David Buxton’s Memoirs

Scenes from a theatrical life. David Buxton

In my beginning is my end – Eliot

Final Scene (the beach on a tropical island. A dinghy is ready for launching. GUILLAUME has just made a hole below the waterline. He packs a piece of brown paper over the hole)

GUILLAUME: This will mislead them (he quickly paints lines over the patch)

ENTER Captain Nelson and his crew who climb into the boat. The Captain and Guillaume push the boat into the sea. As it slides away the Captain jumps into the boat.

GUILLAUME: And so I triumph! Yo! Ho!

This was the final scene of the first play I wrote and almost directed. It was abandoned after a couple of rehearsals, because my cousin Peter and his friends, older by five years than seven year old me, could not be made to see that I was the only possible actor to play the pirate/hero Guillaume; and off they went to play gangsters. Peter’s heroes in those days were the likes of Dutch Schultz and Pretty Boy Floyd. Pirates were a bit passé – not to say sissy.

The idea for the play had occurred to me one summer afternoon when there seemed to be nothing particular to do. We were in his bedroom, idly discussing whether to go out into Eastwood woods and creep and spy on the gypsy encampment. But we’d done that yesterday. I spotted a red covered book lying on his bed. “What’s this?” I asked. “Oh it’s just something the English teacher suggested for holiday reading.” It was called “The Tempest”. “Gosh!” I said, “that must be exciting!” “Christ no!” said Peter (you see how grown up he was). “It’s the most boring thing ever.” I read the first scene. “Peter must be mad,” I thought.  “This is terrific.” I then started on Scene 2 and began to see what Peter was driving at. “I can do better than that,” I thought.

Mr Bailey

A new teacher arrived at my London Junior Boys’ School. His name was Bailey and he was much younger than any of the other teachers. Respect and discipline were the watchwords in schooldays of the early thirties. Canings on the hands were frequently administered. Come to think of it, it was the only form of punishment. On the other hand (as it often was as well) it was reasonably fairly shared out, and, in retrospect, astonishingly cheerfully undergone. Bailey attempted to be much chummier. I am ashamed in retrospect we played him up something rotten. A good bit of classwork was rewarded with a hug round the shoulders. Cheek, and there was much of it, could earn a clip round the earhole.

He was a Drama Specialist and also rather specialized in trying to rescue medieval English country dancing from the mists of time. This latter pursuit evoked little enthusiasm from us tough cockney boys. One such exercise had the not unattractive name of Rufty-Tufty. Nothing sissy about that, we thought. Some hopes! The first thing was to pair the class into boys and “girls”. “Now form two circles,” said Mr Bailey. “Girls in front and each with a boy behind.” There was of course an odd number in the class. “Where shall I stand, sir?” said a hefty lad called Slade, who was the odd man out. “Let’s see,” said Mr Bailey. “You’re a girl, aren’t you?” Slight titter at the absurdity of this notion. Glare from Slade – he was something of a toughie. Mr Bailey ploughed on. “You get in the circle and I’ll slip in behind you.” Even at the apparently innocent age of eight, the audience responded to this with further sniggers. “Couldn’t you be the girl, sir?” Slade said piteously. Gales of laughter. Mr Bailey got quite ratty. I don’t think there were any further attempts to make ballet dancers of us all.

Mr Bailey didn’t have much more success with his early dramatic endeavours. He attempted to get us to play the fairy sequences from “The Midsummer Night’s Dream”. He had no difficulty casting Puck – we all volunteered to be mischievous imps. But nobody was keen to take on Oberon – king of all the fairies. And as for Peaseblossom –uncontrollable giggles whenever the name was mentioned.

He got a better hearing however, when he announced plans to mount a real play with plenty of parts for boys. It was called “The Rajah’s Diamond” (or perhaps “The Emir’s Emerald”). The plot owed much to “The Moonstone”, unknown to any of us at the time. Mr Bailey started by telling us there were no girls or women in it. Great interest now from the whole class.  He also explained that the adult parts – Dads, uncles, police inspectors and assorted villains – would be undertaken by members of staff and that Mr Williams would be donning a turban and would play the Rajah. Mr Williams taught in the Senior School. He was tall and gangly and had an ever so slightly swarthy complexion and crinkly black hair – “touch of the tar brush”, now a most offensive expression, was in common parlance in those far off days of Imperial Greatness. He spoke with a strong Welsh accent – which made him, to our minds, dead right for a foreigner.

