Road to the Dales

by Gervase Phinn

  Giselle or Ophelia’s cousin was called Sandra and very different from the long, lithe and ethereal beauty David was courting. Sandra was a homely sort who wore her frizzy red hair in bunches. She wore large spectacles which hid her rather beautiful jade green eyes. She was one of life’s innocents and collected miniature porcelain jugs and plates with the names and crests of seaside towns displayed on them. I remember how elated she was one Sunday when we went for a walk in Whiston Meadows. (When we ‘walked out’ we never held hands. Sandra preferred to link her arm through mine. We must have looked like an old married couple.)

  ‘My Uncle Cyril brought me back Filey and Bridlington last week,’ she said, hardly able to contain her excitement. ‘All I need now is Sandsend and Whitby and I’ve got the complete set of Yorkshire seaside resorts.’

  ‘Wow!’ I said, trying to muster up some enthusiasm.

  Sandra started knitting me things. What was it about me that seemed to attract adolescent knitters? First Brenda and now Sandra. The first item she produced was a pair of massive grey and blue gloves with two fingers shorter than the rest, and then it was a sherbet yellow scarf, which hung around my neck like some hideously bright anaconda. She had knitted herself a matching one, and was upset when I failed to wear it when I took her to see a Rotherham United match and wore my red and white football supporters’ scarf. I could just imagine what the fans would have thought, and done, had I walked through the gates at Mill-moor wearing the coloured monstrosity around my neck. Sandra was a nice enough girl but had the personality of petrified wood. There would be little or no conversation and anything I said would be greeted with, ‘Yes, I know.’ After three weeks I was not only exceedingly hot in all the woollen outfits but also exceedingly bored with nice homely Sandra and told her on the Doncaster bus that there was no future in our relationship.

  ‘But I’m halfway through a jumper for you,’ she told me, pouting and pulling away her arm, which had been linked through mine. ‘And it matches mine.’

  After Sandra I gave girls a bit of a rest for a while and concentrated on my studies. The opposite sex was too much like hard work.

  41

  Since I was small the circus has held a great fascination for me. In this day and age it is pretty tame by comparison to the shows that were staged in the 1950s. Most modern circuses are equally colourful but not as lively, diverse and exciting as those of the past. Gone are the more unusual and exotic acts, the risky displays, the outrageous characters and most of the animals. There was great excitement in the Phinn household when the circus came to town. Gandey’s Circus set up on a piece of waste ground outside Rotherham. The huge tent, the ‘Big Top’, was erected, surrounded with brightly painted caravans and large cages, and an open-topped van with a loudspeaker blaring out martial music toured the town advertising the show. For the first performance the road to the circus was chock-a-block with excited children and their parents.

  The circus was a wildly colourful, noisy and varied affair, with tumblers, acrobats, knife-throwers, fire-eaters, jugglers, trapeze artists, tightrope walkers, bareback riders, lion tamers and clowns. I never found the clowns that funny. In fact, the figure with the fixed smile, tufts of red hair, great black-lined eyes and crimson nose was a frightening character, as was his companion – a sad, pasty-faced pierrot dressed in a white costume and a strange pointed hat. I loved the animal acts: the lion tamer in his red frock coat, close-fitting white trousers and shiny black boots, who cracked his whip to make the creatures snarl and spit and paw the air menacingly, the black bear that danced, the chimpanzees, dressed in garish clothes, the lumbering elephants and camels and the prancing horses.

  There was one highly unusual act, featuring an abnormally small man. It was called ‘Chuck the Midget’. A large beefy individual picked up this little man and hurled him along a greasy mat, much to the amusement of the audience. Even as a youngster I thought this an incredibly cruel thing to do, and I was even more appalled when the same little man reappeared later in the show to be shot out of a cannon as ‘The Human Cannonball’.

  It was the drama of the circus that appealed. My experience of the theatre as a child was restricted to the end of the pier shows in summer at Blackpool, the occasional stage show at the Regent Theatre in town and the pantomimes at Christmas.

