My very first day in a real commercial theatre.

All the students at Paddington technical college had met the previous week. Many of us were staying at a Hostel in Notting Hill Gate. I was living in a room with two other guys. Including another student called Justin Ridley who I had met at the interview for the course at the National Theatre in the June of 1977.

Iremember the morning so well, having no idea how long it would take to get to the Victoria Palace, I set off from Notting Hill Gate tube station at 7.30AM. I arrived at Victoria underground at about 7.45 A.M. I was not due at the Theatre until 9 A.M. I had a walk over to find the stage door, two minutes later I had seen that. I had a walk around the whole theatre twice. I had a walk up Victoria Street, Buckingham Palace Road, a walk around Victoria main line station. I returned to the VP at 8.30, The Sage Door now had its main outside door open. I decided to chance my arm. I entered the Stage door and waited by a small set of Glass sliding doors that served as a hatch for visitors to speak to the stage Door Keeper.

A rather thickset gentleman with jet black hair who’s name I was later to discover was Charles, ” an author of children’s books” , and to have a very sexy looking, much younger girlfriend, informed me that “most of the LX crew were over the road in the Arlington cafe.”

My daily morning ritual, that would repeat itself for the next six years, was about to begin. Charles told me that the Chief LX Alan, a Canadian with a black moustache, black longish hair and a check shirt was sitting in the window closest to the theatre stage door. He also said that I was expected, and should make my way over to the cafe. “The crew all always met over there at about 8.30 for breakfast.” I had got the first thing right, I was early!

I walked “over the road”, a journey I would make many thousands of times in the future, I opened the Arlington cafe’s side entrance door, and stepped into a smoke-filled workman’s cafe. There are quite a few offices in this area of Victoria, including an office block that straddles over a corner of Arlington Street, from which the cafe took its name. A few of the office workers use the local cafes, but not many, most I guess, either used to use “The Terminus Takeaway” by Victoria Station, or had their own canteens in their offices in those days. I made my way over to the table by the window with the best view of the VP’s stage door. Sitting at it was Alan Pope, Chief LX, an older man quite slightly built by comparison, wearing a suit and raincoat, and finally a younger man with a jumper tee shirt and black ‘cord’ Trousers, also with jet black longish hair, he looked swarthy, and slightly Italian. I introduced myself to Alan, saying in my best confident voice. “Hi I am John, the new student”. He offered a large strong hand, and then the fourth seat diagonally opposite him, at the table by the older man, and opposite the younger.

I can to this day, in my mind’s eye, still see that scene. The table by the window, oblong, corners rounded off, topped with creamy yellow formica, it had dark imitation wood grained edging, it was just a dinette table that they were sitting at. It had matt red plastic bench sloped back seating. The whole place was modelled a bit on an American dinner. This would now be my breakfast table for the next 6 years.

He introduced himself as Alan Pope Chief LX, then he introduced Percy Hawkins Deputy Chief LX, next to the window and finally opposite me the Italian looking guy Ian Brown. I sat down and put my little home made tool box between us. (Before leaving Barnstaple, once I knew I had a college place, I had spent some of my Billboard man wages, and made a small tool box, complete with lock, out of an old silver aluminium amplifier casing.)

They both nodded, they were all smoking cigarettes but Percy’s was a roll up. He waved the pinched end of his fag at me and said the immortal lines that were almost his catch phrase, “Cup of tea mate”. I learned to drink tea at Northcott. I nodded, smiled and said yes please. Percy nodded at the quite good looking 40+ year old, black haired matronly Italian looking waitress, and said those immortal lines “four more teas here please luv.” I don’t think in all my life, I have ever been made to feel so welcome, by so few words. (Oddly and unbelievably the waitress really was Italian, and may even have been called Maria!)

This group was not quite all of the Electrical Department. Patrick Sutton was the sound man, and Norman Neate was what was known as the swing Dayman. It was his Job to cover each person in the department’s day off. Norman hardly ever seemed to be there. It would take some time until I met him.

We drank our tea until about 9.15, and then walked over the road and in through the stage door. I was introduced to Charles, and also to the clocking in the machine. Charles explained its workings and showed me that he had already “clocked” me in. He told me that it was the first and last time. The rest of the crew thought this was very funny.

Ian said he would take me down stairs and show me where I could leave my coat in the “shop” (Short for workshop) After this he would show me “How to “turn on”, in the “rack room.” (Terminology used to describe where racks of dimmers are, that control the level of the stage lights used in the performance. I was to discover that they had exactly the same Strand dimmers as the Northcott.) The workshop was very old by comparison to anything else I had come across. The walls were a very dark cream, which had reached this colour with the aid of many thousands of cigarettes over the last 60 years or so. The work bench (or just “bench”) had that dirt ingrained in it, normally found in garages, that remains forever present by the application of lots of oil.

After my introductions to the workshop and rack room, He took me up to the lighting box. which was situated on the side of the Dress circle, opposite the sound operator’s position, which was on the other side of the Auditorium. This idea of having the operators out in the Auditorium was still very revolutionary especially in the West end of London. Before this all controls were to be found backstage where the Board operator could not see, and the Sound operator could not hear. These concessions to allow the operators to be FOH (Front of House) had come about with the new control systems using much lower voltages. Even so lighting would be confined to a box for many years to come, although both controls would move to be more head on with even better vision as the years would go by.

Now I thought I knew a little about lighting boards by now, but this was all very odd and as I was to find out very new. The “Rank Strand Modular Memory System or M.M.S. had been installed only a year or so previously. Ian was very very proud of it, and that he was one of the very first operators in the West End. I, by comparison, could not make head nor tail of it. There were a couple of numeric keyboards, and a couple of dozen buttons, one meter and not much else. One has to remember at that time that man had only finished landing on the moon 3 years previously, the technology in this lighting board was very similar. It used the same memory system. Not many people knew much about computers, the ZX 81 was 4 years away. The BBC Micro, still a puff of smoke on the logic board of history. Telephones still had dials, even calculators were mechanical junk heaps. There were no leavers, no switches, no “faders’ ‘. Not one of them was making the lights come on or dim up or dim down. Ian Showed me through another room the Power supply, a large green box. Turned on by the clicking up of a couple of switches, cooling fans spun into life and a high pitched whine could be heard. Ian said the noise was symptomatic of all these board power supplies. It got right on your nerves straight away. I would get used to it. Ian reckoned he was deaf to that pitch of sound about a year after he had started there!

He sat at the long console looking like someone at mission control Houston. It would be true to say that the lighting board with its green paint and wood surround did look very swanky. He explained how lighting states were recorded as memories and how to “bring them up on stage” . I was not much further forward, I thought if I were to open one of the panels I would find the real levers underneath moving in time with the buttons and switches above. How poor our education was at that time.

After the rig check, Alan arrived in the Dress circle to test one of the Radio Microphones (Mics) used in the show. It had not worked properly on the second show on the previous Saturday. We all went over to the sound position, Alan Switched on and took the Radio mic out into the centre of the Dress Circle. “saying one two one two” into the Mic. He asked if anyone had a small screwdriver. I opened my little home made tool box and handed him one. He was grateful and impressed. I was grateful to impress. He adjusted the frequency of the radio mic. He handed my screwdriver back and thanked me. I opened the little box, and put the Screw Drive back on its terry clip, closed and locked the box. Alan asked if that was a meter he had seen in the box. I replied that it was. It had cost me the last of my money and I was in truth very proud and frightened of breaking it. He asked me where I had got the box and I told him I made it. Which of course was not quite true. It would be many years until I should think back and realise that the chief LX had lots of screw drivers, he just wanted to see what was in the box.

It was 11.00 AM and time for tea, “over the Caf’.” Back in the same window and same seats, Alan ordered 4 teas and a double Cilla! Now this I had to see, Ian ordered the same. But Percy said he didn’t want anything, he had had his breakfast at home and would be home for lunch at one thirty.

This split shift system was worked across most of the West End Theatres at the time, and would remain in place for a great many years. The crews started at 9.00 am, or in some theatres 10am and worked until 1pm. then they had finished work until 6pm or 7pm, working on then until 10pm or 11pm. This made a day of up to 14 hours long. Travelling home in the afternoon, to return again only a few hours later, or staying behind, mainly in the pub until 3pm and later, when their hours of pubs being open changed, was not exactly the recipe for a healthy lifestyle. Many a drunk and a broken marriage came from this system. Percy had his Old lady otherwise known as er in doors, but that was an unusual relationship and also his second wife.

The Two Cilla’s arrived, they turned out to be two poached eggs on toast. The explanation being that A year or so previously Jimmy Tarbuck had opened at the VP, when he left Cilla Black had taken over, and then when she left, the show had continued as the Las Vegas Follies. I was told that it was in effect the same show. Alan told me he had been paid to re-light it each time. If I was to look at the lighting plan, I would find the previous shows just crossed out and the most recent metamorphosis written in the old shows place. But why two Cilla’s I asked. Alan and the whole crew just laughed. Alan took his breakfast and wobbled the plate. The yokes of the eggs gyrated in time. They all laughed again at my consternation. Percy came to my rescue for the first time. Er tits mate er tits. Then it was my turn to laugh and laugh. I guess it might not have been so funny if I had got the joke straight away. I am glad I did not, and that I had not pretended to either. It would have shown and they would have thought much less of me. I was doing well, I had been early, I had a tool box, and I had been the butt, and laughed at their joke.

That night I watched Las Vegas Folies from the Prompt Corner, which at that time was stage right, by the main entrance to the stage leading off from the stage door area. I hand learnt some more theatre tech speak about prompt side and opposite prompt side courtesy of Ian during the afternoon.