Enthusiasm for the project waned somewhat when Mr Bailey explained that rehearsals would take place three afternoons a week after school for about six weeks. But there was still enough of us left to fill out the cast. Mr Bailey handed out scripts. I was to play a character called Plum Duff. “You’re just right for it,” he said, poking me in the tummy (as a small boy I did have a tendency to corpulence.) “First rehearsal, four o’ clock tomorrow in the Octagon,” said Mr Bailey briskly. I was trembling with excitement and rushed home to peruse the script’

Excitement had to be suspended however, as it turned out to be a cue script. Page 8 it said at the top.

Scene iii

Faulkner… home for the holidays

Enter with other boys. General chatter

Fred… best idea I can think of.

Plum Duff Well I don’t think much of it. (this was typed in red)

Fred….all meet again tomorrow

Plum Duff All right Exit

(No page 9 or 10) Page 11

Scene iv etc etc

From these slender hints, I could really make very little of the general plot, but I did see how I could develop my character. I was already a voracious reader, having devoured not only both the islands (Treasure and Coral) but much of Conan Doyle. I also was an avid reader of the Hotspur. And a friend of mine had lent me a battered issue of two of “the Magnets”. I saw even from the cue script comic possibilities in Plum Duff. He was Billy Bunter!

Only two of the promised adults turned up for the morrow’s first reading. This deterred the enthusiastic Mr. Bailey not one jot. He had of course the only complete script and he proceeded to read all the missing parts; with, it must be said, considerable brio. The play was jolly and breezy. Rattling good yarn, set in an old house, dripping with eerie atmosphere. Cobwebs and secret panels. No murders (Swizz!) but plenty of bonks on the head with blunt instruments, concussion, loss of memory. I soon got the hang of the cue script and was acting away like Billy Bunter-oh.

Two more rehearsals and Mr Bailey was moving us all around authoritatively, “This is where I want you to move down to the OP corner.” Mr Bailey knew all the jargon. “Why?” I inquired. I did not mention it at the time but I did feel quite comfortable stage centre. “So that you don’t mask the opening of the secret panel on the next page” he explained with weary patience. Mark it in your script. This seemed a perfectly reasonable explanation and I did not query it. I was far too happy acting away. I don’t think I’d ever been so happy in all my young life except perhaps when as goalkeeper for the junior eleven I saved a penalty against the immensely tough Park-Walk team.

This delirious heaven was shattered however at the end of the week. “Sorry Buxton,” said Mr Bailey briskly. “I’m going to have to recast Plum Duff I thought I’d better do that quickly before you to learn to the part.” I had of course already learned it, cues and all, as Quince says. “But,” I said and could manage no more. My lip was trembling so. “You say your lines so slowly and heavily,” he went on “and you’ve developed a dreadful drawl.” I managed not to cry not even when I surrendered my carefully marked script, not until I was at home then I sobbed uncontrollably in bed for several nights.

The part went to Tommy Gibbs, two years my senior. He was a nice enough fellow a natural deferential prefect type, tall for his age, thin as a rake, cadaverous face. I recovered my spirits enough to attend the opening performance. The play was a success and I enjoyed it hugely. Tommy gave a neat enough performance. Probably I was the only member of the audience to notice that unlike Mr. Williams whose turban fell off Tommy got no laughs.

Speaking with tongues

Mr Bailey killed off any thespian ideas in me for a year or two. Yet by the time I left my Junior School I had acquired a skill which proved useful to me in my ultimate profession. At my new school one of my teachers said to my mother that I had a flair for languages. She never knew that I was already bilingual.

My father was a teacher. He was the top class in the senior department of the school. I well remember the morning when I set out for the first time with him on the quarter of an hour’s walk to my scholastic career at aged 4. My father as anxious for me to succeed as I was. I joined the infants’ class and soon learnt to pretend I could not read. You make more friends in the middle of a stream than in the top or the bottom.

My mother was very much into Christopher Robin as shown in the Shepherd illustrations. She had kitted me out with care on this first full September morning. I had a velvet hat with a turned-up brim, sandals and white ankle socks. (perhaps this explains why I still invoke scorn from family and friends by preferring the social solecism of socks with sandals to blistered feet.) The short corduroy trousers were unexceptionable but for some reason that I have never fathomed I wore not shirts which tucked into trousers in any sort of manly way but blouses with an elasticated waist which she ran up herself. Some of them even had a touch of smocking on the front. My fellow pupils were not slow to see me as a figure of fun.

