Notes from the Stage Manager's Box (9 page)

(Debbie Nichols as Katie Brown – ‘Keep it under your hat’)

By the second night Lesley and I were looking at the stage and wondering why all the cast seemed to be stage left when at rehearsals they were meant to be filling the entire stage.
We put
it
down to indiscipline and not following the director’s instructions.

When we were clearing up at the end of the show Lesley discovered the cast’s little secret. They were crowding around the piano because the glasses were full of real booze; it may
just have been
Sainsbury’s best cooking sherry, but alcoholic none the less. There was only one way to deal with this. Lesley put food colouring in all the bottles. The next night the cast returned to their proper marks.

The culprits included Roy Follett who had the part of Rattlesnake. It gave him a few lines which got him a mention in the cast list as well as an active member of the chorus. For the duration of the rehearsals and after he would answer his phone as ‘Rattlesnake’ or just plain ‘Mr R Snake’.

Most of the time he announced that he was Billy Smart’s Circus or Battersea Dogs Home. It put off all those cold callers and people he didn’t want to speak to. It is a ploy I often use now when I get calls from the Indian sub-continent offering to reclaim my PPI payments from unscrupulous lenders.

Calamity Jane also gave my interest in theatre a nudge in a certain direction. It was a mystery to me how these t
h
ings had been managed before but someone had to hire the stage sets and the props. I’ve no idea who had been delegated the role previous
ly but in the absence of that
knowledge and as stage manager I was assigned the role for this production.

Starting from zero has some attractions for I needed an assistant. The obvious p
erson to help was Roy Follett who was
Honorary
Treasurer. It’s best to have someone who understands the restrictions of
budgetary
control when spending someone else’s money. As the production team was as much Janet Hough as anyone the three of us took a days leave and went in search of a set.

We met at Camden Town Underground station at about ten o’clock. I was born and grew up in
Camden
but as is the way of life you disc
over things about your home neighbourhood
you didn’t know existed.

The address for Stage Sets was at the corner of North Villas and
Camden Park Road
. Stage Sets was housed in an old church. As young kids we passed this on our way home from
Hungerford
Primary School
ev
ery day. It hadn’t been used
for worship
for many years
and the broken panes of glass on the side walls were a sure sign of how it had suffered fr
om the boredom that sets in amongst
schoolchildren on their way home.

The good thing about this was the high roof and once we had located the owner he took us around the building where sets for every stage show known to have been produced were
stored a flat packs on two floors. There was only one set for Calamity Jane so we hired it.

We then had a journey across town to
the Old Times Furnishing Company in Putney who
hired
out
furniture and small props
to small companies like ourselves and to the BBC and film studios
. There is nothing more tedious than a trip across
London
by tube so we found a pleasant pub on the banks of the
Thames
where that ever gracious Roy Follett bought lunch. These were the days before the liberalisation of our licensing laws and quite fortunate too because we might not have ever left that pub.

We had a basic idea of what to buy for each scene; Janet had a list from John Hebden to supplement what was required in the script. It was always a long list and
proceeded
by John’s comments along the lines of ‘will look good if you can get one’, ‘try for one of these’ or ‘really appreciate it if you can get that’. This is why you need a budget conscious person with you because the artistic temperament will run away with the money if not controlled.

I enjoyed myself here. I could visualise the set taking shape and this is when I saw those gold painted chairs again!

In November 1984 the Club performed Hello Dolly. Dolly Levi was played by Iris Adele Paddock. She was of course, made for this. The show was a complete sell out.

I did
not take part. I asked after
Calamity Jane finished if I could take a break. I had been involved in ten productions either as cast, stage crew or Stage Manager. I had attended most rehearsals for nearly all of these, managed the Club’s sponsored sing-in earlier that year and been part of the float that appeared in the Lord Mayor of
London
’s annual parade
.

That was a very strange sort of event. The outgoing Lord Mayor of
London
was Chairman of the Guild of Greengrocers and Fruiterers and asked the Board of National Westminster
Bank plc
if they would be able to help him with a float.

This was
very
possibly in November 1980 as I remember leaving the City and managing to get back home to Tottenham in time to watch the second half of the
Spurs
game against Wolves. You could get in for free at half time if you knew which turnstile to use. The result was a 2-2 draw and by the time I
had found my mates in the crowd
I had missed two goals.