(The Victoria Palace like a lot of west end theatres of that time had hung on to the expressions describing the areas to the side of the stage as Prompt Side “PS ” and Opposite Prompt side”OP “. These refer to right and left when facing the audience. They make no allowance for where the prompt corner is located. The prompt corner being where the Deputy Stage manager, referred to as the DSM normally sits and runs or “calls the show” it should be noted that it may not always be a DSM. Phil Smith for example was Stage Director rather than Master Carpenter of the Victoria Palace, because not only did he run the stage department, he also had the ability to “call a show”. Lastly it should be noted in the majority of the West End unlike most of the rest of England, that the Stage Management are not resident to the theatre and are hired on a by the show basis by the visiting producer/production. This has created the situation in the West End at least, where the stage and carpentry Departments are run by a Master Carpenter. He or She is responsible for all items physically on, below, or above the stage, but not the Cast, sound, or Electrical, or plumbing.) The Master Carpenter has not just carpentry skills but also flying and scenery skills as well as responsibility for his/her Dept.

I Had learnt a lot in one day and would until the end prefer to use PS and OP. Many a time I would be heard in the future recanting the doggerel “Stage Right and Left are for actors, amateurs and Americans.” Just like the medical profession, that is proud to learn, name, and speak in Latin, so the theatre holds on to its traditions in terminology. Having walked around the “set” during the “set up” I had observed written on the back of the scenery PS and OP informing the carpenters when unloading the set from the lorry where on stage it would be put.

(The act of setting up refers to getting ready for a performance, just as the act of resetting or setting back refers to returning either to the beginning or a specific place in the show to repeat it. This might be during a rehearsal or simply that the show is to be repeated again, as in twice nightly performance or after a matinee.)

I watched cancan girls going on and off stage from the wings, I pretended to flick the Ash from my cigarettes into their hats. Everyone, but everyone, seemed to smoke in those days, and smoke nearly everywhere as well. One has to remember that smoking on trains, in cinemas, and theatre auditoriums, let alone pubs was quite the Norm. The girls were very kind, and laughed a lot. They all seemed very sexy, school seemed a million unhappy miles away. The interval came and went, the show ended and we all went to the Duke of York’s pub on the corner.

The Duke of Yorks at that time was used by everyone at the Victoria Palace. A row had taken place between the Stage Director and the Land Lord of the Stage Door public House which is located opposite the stage door of the VP. It had happened some months previously due to a member of staff from the pub being caught crossing the stage to get to the ice machine in the courtyard beyond. The Duke was quite a rough pub, but pleasant in its own way. It was run by landlord and landlady Don and June,  generally known as George and the Dragon. We were drinking Larger, Carlsberg in fact. My solid conversion to real ale was only about two weeks away. We drank, we smoked, we drank some more. At the time I smoked Piccadilly (just like on the TV series the Sweeney) conversion to Rothmans’s (Like Alan) the B&H gold like the MD (musical director) and Simon (Next Chief LX) would follow soon. We stayed till the end about 11.20 and caught the tube home to Notting-hill Gate.

Notting-hill Gate in those days was a dump. It was yet to become trendy in the new way of the future, anyway. The days followed until the end of the week. I went to the V.P. on Saturday although officially it would have been my day off. Two shows watching from the board.

Between shows I got paid! Yep in a little dark grey envelope with a little Kalamazoo pink wages slip with “no deductions” was a fifty pence piece. When beer was 27p and Larger was 32p. I had been given a shelf in the workshop to put my stuff on. I used to chuck the envelope up there and then a few weeks later take them to the pub and buy a few rounds. The Real reason for this payment was that I would be covered by the company’s insurance. Employees were covered by insurance, however little their wages were.

I had been told off that morning by the ex Merchant Navy guy who ran the hostel. (We had nicknamed him the janitor, which was very unkind to Janitors.) I had not had dinner or breakfast in over a week in the hostel dining room. “What was I doing? What was I up to?” Now I regarded the fact that this was none of his business. He tried to insist that he was responsible for us! This was a joke! Justin had had some money stolen from a drawer in his cupboard. The “Janitor” had done nothing, we both were certain who had taken it, the third person who was not in the theatre. The others from the theatre course were sharing only two to a room, apart from us. Justin had been working and saving all summer and now had lost quite a lot of this, it seemed most unfair. It was almost impossible to get a bank account at that time especially if one did not have some form of sponsorship.

On Sunday the theatre was closed, Justin wanted to go and see “The China Syndrome” at the Gate cinema. I agreed it was after all something to do. I enjoyed it and brought him a couple of pints or larger in some dismal pub or other. Another row with the Janitor, this had become now our official nickname for him, and we barely concealed our dislike of him, openly referring to him by his derogatory title. Yet again we had not eaten at lunch or supper time.

Our Arrogance knew now bounds. Freedom was a new and exciting experience. We were exploring our new freedom and if one was not careful one was going to get in trouble. We did go to college during the day time, but then it was off to the V.P. and back to the Hostel very late each night. Yet another row followed, my parents were going to be told, threat, threat, threat, all over again. Then salvation. I had looked after Justin, now was his turn to save me from possible disaster, humiliation, and a forced return home.

There was one student older than the rest of us by quite a few years. Justin had got to know him quite well during the time that I had been missing from the course. His name was Peter Sage. He had got a ‘TOPS’ award. These training opportunities awards were not easy to come by, but as he was a fully qualified Engineer from Bristol he told me he had had even great difficulty to get one, to allow him to get out of engineering and into theatre. He knew we also were very unhappy with the Hostel and that night he sort us out. He had found a flat in Streatham, Justin and I would have to share a bedroom, he would take the lounge, and the second smaller bedroom would be taken by the incumbent accounting student Alan Hegner. This was a very good offer, so Justin and I decided to take it. I think the price was £12.50 per month, quite a lot less than hostel. I think with my grant and help from my parents I think I had about £30 a week, so about £20 a week to spend Beer and fags. I was solvent again. Justin and I jumped at the chance. We moved the following week, leaving our deposit of a week’s rent and a fortnight unpaid, quids in then! As, I think the Hostel was about a pound a night. We just put everything in Peters car and legged it. We had signed for our shares of the flat, I think we paid a deposit of £25 each, which was two months rent in advance. That night we were in Streatham in a low rise block of flats just off from the common. Hopton road was the address. That night having consulted my new A-Z proper London map I walked down to the station and Brought a monthly rail ticket to take me into Victoria. I had not quite worked out how I was going to get to college and I don’t think I actually cared. It was a bit of a silly move as it was to turn out that most days Pete (Sage) would drive in and charge us far less than any form of public transport. I got on the train and worried that I might miss my stop. It was one of the first overground train journeys I had made. Four stops later I was to find out that just like Paddington one could not go any further at Victoria either!.

That night I spent again with the crew at the VP. I was by now a regular at both the Theatre and the pub. It was a fine October Evening, they had all been standing outside the Stage Door, they all seemed pleased to see me, “ciggies”jokes and a few beers after the show. I took the train back to Streatham Common, I had originally said I might be back in time for a beer but I was not. I spied a burger van parked up by the common and purchased for the first time a couple of burgers from what would for some reason for ever more be known as a one armed joint. I have know idea why we called it this, or if the name was prevalent or even intended to be derogatory at the time. Two small flowery baps and a burger with onions and mustard in each one, wrapped in a bit of kitchen towel. I munched them happily as I wandered diagonally across the corner of the common. It would be a few more weeks until I should find out that a cheese burger was a burger with cheese, not a bun just with cheese. I think they cost about twenty pence each, a bargain anyway. In through the front door with my shiny new key and bed. I lived for nearly a year on that late night feast.

A Sunday lunch, my first inauguration into this English tradition. Peter was going to cook it. And take us to the pub, to drink Beer. Youngs beer. This I think must have been the second Sunday we were together. I think Pete may have driven home the first Sunday to fetch his Hifi and other stuff for the flat. Justin and I had been in the Watneys Pub The Greyhound in Greyhound Lane on the way to Streatham Common Station, the previous week but Pete was having none of that. Youngs beer in The Pied Bull that’s what we were having and no nonsense and that did not mean lager or pilsner. He was not paying another 8p per pint for slops like that. I think the ordinary bitter was about 23p. Youngs have a special bitter and a beer just called Youngs bitter, but if one is special the other must be ordinary. Over the years we must have seen hundreds of landlords clench their teeth on that statement, “four pints of ordinary please.” It was lush, especially good with a packet of KP cheese and onion crisps. Four pints later we had to go. Lunch at home was a stunning success. Everyone else wanted to stay in that Evening. I by now had developed hollow legs. I went to the Streatham Odeon and saw “Star Wars”. I loved it and went to see it again the following week at the Dominion Tottenham Court Road. I think I might have managed a pint on the way home.

The weeks now passed, I cadged a lift as far as Bristol with Pete on one Saturday, leaving my cheque book behind. After he left me at Bristol Station I found the train fare was more than I was told it would be. Pete had told me about five pounds. A bus to Bideford and then another to Barnstaple and then a walk home. I was not home until nearly ten o’clock at night.

Early train to Bristol and a lift back with Pete, he dropped me in time for 8.30 at the V. P.

