Dead Room Farce (7 page)

Second –
could
I actually give up the booze if I wanted to?

And, that particular evening, the two recurrent thoughts were joined by a third. What
did
happen between me and Cookie Stone on Thursday night?

Mark Lear continued asking Charles about the cast of
Not On Your Wife!
The other name that prompted a reaction from him was Ransome George.

‘Old Ran. He still up to his old tricks?'

‘Which tricks are those?'

‘Borrowing money. Sponging. He always used to be entirely blatant about it.'

‘Oh,' said Charles.

‘Had a terrible reputation. You'd think everyone in the business must've heard about it, but he'd still always manage to find some innocent sucker to bum a fiver off.' Mark chuckled, shaking his head at the follies of humankind. ‘There's one born every minute, isn't there?'

‘Ah,' said Charles.

Mark Lear was caught by something in his tone and looked up sharply. ‘He hasn't tried to touch you, has he? You haven't fallen for the old “left my wallet at home” guff, have you?'

‘Good heavens, no,' said Charles.

Mark looked thoughtful, then chuckled again. ‘Well, your company seems to have more than its fair share of skeletons in its cupboards.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘David J. Girton . . .' Mark mused, ‘and Ransome George . . .'

‘What? Do you know something bad about Ran? I mean, apart from the fact that he bums money off people and doesn't pay it back?'

‘Oh, yes,' replied Mark, enjoying the power of telling his story at his own pace. ‘Yes, I know something very considerably worse about Ransome George than that. Goes back to the early 1970s, I suppose . . .'

But suddenly the producer's manner changed. The slyly conspiratorial was replaced by the irresponsibly drunk. Charles followed Mark's eyeline to see that Lisa Wilson had just entered the bar. She looked stem, a mother come out on to the recreation ground to tell her son it was bedtime – and no arguments.

As if it was some ritual the two of them had been through many times before, Mark played up to the image. He whinged to Lisa like an eight-year-old about what a spoilsport she was, and how she wouldn't let him have a life of his own, and how he was a grown man, for God's sake, and at least Vinnie never treated him like – ‘Well, I've got to be off, anyway,' said Charles. He didn't want to get caught in crossfire of a domestic argument. ‘Haven't checked in at my digs yet.'

‘OK,' said Lisa. ‘Ten sharp in the morning, for more
Dark Promises
.'

‘Sure,' said Charles. ‘I'll be there. Can't wait. You never know – tomorrow may be the day that either the heroine or the hero shows a spark of character . . .'

And he left Lisa Wilson to gather up her recalcitrant charge. Somehow, Charles reckoned that the minute he'd left, Mark Lear would turn all docile and follow her obediently home. But he also reckoned, once Mark had got home, that he would continue drinking.

Charles Paris's accommodation had been sorted out from London. The stage door of the Vanbrugh Theatre, Bath, kept a digs list, and he'd easily found a suitable landlady who had a vacancy for a couple of extra nights before most of the
not on your wife!
company arrived.

She was a pale, anonymous woman – Charles Paris never seemed to end up with the larger-than-life, characterful landladies who people theatrical legend. The one in Bath was possessed of either a permanent sniff of disapproval, a bloodhound's nose for alcohol, or a bad cold. She showed him the room, which was fine, offered him an evening meal, which he declined, and directed him towards a late-opening supermarket, where he bought a chicken pie and, it has to be admitted, another half-bottle of Bell's.

By his standards, he didn't reckon he'd had that much, but the effects of alcohol are cumulative and, as he slipped, later than intended, into a drunken sleep, Charles Paris knew he'd have another hangover with which to face his second day of reading
Dark Promises
by Madeleine Eglantine.

His last thought, before he surrendered consciousness, was once again – What
did
happen between me and Cookie Stone?

COOKIE Stone sidled up to him at the Vanbrugh Theatre in Bath on the Monday afternoon, and winked. ‘I remember what you said on Thursday night.'

Charles Paris smiled weakly. He wished to God he did.

