by Mark Thomas
PLAYS EDIROL:
JEAN: Some of the kids you would notice they were hungry and we always had loads of milk and extra milk, we always had a crate or two left over which you gave to them.
Then she produces a photograph, a long rectangular photograph, the type that are framed and placed in school corridors, the year photo. These are children in the playground – aged 5–7, they squat, sit and stand with combed hair and smiles. Jean turns the photo over and in hand written pen are the children’s names, she reads them out, Clare, Stacy, David, Gavin, Alan.
She says, you could put an advert in the South Elmsall Times asking to speak to the children, though I don’t know how you would word it without sounding like a paedophile.
PLAYS EDIROL:
JEAN: I don’t know how you would word it without sounding like a paedophile.
She offers biscuits and I am happy to accept and so we chat, of referendums, poverty, of birthdays and schools. I say, that was quite a political decision to take the children into the playground to see the miners march back, you could have got into trouble. Why did you do it?
PLAY EDIROL:
JEAN: I think I did it for me really, I knew it was for the children because I thought hopefully they will remember this moment. And I never thought about whether it would be approved or not but I did it. Don’t know if anyone else did it in another village but I did it. And I never regretted it, it was a special moment and I hope that some of the children remember it.
ADDRESSES AUDIENCE VOLUNTEER: Would you take the seat back please?
MT TAKES THE TRAY TO THE SIDE OF THE STAGE
So three of us remember.
Steve remembers Jean crying, the children in the playground and the children singing. I remember the children in the playground and the children singing. Jean remembers taking the children into the playground and crying. Jean does not remember the children singing and I fold my disappointment into the hope of the children.
Some of the children have very individual names that are easy to find on Facebook, I make contact and ask if they might help, if they know any of the other children now in their late thirties who they were at school with. And they begin to talk, finding each other, some keep in contact still, some have moved on and before our eyes on Facebook the children of the playground assemble, coalescing on screen, chatting about school and teachers and adventures. But not one of them remembers that day.
Not one.
With hindsight it is a lot to ask of a five-year-old to remember one moment on one day.
But I can not help feeling that we have allowed them to forget. That we have let their history slip through our fingers, a time when their class believed that they could change the world for the better, for everyone through unity and community.
I see Steve Tulley to take his photo on the day of the EU referendum,
‘I been out early and they are queuing round the block for the polling station. And that is bad news. I’ll tell you why. 1985 Labour leadership walked away from us. They left us. Labour always thought Scotland and Wales and the north were theirs, and all they had to do was sort out middle England. People round here have had their vote count for nothing for years. It has meant nothing. Well now they know their vote does matter, everyone’s vote matters, for the first time their vote counts again and someone is going to get a kicking.’
I go back to the Red Shed for the last time before coming up here. I’m excited because the Bakers’ Union and the Fast Food Workers campaign has had a few results. Fast Food Workers day takes place every year and is global. This year I was in Glasgow when it took place and joined a picket outside McDonald’s in Glasgow. People dressed in wigs, clown face paint waving £10 an hour and a union banner! And the security at McDonald’s call the police, now this irks me because McDonald’s structure their tax through Luxembourg so they don’t pay for the cops that they are now calling to protect them. And if anything according to the Tory economic laws of you get what you pay for, if anything taxpayers should have dibs on the cops. If anything the cops should be saying, ‘Go on have the first window on us.’
Of course we don’t, we sing, chant, hand out union cards, feign a protest outside another branch of McDonald’s and when the police run over to protect it, we all occupy a KFC.
These events take place across the world, Tokyo, LA, New York, Paris, Glasgow and London AND the very next day McDonald’s in the UK offer workers contracts taking them out of zero hour contracts.
When I arrive at the club Sandra is here and she shows me the repairs she has done to her car with the nail varnish and you cannot see a single dent.
