London: Catholic actors Christmas celebration at Allen Hall

Janie Dee

Catholic actors from stage and screen gathered at Allen Hall in Chelsea on Friday night for their annual Christmas dinner and party. At the top table of the Catholic Association of Performing Arts (CaAPA) celebration, there was the award winning actress Janie Dee, who will be playing next March with Angela Landsbury in Noel Coward's Blyth Spirit in the West End; Frank Finlay CBE, whose many roles included Iago in Laurence Oliver's Othello and Denis Potter's television serialisation of Casanova: and CaAPA chairman Frank Comerford , who heads The Stage family board, with his wife Mary

Other guests included Trevor Littledale who recently performed his one-man show Two Halves of Guinness for CaAPA in Covent Garden; writer Tom Lee, the French-Italian actor Giuseppe Lentini; Gabrielle Lister who runs CaAPA's annual Drama Student Awards evening and Anthony Speaight QC (yes a relative of the actor Robert Speaight).

The MC was Michael Slater. After the festive meal there were several impromptu performances - Janie Dee sang: 'I'm just a gal who can't say no' from Oklahoma, magician Neville Sinclair baffled everyone with some mysterious tricks and everyone sang Adeste Fidelis.

As the evening drew to a close, Mgr Vladimir Felzman, Chair of Trustees, who said Grace before the dinner, and Fr Dennis Touw led a short prayer under the ancient mulberry tree, all that remains of Saint Thomas More's Chelsea estate - in the grounds of Allen Hall.

The Catholic Association of Performing Arts (formerly the Catholic Stage Guild) is the main organisation for Catholics in the drama and entertainment world. They celebrated their centenary last year, For more information see: http://caapa.org.uk/

There will be more pictures on Independent Catholic News Facebook book later this week. See: www.facebook.com/pages/Independent-Catholic-News-ICN/195368037167900?ref=hl