  I had never seen classic plays until Mr Williams got me hooked on the theatre, and then I became a regular member of the audience at Rotherham Civic, Sheffield Playhouse, Doncaster Civic and the Sheffield Lyceum, but I had been in a theatre before. Occasionally my parents took me to a variety show at the Regent. The Regent was the only theatre in Rotherham and when I was a child it was opulence itself, with its velvet seats and high ceiling. I liked the excited chatter, the heady atmosphere and the colourful ‘turns’. The variety evenings featured a mixture of musical and comedy performances by such entertainers as Ernie Page, ‘England’s leading impersonator’, Sybil May, ‘the famous Welsh Contralto’ and Neville Roe, ‘the boy soprano, with the voice of an angel’. Sometimes the shows included speciality acts like Patsy Silver, ‘the Tomboy of the Air’, Les Calantas, ‘daring acrobats on the high wire’, a juggler who threw flaming torches high in the air, and a rather aged magician in a shabby black tailcoat, with an assistant who was past her best (as my mother remarked), and whose tricks didn’t quite work out. I was enthralled by ‘Pianotoes Jacobson’, the man with no arms, who played the piano with his toes. I waited at the stage door starry-eyed for the performers to autograph my programmes and thought they were so wonderfully exotic. Sadly ‘Pianotoes’ didn’t make an appearance. I should have liked to have him sign my autograph book with his toes.

  Also at the Regent risqué shows were staged that were certainly not deemed suitable by my parents for a young boy. When I appeared on stage at the Rotherham Civic Theatre in 2005 I was fascinated by the framed posters that covered the walls, advertising shows at the Regent Theatre in the 1950s. There was Goodbye to Striptease, featuring ‘the ravishing and adorable Linzi, the Body Beautiful’, and Daubney and Fay (‘pert, pleasing and tasty’). There was Paul Raymond’s ‘fabulous Jane (saucy, spicy and sexy)’ in ‘the greatest of all sex shows, even more daring than ever before’, ‘the lovely Annette, Britain’s loveliest model and her MUFF in nude studies’ and featuring the ‘Dance of the Fans, hotter than Harlem’. What amused me most about the posters were the details at the bottom about the clientele and the prices: ‘OAPs – one shilling, Friday only, children – one shilling and one and six, Monday to Friday.’ What parent would take a child to see Annette, who posed naked for the entire world to see – save for her muff?

  I loved the pantomimes with their simple plots where good always triumphed, the outrageous cross-dressing characters, the doggerel, the ridiculously silly jokes and play on words, the foolish antics, the bright colours, the spectacularly gaudy costumes, the lively music and the audience participation, where you were encouraged to shout out as loud as you could. It is a remarkable fact that the pantomime has survived to the present day and is as popular as ever, despite competition from television, videos, DVDs, block-buster movies and sophisticated computer games. Everything about this over-the-top theatrical genre appeals to children and when things go wrong, which they frequently do, this is an added bonus.

  I was never frightened by the wicked witch or the cruel stepmother, the villainous King Rat or the scheming Sheriff of Nottingham, because I had met these characters in the stories my parents had read to me and I knew in my heart that they would eventually get their come-uppance. It was great fun, however, watching screaming children terrified by the ‘baddie’ being hauled from their seats and taken out by their embarrassed parents.

  It is an old theatrical chestnut: ‘Never act with animals or children.’ Both are, of course, entirely unpredictable. Once, so my father reminded me (although I have to admit I cannot remember, so it might be one of his tall tales), the Shetland pony harnessed to Cinderella’s crystal coach (a large, round pumpkin-shaped cardbo
ard cut-out) made an appearance on stage amidst delighted ‘Oooohs’ and ‘Aaaahs’ from the audience. Just as Cinderella emerged from her magical carriage in her shimmering silver dress and sparkling glass slippers, the pony decided it was a good time to relieve itself. The contents of the creature’s bladder splashed on to the floor and trickled across the stage, into the orchestra pit and on to the piano, much to the alarm of the pianist and the amusement of the audience and the actors. Buttons, with great presence of mind, disappeared and returned a moment later with a mop and the lines:

  Goodness gracious, dearie me,

  Cinders’ pony’s done a wee.

