A COFFEE MORNING OR AFTERNOON TEA WITH
CELIA IMRIE & FIDELIS MORGAN

McGrigor Hall | 11am | £30 including a book and charity donation | Refreshments

Frinton Golf Club | 3pm start | £37.50 | Includes full afternoon tea

London, January 1944. Dot Gallagher, just arrived from Liverpool to take up a nursing position, hurries to the tube station to join the crowds of people taking shelter from the menacing bombers in the sky. Inside, a group of GIs are dancing around a wind-up gramophone. It doesn’t take long for Dot to join them. As she jives along with one of the American soldiers, he tells her about Rainbow Corner, a social club in Piccadilly for US troops. As Dot discovers for herself, it’s an oasis in London where, once inside, wartime Britain disappears. 

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Bursting with dancing and romance, thrills and jeopardy, Meet Me At Rainbow Corner is Celia Imrie’s latest novel, researched with her friend and fellow actress Fidelis Morgan. Its heart-warming and page-turning story about a group of women working for GI soldiers during the Second World War is inspired by real events - Fidelis’s mother was engaged three times to GIs, and details of Dot’s story were taken from her thousands of letters, notebooks and diaries. Celia’s mother drove ambulances, entertained troops with her violin and exchanged rings with a Canadian Airman… 

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Celia Imrie is an Olivier Award-winning and Screen Actors Guild-nominated actress. Besides countless stage and television credits, she is known for her roles in The Best (and Second Best) Exotic Marigold Hotel, Calendar Girls, Nanny McPhee, Bridget Jones, Absolutely Fabulous and Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again. Along with her autobiography The Happy Hoofer, she is the author of the top ten Sunday Times bestselling novels in the Nice Trilogy – Not Quite Nice, Nice Work (If You Can Get It) and A Nice Cup of Tea – Sail Away and Orphans of the Storm.

Fidelis Morgan is the author of several non-fiction history books, including The Female Wits, and her four historical murder mysteries have been translated into several languages. She has lectured around the world, from Stanford University and the University of California to the University of Utrecht. Fidelis’ acting roles include parts in Jeeves and Wooster, As Time Goes By and A Little Chaos, and as a director, Celia Imrie’s revue Laughing Matters.