However it was worth missing this for the joy of standing on a float surrounded by all manner of fruit and vegetables with about a dozen or more of Club members. We were required to dress in authentic eighteenth century costumes so had to have a fitting the previous week. It was quite eerie walking around the City of
London
in period costume
amidst buildings that were constructed
about t
he same time and very few other people about
in modern dress.

Once we got going on the float we were asked by the police not to throw rotten tomatoes or peeled bananas at the crowds lining the streets as it could lead to some minor accidents. This is not quite true but we were asked not to hand out all the free food we were carrying and I don’t know what happened to it.

But it was fun. Along the route people were hanging out of top floor windows waving and smiling and offering u
s a pint which was unfair because we weren’t allowed drink either
. We had a marching band in front of us
and a company of Ghurkhas behind us. So we were quite safe.

I apologise for this digression but the essence of what I was saying was that I was tired and needed a rest. Along with the shows which I had helped organise with the sometimes begrudging acceptance of departmental and Office Managers I also had a career to worry about and a hectic social life along with one or two girlfriends that expected me to spare some time with them away from Spurs and the various City of London hostelries.

I was still a committee member and produced the programme and posters for Hello Dolly. I wrote a short piece on Hello Dolly and a quick look back at what the Club had achieved.

I found these notes in a 1968 Westminster Theatre Club production of Funny Girl at the Scala Theatre:

Those frantic dress rehearsals went badly and the old cliché ‘it will be all right on the night’ could only be greeted with a sickly smile. That anguished cry of ‘I’ll never do another show again’ which was conveniently forgotten when the speaker bounced back for the next production, apparently unscathed. The long moments before the overture struck up and excitement surged through the company. And of course that terrible empty feeling the day after when there was no more show until the next time.

Just for once when I said I’d not do another show I meant it but having a break was good for me and I returned for No No Nanette.

Having reviewed the past five or six years the experience of Fiddler on the Roof and then Calamity
had opened my eyes to the logistics
of setting up a show, the production process. I enjoyed starting with an
idea, a blank piece of paper, an
empty stage and watching it build up. John Hebden was the kind of director who gave me all the encouragement to discover
and explore
this and Roy Follett the kind of man who tells me that we haven’t got the money to be so ambitious. The key was to strike a balance.

I think it was John Hebden who suggested No No Nanette to the committee. It was well suited to our company, a few leading roles and plenty of work for the chorus as well as some cameo parts.

In the notes from the programme I quoted from a review by Patrick Ludlow writing about the first showing of No No Nanette in 1925. This is an amended copy:

If you wanted to give a party in the middle twenties you couldn’t do better than take them first to see No No Nanette at the Palace Theatre and then on to the Café de Paris for supper. With Nanette it didn’t matter whether your guests were ‘bright young things’ or ‘stuffed shirts’ the signature tune was ‘I want to be happy’ – and that’s the way everyone left the theatre.
Joseph Coyne and George Grossmith in the two main parts put across the message ‘this is all tommy rot but oh boy, isn’t it fun’. They were aided and abetted by a magnificent company who seemed to delight in the team spirit.

Basically it was fun – for the cast as well as the audience and that is why it
was such a good choice and
worked so well.

I remember sitting through the casting auditions and John’s frustration at not being able to find a suitable Nanette. I looked over his shoulder at one time and against one girls name he had written: ‘not enough welly’. It was one of his favourite phrases.
Or when he was more vocal in his stage directions: ‘give it some welly’.

It is not easy to start rehearsals without the leading lady and eventually members of the cast persuaded John to take a chance on Jane Aldr
ed. She had been in Hello Dolly, had auditioned for the part of Nanette
and was popular.

You never know quite what goes through the mind of a director when he is casting. I often heard John ask about height. It is no good having a leading lady who is almos
t six foot if the leading man is
five foot five.
In a romantic situation it doesn’t look right.
Professional actors understand this; you audition, you fail, you try again somewhere else. That’s the way it is.

Many amateur actors do not want to understand that
; established members of a small company believe they have a God given right
to be cast in a leading role
because they have been performing in the company for many years. T
hey
may
just not
be
up to it by virtue of ability or just do not fit the part as imagined by the director.

I once read of an amateur company who were amazed that the critic did not believe the
stage
relationship between the mother and daughter. They mentioned that the two actors were mother and daughter in real life. Maybe, the critic repl
ied but they don’t act like they are
.