Fortunately, there wasn't much time for embarrassment. The rest of the day ahead promised to be too busy for reminiscence or recrimination. The cast of
not on your wife!
was about to rehearse the play for the first time on set, and they all knew that, whatever standard the show had reached in the rehearsal room, on stage everything would be different.

The schedule for the next two days was tight. The get-in to build the set had happened on the Monday morning. (In the old days, Charles Paris reflected nostalgically, that would have taken place on the Sunday, but now prohibitive overtime rates made any theatre work on Sundays a rarity.) On the Monday afternoon the lighting director would work out a basic lighting plot, to be tweaked and refined during the tech. run, which was scheduled to start at five, and to take as long as it took. Fortunately,
not on your wife!
was not a complicated show from the technical point of view. The basic set of the two adjacent flats, once built, did not change throughout the play, and the lighting plot was a simple matter of switching between the two acting areas.

The Tuesday morning was to be reserved for final adjustments to the set and lights. The company would then be called at twelve o'clock for notes arising from the tech. run. At two-thirty they would start a full dress rehearsal, which everyone in the company knew would not be enough to drag the show back to the standard it had reached on the previous Thursday in London.

Then, on the Tuesday evening at seven-thirty,
not on your wife!
would face its first-ever paying audience, amongst whom would be critics from the local press. This last detail, when announced, had distressed many of the cast – particularly Bernard Walton. The show, he argued, would be terribly rough on the Tuesday night. Give it a chance to run itself in for a couple of performances before admitting the press. But for once the star didn't get his own way. The view of Parrott Fashion Productions, relayed through the company manager, was that, yes, the show might have rough edges, but, more important, they needed to get newspaper reviews as soon as possible.
The Western Daily Press
, as its title implied, came out every day, but Bath's other local newspapers had midweek deadlines. If their critics came any later than the Tuesday, the notices wouldn't make it into print until the Thursday week, by which time
not on your wife!
would have only four more performances to do in Bath, before the whole caravan moved on to Norwich. The company manager apologised to Bernard Walton for this fact of life, but stood firm. The star might have total artistic control, but when it came to purely commercial considerations, he had to give way. Advance booking for the show wasn't as good as they'd hoped, and Parrott Fashion Productions insisted on a Tuesday press night.

It was clear on the Monday that the show's director was more than a little out of his depth. Though he'd got by all right in the rehearsal room, actually getting a play into a theatre presented different challenges to someone whose main experience had been in television. Up until that point in the production, David J. Girton had abnegated his directorial responsibilities to Bernard Walton and the rest of his cast. But the decisions he faced now were technical rather than artistic, and he needed someone else to whom he could abnegate these new burdens.

Luckily for David J. Girton, the perfect person on whom to offload all such matters was conveniently to hand. He was the company manager, the one who had explained to Bernard Walton the necessity of a Tuesday press night. His name was Tony Delaunay, and he had worked for Parrott Fashion Productions for years. He was small, with short blonded hair, and always dressed in a black suit which somehow gave the impression of being more casual than a suit.

Tony Delaunay had run more touring productions than most people – though obviously not David J. Girton – had had hot dinners. He was a creature of the theatre, who'd worked as a scene shifter while still at school. In his late teens, he'd tried to make it as an actor in a variety of low-budget London productions, before recognising that his skills lay on the technical side. He had graduated through the ranks of assistant stage manager, deputy stage manager and stage manager to take on ever more responsibility. He could do lighting plots, he could build sets, he could pacify local stage crews, he could mollify furious designers and wardrobe mistresses, he could mediate between stingy managements and poverty-stricken actors. He had saved the bacon of Parrott Fashion Productions on more occasions than he cared to remember. He was the all-purpose theatrical Mr Fixit, and nothing surprised him.

So, effectively taking over the technical direction of a new Bill Blunden farce from a Director whose main expertise was in television presented no problems to Tony Delaunay.