Richard is very excited, as I have managed to get John McDonnell to come and speak at the shed, the Shadow Chancellor is going to address the Shed, though whether he will still be Shadow Chancellor when he gets here is another matter.
I arranged the booking with McDonnell’s office and contacted Richard about the date and Richard said,
‘We have a Derby and Joan Bingo, we can not cancel a booking it would be wrong.’
So we cancelled John McDonnell and got another date off him.
George says,
‘Come here for a minute,’
and leads me to the delivery ramp out of earshot of everyone else. At least this bollocking will be discreet.
‘Now you, me and Richard have had a meeting and decided to make you and Peter life members of the club. There’s only three of us at the moment, you two will make five, we’ll do you a nice certificate. It means you don’t have to pay any subs, they’re only three pound a year.’
David the ex-MP arrives, ‘Get me a pint. You’ll never guess who’s Foreign Secretary?!’
Ian is here, Ken Corbyn Hood and Olivia, the heckling councillor.
Ken says,
‘You found it, which one were it?’
Frickley.
‘Frickley, eh?’
Ian says, ‘I had high hopes for Frickley.’
And Harry is here. I commissioned Harry to do an artwork for the Shed, my way of saying thank you, it is a triptych and it looks like a religious icon, the Red Shed is on the front and inside three panels, the miners marching back to work, the community clapping them on and the children singing through the railings.
Peter says,
‘I have to admit I did not believe you when you told me the story.’
George says,
‘We’ll find a good place for that, up there.’
So when you visit the Shed you will see it, next to the plates, the glass case with the badges and the brass plaque.
So the story is remembered here.
I leave the Shed, behind me the Debenhams sign. I cross the road past the two-storey, white much graffitied, still shut Tory club. And I go to leave Wakefield.
Wakefield voted 66 per cent Leave, Barnsley 68 per cent.
In Wakefield, 34 per cent of over-sixteens have no educational qualifications, 15 per cent have alcohol problems, in Barnsley 33 per cent in part-time work, 40 per cent in low pay, children in or on the edge of poverty 45 per cent.
… What am I doing? … Let me tell you a story.
When they were planning a new shopping centre the local TV interviewed people about the proposals, they asked a pensioner,
‘What do you think to the prospect of a new shopping centre?’
She replied,
‘They’re not going to take us pound shops, are they?’
Oh Mr Gove, the irony that in a campaign so full of lies you have accidentally told the truth,
‘People in this country have had enough of experts.’
Because the experts, the millionaire politicians, the offshore CEO’s, the bonused bankers, the columnists, economists and hedge fund managers have sacrificed entire communities on the alter of their ideology.
Leaving a woman so poor she is worried about a pound shop shutting.
SINGS CHORUS FROM ‘SOLIDARITY FOREVER’
Help me out for one last time, you sing and do the soun
dtrack.
LEADS AUDIENCE IN ‘SOLIDARITY FOREVER’
ASKS EACH AUDIENCE VOLUNTEER IN TURN TO STAND WITH THE MASKS AND TAKE A BOW WHILE AUDIENCE SING
NOTES
1 Sir Alexander Bradshaw Clegg, the Chief Education Officer for West Riding of Yorkshire and a pioneer of radical educational reforms.
2 For me, the show starts when I walk out into the bar thirty minutes before the curtain goes up. I will chat to the audience and ask six of them to join me onstage to help make the show. I want very specific types of people. During the Edinburgh Festival, for example, I would always ask eager volunteers if they were performing in other shows at the Fringe, if they were then they were politely disinvited. The volunteers must be comfortable onstage but must not look too keen and they must reflect the audience. Once chosen, I will take the six people through to the stage and show them roughly what will happen. I will check they are comfortable with the tasks I am going to give them, as I don’t want anyone there against their wishes. I want the people onstage with me to feel that they have helped create the show.
