'I'm only getting into the part, Bernie,' Peter told him.
'Well, don't be so rough, and don't call me Bernie,' replied Bernard.
The following night Peter, much to Bernard's alarm, appeared on stage armed with a length of rope, which he used to very good effect. He banged it so loudly on the table the whole set shivered, swung it around his head and finally brought it down on Bernard's shoulders. There was a desperate high-pitched wail from the victim.
'If you do that tomorrow,' Bernard told him off stage as he rubbed his shoulder, 'I shall walk off.'
The next night, true to his warning, when Peter appeared with the rope, Bernard stamped his foot, ballooned with anger, shook furiously and, to great applause, stomped off stage, leaving Peter alone to deliver an impromptu soliloquy. A moment later, to everyone's surprise, Bernard reappeared armed with a rope, only his was bigger, heavier and thicker than Peter's. Bernard, still smarting from the previous night's onslaught, belted Peter over the top of the head and, to great laughter and applause, exited stage right.
The producer was not best pleased and gave both actors a thorough dressing down, warning them that this kind of unrehearsed activity on stage should cease immediately. The following day the South Yorkshire Times, which carried a review of the production, was read with great interest. The young actor who came in for the greatest praise for his outstanding portrayal of a most difficult and demanding role was Bernard.
Many years later a Performing Arts inspector reminded me of this episode when she related a similar incident where an actor settled a score on stage. I guess this is an apocryphal account (my colleague was a great storyteller and consummate actor), but it is well worth repeating. My colleague chaired a panel which awarded grants for sixth-form students to attend music and drama colleges. One particular young man was very talented and also extremely arrogant, and had applied to RADA, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, arguably the very best and most prestigious drama college in the country. After a bravura performance as Hamlet for his audition, the young man won his award and the inspector was asked by the boy's headmaster if she would like to see the young man in action playing the lead in the school's production of Macbeth. The future star of the London stage was indeed very convincing as the Scottish tyrant and dominated the scenes, dwarfing all the other actors with his outstanding performance. On the first night the eleven-year-old boy playing the part of Seyton, an officer attending Macbeth, a rather insignificant part compared to others in the play, made his final entrance to inform Macbeth of the Queen's demise. With bowed head and in a faltering voice the boy delivered his one final line: 'The Queen, my Lord, is dead,' and exited stage left. Macbeth then launched into his memorable soliloquy:
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word:
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time ...
At the second night's performance Seyton's relatives were in the audience, in fact the first two rows were crammed with parents, siblings, uncles, aunts, cousins and neighbours. They waited patiently for the entrance of the boy. When the young actor came on stage to deliver his one line there was an audible in-drawing of breath from the assorted relations and friends, and the whispered voice of a proud mother from the front row could be heard announcing, 'That's our Wayne.' Seeing his adoring fans, the boy decided to embellish his part a little and, throwing his arms in the air, he wailed, 'The Queen, my Lord, is dead! She's dead! She's dead! She's dead!' In one final harrowing shout he announced as he beat his breast, 'She's deeeeaaaaad!' He then left the stage to thunderous applause from the front two rows.
The future star of RADA was not at all pleased when he found the boy in the dressing room later. There were histrionics on a grand scale. 'Just say your line and get off the stage!' he ordered before strutting off to remove his make-up.
On the last night of the production young Seyton, still smarting from the reprimand, came on stage to deliver his line. Macbeth prepared himself for his powerful soliloquy but was rather lost for words when the boy announced, 'The Queen, my Lord, is making a remarkable recovery.'
The following year, when I auditioned for a part in A Midsummer Night's Dream, I asked the producer, Howard Tucker, if I might have a stab at a part other than an avaricious, mean-minded, bad-tempered old man. I suppose by this time I was getting a bit above myself. I remember using a newly discovered phrase. 'I'm being typecast,' I told him. Howard smiled and told me he would consider my request when he came to casting the play. The letter arrived a week later, informing the aspiring actors which parts had been assigned to them. I was certainly not an avaricious, mean-minded, bad-tempered old man in this play - I had been cast as Oberon, King of the Fairies. I had really wanted the part of Bottom or Pinch or another of the Mechanicals, so I felt deflated. Howard, however, explained at the first read-through that this was a main role and I had some of Shakespeare's most beautiful verse to declaim. I felt a little mollified.