Monday morning after breakfast in the Arlington (cafe), and after the rig check, Alan announces that we are going to fit the new sump pump. (Many London properties suffer from water ingress problems in their basements and one way to deal with this is to collect this water in a sump or “well” and pump it up to sewer level)

We proceeded to FOH, and into the stalls bar, through a door at the side down a dim corridor past the FOH switch room(the place all lighting and power was controlled from) a sharp left the roof now only 5ft high. This was like caving, past the FOH intake. (a place where the electrical mains comes into a big building) and to where this new pump was to be fitted. We were now under the Pavement in front of the main entrance doors. Down if we had kept going was the domain of the Bar cellar-man Ted Hall. Also enduring this cave-like existence were the FOH maintenance staff Arthur (the painter) and John O’connell the plumber) . In those days many theatres carried a maintenance staff and they were a godsend. The theatres were palaces and required constant upkeep. For example the VP had miles of a lush thick red patterned carpet, with hundreds of steps. Each one of these steps had a canvas “noseings” that protected the edge of the step and showed where the edge was in the dark. Arthur painted every one on a regular basis. They looked glorious, palatial. They would be replaced in years to come by yellow rubber or aluminium, the first in a long line of cheapening changing values. The pump was fitted and a mistake made. A big blue flash and one of the staff was off to complain to the manufacturer. The little quiet helpful student, once the rest of the crew had retreated, with the aid of Percy and John O’Connell wired up the pump, and its control system correctly. They were very kind and allowed me to take all the credit. Me and my little home made tool box were “Top of the Bill ” I was a hit and would run and run. Percy was no fool, he had seen in me what few have. “The spark” is what it’s called, and  only a few have it. Some people have green fingers, others write books, paint pictures, Etc, and a few in the Electrical trade have “the spark” the ability to repair, fix, work on something, find what’s wrong with it, know almost instinctively how it works. And I had it. Over the ensuing months, and years I would take it for granted. I would come to not even notice people turning to me to fix what they in reality could not. I had scored for a third and most important time. And just as importantly I did not gloat or brag about my little success. Tea time, over the Arlington with people that we’re fast becoming friends with. For the first time in my life I was making friends, it wasn’t difficult, I liked them and they liked me, I belonged to something, something rather wonderful and for the first time ever, I was enjoying life.

Drunk me? One afternoon about 4pm we found the DSM (deputy stage manager employed by the production) in the prompt corner. There he was calling the show. (calling the show, is the term used to describe the action of a DSM when he or she is in the prompt corner controlling and Coordinating a show) He was as drunk as a skunk. He thought it was about 8 pm. He kept arguing with an imaginary crew at there show operating positions on the end of the “Black Set”

(The black set was a sort of announcement system in the prompt corner. It was old even in those days. It looked like the Kind of thing found on the secretary’s desk in the 1920’s. It was made of bakelite. It had valves that you could see glowing in the dark. The black set had buttons on it that selected the connection to speakers, in the flys, Lighting box and follow spot box. These speakers were two way devices working both as speaker and microphone. The DSM pushes down a bar when he or she wants to speak. If you wanted their attention you tapped your speaker with a pencil….) The show was not due to go up (start) for another four hours yet here he was arguing with a crew that were not there and would not be for another four hours! We left him for an hour and then decided that enough was enough, his wife was phoned, his address obtained and in a taxi he was put. Phil did the show in the Corner (prompt) that night.

The last night of Las Vegas Follies/The Cilla Black show(“Cilla at the Palace”) “The Jimmy Tarbuck Show”, was coming to an end. The “Tits and Tinsel” would soon be seen no more. Little did we know that this really was true. A golden age was drawing to a close. Basil Brush and Cinderella were on the horizon but the age of variety was soon to be seen no more. Once a year a poor substitute would appear on the goggle box but it would never after Las Vegas Folies, ever really be seen again. From the crazy Gang and the Black and White Minstrels, the Palace of Varieties was finishing. We of course as participants did not know this at the time. For almost the last time in my life I would be sorry to see a show finish. Only to come, way  way in the future, would be the two shows of “Ferry Cross the Mersey”, and “By Jeeves” that I would also be sorry to see go through the “Dock Doors of History.”

This Theatrical out with the old, in with the new, is a very old and odd concept. Theatrical workers at all levels both on and off stage seem to almost detest the very customers they need to survive, to pay their wages and boost, and inflate their egos. Money is despised, derided, only technicians work for such filthy stuff. Yet every artist argues for more, and to have their name first, and in bigger letters than everyone else. It’s human nature only more so. They, the artists, deride the very show they are in, and the very people they want worship from. Is this all an act? I don’t know, I think it’s infectious. Then suddenly it’s over, a brave face is put on, wild last night parties, oblivion for some, the job as usherette or attendant, Front of house somewhere, gazing at the very stage they had been on only days before. It’s a funny old world, years in the future when having my hair cut, the barbour, when finding out my occupation should state. “Really that’s interesting but it must be very boring doing the same show every night.” I would look at him in the mirror and ask was that not the same as cutting people’s hair. I think I was the only one to be sorry to see it go, the crew of course had been doing the same show for the last eighteen months. I had only for the last few weeks. The curtain fell for the last time, the glitter would fall no more on that stage. The cast yelled goodbye, the audience (punters) left their palatial palace, the lights dimmed, the harsh reality of unemployment beconded for some. The cold reality of the Dock Doors to the cold street opened and our night’s work began. Before the last punter left and long before the last artist left the first of the set was down and being loaded into the waiting trucks outside. The VP crew are lucky, the stage is only a few wide steps from street level. Some modern theatres even have loading bays where the set can be trundled straight out of the back of a truck straight onto the stage, but for most there is a height difference big or small. It is the difference in difficulty as different in history as the old London docks and a modern shipping container port. All was going well until it was discovered that the set would not fit in the container on the back of the truck!

Containers on the back of trucks are a standard size and Theatrical sets are made normally in such a way that they can be delivered from the set builders constructed on stage and then dismantled and put back in the truck and transported to another theatre. The problem that came to light the night of the get out of Las Vegas was that the American backers of the show wanted to ship the set to Las Vegas. Now a shipping container would have been fine as a standard size. But they had decided to fly the set. Why no one knew but air freight containers are a couple of feet or so less in height! The set just would not physically fit! The DSM had a drink or two, and tried again, in the end he pushed so hard trying to get the set in the truck he fell off the back into the street. For his own safety and to keep him out of the way the stage crew tied him to the Pross boom (vertical pole by the proscenium arch) with a crate of beer bottles that he could empty and refill. The get out of shows including their sets have deadlines. The get out is not complete until the last bit of the show has left and the theatre has been returned to how it was when the production (Get in) started.

Also sets and shows have other places to be and the crews are only paid for so long. This container was due at the airport booked on a flight to be on the other side of the Atlantic. So the crew had no choice, they just took two foot off any bit of set that just would not fit. The proliferation of angle grinders was not as it is today. This was an unusual set for that time in being made out of metal. It fitted after several extra adaptations with hacksaws. What the Americans thought of the “Brits” when it arrived “State side” we never heard. And so about ten o’clock on a wet Sunday morning it was finished, my first west-end get out. In those days they were done for a negotiated fee. The purpose of  a bonus for the crew and speed for the producer. Paid in cash it could be a good deal all round unless like this it had gone wrong time wise. Then the crew would lose out. As I was walking off the stage Percy handed me an envelope. Saying “there you go mate” inside was twenty five pounds. Every member of the LX crew had given five pounds of their get out money. For me to show their appreciation and respect.

There was no fit up on the Sunday for the next show “Don’t bother to Dress” I went home to Streatham on Sunday morning via the over ground from Victoria Station. Slept for a few hours and then a few beers in the Pied Bull and Sunday Lunch, what a treat.

The fit up of “Don’t Bother” rolled slowly through the following Monday. It was a tiny box set on an enormous stage. The VP, like a lot of theatres of those days, had some lighting equipment of its own. This concept in the West End would slowly diminish to almost nothing. The owners of the theatres (Known as the house) invested less, and less in equipment as the producers demanded more and more sophisticated new kit. Lighting was changing rapidly and sound equipment even more so. By the end of the day the lighting rig was up and the set was due the following day. I was at college the rest of the week. For once I didn’t go in on that Saturday either. I had been warned that there would be nothing much to do or see if indeed there would be anyone there at all. The crew by then would have worked five days as no one had scheduled them differently.

The following Monday there I was in the café with the crew. Then it was Cleaning and relamping that morning for the first night. Three of us went up in the “Dome” , an area above the auditorium where one accessed the hand winches that allowed the eight Chandlers over the auditorium to be lowered to allow access for maintenance.

While sitting up in the Dome I was told about how years previously there had been lights all around the lip of the dome. To access these the LX crew were paid over time to build scaffolding up from the auditorium floor right to the roof. Or there was another way far more dangerous but much quicker. The Victoria Palace had originally been built with an auditorium roof that would slide off to reveal the sky. This phenomenon would allow the hot air from the audience to rise out and away on a hot summer’s night. The same, until filled in, was true of the foyer and bars. One originally could stand in the foyer and look up though the levels of the dress circle and upper circles bars and out to the sky. As the hot air rose so cooler air was brought in sideways from balconies facing the street, and from the main entrance doors. The balconies had been covered for advertising hoardings. And the ceilings also had been filled. Many years later the balconies would again be revealed, only again to be covered to advertise shows. But anyway I have digressed, to save time and effort, to change these now non existent lamps around the dome, the routine was go over the pub for the afternoon, then go up on the roof with the drunkest youngest member who all those years previously had been a very young, Percy Hawkins. The crew then slid off the roof, Percy lent over the rim of the dome, someone sat on his legs while he lent round and changed the lamps that were out. Remember he was over 300 feet above the auditorium. This site, the strain and the beer were all too much. Up came the beer and then down the contents of his stomach went. 300 feet to the carpet and seats below. It’s estimated that he covered seats one to twenty six Rows A to K.

The FOH header which is a device that stops the audience from looking straight at the top of the house tabs (curtain) and at the safety curtain, at the VP was a very posh looking affair in purple baize, with  gold satin letters of VP in a circle in the centre. This was lit by a spot light running off the house lights. It did look nice but was dropped for some reason with the arrival of the show Annie. The LX Dept could get away with many things but not having this lamp out, it had to be working at all times. If it blew on the incoming (of the audience) before the first show, it must be replaced during the show so as to be ready for the interval. This was a scary thing to do. The floor was safe unlike some theatres but you were right over the audience’s head, should you drop something and it fell through the metal grill it would have killed someone in the stalls.