3 Andrew Collins.
4 After Eddie Shah, owner of Today newspaper, challenged the closed shop agreement and used non-union labour. It was the first time Thatcher’s anti-union legislation was used and it was a brutal episode. Years later, I did an interview with the Warrington Guardian and the journalist asked whether I’d been to Warrington before. I said I had, during the Stockport Messenger dispute, and recounted the police brutality and the fear I felt as a police truncheon battered the window of the van I was in. Without missing a beat, the journo came back with, ‘So, did you enjoy your visit?’
5 19 November.
6 The most brutal and violent episode in the miners’ strike. On 18 June 1986, police charged picketing miners, beating them with batons. The BBC edited the sequence of its footage resulting in a more favourable version of events for the police. Ninety-five people were charged with rioting, but the trial collapsed when it became clear that the evidence had been fabricated by South Yorkshire police force, who would go on to do the same at Hillsborough. Had justice been done and the police held to account for their lies, the Hillsborough cover up could not have happened.
Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, indicated that she would be open to some kind of inquiry to establish the truth but then defied expectations and blocked the inquiry. As I was performing in her constituency a few days later, I invited her to the show (free tickets – you know what they are like, they’ll not come if they have to pay). She didn’t turn up but the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign and Kent NUM did. I am delighted the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign has turned up to run stalls at the show on a few occasions. SALUT!
7 Michael Gove – Tory outrider for alternative facts.
8 Wakefield is well known for its rhubarb, forms part of the Rhubarb Triangle and has a rhubarb festival in February each year. I have been told that in the rhubarb sheds of Wakefield ‘You can hear it growing’.
9 The promotional video for Agadoo’s ‘Superman’ was shot in Casanova’s. I didn’t know that at the time. The other notable thing about Casanova’s was that it had a telephone on each table – this was before mobile phones – and each telephone had a large piece of plastic with a number on it so you could see someone you fancied on the other side of the club and call them. Which invariably led to a lot of calls starting, ‘NO, not you, the one with the good ‘air!’
10 I once took Robert Newman to the Red Shed, after a gig in Wakefield. As I walked in the barman said, ‘Alright Mark d’you want one of your waters? Robert what can I get you?’
Robert replied, ‘A gin and tonic with ice and lemon.’
And the barman said, ‘FRUIT?!’
11 Wakefield has 119.5 fast food outlets per 100,000 inhabitants: one of the highest in the UK. In alliance with campaigns globally, the Bakers’ Union is campaigning for better working conditions and £10 an hour for all fast food workers.
12 David played Rugby League until concussion after a match persuaded him to retire. He’s the author of Rugby’s Class Wars and a former Chair of the National Coal Mining Museum.
13 I owe her a cup of tea.
14 The principal of the college, a man called Dr Taylor, was also an architect. One summer holiday, he visited apartheid South Africa on a lecture tour. At the time, I was the editor of the student magazine along with my mate, Brian Hallett, and we got a cartoonist to do the front cover – a smiling Dr Taylor offering ‘cardboard flexi-ghettos’ to the hordes of Soweto. We handed out 500 free copies before we were summoned to the principal’s office where a quaking Dr Taylor ranted at us and threatened to take us to court. Peter was our student union rep and was in the meeting, he calmly looked the principal in the eye and said, ‘That’ll look good in’t Guardian. “Principal takes students to court”.’
We never heard another word from Dr Taylor.
15 Only gag I remember is:
Two men walk onstage.
First person: Do you want to buy a ticket for the policeman’s ball?
Second: No thanks, I don’t dance.
First: It’s not a dance, it’s a raffle.
16 The man who gave me the North Gawber badge is Ian Nichols. He still lives in the area and the first thing he said when I spoke to him on the phone was, ‘Has thou still got that badge I give thee?’
17 Shut 1989.
18 Shut 1991.
19 Shut 1994.
20 Shut 1987.
21 When we arrived at Woolley, Peter remembered that we had done a collection for the miners at the beginning of the strike and had turned up to present them with trays of beer and money. We were treated like heroes. Sometime later, we turned up with ‘left over catering’ from a student conference, which had been deliberately over-ordered so we could help the miners with the excess. Unfortunately, the catering had been done by the Whole Food Society and where once we had been greeted with cheers we were now greeted with the words, ‘What th’fuck is mung beans?!’
