Museum in call for a character actor

Could you play the Victorian doctor who proved the unlikely inspiration behind the resurrection of the modern Olympics?

Museum chiefs in Ironbridge today appealed for someone to step up and play the role of Dr William Penny Brookes.

It was Dr Brookes who founded the Wenlock Olympian Society and The Wenlock Olympian Games first held in 1850 "for the promotion of moral, physical and intellectual improvement".

One of the many visitors to the games of 1860 was Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the acknowledged founder of the modern Olympic Games.

He later wrote "and of the Olympic Games, which modern Greece has not yet revived, it is not a Greek to whom one is indebted, but rather Dr W. P. Brookes".

Now bosses at the Ironbridge Gorge Museums are looking for someone to play the famous Shropshire doctor and welcome hundreds of visitors to the exhibits.

To mark Volunteers Week, from June 1 to 7, Ironbridge Gorge Museum chiefs are hoping to add another role for their vital band of volunteers by looking for their own Dr Penny Brookes.

The volunteer will dress in character to welcome visitors to the new 2011 exhibition, Sporting Heroes at the Coalbrokdale site, which celebrates the role of Much Wenlock as well as a host of Shropshire sporting legends.

To find out more about Ironbridge log on to www.ironbridge.org.uk