The lamp replacement reminds me of the fact that the London Palladium and The Victoria Palace are sister theatres. Both had this advanced (in position) follow spot area above the stalls. Abandoned when a bigger place with more powerful spots were invented and placed at the back of the auditorium. At the Palladium the story goes that while it was still in use because it was so hot up there, the follow spot operator used to sit in the nude with his feet with a bucket of water. One night the follow spot shorted out, the casing went live and the resulting shock to the operator made him go into spasm. He kicked the bucket of water into the stalls. He was transfixed by the Direct current and could not let go as the lamp swung over the audience’s head. They were given a sight of the nude follow spot operator screaming above their heads until he was swung back safely onto the platform. Its a great if somewhat doubtful story. But the Percy story is definitely true.

I watched the final dress rehearsal. “Don’t bother to Dress” seemed a poor affair after such a big show. Funny really, a few short months earlier, and I would have thought it sophisticated over the likes of productions from the Northcott or New Theatre. I was infected by the crew’s distaste of such simple theatre. It was a “Whitehall farce” set in a London flat. The usual sexual innuendo. Dropping trousers Brian Rix style, and about as funny. The first night came and went. The house was heavily papered, meaning nearly all the seats were occupied by people who had not paid for them. There was a very small party in one of the bars, I don’t think we were invited. We did get a few drinks in the Manager’s reception room. The show had gone up (started) earlier than normal as most first nights do, so the press can print in the next days papers their review. The “party” for once at the VP ended early. I suspect looking back that the production had put up little to pay for a party and no one felt inclined to be much involved.

The reviews in the paper were dreadful. The leading lady had financed the show herself. It was a disaster. It was rumoured even the furniture was from her own flat! Whitehall farces were over, finished, everyone had seen, done, been in them. The public had seen them on stage, on film, on TV. No one wanted a good one, let alone a bad. We staggered on for a few depressing weeks. This would be the first of only two times in theatre which would be so depressing. The second would be more than 10 years and two theatres away. The notice (to quit) went up. It did not even get the usual fortnight. 5 days later on a bleak Saturday it finished. No party, no sad parting, it was just over. There was no show to follow straight away. Monday we took it out. The set what there was of it went to the dump the furniture back to her flat. What dreams there may have been died in the harsh lamps of an empty stage. Phil took us over the road to the pub and brought us all a few drinks. I found out later that there was no money left to pay for the get out (of the show). The producer had not even left anything to thank the crew. Just five pounds a charity box. That’s how far apart and divorced from reality this show had been. Phil had decided to apply the maxim charity begins at our home. He liberated the fiver for a higher and better purpose. Three hours later we all staggered off home. “Don’t bother” had come to an end. The end of west-end show number two.

Basil Brush Was the next show, a sort of pantomime with a fox as compere. I had been offered a showman’s job on it. A showman is a person that works on a show part time. They are employed to work on the show for its duration or “run” They may then be employed on the next one or not as needs be. It is a part time job with little responsibilities apart from doing the cues required for the show and under the direction of one of the full time members of staff. In those days most showmen had a daytime job as well. They either did the work because they liked being in theatre but could not get a full time job in theatre, or just wanted a little extra cash. Very few people could live off the wages paid for this work. At normally only twenty four hours a week it could hardly be expected that one could. But this was a job, in a commercial west end theatre on a professional show. I was seventeen years and nine months old. I was to be the colour change operator. The truth to a certain degree was that the position was a little unnecessary. On certain LX cues I would operate the switches above the lighting board that changed the colours in front of the lamps on the front of the balcony. By having an operator for this, it made the life of the board operator much easier, and made the changes look better. In those days management were not so wage inquisitive. The result were that there were more jobs that people could be employed on that were not essential perhaps, but they did allow for tryouts, bedding in, and checking out of staff for future advancements and promotions. Phil had tried to employ fifty stage crew showmen, head office had come down to watch the scene changes. Phil had the crew move the set from A to B and back to A again just to look busy, but this time he had gone slightly too far! I think he had to settle for half the number, which probably only about half as much again as he really needed.

Ian was the main board operator, apart from his day off, when Alan Chief LX would operate the lighting desk, or Norman the swing Dayman. Ian taught me to use the colour change unit, I think I may have learnt it on Las Vegas follies but now I could also learn and operate the lighting board legitimately as a paid employee. If Ian was taken ill and Alan should not be there that day it would be me! Percy never came down from his follow spots. During the last week of the run of Cinderella I would have to operate one of them and “shoot” (operate) the cinema projector that was used for advertising ice-cream during the interval. It was quite an old Projector and one of Percy’s favourite skills. It lay down and did whatever he wanted but it hated me! For many a long year we would all listen to the grand old man bemoan about the modern follow spots and how much better the “old carbon arc” follow spots were. (Carbon ark follow spots were the forerunner to the modern type. The light was produced by striking an electrical arc between two rods of “carbon” . This caused the rods to burn in free air producing a very bright white light. It also produced toxic fumes. ) Many years later Percy would be sent to Her Majesty’s theatre for a couple of weeks and be heard to say how much he hated the old spots and how the fumes upset his chest!

During the fit up of the new show I didn’t at first quite get the power of the Lighting Designer. This position is employed by the production. I had not really come across this idea before. Previous shows at the VP Northcott and New Theatres had been lit by the Chief LX. The world was already changing, and the power of these people was increasing by the year. I made a mistake in questioning the lighting designer when he wanted a colour changed. Had I read the plan wrong, had I or he made a mistake. There was no mistake, he had just changed his mind. Well as he was being paid and I was not he could go and change the bloody colour himself. It was his mistake he could rectify it! I have always been as stated before, of the opinion, how important you think you are, that you should clean up your own mess! This time I had gone too far Alan told me to change the colour, and be polite or fuck off out through the stage door and don’t come back! The world had resorted back into that unfair normal state that it was most of the time. I took a deep breath and decided to get on with it. I am glad to note that when looking at the program of the show over 47 years later that lighting designer was not listed.

I was balancing Eight shows a week and theoretically 40 hours a week at the college. sixty four hours in six days plus lots of lovely beer. Then came the parties, First night, Christmas, cast, crew, producer, any reason would do. At last in the third week in December college finished. We were given a mountain of projects to do before the second week in January. No chance!

It would be on the second or third night of Basil B. There was a scene where the Female dance company “Sams Set” Danced under ultraviolet light (UV). UV at the time was quite new and expensive. The Tubes really are just normal fluorescent tubes, but are removed from the production process one stage before the glass is coated with a fluorescent material.. The result is “Black light” . This light then makes anything coated with fluorescent material glow in the dark. “Black theatre” with dancing animals Etc. appeared magical and amazing. Unfortunately Sam’s dancing girls were dressed in very tight white silk cat suits. The result was that anything dark would show straight through the suit under this light. Small children in the front row of the stalls were getting far too great an education. Phil solved the problem by one of the most memorable Tannoy calls of all time that I have ever heard. “To the ladies of Sam’s set I have only one word, Gillette!”

The Parties continued. Christmas came and went. Christmas eve everyone was drunk. I remember the prop master Bobby dragging a bottle of Vodka bigger than himself it almost seemed, along the back of the Dress circle to the lighting box during the show, and then knocking on the door demanding entrance. We initially denied it to him without the special password…..

Ian ended up in Streatham Christmas day. I guess we must all have got there somehow. I think we may have met Justin at some party. We put him on a train home. I think he walked to the nearest Northern line Train station Probably Tooting Bec. I don’t remember much more or Christmas day. Peter and Alan were both with their parents. I think Justin had also got a showman’s job at Sadler’s Wells or Stratford East. He would go on to be Chief LX at one of them very early on, acquire a drinking problem and Eventually leave and go and work for the Emerging Sky TV. But for that, on Christmas Day 1977 it was drink, cook a bad Christmas day lunch, and sleep it off in front of the TV.

More parties, The show was produced or at least managed by A company called London Management. A guy called Graham Stevenson was always popping up with his Diary, one party even involved Rolf Harris!

One night while turning out the lights after the show, (Blacking out), We were delayed because a young lad had knocked his nose during the show. Basil came out to comfort him in the Foyer. It would turn out that his name was David Corbett. It would be nearly ten years later that he would first be my Dayman at the Queens theatre and then my Deputy at the Royalty theatre.

I should have done my project for the college, “how to wire up a pig farm” . I had not even opened the books, we were due back in under five days.

One thing sticks in my mind, the show on a Wednesday matinee had to have its running order changed because one of the stars was in crack O’ Jack and it was rehearsed on a Wednesday, so she was moved from the first to the second act! Things just worked like that in those days. Deputies (deps) would cover one another on midweek matinees. A system that worked perfectly but would be lost entirely in the next century.

More parties, laughing when Phil in the corner, who also operated the camera on the front of the Dress Circle, using the remote control. Which was very new in those days, tilted it directly down to have a look at a very good looking girl in the audience from a birds eye view. Got it stuck. Basil was almost blind! The puppeteer could only see the cleavage of the girl in the fifth row. All was forgiven in the Duke of Yorks that night, Phil Brought Ivor a drink or two. In a way being the man behind Basil had its advantages. No one knew who he was, unless he laughed, his laugh was the laugh of Basil. If he laughed in the pub people looked around for the famous fox.