22 At this point, any ex-miners in the audience would join in and start whistling before I’d asked the audience to join in.
23 The lights would go down on the stage with the exception of one set of table and chairs, picking us out. I would always lean in and talk to the volunteers directly, deliberately avoiding eye contact with anyone in the audience.
24 A pre-Brexit production. I was given a walk on appearance. They wouldn’t give me my lines – they were stapled inside a copy of The Socialist paper, which I had to read from when I went on stage.
25 Ian is a writer of some magnificent books, including Our Billie, which I cannot recommend highly enough. He also co-ordinated the book commemorating the Red Shed’s fiftieth Anniversary, available via the Red Shed website.
26 Shut 1985.
27 The first time I went round Harry’s house, he showed me a painting of a miner underground lying on his back against a pile of coal eating his lunch. Harry said, ‘I supposed that’s my homage to “Reclining Nude”.’
28 Shut 2002.
29 Shut 1993.
PRODUCTION DETAILS
BRAVO FIGARO!
Written and performed by Mark Thomas
Directed by Hamish Pirie
Sound design by Helen Atkinson
Lighting by Jack Knowles
Tour Manager – Paul Delaney
Tour Tech Manager – Tine Selby
Management – Ed Smith at Phil McIntyre Entertainment Ltd.
The recordings played into the show were made in my mum and dad’s home in Bournemouth and my brother Matthew’s home in a small village in Essex.
Bravo Figaro! was originally commissioned by the Royal Opera House in 2011 where it was performed as part of the Ignite Festival. The show was developed, rewritten and finished for the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe Festival where it premiered at the Traverse Theatre. The show won a Fringe First and a Herald Angel.
Special thanks to Mike Figgis, the staff and techs at ROH and the Traverse Theatr
e and to everyone listed above.
Extra special thanks to my mum and dad.
CUCKOOED
Written and performed by Mark Thomas
Directed by Emma Callander
Produced by Mike McCarthy
Lighting Designer – Kate Bonney
Designer – Tim McQuillen-Wright
Video Designer – Duncan McLean
Sound Design – Helen Atkinson
Sound Associate – Tim Middleton
Cameraman – Richard Davenport
Cameraman – Rikki Blue
Stage Manager – Sooz Glen
Technical / Tour Manager – Tine Selby
Tour Co-ordinator – Warren Lakin
Poster design – Greg Matthews
Poster image – Steve Ullathorpe
Assisted by NUJ, BECTU, Unison and USI
Thanks to: Geoff and Freddie Atkinson at Vera Productions, Whites Investigations, Guy Taylor, Dave Smith and the Blacklist Support Group, Helen and Police Spies Out of Our Lives, Richard Stein and Rosa Curling at Leigh Day, Hilary and Tom.
Big thanks to the Traverse Theatre and the Tricycle Theatre. Special thanks to Ann, Nick, Gid, Emily and Laura. Salut.
THE RED SHED
Written and performed by Mark Thomas (South London)
Directed by Joe Douglas (Mancunian)
Lighting and Set Designer – Kate Bonney (Scottish)
Sound Designer – Michael McCarthy (Irish)
Researcher – Susan McNicholas (Scottish)
Production and Tour Manager – Tine Selby (Lebanese/German)
Producer and Agent – Mike McCarthy (Scouser)
THANKS TO:
Gilly Roche and everyone at West Yorkshire Playhouse.
Orla and Linda and everyone at the Traverse.
Mike, Warren, Sharron, Kate and Catherine at Lakin McCarthy.
Special thanks to the Committee of the Red Shed, Wakefield.
Richard Council, George Denton, Jan Samuel, Vic Wilkins.