settings & political subjects which gave opportunities to new playwrights – most famous of whom is probably Willy Russell (to whom Durband lent his Welsh cottage to write 'Educating Rita') and to actors such as: Bill Nighy, Pete Postlethwaite, Jonathan Pryce & Julie Walters who joined the Theatre company around 1975. To mark this era, Willy Russell unveiled a plaque in memory of Alan Durband at the theatre in 1998 in the company of actor Pete Postlethwaite
Walter Shirley Shirley Doncaster.He was educated at Rugby School and Balliol College, Oxford. He was called to the bar at Inner Temple and went on the North Eastern circuit. He wrote several papers on legal matters. At the 1885 general election Shirley was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Doncaster. He was an advanced Liberal. He resigned the seat in February 1888 but died in May that year at the age of 36. In the 1886–87 football season, he became the first president of Doncaster Rovers football club. Walter Shirley Shirley Walter Shirley Shirley (1851 – 1 May 1888) was an English