A Midsummer Night's Dream was the set O level text that year. This was good news and bad news. The good news was that we were guaranteed full houses but the bad news was that the theatre would be full of students studying the play. I cannot say I was entirely enthusiastic about appearing as a fairy before a theatre full of students about my age, but there was one real benefit. I got to kiss Titania, the Queen of the Fairies, who was played by the delectable Shirley Ramsey. Shirley was a most attractive girl - shapely, elegant and very desirable as well as being an outstanding actress, and I was very much looking forward to the scene when she lay prone on her bed of flowers and I awaken her from her dream with a kiss.
My apprehension at playing the part of a fairy was, however, heightened greatly at the costume fitting. Shirley emerged from the girls' dressing room looking stunning in a pale blue and pink chiffon dress, white tights, pale silk shoes and sporting a tiara of dried red roses. She gave me a knowing smile. She knew something which I clearly did not. I soon found out. My costume was colour coordinated with hers. I had a sort of frilly, balloon-sleeved shirt made of the same pink and blue chiffon, but mine stopped just above the waist, a pair of white tights displaying something I would have preferred covered up, and large white pumps. The whole ensemble was completed with an enormous wreath of brightly coloured dried leaves, acorns and pine cones, to be worn on the head. As I stared at myself in the full-length mirror in the dressing room I shook my head. 'No way,' I murmured. 'No way am I wearing this.' The costume mistress, who thought I really looked the part in her creation, told me in no uncertain terms that I would be wearing the costume.
'I can't be doing with primadonnas,' she snapped.
'I look like a prima ballerina,' I replied, 'and I am not wearing this.'
'Well, if you don't like it,' she said, 'you can make it yourself.'
My sister Christine came to the rescue. She created for me a magnificent black silk shirt (which extended below the waist to cover my embarrassment), decorated with elaborate motifs of stars and moons in gold sequins, a flowing cape and a crown of shiny golden laurel leaves. The producer had stressed that Oberon was a strong, dark and brooding character and he took little persuasion to let me wear the costume. In fact, he was extremely reasonable. 'Unless you feel comfortable in your costume,' he said, 'you won't feel comfortable acting the part.' Everyone, except the wardrobe mistress, agreed that I looked really impressive when we came to the dress rehearsal. Bill Crouch, in charge of make-up, transformed my face. With the help of 5 and 9 make-up he concealed the angry acne in my cheeks and gave me a dark and swarthy tan, highlighted my eyes and reddened my lips. For the first time I began to feel comfortable in the part and I threw myself into the role.
The play was well received, and with each performance my amorous scene with Shirley became more adventurous and exploratory. On the first night it was a peck on the cheek, but by the time of the final performance I h
ad really got into my stride and gave her a great smacker full on the lips. Her eyes shot open. 'Stop that off!' she hissed. 'You're a sex maniac!' Shirley never did go out with me, but I had a number of offers from girls who had seen the performance and waited for an autograph outside the stage door. Letters were delivered to the dressing room telling me how good I was on stage and inviting me to parties. One letter I still keep. It tells me, 'You have lovely legs.' This acting business made me feel pretty good.
In my final year at the South Yorkshire Theatre for Youth I had a gem of a part - Malvolio in Twelfth Night. Malvolio is the vain, narrow-minded, humourless steward of the Countess Olivia and the part is challenging and great fun to act. The joke that Maria, Lady Olivia's maid, plays on Malvolio, the kill-joy and spoilsport, is perhaps the funniest scene in Shakespeare, no matter how often it is performed.