The Next, New, big, big, show had been announced. It was to be Annie. We knew nothing about it, we even thought that it might be an abbreviation of Annie get your gun! We were in the Dress Circle 3 of the 5 LX and the Manager. Alan said that Norman was leaving, he was the swing Dayman, and they would have to look for a new one. Robert said, “how about” and pointed his finger at me. I waited, Alan said yes but what about my course. I said I could do both. In fact I could not have cared less, I still had not even started the project I was supposed to do,”wiring up the pig farm” . It was agreed there and then. I was in! Thanks to Robert, I had my full time theatre electricians job. I was safe. I was the second Dayman Electrician at the Victoria Palace London. It was probationary for 3 months, but it was 45 hours a week. The Job would include the magic extra five hours at time and at half left over from the old variety days of twice nightly. I had never done these hours and was not really entitled to them. The management had not cut the crew’s hours back at the end of the Black and White Minstrel show, and now they could not. I had been granted the same payment out of kindness.

Going home on the train that night I was as pleased as punch. I could not contain my joy. I told an old couple sitting opposite. They were perfect strangers. They smiled and wished me luck and said they were pleased for me.

Basil Brush was coming to an end. Bobby Crush, and The crack O’Jack Girl, Burt Weeden, Sam’s Set, were all soon to just be a memory of parties.

I still had to tell my parents. Theoretically they were still in charge of me. The grant cheque had just arrived.

We took “Basil” out one cold January Saturday night. I remember George Wetherall telling his crew they could break down the tripes (The expression used to describe many cables held together by electrical tape.) now on stage at 3 am or out in the snow in the yard on Monday morning. George was in charge of Robert Luff Theatre Electrical Hire. An old well established firm that would again be swept away by the coming winds of change that would blow hard over the next few years. Over forty years later I would watch the video of the loss of the Futurist Theatre in Scarborough, and see Basil Brush’s signature at the stage door, and think of George and his company working out of an old church.

We then fitted up “Cinderella” starring Tony Blackburn. Who turned out to be a very nice man. Every night in the wings he would chat to any member of the crew that just happened to be standing near. It would be the only time in my life that I would almost star struck. Here I was only a few short weeks from listening to him on the radio whilst revising for my ‘O’ levels. Talking to Tony Blackburn. A few short years on and Elizabeth Tailor would not have the same effect! By quick thinking I saved the photo shoot. Cinders coach was lit by fairy lights, and one got broken when it was pushed on stage. Quick as a flash I ran on and pushed my neon screwdriver into the lamp holder, cinders was all lit again and the panic was over. Looking at the publicity poster on the front of house main displays I could just see my screwdriver dangling off the back of the coach beautifully lit in silhouette. The show lasted only two weeks as it was only planned to do. It had been booked at the last minute, I don’t remember where the show had come from. It had been done before and will be done again. Tony was very good and the show for its short run did well. Especially if you think the pantomime season must have been at an end by that time.

I phoned Mum and Dad from a call box, telling them I had the offer of a full time job and how hard they were to come by, in another few short months there would be a dozen or so looking for work. Then I told a whopping great lie, I told them that the theatre would give me some time off to study as would the college give me time off to be at the Theatre. They believed me. Later I phoned the college and put forward the proposal. If they would drop all but the electrical installation side of the course I would be able to get enough time off work to finish the course. They flatly refused. I thanked them and rung off. I spent the grant cheque on a new stereo. All I had to do was ride it out until my 18th Birthday. I would then have my full time job. You could not work full time for the company unless you were 18 in those days. My 18th came and I started work on Annie, no wild party or big booze up just a fit up of one of the biggest shows ever to hit the West-End at that time.

February 24 1978

My birthday occurred during the last week of the run of Cinders. My 18th, Don and June in the Duke of Yorks were not amused when they found out! They had been serving underage drinker for the previous six months. Devon must have been well ahead of London at that time!

Saturday 25th February the Get out of Cinderella. All went well, it was after all a touring set and it was not a huge or complex show but we had enjoyed the two weeks it had been at the VP.

Monday Eight o’clock and don’t be late!

The fit up of Annie lasted nine weeks. “It’s not that we were badly treated, we were, on the whole, just ignored.”

The fit up and get in started with a bang. We had been taken over. Annie was the first half million pound musical. (Two and half million pounds in today’s money) Michael White was the producer. It had in fact started a couple of weeks earlier when we found an installation electrician working under the stage one day! He had told us he was making the new dimmer and motor rooms. His name was Dick Smith and he worked for Excel Electrical. This company we did know, it was well respected and before the age of self employed one man bands. The company was owned by John Pricket, we knew him because he serviced the cinema projector. Dick Smith was a big man and I would get to know and respect him very much over the years. He would go on to own his own company as the bigger companies closed again with the newer working practices. We had no idea what he was talking about, new dimmer room, motor rooms what was this all about?

The lighting equipment came in by the truck load, the theatre’s equipment was going to be used FOH and all equipment on stage would be supplied by a company called Theatre Projects, which it would turn out to have been started by the lighting designer Richard Pilbrow. Coincidently he also would be the lighting designer for Annie. Four more dimmer racks were being fitted, nearly doubling the number of dimmers we would have. One rack fitted to our MMS lighting board, and another lighting board and sixty ways of dimming being supplied on hire from Robert Luff. This temporary extra lighting board would cause multiple problems as it was supposed to be another memory board but for unknown reasons was only an old manual board. The number of lighting cues in shows had increased a lot over the last couple of years and now it would be difficult for a manual desk to keep up. Add to this that the lighting designer did not believe it was a manual desk and the tempers would start to fly. A new man started later that week, his name was Glen Hughes. He was Australian and a very nice chap. He had the Australian ‘wanderlust’ out to see the world. Patrick, our own sound man, had not wanted to stay as he only wanted to do sound not lighting. He went in that quiet way of his. After the get out of Cinders he just shook hands with everyone and he was gone. All the Equipment had been tidied away neatly, and the sound room on the side of the Dress circle locked. It would never be used again. The old sound position used for late comers and double bookings. It would be strange to look out from the lighting control room across the dress circle and not see him sitting behind his reel to reel tape recorders mixing away on his sound desk. Annie would be bringing their own sound people and the desk would be at the back of the stalls. Little did we know but this was to become the new norm. They did however want a 5th Electrician as there would be two lighting desks. Glen would be the New Temp Board Operator. It seems odd looking back that we should have this second lighting board (referred to as temp or temporary because it would go after the show) Producer’s where possible want to limit the amount that a production costs in hard cash. An ongoing expense is often preferable to an initial outlay, after all if a show is not a success then less capital is lost. The purchase of equipment specific to a theatre that can only be left behind could be a considerable loss by comparison with the hire of another board and operator. Oddly shows very rarely change their configurations during their runs however long that may be. If the money is coming in why risk rewriting a hit, and if it isn’t then take the show off with the minimum loss. I already felt I had climbed another rung up the ladder as I had been at the VP longer than Glen! As a crew we were suffering badly, we knew little about the show, we had been shown few plans and hardly any schedule. This was the new way, production manager, production Carpenter, production electrician, technical stage manager, the list of managers was almost endless. Peter Kemp from Kemp and Walker were building the set, mainly out of steel(a very knew idea for those days). Excel electrical were installing all sorts of stuff. Autograph were installing new communications and sound equipment. Bob Knight’s production carpenters were cutting holes in the stage. And we had no idea what was going on or why. Even the prompt corner was moving to the other side of the stage. A new man was taking over the flying system from Stan McQueen. He would be made HOD Flys, I can’t remember his name, he always wore a white boiler suit and we nicknamed him skippy. We had just become tiny cogs in the new producer’s big machine. It was huge, 200 ways of dimming, 2 huge motors to drive treadmills Down Stage, six motors to move the buildings up stage, two more motors to move sets on pallets or motor car or a van, the list was endless, snow machines, police lights, flying fire places, the temp board above the OP corner, a position at the rear of the stage for the operator of the treadmills above the PS corner, a position up stage PS high in the air to control the moving buildings of the new York skyline. The bridge DS that ran between the two fly floors to give access to service the safety curtain removed. The bridge to allow access to the main PS fly floor was removed. A new ladder was installed to allow access again to the fly floor PS. More lighting equipment, A hole cut in the back of the stage huge to take the tracks for the buildings. Gauze and projection screen for the New York skyline. 50 sets of Christmas tree lights, wipe all the colour of them, fit them, they are too white get felt tip pens, put some of the colour back on them. Start making light fittings to go between the tracks at the back to light the buildings. Start wiring up the inside of the buildings to light them. Working 18 hours a day now 7 days a week. One of us working overnight every night. Move the old workshop to the new one under the stage. The old one to be used as a crew room. First rehearsal someone working on stage puts their foot in the wrong place, falls between the tracks, the floor breaks and the roof collapses into the new workshop. Big row all our fault of course. (LX dept). Still it continues, we get our orders each morning from the production Electrician then we won’t see him again until eleven o’clock that evening, he would roll in drunk, tell us more things we had to do or had done wrong and then just go again. There was hardly any overtime until the end, our hours were being carefully rostered to avoid this. Shouted at by Bob Knight for jumping over “his’ ‘ orchestra pit! Everyone is always trying to look busy whenever the production manager is about! Fuck em if there is nothing to do! During the run a brown envelope would be given out each Thursday to the stage and electric crews. Only Frank and I would not get one for some months as I was a rude little boy! And Frank is just as mouthy. Later I would get an envelope and many thanks for my ingenuity. Mainly I suspect as I covered all the electrical jobs during the show. Both lighting boards, all three follow spots and all three stage jobs. I had a book of my own cue sheets for all the positions including the main board. After one of the Deputy stage managers had borrowed it to copy, respect increased. and Increased further when I fitted a new call mic in the prompt corner. My popularity with the company was increasing as the Chief LX’s was decreasing. The policy to look busy was of course the correct one, not because it served any purpose, but like many things just the path of least resistance.