  I do remember, however, the time when Buttons tried his hardest to get a little boy who sat in the middle of the front row to respond. We were at the end of the row so we had a bird’s-eye view. The six-year-old stared at the action on stage with a deadpan expression, refusing to join in when everyone else was cheering and booing, shouting and singing. Every actor tried to get the child to react – Cinderella, the Fairy Godmother, the Wicked Stepmother, the Ugly Sisters, Baron Hardup – all to no avail. Buttons saw this as a personal challenge. He would run on to the stage with ‘Hi Kids!’ and all the children would shout back. ‘Hi Buttons!’ All, that is, except the child sitting in the middle of the front row with the impassive expression. Buttons began to look pointedly at the child.

  ‘I get really upset if children don’t say “Hi Buttons”,’ he said sadly.

  ‘Aaaaah,’ commiserated the audience.

  ‘And there’s a little boy on the front row who hasn’t said it yet.’

  ‘Aaaaah,’ chorused the audience again.

  Still there was no response from the child, so Buttons left the stage, skipped down the steps leading to the auditorium and, taking the child’s hand, managed to prevail upon him to join him on stage with a promise of a present.

  ‘Now, little boy,’ he asked, ‘what’s your name?’ The child stared at him in silence.

  Buttons tried another tack. ‘Are you having a good time?’ Still there was no response. Buttons persevered. ‘Have you anything to say to Buttons?’ The little boy looked up and replied in a deadpan voice, ‘Does tha know summat, tha bloody daft thee,’ and returned to his seat.

  On another occasion Simple Simon asked for some children to join him on stage. From the sea of waving hands he selected an angelic-looking little boy of about six. The child duly joined the actor on stage and was given the microphone.

  ‘You entertain the audience while I am gone,’ Simple Simon told the child.

  The idea was that the child, standing in the centre of the stage nervous and alone and not knowing what to do, would generate a deal of laughter from the audience as he looked around apprehensively. Simple Simon had picked the wrong child. The little boy, not at all disconcerted by the full theatre, suddenly went into a stage act to rival the best stand-up comedian and much to the delight of a very appreciative audience.

  ‘I say, I say, I say,’ began the child, and proceeded to tell a rather risqué joke. There was a great round of applause. The boy continued. ‘Have you heard the one about the Englishman, the Irishman and the Scotsman?’ Simple Simon reappeared on the stage in quick time and grabbed the microphone from the budding comedian.

  ‘Thank you very much, little boy,’ he said, laughing half-heartedly.

  ‘I’ve not finished,’ protested the child, attempting to get back possession of the microphone.

  ‘Oh yes, you have,’ said Simple Simon, escorting him off the stage.

  ‘Oh no, he hasn’t!’ chorused the audience.

  My father told me of another occasion, when the actor playing the pantomime Dame collapsed in the interval and had to be taken to Moorgate Hospital. The theatre manager appeared before the curtain prior to the commencement of the second act to announce: ‘The actor playing the part of Dame Trot will not be appearing in the second half. He’s been taken ill.’

  The audience in one great chorus shouted: ‘Oh no, he hasn’t!’

  ‘Yes, he has,’ replied the manager in all seriousness.

  ‘Oh no, he hasn’t!’ the audience shouted back.

  ‘Oh yes, he has!’ shouted the manager angrily.

  One afternoon just before Christmas, when I was ten, my father took me to see the pantomime at the Leeds City Varieties. We caught the train from Masborough station and walked through the city crowded with shoppers. It was one of the few very special occasions when it was just me and my Dad, no brothers or sister. The City Varieties is the oldest extant music hall in the country, an intimate, colourful and atmospheric little theatre, hidden between two arcades. All the greats of variety theatre have performed here: Charlie Chaplin and Houdini, Tommy Cooper and Hylda Baker, Marie Lloyd and Les Dawson and, of course, the legendary Ken Dodd, who takes some persuading to leave the stage once he’s started. I appeared on stage there myself in 2006 in my one-man show and spent the intermission leafing through the visitors’ book, fascinated by the many entries. Before my performance I stood on the empty stage looking down at the empty stalls and recalled a small boy sitting on a plush red velvet seat with his father, his eyes wide, entering a magical world of the pantomime.

  It was at Leeds City Varieties that I first saw the great Sandy Powell, who hailed from my home town of Rotherham, and heard his famous catchphrase, ‘Can you hear me, Mother?’ For a few weeks afterwards I would imitate this catchphrase at home, much to the irritation of my family, until my father put his foot down and said, ‘That’ll be enough!’