On the second night of the production the cast was somewhat disconcerted when, peering through the curtains in the wings, they saw the first two rows full of students all clutching books. After the success of the last Shakespeare play, when the seats had sold out in record time because of the play's popularity with schools, the producer had decided to pick another play which was on the O level set text list. It was clear that many in the audience that evening had brought along copies of the play, intent on following us as we spoke our lines. Despite the producer's reassurance that no one would shout out if we fluffed a word, we were all nervous. The boy playing Duke Theseus came off stage after the first scene and frightened us all by relating how the students ran their fingers along the lines in their texts as he recited them.
In my scenes my eyes were increasingly drawn to the students in the first two rows, with their books on their knees. All I saw was the top of their heads. The scene where Malvolio is awakened by the carousing of the outrageous drunken Sir Toby Belch and his friends is one of the play's highlights. That evening I entered in a long nightgown and cap with my chain of office around my neck and I railed at the revellers:
My masters, are you mad? Or what are you? Have you no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to make an alehouse of my lady's house ... ?
The student playing Sir Toby was a seasoned and very talented actor. He spluttered and spat and staggered drunkenly across the stage. Finally he thrust his face into mine and swung the heavy metal chain around my neck with the words:
Go, sir, rub your chain with crumbs.
The sharp points on the chain cut into my flesh and I exclaimed, 'Bloody hell.' There was a deal of consternation on the front two rows when, try as they might, the students following in the text tried to locate the words. This was followed by frantic whispering.
On the next night, with three strips of Elastoplast around my neck, I was not chancing another cut throat, so I divested myself of the chain just before my entrance. When it came to the famous line there was, of course, no chain for me to rub with crumbs. With remarkable aplomb Sir Toby told me:
Prithee good sir, go taketh a running jump!
It was fortunate that there were no students in the audience that night, following his lines in their books.
Those productions with the South Yorkshire Theatre for Youth were memorable and were the start of a long career in amateur theatre. I went on to act at college, at the schools in which I taught and with various local drama groups. I was Duncan in Macbeth, Chitterlow in Half a Sixpence, Mr Brown-low in Oliver!, Hobson in Hobson's Choice, the SS Lieutenant in The Sound of Music, Glorybee in The Beeple, the Reverend Lupin in Sweeney Todd and Wackford Squeers in Smike, as well as many other parts.
One memorable thespian experience was when I was in the Lower Sixth and was persuaded by the producer of a local amateur dramatics group to take a minor part in a murder-mystery drama. Norman, a small balding man who invariably wore a pair of extremely tight jeans and a multicoloured T-shirt, was a very different kind of producer from Bill Hammond. He had tantrums if the actors failed to follow his precise instructions, and sometimes went off in a sulk. I was cast as the police sergeant who accompanied the investigating officer and only appeared briefly in the second and the final acts. I had but a few lines and most of these consisted of, 'Yes, sir,' but Norman insisted I assume a Cockney accent to give the character 'depth'.
I looked far too young for the part of a police sergeant, so to affect maturity the man in make-up, having slapped a thick coating of grease paint on my face and drawn a series of carmine lines across my forehead, stuck a small square black moustache beneath my nose, applied with a thick brown sticky adhesive. I had just started shaving and the application of the glutinous gum to my upper lip caused unbearable stinging. Then the itching started.
On the first night, I appeared on stage dressed in a grey gabardine raincoat and large black trilby hat bound round with a shiny black ribbon. Catching sight of this incongruous figure with the silly black moustache, upper lip twitching, someone in the audience called out, 'Bloody hell, it's Charlie Chaplin.' Things tended to go downhill after that, for the next time I appeared on stage the joker in the audience shouted, 'Ey up, Charlie's back!' When I did open my mouth this was greeted with titters from the audience.
When I exited stage right Norman was waiting for me in the wings, red and flustered. He ripped the moustache off my face and without a word stormed off. At the curtain call I bowed (minus the moustache) with my fellow actors and heard the joker in the audience call out, 'Ey up, Charlie's had a shave!'
