Stage Mum

by Lisa Gee

  I spoke to Mark Williams-Thomas, one of the country’s leading child protection consultants and a former police detective specialising in major crime. He feels there is some risk, in that theatres are places where people who want to abuse children can gain access to them (it’s more of an issue with amateur productions, where companies tend to use volunteer chaperones rather than professional ones). But whilst he is very keen on limiting potential abusers’ access to children, he does not believe that you should try and eliminate risk from their lives. ‘The simplest way to protect children is to ensure that they are educated about being able to protect themselves. In other words, make them aware that there are some horrible people out there. Make sure they understand that if they feel uncomfortable about something, then the chances are it’s probably wrong. So talk to somebody about it. Make sure that there is communication on a two-way basis. But give children privacy, give them respect, help them to grow up in an environment that enables them to be safe, but at the same time allows them to take a certain amount of risk.’

  The next few days’ emails were mostly concerned with rehearsal and costume fitting schedules, with the odd googly bowled in. As she didn’t possess any I found myself dashing round all the children’s clothes shops in Brent Cross trying to find a pair of black trousers for Dora to wear with her SOM t-shirt at the photo shoot. They were, obviously, out of fashion (in other words, nothing suitable in H&M), and something in me baulked at paying over a tenner for a polyester school-uniform pair that didn’t look remotely Dora-shaped and that she’d never wear again. After about an hour of fruitless searching, I fetched up at Zara, where a rummage turned up a pair of plain black cotton leggings with a little lace trim. Perfect! ‘Couldn’t she just wear jazz-dance trousers?’ asked one of the other mums the next day. Well, she could’ve, if she did jazz dance and had any.

  In the same email that provided the details of the photocall at the Palladium came the following ADVANCE WARNING.

  The kids are working very hard and everyone is very pleased with how it is going. Could I ask you please to make sure they get plenty of rest when they can. Half-term week is the first week of technicals and it is going to be intensive and the most difficult of all the rehearsal period. It is especially important that they sleep well that week and if they do have a day off (which they must) please don’t rush off on a busy activity day. They really will get tired especially the little ones with a lot of evening calls.

  Dora didn’t seem that tired yet. She appeared – the Marta swap aside – to be taking it all in her stride. Her first sleepover with Molly-May – great excitement! – took place at Molly-May’s father’s house while he was away, and Molly’s mum Helen was down from Yorkshire looking after her. When I went to collect Dora, the two girls announced that they were going to put on a show, and promptly performed a Reduced Shakespeare Company version of The Sound of Music, playing all the roles themselves. Where they’d been unable to decide which of them should play a particular part, one of them mimed while the other sang or spoke. They performed studiously, sang and spoke perfectly and only occasionally dissolved into girlie giggles. Meanwhile, Helen and I were hysterical and lamented the lack of a video camera that we would, undoubtedly, have been laughing too hard to operate.

  There was more great excitement for Dora. A couple of weeks into rehearsals she was handed her first payslip and cheque. The payslip was more exciting than the cheque, because it had three perforated edges which needed tearing off in order to open it, and also because it told her not only how much money she’d earned that week, but how much she’d earned so far. ‘Is that enough for a bike with gears?’ she asked, jumping up and down. I assured her that it was, but suggested that we didn’t go out and buy one until spring as she wouldn’t have much opportunity to ride it before then. A few weeks earlier, we’d emptied her piggy bank and lugged the contents – five notes and a ton of small coins – to our local bank to open a savings account. To my annoyance, she could only have the kind of account that required me to queue up and hand the money in over the counter.

  Every day I’d drop her off at the Jerwood reasonably neatly dressed with either almost equal bunchies or, if time was short, an acceptably tidy ponytail. Every day I’d pick her up, and although her clothes would still be more or less in the same order, her hair wouldn’t: she’d emerge looking more like a disarmed Edward Scissorhands than a Gretl von Trapp. And she’d be bursting with tangential and incomplete information, setting half a scene for me, or bubbling out stories shiny with the kind of gloss that only six-year-olds can broadbrush across their world. She told me all about the Big Boys in her team – Jack Montgomery, nearly fifteen, the oldest member of the children’s cast, who was playing Kurt, and John McCrea, just about to turn fourteen, who was playing Kurt’s older brother Friedrich. John’s mum Jane had taken him, aged eight, to the local drama club after the teachers at his school had called her in and begged her to find something to channel his energy: ‘He was really naughty. Never anything malicious or vindictive, but just naughty. Used to moon at his teachers. Things like that.’