There were two playgrounds at the school. The one at the side of the school was small and was the prerequisite of the senior boys up to the then adult age of 14. There they got up to all manner of grubby tricks. The back one was larger about 30 yards square. At one corner stood the lavatories. The standard euphemism for a brief break from class was please Sir, Miss, can I go across? The nearest wall on one of the short sides of the rectangular block there was a built in drinking fountain. This was an accurate name for the amenity as I was soon to find out. The machine was operated by a push button at the semi-circular sink below, with a cup and chain each side completed the design. There were some 300 boys at the school and times were carefully scheduled so that three divisions, infants juniors and seniors, should not have overlapping play breaks. On this particular day some minor administrative mistake allowed the junior boys to come galloping out just as I, after queuing for some time, took my place at the fountain. After a moment or two’s general banter about my appearance a tall lad said “‘ere wanna drink young un?” And, truth to tell, a push button tap was a new piece of machinery to me and I was twisting it hopefully instead of pressing. “I’ll show you how it works,” and he shoved me away to the full extent of the chain.  By dexterous use of both limbs he directed a powerful jet of water straight at me. before the laughter quite died away another lad said, “ Watch out here comes old Bux’on and that’s his kid!” Suddenly there was no one within 20 yards of me except of course my father bearing down on me, face like thunder. “Never use the cup!” he snapped as he snatched it from my grip. Not another word did he say as he marched me across the yard through the sea of smirking faces up the stairs into the staff room.  There he consigned my hat to the waste paper basket, found a towel dried off some of the surface water and marched me back to my class. At the door he said, “Why did you just stand there?”

I could make no reply to this rhetorical question I only knew that running away could never have been or would be an option so I learned how to fight. There was usually a member of staff in the offing standing by ready to break up these scuffles. They became less frequent as I grew away from the infants department and into the Junior School – where both participants in such affairs were caned. This mutual suffering with no trial or jury, just instant justice falling in guilty and innocent alike, formed the foundation for the best of friendships.

I also learned to speak fluently in the language most of my fellow pupils used, speaking posh at home and broad cockney in the playground and on the way home and on the streets. I was so envious of other children who had the freedom to muck about ( horse around the Americans would have taught us to say) in the street, on the way home, particularly on warm summer evenings when I grew old enough to be trusted to cross the road by myself at a much younger age than would now be appropriate. I sometimes used to partake in some of these games so that what would have been taken no more than 15 minutes maximum was sometimes stretched to 3/4 of an hour. I made-up various excuses for my mother to explain my lateness – football practice was the commonest. My father had, mercifully I think now for us both, left my school a couple of terms after I started. He became headmaster of another Church of England school, very close to Euston station and it was in this manner that I became fluent in my second language -broad cockney and yes I learned all the swear words too.

I was an only child. To be fair to my parents there never could be any question of my playing in our street. We lived in Beaufort St on the direct line northwards from Battersea Bridge, between the Kings and the Fulham Roads. It was not a bus route until after the war, but it was busy enough to make it impossible as a playground. However from my room at the top of the house as I read Fennimore Cooper of a summer evening, I could sometimes hear real Red Indian cries of “Olly olly oop!” From the wild SW hinterland of safer streets between Callow Street and the World’s End pub in the Kings Road.

“Happiest Days”

 I did rather well in the scholarship exam, referred subsequently as the 11 plus and was offered a place at a public school. I was relieved not to have done just that bit better and obtained a place at Christ’s Hospital, Horsham which was what my mother had hoped for. This would have involved, horror of horrors, wearing all day and every day a monkish cloak, short enough to reveal bright yellow stockings. Pretty comic even if they were not cross gartered. My school was a similar charity foundation to the Hospital. It’s mopped up the best of the rest after Christ’s had taken first pick. Its uniform was more bearable – we were all kitted out like city gents: black jacket and waist coat and striped trousers. My height by then exceeded my girth and I was eager to go into long’uns and ecstatic to be at last free of sissy blouses even if it meant studs in front and back and semi stiff white collars. Real shirts at last.

 There were 400 boys at the school, 100 of them boarders. There were to be some 15 in my year. And I had met some of them when we gathered in the summer at Drapers Hall in the city. There we listened to a lecture about the school’s history and its ethics. And, mercifully briefly, we were interviewed about personal details like hobbies. I remember saying stamp collecting (not it should be noted theatre) and religion. If my mother was upset at my general keenness to fly the nest she managed to keep a stiff upper lip at least in my presence. It was not that I imagined myself as Tom Brown or even the Magnet’s Harry Wharton. It was as though in company with the other 15 chaps I had been on a sea voyage with my parents and now we were able to be cost adrift in the open sea, on a raft. We would have to learn how to fend for ourselves. It was hugely exciting.

 I had inherited from my father a great love of competitive sports and it was for his sake as much as mine that I desired above all things to be in the 1st 11 and the 1st 15. And in my final year I attained my cap in the one and my colours in the other, and laid these trophies, as it were, at my father’s feet. All the same there were a few theatrical adventures but not until much later in my life did I throw myself so wholeheartedly into them as I had done so heartbreakingly over Plum Duff.