  Sandy Powell’s comedy was clever, clean, inoffensive and hilariously funny. Part of his act was when he appeared on stage dressed in a soldier’s scarlet tunic with pillbox hat askew on his head and holding a particularly ugly dummy, which was dressed identically. He was a hopeless ventriloquist and his dummy would often fall apart in his hands. His act was interrupted by a posh-sounding member of the audience, in real life his wife Kay.

  ‘Tell me sonny,’ he asked the dummy in a deep throaty voice, ‘where do you live and where were you born?’

  ‘I vass born in Volchergrankon,’ replied the dummy.

  ‘Where was he born?’ asked the woman.

  ‘Wolverhampton. Oh, I wish I’d have said Leeds. I’m glad it wasn’t Czechoslovakia.’

  My first sortie on to the stage was when I was thirteen and at a school concert I performed a song which Sandy Powell made famous. I was accompanied on the piano by Mr Gravill, the music master. At Christmas I insist on singing this ditty at family gatherings, much to my children’s embarrassment.

  When I was a right young lad

  My father said to me:

  ‘Seems to me tha’s growin’ up,

  Now what’s tha goin’ to be?

  It all depends upon thyself,

  It’s only up to thee,

  I won’t say much to thee ageean,

  But tek a tip from me.

  ’Ear all, see all, say nowt,

  Ate all, sup all, pay nowt,

  It’s a long time, remember

  From January to December,

  So ’ear all, see all, say nowt,

  Ate all, sup all, pay nowt,

  And if ever thy does summat for nowt,

  Always do it for theeself.’

  Until Mr Williams, my headmaster at secondary school, stopped me in the corridor and gave me the two tickets to see Sheridan’s comic masterpiece, therefore, my experience of theatre was limited. After that I became hooked and would try to see as many productions as I could. I paid for the tickets by supplementing my pocket money by getting a paper round and digging Mr Pike’s garden.

  My interest in the theatre flourished when I joined the South Yorkshire Theatre for Youth. This was an amateur dramatic society for young people, formed by the Head of the English Department at Wath Grammar School. Bill Hammond was a charismatic, larger-than-life figure – one of the world’s enthusiasts, a brilliant teacher with a passion for theatre. Over the summer holidays, for two intensive weeks, he would giv
e up a fortnight of his time to rehearse young actors from all over the south of the county for a production which would be staged the following September in Rotherham and Doncaster. Auditions and rehearsals took place at South Grove School, and many young hopefuls turned up one Saturday in July with prepared extracts to perform before Bill and his assistant producer, George Manchester, who was another Wath Grammar School English teacher. Although Mr Pike suggested to me that I might like to try my hand at acting and audition for a part, I was at that time far too under-confident. The caretaker at South Grove, Vic Globe, was the stage manager for the productions and he asked me if I would like to help him backstage. I readily agreed. I loved the cinema and the theatre, and any chance to be involved first hand, albeit with an amateur production by a group of adolescents and only in a minor capacity, working behind the scenes, really appealed to me.

  I agreed to work backstage, looking after the props, helping with the lighting and the sound and generally assisting with anything that the stage manager asked me to do. I longed to join the young actors on the stage but was far too shy and reticent. They seemed so clever, self-assured and talented.

  On the first day of rehearsals – for the The Imaginary Invalid, a translation of Molière’s classic drama Le Malade Imaginaire – I watched fascinated from the wings as supremely confident young people demonstrated how adept they were at acting. Of course, being a menial backstage helper, I was not a part of the lively discussions which took place at breaks and lunchtimes between the budding actors. I would sit on the sidelines watching and listening. Everyone seemed to know everyone else and they were so bubbly and amusing, assertive and self-assured.

  On that first day the young actors entered into the drama with great gusto. They all seemed to know the theatrical terms I had never come across before: SM, ASM, Lampy, down stage right, up stage left, backdrop, wings, apron, flats, spots, gels, gobos, prompt corner, silvers, blacks – it was a whole new language to me. Most of the cast knew their lines pretty well word-perfect and were so much at ease on the stage.