  ‘I have to protect Jack,’ Dora informed me. ‘John’s always fighting with him and I have to look after him.’

  ‘Do you think they’re pretending?’ I asked, picturing Dora standing in front of Jack, chin stuck out, eyes blazing, one hand on her hip while she waggled her finger at John, more than twice her age and over a foot taller than her, and shouted at him to stop it at once.

  ‘No,’ she replied, rolling her eyes and tutting at both the naughty boys and her dense mother. ‘They really mean it. They’re really fighting! And no one else does anything about it, not even the chaperones, so I have to.’

  The Big Boys were one of the wonderful things about the whole Sound of Music experience. Here were two of them, thirteen and fourteen years old at the time, playing happily, gently and generously with a six-year-old girl. And their attitude persisted throughout the run of the show and even beyond. This was not at all what I expected. Perhaps I was being horribly prejudiced, but I would have expected boys of that age to ignore her completely, while discussing the minutiae of football matches, violent video games and the best of YouTube. Months later, the mothers of several other teenage boys confirmed my suspicion that I was horribly prejudiced. Contrary to the negative press they regularly receive, most teenage boys are, most of the time, lovely, caring creatures.

  Some time after Dora had left the show, at the end of the summer holidays, I watched – along with Grace’s mum Lynn and John’s mum Jane – as John, Grace and Dora played on the trampoline at Lynn’s house, cycled together, along with Grace’s younger brother Joe, to the local park and later performed a selection of hilarious and beautifully executed musical numbers. When it was time for Dora and John to be taken home, the three of them parked themselves on the floor, announced that they were holding a ‘sit-down’ and sang ‘We Shall Not Be Moved’ in perfect three-part harmony. That’s the thing about the youth of today. They might not know what a sit-in is called, but when they do one, they do it very tunefully.

  The Big Boys looked out for Dora and for all the little ones. They involved them in their games and even cuddled them, in what I considered a most unteenage-boy kind of way. It was a real eye-opener and made me think that every child should have the chance to be in something like The Sound of Music.

  In fact the relationships amongst all the children seemed to be remarkably good. There was the odd grumble, the occasional falling-out, but considerably fewer and much more minor problems than you’d encounter in the average playground. It’s not always like that: in productions involving large groups of girls all of similar ages it can, apparently, get quite bitchy. But as Jo Hawes had told me when Dora was first cast, the kids usually have a wonderful time, often making friendships that last a lifetime. And by all accounts, and to all appearances, the children were bonding beautifully. The gorgeous harmonies that I heard on the practice tapes that Dora brought home from the rehearsals se
emed to be reflected in their relationships with each other. The people who’d picked the children had chosen well: here were nineteen kids who seemed to be natural team workers and full of fun. As a number of them attend the Sylvia Young Theatre School, it occurred to me that, rather than being the kind of places that produce poorly educated young people with monstrous egos and superb tap-dancing skills, stage schools might, in fact, be a very good thing indeed. I had to sit down for a minute.

  After I could stand up again, I talked to Sylvia Young about the image people have of stage schools and confessed my own prejudices. ‘The idea of eyes and teeth and all that came about because all the original stage schools developed from dance schools,’ she explains. ‘The dance world is different, it’s quite competitive, with the festivals. And they focus on making you look traditionally pretty for the stage.’

  It’s not like that at Sylvia’s. ‘I never had a dance lesson. I came from a drama background, and for me, acting is the number one. I was the first person to call it a theatre school. Theatre, as opposed to stage. Before me, Anna Scher called hers the Anna Scher Theatre. Wasn’t school, or classes – she was part time – but I liked that idea. Theatre.’ Sylvia enunciates the word very clearly. ‘I liked that. Theatre school.’

  She asks senior teacher Maggie Melville-Bray to call in a couple of nearby children. One of them is Caroline Riley – the Brigitta in Kettles – who started at the school after she finished in The Sound of Music.