At the back of the stage was an enormous cyclorama. It was lit by 28 A1000 Flood lights at the top and the same at the bottom. I had come across these before. Each one and a 1000 watt sun-flood in it. They got very hot and you either used coloured glass or a cassette device that moved the coloured gel away from the hot lamp. We rigged these but the lighting designer did not like the result. For the next three years we would risk our lives twice a week and stick the gels on with tape thirty feet above the stage on an almost vertical ladder. When the money ran out three years later we would go back to the same cassettes that the lighting designer had not wanted.

Publicity stunts followed, Stratford John’s playing Oliver Warbucks having his head shaved on stage. Watching him Dance on stage with Andrea Mcardle, the American actress playing Annie was magical. This short fat man with little feet looked amazing. We felt sorry for her when he was rude to her. It was because he had a toothache but still no excuse to a little girl. She just rose above it all. She was cute, clever and pretty, she knew it and played it well, and I think everyone loved her for it.

The first night came and went. No party for us, this was again the start of the change in theatre. I think Phil and Alan may have been invited but we certainly were not. We may have helped launch the ship but we were as a crew not really wanted on the voyage.

The first night had gone by and the Children could only do either 39 or 79 shows per year. There would be constant rehearsing, auditioning Dress rehearsals, schooling for the children. Two teachers and two chaperones, they had most of the dressing rooms on one side of the stage as school room and dressing room. Only Annie had her own.

The Dog trainer on Annie at the VP in the late 70’s asked the Manager for Comp so Todd could watch the show… To which he agreed until he found out that Todd was the understudy dog!

My memory fails here slightly as to the next order of things, I think I have it right but if not I can only apologise, I have no way of checking it. The summer was approaching and I was tired of sharing a room in the flat. I liked my own company, I was working most days all day. Looking back it might have been a mistake but the party was breaking up! Justin would go on to be chief LX at Stratford East. Peter, poor, happy, Peter would go on to work at the old Vic and on Evita at the Prince Edward. He was so full of life. He had shown us youngsters how to live. I heard he was killed in a motor bike accident in Park Lane late one night. They measured the skid Marks and estimated he had been travelling at 120MPH! I thought of the time I had followed his instructions to cook a curry for his visiting parents. I mixed up the chilly and curry powders. His Mum refused to eat it… His parents gave me a copy of the Black and White Minstrel show at the VP. I still have it today. A nice gesture from a nice couple, they must have been devastated. Alan dear Alan said he liked it. Poor Alan he again would be the last man standing long before time ran out on the contract with the flat. We had signed and left cheques with the management company but each person was responsible for their own and so I got a bedsitter in Clapham North and cancelled my remaining cheques. Peter helped me move with his car. I would never see him or Justin again. I regret that move now. The bedsitter was a dump, I owed more to my flat mates than that. In writing this book this is the first time I should ever have thought of them as that, “flatmates”, it conjures up at this distance in time, a sort of man about the house sitcom romp. Sadly it wasn’t, the flat was designed with a couple and one small child in mind, not four blokes studying and drinking and working different hours.

The bedsitter was a dump at the top of a terraced house. The landlord claimed it was a service flat but in reality it just meant he could just poke about in whatever he liked. He claimed that the electricity board had fitted a new electricity meter. He had fitted it himself. He had wired it up wrongly, it ran backwards, the more electricity I used the more credit I got. If the gas ran out I used to turn off the main stopcock, undo the nuts on the pipes, turn the meter upside down, shake the money out, put it all back together and carry on through the cold snowy winter of 1978/9. In the following Summer, a couple moved into the house next door and then later caused a fire so severe we were all evacuated by the fire brigade!

Annie one night Proved the old maximum. As long as you keep talking no one will notice !One night the Oliver Warbucks understudy had to go on. Unfortunately earlier in the day he had been knocked over by a bus!Anyway all was going well until he said the famous line…. “Annie a Dusenberg is a car… And there is something else I should know but I just can’t quite remember what it is”(Babe Ruth is the right fielder for the New York Yankee)But no one in the Audience noticed!

One afternoon I came in for the afternoon evening shift which we used to do one week in five before getting a long weekend off Friday night through to Tuesday evening. I was told by the stage Dept. That the front of house switch room (the place where all lighting and power is controlled from) had burnt down! I thought they were joking but it was true. This had happened the day after the electrical test! And yet we rewired straight out the intake and we did a show that night with only one circuit not working! Thanks to the team from Excel electrical. The job was so dirty that Percy’s hair turned black. His wife ” ‘er in doors said it took years off him.”

Alan Pope announced he was leaving. He was going to Wimbledon. He may not have been the greatest of electricians, both Percy and Ian didn’t like him, and sadly that influenced me. Looking back it was wrong, Alan worked with the crew, he did his share of carrying, working up the telescope, he lit up, he worked the board, he knew all the cues on stage, on both lighting boards, he was a nice guy. He was my first proper Chief LX. He put up with a lot from me and now he was going. We all saw it as a step down. He was going as Chief LX at Wimbledon. It was right for him, he had a wife and at least one child. He would soon be gone, his big check American, Canadian, shirts and his Rothmans cigarettes, that he could smoke even when working upside down would be seen and smelt no more. I think he called in once when he was in Victoria, but I don’t remember seeing him after that. He had as I say a wife, and child to support, the rest of us had not, the age of the mortgage and debt were coming, but we were to have none of it, for some years yet anyway. We just kept on drinking. Both Ian and I applied for the Job of Chief LX, it was after all the age of arrogance. Neither of us got the job. Neither of us was suitable. If either of us had there would only have been trouble. Percy did not want the job. His father had been deputy chief LX and that was good enough for him. Nothing would pull him out the followspots, his education held him back a bit, also he lovingly had no respect for authority. He referred to the head of the company as the box office tea boy. Which he had in fact been when Percy was still Deputy Chief LX! That might not have been so bad if he had not said it to his face!

I think it may have been possible that Glen had also applied to be Chief LX. He had never been happy with the wages, He had complained so bitterly that we had both been raised from second to first Dayman well ahead of the three month probationary period. Whatever the reason Glen was leaving as well, as he had been there such a short period of time he was just off. I took over as Temp board operator and my first act was to rewrite the cue sheets and move the board to a better position, so the operator could actually see the lights he was controlling. I rewired the FX controls as well. Moved the light over the board and had a general tidy up. I thought that I then could be made the operator permanently. Alan explained that my swing Dayman job was better and more interesting and challenging. I was not convinced, I thought any permanent position held more kudos but it was not to be. Alan was right though, when Annie finished a sound person would be required and that was to prove to be not for me. Alan interviewed for someone to replace Glen. A new man who we were not to meet for some time was chosen. This was an odd interlude as Alan had chosen the new person and yet a new Chief LX would start before the new Dayman. This interlude meant that we would be two people down in a Dept of five, we would be permanently running until the new people arrived as if someone was on a day off and another on holiday. A girl was brought in to solve the problem and to try and avoid paying any overtime. This lack of overtime was always the case on Annie. The producer would do almost anything including rostering odd shifts and or employ more people to avoid it. Jenny Caine was her name, she came on the recommendation of the Technical stage manager, I taught her the Temp Desk in a few shows and at the end of that week Alan Left.

Ha for a very short period of time I was in charge, well sort of. Percy was in his follow spot box, Ian who still did not know all the stage cues, was stuck on the Main lighting desk FOH. Jenny was on the Temp desk, and I, little old me, was on stage. I was the only member of the LX Dept left that could do any jobs in the Dept. Oh the power, sadly it would not last more than a week or so as I remember.

And so we were given a new Chief LX. His name was Simon Wood, and he was a quite a different Kind of Chief Electrician. He had been doing sound at the Phoenix theatre on Elvis. (I had been to see it the night sound had failed after a refurbishment. Only two mics worked! It included the old joke if there is anyone in the house called Mike your wanted on stage immediately!)

Simon could not work nights yet, his contract did not finish for another two weeks and so I continued, in semi charge during the show. Simon came in during the days and went at lunch time.

The six months were just about up and it was all change, cast and some of the stage management and crew. Andrea McArdle left to return to the “states.” “You look after you guys” was her passing shout. Thinking of it little orphan Annie would only have been a couple of years younger than myself. I only saw her in one other thing, a film called Rainbow about Judy Garland. I wonder what happened to her after that? My future brother-in-law would use the same expression “you look after you guys” outside Boston Airport in the November of 2000!

As I said, Alan had interviewed and selected Glen’s replacement, His name was David Leach. David started a Week or so after Simon did. David would take over the job of operator of the Temp board. I taught him the Temporary lighting desk and that was my responsibility in the end. Simon was now in charge of the Dept. I went back to just covering everyone else’s job on their day off or holiday.

My mother announced that she was coming up to London for a weekend and wanted not only to see Annie but also the show that I had been raving about at the Comedy theatre also produced by Michale White. The Rocky Horror show. Nothing I could say would dissuade her. Remembering at the time that she was over sixty and religious it was a challenge that I didn’t really want to take up but in the end I decided that if I had to be hung for a lamb. I brought front row centre seats. There she sat bless her all the way through. Scarf on her head and big dark glasses! I to this day don’t know if the glasses were to prevent her being recognised or to stop her seeing a man in tights and suspenders! At the end she professed to having enjoyed it and never mentioned it again.

I was starting to ingratiate myself with the stage management. All the Departments drank in different pubs, the old lags in the Dukes, the new crew in the stage door and the Front of house and showmen in the Stag. The Stage Management used yet another just around the corner. The Stage management then introduced me to the Italian Restaurant called the Al Portico.