At the beginning of the final act the murderer appears on stage and shoots a second victim. At the second performance the starting pistol failed to go off. Thinking on his feet, the murderer rushed across the stage and throttled his man as the curtain descended.
Not wishing a repetition of this in the next performance, the following night Norman produced two short planks of wood held together by a hinge. When brought together they made a cracking sound resembling a gunshot. Vernon, the stage manager, was positioned off stage with the device in case the starting pistol failed to fire at the performance. This amateur dramatic production was getting increasingly amateur.
Norman, checking that everything was ready for the murder scene, asked Vernon, 'Have you got the clap?'
'No, Norman,' replied Vernon, 'it's just the way I'm standing.'
The review of the play in the local paper made mention of 'the young man playing the part of the police sergeant'. It was said that 'he added a touch of levity to an otherwise dreary plot'. One of the lead players, who did not merit a mention, was not at all pleased with this acknowledgement and glared at me when I entered the dressing room for the final performance.
'Who does he think he is, Laurence bloody Olivier?' I heard him asking another aggrieved member of the cast who had not been mentioned in the paper either.
I decided that this would be my last excursion on the amateur stage.
43
For the two years of the O level course I had worked hard and got a good set of GCE passes. The door on to the wide world was now open for me. Walking through town a week after the results, a great booming voice echoed across All Saints' Square: 'Phinny! Phinny!' It was Mr Firth. Unusually for a sunny summer's day, he was dressed in an old tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows and lining the cuffs, heavy brogues, shirt, cardigan and tie. 'Phinny!' he shouted, 'over here!' Taking a deep breath I walked over to meet him.
'Now then, Phinny!'
'Morning, sir,' I said, standing to attention.
He thrust out a hand the size of a small spade. 'Well done,' he said. 'I'm very pleased with your history result but I think you could have done better.'
'Yes sir,' I replied. I almost felt like apologizing.
'If Cardinal Wolsey and William of Orange had come up, I reckon you would have got the top marks, but that's the luck of the draw with exams. It's a lottery. Always has been and always will be. Anyhow, you didn't do all that badly.'
'Thank you, sir.'
'And now it's the sixth form, is it?'
'No sir.'
'No?
' he snapped.
'No, sir,' I told him. 'I'm leaving. I'm going to be a trainee accountant.'
'A trainee bloody accountant?' It was the first time I think I had heard any teacher swear. 'A trainee bloody accountant?' he repeated.
'Yes sir,' I said. 'I had an interview at Hart, Moss & Copley on Moorgate Street just before my results came out and Mr Copley said that if I get five good O levels, including maths and English, he would take me on.'
Mrs Gill, Mum's best friend, was Company Secretary at Thomas Wilde & Son in Sheffield and she had arranged for me to have a preliminary talk with a senior partner at Hart, Moss & Copley, Chartered Accountants. I had presented myself at the plush offices on Moorgate Street, in a new suit, hair short and slicked back, with highly polished black shoes, and sat before one of the senior partners. He appeared every inch what I imagined an accountant would look like, in his dark suit and with a pair of half-moon spectacles perched on the end of his nose.
'Well, young man,' said the senior partner, tapping my letter of application before him on his desk, 'you've done adequately enough in your school exams though not spectacularly well, you seem a biddable young man and are smartly turned out.' He looked over the rims of his spectacles and scrutinized me. 'Do you reckon you have the makings of a trainee accountant?'
'Yes, sir,' I replied.
'Well, if your references from school are in order, I'm minded to give you a chance.'
'Thank you, sir,' I mumbled, feeling myself swell with pride. He looked at me expectantly and began rotating his thumbs slowly around one another. He was clearly waiting for something further from me.
'Well, young man,' he continued, after a long pause. 'Go ahead. Sell yourself.'
I must have acquitted myself reasonably well because he nodded approvingly after each answer. 'Now, I see you have the required O levels but you will have to take a lot more exams to become a qualified accountant. It will not be easy. You're prepared for that, are you?'
Road to the Dales, The Story of a Yorkshire Lad Page 37