  ‘What is it that I tell you you must never be?’ asks Sylvia.

  ‘Stage school brat,’ Caroline shoots back, without having to think about it. Then she says hello, gives me a hug, asks how Dora is and tells me to send her love.

  ‘They learn communication skills,’ Sylvia tells me. ‘The ability to understand what work is, discipline, being able to work with adults. They’re at ease, and I think that’s really important. They’re confident, but not overconfident. They have the ability to converse.’

  Sam Keston, head of drama at Redroofs Theatre School (also an agent and Molly-May’s auntie), agrees. She thinks theatre schools are good for lots of children.

  ‘Those who are clearly lovers of all things creative,’ she said. ‘The kids who love to dance, to perform. Also life’s eccentrics who don’t really fit in with what the state system offers, aren’t good in groups of thirty. Children who are particularly bright who need the challenge of a dual curriculum, and can also cope with the added pressure of castings and performance schedules. Children who have low self-esteem can be turned around. Theatre schools love individuality.’

  Both agree that they’re not for everyone. ‘Academia versus shuffle-hop-step,’ says Sam. But there’s a lot to be said for a small school bursting with highly motivated children working hard at all their lessons – even if their academic curriculum is somewhat circumscribed. ‘Basically,’ Sylvia tells me, ‘they’re here because they have an aim: it’s theatre and it’s performance.’ Maggie nods and adds ‘This kind of environment is geared to what they want and can deliver. So they work hard.’

  Okay. I’m converted. Theatre schools are a good thing. I ask Sylvia, Maggie and Sam what they think the state school system could learn from the Sylvia Young Theatre School and Redroofs. Not a great deal, is the answer. ‘State schools can’t cater for specifics in the same way,’ Sylvia explains. ‘It’s hard unless you can offer the children what they want, and when you’ve got the wide diversity of interests you get in a big state school, I can’t see how you can.’

  I’m not so sure.

  HIGH ON A HILL

  A LARGE PART of The Sound of Music magic was probably down to the work itself. Along with its terrific, memorable songs and worthwhile based-on-the-truth story, it has – as a couple of my most sensitive and aware friends pointed out – an extraordinary air of innocence about it. It is a musical in which you can happily leave your six-year-old daughter without worrying that she might learn about things it would be better for her not to learn about until she’s a few years older: a play from which she might learn something about human-kind and her place in it. It is wholesome without being preachy, gentle and layered with meaning. It is about standing up for the truth, for what you believe in, and not cooperating with evil. It’s a love story that isn’t just about the attraction between a man and a woman, but about a whole family. It tackles serious moral and spiritual dilemmas in a genuinely heart-and mind-opening way. As director Jeremy Sams once pointed out, it is about the healing power of music. It is, in fact, as pure as the air in the Austrian Alps, and nigh on fifty years after its first Broadway production, still feels as fresh as the water cascading down an Alpine waterfall. So it’s no more surprising that being involved with something like this seemed to bring out the best in so many people than it is to find that sitting with your feet dangling in a mountain stream and your face turned towards the warm summer sun makes you feel good.

  Dora and I arrived at the Jerwood Space one afternoon, and as she was peckish, we popped into the café area to buy her a snack. Arlene Phillips, the choreographer, was sitting at a table. She called Dora over, hugged her and, grabbing her loose ponytail, redid her hair so that it wouldn’t disintegrate. ‘Please can you do it like this?’ she asked me. I nodded, embarrassed, and uncertain whether I would actually be able to do it like that. ‘Otherwise she fidgets with it while we’re rehearsing. She’s one of my little fidgets,’ she added affectionately, which came as no surprise to me whatsoever.

  Just before we picked the kids up that evening, I confided my lack of hairdressing nous and confidence – especially where partings were concerned – to Helen, Molly-May’s mum. We were in the pub across the road from the Jerwood, where we often congregated and where, the barmaid informed one of the mums, many of the cast and creative team came after the rehearsals. Especially the nuns, who would, she reported, get drunk and sing. Not only did Helen always look fab, but so did Molly-May, who, when Mum was in charge, invariably turned out in perfectly matched French plaits which hung one each side of an immaculately straight parting and, in a final flourish – which had even been noticed by the show’s director, who’d asked Helen how she did it, as he was considering having all the Martas’ hair like that – did so in elegant Austrian-style loops, secured with neatly tied ribbon. In fact, even when Dad was in charge, Molly-May’s hair was always neater than Dora’s.