Yet another great temptation I could now go around to the Stage management’s pub and have a drinks with them. They were, ” Right poshed up they were”. They would then go on to the Italian Restaurant until 2 am. Frascati wine on Fridays and Saturdays and the house white the rest of the week! If we were chucked out at 2am I would walk home across the Vauxhall Bridge to Clapham. We found out the  number of the company’s Taxi account. That would lead to some fun until the account number was cancelled. It turned out that there was a Mangers account as well. I can still to this day remember it. Dial 458 triple 5 triple 5 and quote account number 361. The problem was that everyone was doing it, four or five people would be getting a cab every night! The Big challenge which I think I only engaged in once or twice was to drink round the clock, which on those days of no twenty four hour pubs took a little bit of doing. One would start in the west end at midday until three pm. Then by going into the city one could start again at five unless one went to the Arts club in that case one could drink during the afternoon. After the pubs closed at eleven one could be in the Italian restaurant until two am when one decamped to the cavendish hotel for breakfast and beer. At Five am one could go to New Covent Garden, walk or skate across the beer soaked carpet, and keep on drinking until it was work time with a big mac at nine am.

I got this job showing a film at the end of the Mikado when the fireworks go off. It was at the Westminster theatre (just around the corner from the VP) Luckily the sound did not come from the film as once I ran over there and the film was on the winder but it had not been rewound! So I shot it backwards! All the fireworks exploded and then went do wards into the ground!

I also got a job late at night working at a nightclub in St James called Munkberrys. £5 in cash, a steak sandwich, a couple of beers, and a cab home. The job didn’t last long as they all thought their little club was very important. I am afraid with a lighting rig of only 20 or so lamps I did not! The disco was run by a very large gentleman who went by the name of masher! I was funny enough, very polite to him! He thought my lighting was very subtle! When it ended, I was sacked by a girl with blonde hair, tattoos and a ring through her nose. I was not that sorry, home at 3am and up at 8 was starting to tell! And I hated the so-called music! Simon had passed the job on and seemed upset that I had lost it ! He also had me do a job at Grosvenor House, which I also found a drag, gladly he didn’t ask again, and gave most of the work after that to David.

A new couple arrived to work in the Flys, the first was to become one of my very best friends. His name was Colin Vicat. He was a plaster technician at St Bartholomew’s hospital (Bart’s). We would become the greatest of drinking buddies over the years. I would get to know his mother and family very well. We would share many holidays on the canals. The Second was Colin’s friend Bill Baines. He also worked at Bart’s. Colin in fact brought Bill into the V.P. They both used to do various drama groups in the south east and Minack in Cornwall every other year. Skippy the head Flyman also now left and Stan was promoted back to Head Flyman with HOD status as it always should have been.

A new man was taken on that winter to fill the vacancy left by Stan returning to head flyman. His name was Les Peters and it would not be long before Les Colin and Bill would soon be known as the hair bear bunch. This was due to them all having permed cork screw hair akin to Marc Bolan. Their drinking exploits were legendary. I would learn Narrow Boating, flying, and folk music from them over the years.

Talking of running out of petrol David helped me move into this new bedsitter in Wimbledon, between shows, and ran out of petrol on Vauxhall Bridge Road on the way back! You have rarely seen two techies run so fast. Both of us were working lighting boards that night, we made it just after beginners…The acquisition of this new flat (bed sitter) was a close-run thing, I had left it very late looking for somewhere new to live. I had been thinking of living in a guest house in Victoria for a while. The idea appealed. No commuting, breakfast and a short stroll to work, home for lunch. When I found out how much it would cost I just couldn’t afford it! I left my old bedsitter at 8am, and I collected my wages at lunch time. I set off to see a place in Wimbledon that afternoon. I was told to meet the agent outside the entrance to Ely’s at 2pm. He never turned up, I went to see him at the advertised offices, he took me to see the ‘flat’ I took, I had no choice, I had nowhere else to live. It would have been the streets or sleep in the theatre and the theatre had a full time fireman and guard dog! It actually was quite a nice flat with a shared kitchen which no one used apart from me! And at night I saved the two flights of stairs to the toilet by its use. The estate agent dropped me back at the station. One problem later that night, I arrived back in Wimbledon about half past midnight, but where was the house, what was the address, it took a few attempts before I found a front door that the key fitted. I had only been driven there and back and could not remember the number or the road.

It was decided about a year into the run of Annie that the balcony ceiling should be repainted. It was also decided that it would be much cheaper and involve much less disturbance if this was to take part overnight. A couple from the stage Dept and a couple from the LX Dept would start each night once the audience had left and the pubs had shut, put up a tower and away they would go. All went quite well on the first night until someone found the gallery bar was unlocked. They also found a stack of crates of Carlsberg lager! That night we drank a whole crate, filled the bottles with tap water and put the caps back on, putting that crate at the bottom of the stack. A week later we took a bottle out the top stack to find it was full of water…. We never heard a thing about it! Somewhere that set of stock just “disappeared”

Jay denier who normally played the butler got his big moment. After years of working his way up from footman to butler as bit parts. The main lead Stratford Johns was off. Jay was his understudy to play Oliver Warbucks. Unfortunately Jay had been hit by a bus that same afternoon, and it affected his memory. But as they say the show must go on! During the show he came out with the immortal lines. “Annie a Dusenberg is a car…. And there is something else I should know, but I just can’t quite remember what it is.” Proving that it doesn’t matter what you say as long as you just keep talking.

The spring arrived and with that the summer seasons across the sea side resorts of England. Les Peters was off. He loved doing the corner on summer shows and he was off for another one, before he would return to the west end for another winter. Only on his return he would meet in the Peacock Public house next to the Adelphi theatre Jane, his future wife. No more summer shows after that. He would stay at the Adelphi for some time before running a pub and then coming back to work for Stoll Moss. In fact it would be at my suggestion to Julian some years later that both he and Colin would end up working back with the same firm as myself.

And so the joke of the last time the stage door keeper talking of clocking in was to come home at last. I came in with Colin one Monday morning after a Sunday spent with him in the folk club in Farningham. pinned to the notice board for messages was a note addressed to him from Bill the new flyman. It read ” Clock us in at 9am and don’t tell Rosie. (Our nickname for the Manager Robert Radcliffe) Written in a much more educated and rounded hand and in red ink was just Three words. Don’t you dare…RWR.

Through my friendship with Colin my horizons were at last being broadened beyond just theatre. We had become firm friends and unlike some people he had no hidden agendas. I learnt about folk music and folk clubs. food, beer, and Narrow boating. I would go away in May 1981 and many times subsequently. I would form a better bond with my own father through taking him on the canals all around the Midlands where he had spent much of his own youth. Colin would in a few years introduce me to a girl that was working at the Adelphi Theatre, who would become my first wife.

Fun and games at the Stage door public house opposite. The current landlord Giles Gervais Tennyson Dine-court (now that was a mouthful to be mounted above any pub doorway, left and he was replaced with a new couple, The wife Maurine would go on to marry the Flyman and part of my new group of friends Bill. They would run the Silver Cross for a while and then emigrate to New Zealand. Nicknamed the Takapuna terrier, we were to have lots of laughs with her and Bill. I worked behind the food counter in the silver cross one new year’s eve. I took over £500 selling cans of lager that night.

And so Annie continued, it ran from the third of May 1978 until the 28th of November 1981.

I remember little of the get out now. It was uneventful all I remember was that we were sent a production Electrician and it would turn out to be Jenny Caine. I suspect that producers frequently hire a production electrician that has been to that particular theatre before. Why I have no idea, in many of the theatres I have worked in would seem to be the case, however useless or unwanted they may be, like bad pennies they just turn up time after time. I do remember getting the tripe (electrical cables) off from the lighting bars one, two, and three. They were completely insuperable, after three years and lots of changes it was just a sticky dusty mass. We just pulled it to the back of the stalls and then between about eight of us just chucked into the back of the van, only the plugs and sockets were worth anything.

The pantomime Mother Goose followed with John Innman, Ian lavender, and Arthur Lowe. David was now back doing what the 4th Dayman did, sound. He effectively had his own department now, head of sound. He was welcome to it. It was what the management had had a view to, with the hiring of David and Simon. The equipment was supplied and built from the sound Dept. at the Palladium. On the Sunday we were due to do two Dress rehearsals but the weather was so bad that for once the gods smiled on us, the second rehearsal was cancelled and we were sent home! Double time payments on a Sunday and we were sent home! Minimum call eight hours from two pm so we were still being paid that night.

Colin and I set off for his lovely local, I had spent many a happy Sunday there. The bus could not make it up Sydenham hill in the snow! We walked slipped slithered our way through a foot or so of snow! Into the Dulwich Wood House at the very top of Sydenham Hill. Anyone climbing Everest could not have been as cold, wet, or  proud, or thirsty as the pair of us! We had the public bar almost to ourselves! Two large woods rums and two pint of Youngs ordinary bitter please and a packet of cheese and onion crisps! I forget in the next four hours how many times we repeated that order, eventually the steam stopped rising from us, our clothes dried out and just a very few more of the locals joined us. Still we were earning and drinking at the same rate at the same time. Our tramp through the snow to Collins House did not seem so cold funnily enough. The walk to the train station down “the hill” was quick, cold and frightening. Into work with Colin who started as Stage door keeper in the mornings at 8am! A couple of cans of coke and a pre Cilla of a bacon sandwich started the day and settled the head back on the shoulders.