But he didn't crow. He didn't rub in the fact that the show's designated director was incompetent. Tony Delaunay had no ego; he was the ultimate pragmatist.
Not On Your Wife!
was due to open to a paying audience on the Tuesday night. Parrott Fashion Productions paid him to ensure that that happened, and Tony Delaunay would see that it did.

David J. Girton quickly recognised his good fortune in having the company manager there to do all his work for him, and arranged his own movements on the Monday accordingly. Deciding, with some justification, that a director couldn't be of much use during the get-in, he had appeared in the Vanbrugh Theatre at noon to see how things were proceeding. Comforted by the fact that Tony Delaunay had everything in hand, David J. Girton decided to slip away for ‘a little drink and a bite to eat'. And, since he was in Bath, after a couple of ‘little drinks', he decided his lunch had better take place at the Hole in the Wall restaurant.

After lunch, he felt so exhausted, he slipped back to his hotel to put his feet up for a few minutes. He didn't know much about lighting, anyway. He'd only get under the lighting director's and Tony Delaunay's feet if he was in the theatre. The art of directing, after all, was the art of delegation. Respect the individual skills of all the members of your team, and you become a well-respected director. That had been David J. Girton's approach in television, and it had worked well enough for him there. It had also perfectly suited his natural indolence.

When he returned to the Vanbrugh Theatre, around four-thirty, he found that Tony Delaunay and the lighting director had finished their plotting, and that the entire company was ready for the tech. run to begin. David J. Girton gave them a few rousing words of the ‘Have a good show' variety, and allowed Tony Delaunay to start the run. Then, rather than slowing the process down by interfering – he had always prided himself on being a minimalist director – David J. Girton sat quietly at the back of the auditorium and watched the show unfold.

The run – in comparison to the majority of tech runs – went very smoothly. That was of course down to Tony Delaunay. He managed the cast efficiently, speeding through easy sections of the text and bringing his meticulous concentration to bear on the play's more difficult moments. Observing all the required Equity breaks, he reached the final curtain just before nine o clock in the evening. The cast members, who'd been fully prepared to work through into the small hours if necessary, were massively relieved.

As the final curtain fell, David J. Girton was seized by a late burst of energy. He strode down the auditorium from his perch at the back with an authoritative cry of, ‘Could we have the house lights, please? And tabs up? All company remain on stage, please.'

The cast stayed obediently on stage. They'd all – with the possible exception of Pippa Trewin – been through the process many times before. Tech. runs were a stage of a production which required infinite patience. There was no room for temperament or thespian ego. However many times you were asked to repeat something, however many notes you were given, you just put your head down and got on with it. So the
Not On Your Wife!
company remained on stage, ready for a long screed of directorial notes.

‘Well . . .' said David J. Girton, with a bonhomous, avuncular smile, ‘pats on the back all round, I'd say. Bloody well done, the lot of you. I've kept a pretty low profile today . . .' (that was something of an understatement) ‘because I don't believe in interfering on the technical side. There are plenty of people around the studio – erm, around the theatre – who have their own very considerable skills, and I'm not the person to put my oar in and tell them what they should be doing. Pats on the back to all you technical chaps too, by the way.

‘So all I want to say, really, is: Keep up the good work. Tough day tomorrow. We've got a dress rehearsal in the afternoon, and the call for that is . . .?' ‘He turned round helplessly to the company manager.

Tony Delaunay was, as ever, ready with the relevant information. ‘There's a company call scheduled for twelve for notes, and the dress rehearsal's two-thirty, so the “half” for that'll be one fifty-five.'

‘Oh, well, I don't think we need the twelve o'clock call, do we? Seems a bit much to break into everyone's lunch hour.' There were a good few restaurants in Bath that David J. Girton hadn't tried yet.

But actors' stomachs are not their main priority when a show's about to open. ‘I think we should stick with the twelve o'clock call,' said Bernard Walton. ‘There are a couple of bits we need to run. That tablecloth biz in Act Two for a start . . .'