  ‘It’s easy,’ said Helen, who’d learned to do her own hair when she was a child performer and was now on her third daughter and so had had lots of practice. ‘Use a comb.’

  A comb? I went out and invested in one. It made a massive difference, as did the fact that I was, after my gentle rap on the knuckles from Arlene, trying harder. Dora’s partings still weren’t perfect – I’m always stumped by anything involving straight lines – but they were adequate, and my plaiting and bunchying improved dramatically in terms of both equality and neatness. French plaits, however, remain to this day completely beyond me, and Dora is resolutely unimpressed by my hairdressing skills.

  On Tuesday, 10 October, Dora and I left the house bright and early. Her hair was plaited and I was proud. She was wearing her new black leggings, which were only slightly too long, with a bright orange embroidered top: a gift from my dad’s friend Elfi. She was looking forward to getting her Sound of Music t-shirt. We walked to Willesden Junction station – I carried Dora’s backpack and lunch – caught the train, read Harry Potter all the way to Oxford Circus, bounced out of one of the Argyll Street exits and walked down to the Palladium.

  A broad and low black stage had been erected outside the front steps, and an enormous Sound of Music sign, featuring the mountain-top and an ecstatically arms-raised back view of Maria, dominated the entrance almost as much as the herd of press photographers, cameras poised and ready, did. We skirted photographers and stage to head up the steps at the side and enter the foyer. It was buzzing with children, parents and activity. Company manager Nick Bromley was rushing round trying to find the t-shirts. Dora dashed off
to meet Molly-May and I hung around, watching. Then the big bundle of t-shirts arrived, and all the kids formed a massive, giggling huddle around Nick, scrambling to get theirs. The t-shirts were plain white cotton, with the Sound of Music logo emblazoned across the chest. Dora’s was age 5–6 and I worried for a few seconds that it might not be big enough. Connie arrived, trailed by her BBC camera crew, and Dora and Molly-May bounded over to say hello and show her their t-shirts. She was lovely with them. ‘Do you ever talk to Connie?’ I’d asked Dora after one rehearsal, curious to know whether the friendly, open demeanour she’d displayed on How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? transferred into real life or was just good acting. ‘Lots,’ she said. ‘She’s nice.’

  ‘What do you talk about?’ I probed, keen to get some insight.

  Dora shrugged. I gave up.

  I managed to pluck up the courage to approach Nick Bromley to ask if it was okay to watch the photocall. ‘Of course,’ he replied, beaming broadly. So as soon as Russ and Rebecca had taken our kids off to get ready, a few of us shuffled outside and took up positions across the street. We waited. And waited. We chatted to each other. Then we got bored and wandered up the road to Costa Coffee and queued for drinks, at which point the mum who’d been deputised to keep watch dashed in and told us that the kids were marching down the stairs and out on to the stage. We paid for our coffees and hot chocolates, promising to pick them up as soon as it was all over, and dashed out again, realising as we did that it hadn’t occurred to a single one of us pushy stage mums that it might be a good idea to actually bring a camera. Fortunately, Mike Riley – Caroline’s dad – was both sensible enough to come equipped and assertive enough to get himself into a position where he could take photos, which he later emailed out to the rest of us.

  Later that day a big photo appeared in the Evening Standard over a small article mostly about Connie, but also about why there were so many von Trapp children. There were snippets on the lunchtime news programmes, which didn’t only feature Connie, but also showed the kids, a few of whom did little interviews. The next day, there was half a page in the Telegraph. And lots of other papers and online media outlets ran stories and photos. Dora beamed proudly out of them, holding leading man Simon Shepherd’s hand. Molly-May sat next to Connie. A week or so later, most of us mums were doubled up with laughter after someone noticed a picture of our children – with poorly corrected red-eye – featured in Hello! magazine. In some publications the children were name-checked, in others they were just grinning von Trapps. It was all good, high-profile fun.