That night, the opening night, I met the woman playing the goose. She had not got her own dressing room, and what a poor theatre this was. I had little sympathy for someone who did not like the theatre I worked in, and was to a great extent my home. After all I was an electrician, her only talent was to stick a goose head on and prance round the stage then moan she had not got the stars dressing room! Who did she think was Liz Taylor? Then I had to learn the sound! It was the first time I had touched a sound desk since the Northcott. Across the front of the stage were microphones, one had to raise and lower the corresponding volume control to catch the person speaking on stage. With no rehearsal and rehearsals finished, the show started, and I was off. For some reason to this day I have no idea why the trim pots were not set to stop feedback. Oh boy we’re not set to stop feedback. Anyway, did I give Inman feedback? And he did not enjoy it. No funny ha ha there! At the interval I was told no more sound for me! Simon would be doing sound on David’s day off in future! Suited me perfectly, he was welcome to it. The only other thing I can recall was when on stage in front of the audience to set the pyrotechnic effects during the interval because the show was so cheap they would not pay for three so the second had to be reloaded and used again in the second act! I spotted what I thought was a bit of wardrobe left on the front of the stage. I gave it to the stage management just as the second half of the show was starting. It turned out it was used by Inman as a prop and false boob! Oh dear what a shame bet that one fell flat! Still it would be that last boob I would ever really make. Remember the golden rule: I would tell many students or new starters under me for all the rest of my life in theatre. “If it is nothing to do with you, even if you don’t know why it is there, its probably there for a reason, so leave the fucking thing alone”. Mother with her miserable goose came to an end and good riddance to bad rubbish I thought to myself.

The theatre then went dark (closed) for a few weeks. We were told to spruce up the two main Dressing rooms, but not why. We did up dressing rooms A by the side of the stage that had its own private entrance onto the stage which had not been used on Annie because of the false stage so its door could not be opened. And Dressing room 1 which also could have the interconnecting doors open to include dressing room 2. New paint and wallpaper. New plush Deep pile carpet. New sink shower dimmer switches the works but we still had now idea why. New TV which turned out to be the wrong colour. We had that in the staff room and another white one was hired. All sorts of famous actors and Actresses were suggested including Elizabeth Taylor. Little Foxes was the show and it was True the leading lady was Liz and what a lady she would turn out to be. We were not invited to the first night at first and when Liz found out she said that if absolutely everyone was not invited either she would pay for everyone to go at a cost of fifty pounds per head to the savoy, or if that was not possible then she would not go herself. And so we all went, including myself, one of the first and last first night parties I would go to. Colin lent me a Jacket shirt and tie. I looked like shrimp in an oversized sowester, and felt rather similar to a fish out of water! Everyone including all the cleaners to the Manager also were given by Elizabeth a silver spirit measure made in the shape of a Foxes head. They were made especially in Cartier in New York and flown across. A few weeks after the party we all held one of our own in Stage Door public house for Liz after the show. She showed an interest in my dart playing with one of the crew and even had a go herself. There can be few people that can claim to have played darts in a pub with Liz Taylor! The only other thing I remember was that the show used fifty two heavy R & V 12 volt beam lights. Each one weighed over 50 pounds, just to light a window on one side of the stage. It took two of us nearly a day to rig them. The poles supporting them had to be steel because of the weight. and all that for a straight play!

The next show was Windy City, it would be one of the last shows produced by Stoll Moss. it would end an era of in house productions and see the closer amalgamation of the two companies. The last two remaining theatres of the Moss Empires, The London Palladium and The Victoria Palace were brought into the fold of the rest of the Stoll Theatres, including the Four on Shaftesbury Avenue, The Theatre Royal Drury lane, and Her Majesties. No longer would we operate independently however successful that might have been. On top of this change we as a technical dept would now come under the control of the Group Engineer. The party was finally at an end or that is how we thought of it. A smaller, more controlled and cheaper party continued for a few more years but the writing was on the wall all the same. The fit up started on a Sunday after Little Foxes had gone out on the Saturday. The carpenters had managed to tip the telescope over with someone at the top of it! Luckily after a trip to hospital they were pronounced OK.

Jenny Caine again would be the production electrician, Benny Ball who was assistant to Pilbrow on Little Foxes was the lighting Designer.

At lunch time with half the carpenters and electricians having come from the Shaftesbury Avenue theatres, they took over our pub, they had already taken over our theatre, and they also had their, soon sadly to be our, group engineer with them. He introduced himself, I was not impressed, he did not own a spanner and had already borrowed mine and not returned it.

The fit up continued along it’s painful path. We were again not invited to participate. The Production electrician told us when and what to do. I did enjoy coming in one night to find her totally knackered. She and another had been working all night. The object seemed to be to cut us out of being paid any overtime and to justify their wages and existence.

During rehearsals the leading man asked one of the carpenters to park his BMW for him (in the days before they were as cheap as or as common as) so Andy took it for a spin past all the stage doors in the west end for a pose……. Pity he ran out of petrol coming back across vauxhall Bridge Road. I think I remember he just left the keys in the dressing room and legged it back to the Avenue.

The windy city set consisted of a set of rooms on a truck that was bigger than the proscenium opening that tracked from side to side to reveal the rooms. Apart from this and two elevated trains at the back of the stage there was no other bits to see at all. There was no flying at all apart from perhaps either house tabs (curtain) or show gauze. Poor Colin was out of work, he got a job on the Electrics paging the tripe that came off the back of this enormous truck. Effectively his entire job all night long was out of sight of the audience was to ensure that the truck did not run over its own cables and feed electricity to it. Hour after hour he just sat there and moved with the truck. He left not long after it opened, he got a job as showman flyman at the Adelphi. We had all often been over there as My Fair Lady needed a big crew and we would go over on a Thursday to cover showmen working full time jobs on the week.

The next problem was the trains, the Chief Engineer had purchased sprung loaded self winding cable drums to feed the lights in the trains, but they were not up to the job. These McCaddy drums very seldom were. They cost a packet and often failed. We had not used them on Annie, but this was the future. I got the job of rewiring them the first time they broke and that was it for me never again. They were lethal with an enormous spring in them. I finally got permission to devise a battery powered system that cost a tenth of the drum idea, and my system worked. It did not matter how fast the stage Dept ran the trains or how much they smashed them into the end stops the lights still worked!

For the first time since the Northcott I was now working in a theatre where lights were again on an Advance bar. This was hairy stuff, the only access was to put the telescope in the stalls, and get to the bar that way. The bar had the new American Leco lanterns on it and they were rubbish. The lamps were always blowing and then one night one of them split apart, throwing the gel frame made of sharp pointed metal straight into the stalls 35 feet below! By a miracle the frame went into the central aisle, if it had not some one could easily have been killed or seriously injured. Light blasted all over the set until it was turned off from the lighting board. One of the front of house staff returned the frame without comment. Only I seemed to see how close we had come to a disaster. There was a fundamental flaw in the design of the lantern. The hinge was at the bottom and not the top. If the little tiny retaining screw became loose this would happen. And there were speakers on the bar as well. These caused vibrations that could loosen screws and blow lamps. The next day the bar was lowered and screw tightened and a second safety wire fitted. But they were a terrible design.

And the last story of windy city concerned a member of the cast that liked to go out with the band. They used to go out to a pub some distance away and play darts. It was not unknown at the end of this to see some members coming back into the theatre on all fours, the only method of locomotion left to them. The company manager asked the musical director (MD) to have a word and say it was not acceptable. The result in the second act was that a member of the cast during a musical number in the show threw the contents of a glass in the MD’s face. He then opened the back of the orchestra pit door and stormed up the centre aisle of the stalls and out of the building. The Piano player then had to scramble up and take his place. The resulting chaos was very funny from our point of view.

Windy city finished on the 26th of February 1983. one day short of five years since I had started on the fit up Annie and my first day as a full time member of the LX crew.

I think we had a Student at the time and just before the get out a joke was played upon him which back fired in spectacular fashion.

The LX crew sent him to a theatre on Shaftesbury Ave to bring back the key to the grid that had been lent to them. (There is of course no such thing)
The get out had gone, and it was Tuesday before the student returned…..
Not only that but he looked very cool, clean and well dressed.
He had a bunch of receipts for meals and train tickets.
According to him the theatres had passed him from the Queens, Globe, Palace, New London, TRDL and then the palladium had suggested Brighton…..
More power to his elbow, but I don’t think he got his expenses, but he did avoid 3 days of work and he did, we guess get the last laugh!

Two weeks later we started the fit up of Call me Madam that had just come down over night from Leicester. We were working away on stage on the Sunday afternoon when Noel Gordon came on to the stage. She smiled and introduced herself to everyone. We only, like a lot of people, knew of her as Meg from the TV soap, Crossroads. I would have been about five or six when I had first started watching it in the midlands where my parents came from. My dad had professed not to like it, yet the TV had been on every night.

Noel was lovely, a real lady. We loved the show, there was a bit where Noel would sit on the front of the stage and sing “you’re just in love” . At the end she could sing a reprise, or continue. We would not know until it happened. It was her choice to judge the audience, and she never got it wrong. She was just quite wonderful. None of us knew at the time she was dying of cancer. We would not find out until long after the show was over. The show only sadly lasted a month. I can’t remember if it was planned like that, but I don’t think so. It was such a shame for such a great lady. She had wanted to “tread” the boards once more, and she proved she could, but sadly the audience had moved on, and that was their loss.

And so Call Me Madam closed, and the Theatre went Dark. The get-out was a sad affair, done over time. No rush and little to look forward to. The heady days of the VP supporting the rest of the group were gone. Every show since Annie had flopped. The days of the mega musical seemed to have stumbled. Cats and JC Superstar were still running,  Plays seemed on the way up. Audiences don’t want musicals in the good times. Maggie Thatcher was on the up and Musicals were on the down. I was looking forward to My holiday on the canals with Les, Jane, and little Sue. Colin, now at the Adelphi Theatre, would not be with us that year. In fact we should only go boating once more together. Before leaving for my holiday , I was told that on my return I would be lent out to one of the theatres on Shaftesbury avenue. 

It seemed odd that the previous year Sue had known that on her return she would be leaving to go to The New London Theatre to work on the new musical Cats. Twenty years later I would also  work at New London, but in an entirely different capacity. 

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