 I was involved in my very first year in the school play. I had a clear treble voice and strong lungs and I was cast as the page in Portia’s house and sang “tell me where is fancy bred”. I was accompanied by a sixth former on the violin. He was an accomplished musician. Unfortunately as he produced exquisite music, he contorted his face into such agonies and grimaces which I found hilarious. I was very nearly sacked again for laughing on stage.

 The play was directed by the senior English master, who was more interested in scansion than drama. He used to stand in the middle of the hall with his back to the stage listening intently and we’ll round fiercely to the stage when anyone did a bit of passionate acting. “How many times have I told you boy? There are 5 beats to every line.” This of course reduced the 17 year old Antonio or Shylock attempting some sort of mature human being to a mere gibbering nervous schoolboy.  I thought “the Merchant” was a pretty glum play.

Very much less glum were the CADS the last two letters of the above are easily enough to be explained as Dramatic Society. The first two, Cubicles Amateur, are perhaps worth a short note. The top floor of the main wing of the school was where 80 of the borders slept. Halfway down the vast room immediately under the school’s main clock tower (it was a Victorian gothic building) there were on one side 4 baths and on the other barely adequately toilet facilities. These marked the demarcation of the senior dorm from the junior. A little room at each end provided accommodation for two of the four resident masters. In between the two rows of beds stood a fixture with cold water taps a row of tin basins and a drain. We were allowed hot water from only two big taps only at bedtime. Morning ablutions were simply to duck one’s head into a brimming basin of cold water. The hot water often ran out before most of the junior boys got their turn. A strictly observed rota allowed us one short bath a week. These Spartan and unhygienic conditions prevailed during my first years at school. But in the summer before the war an extension was built which bore a little relation to civilised living. On the 1st floor on the right side of the tower you face the front of the school where the sleeping quarters for the top 20 boarders and the other two resident masters. The space was divided by wooden panelling 6 by 6 feet high and each senior boy had as it were a horse box with no door. Certain privileges were accorded as to decor. Family portraits could be set on top of the lockers and inoffensive artwork could be pinned to the walls. These little islands of privacy were known universally as bunkers but in the school prospectus they were called cubicles. Hence the cubicles amateur dramatic society. Despite the sanitary conditions worthy of a Dickensian workhouse, I was happy in my 6 years at boarding school and so, I believe were the majority of my fellow inmates.

 To return to the theatre. The new school hall with its possibly adequate stage and rudimentary lighting, had only been opened the year I arrived at school. And even lower school vermin such as me, the remove, as my class was called, felt some of the tremors of the huge argument there might have been before the sixth form boarders got permission to mount a show of their own. These shows were chiefly review style, a series of homemade sketches. But they did a pretty decent “Journey’s End” in the summer of 38. “God how awful,” we all thought. Aren’t we glad it can’t happen again? And they also did “the Case of the Frightened Lady” by Edgar Wallace. You don’t get much more down market than that.

 So perhaps it is not surprising that my second play, which was presented in a classroom in the next autumn term was an attempt at an Agatha Christie thriller entitled “the Oaks Murder Mystery.” My friends and I called ourselves the TOPS – The Oaks Playing Society. I remember how much Mr Bailey had seemed to enjoy himself over “the Ruby” and I elected not to act in it but to direct it. I also did a lurid poster for it which was much criticised. I can remember absolutely nothing else about the play except it was poorly attended.

 There was, after this inauspicious beginning, something of the palace revolution in this society after this and our next play was written directed and starred in by a fellow called Smith. It was a crook play and John Arthur Henry George, to give all his forenames we called him Jarg could act a bit. But, poor fellow, his appearance and physique were rather against him as a leading man. He was lame, having broken his leg on the rugger pitch in his first term and then had to miss the next two terms while it mended. He was thus now a year behind us in class though not age. He was also near blind without his spectacles and found he could not act without them. His general appearance was very similar to a 50 year old Cambridge don. The last person you would cast as Tony Soprano. I played several parts totally unmemorably. I do recall however the last scene of the play. We finally cornered the arch villain, the spine-breaker himself. On the roof of a tenement building. There he threw some handy bricks at the pursuing police officers, before, following a final defiant “You’ll never catch me alive Maltravers!” he leapt to a grand tragic death. I remember suggesting an alternative ending which Jarg rejected out of hand. I proposed to catch one of the bricks and throw it back at the Spine-breaker knocking him off the roof. I would then have the last line “haha he never knew I used to field cover point for Middlesex.”

 In the long dark evenings, corners of the quadrangle echoed in the sound of what a witty friend of mine called Bawdy Ballads and Randy Recitations. In fact this same friend, a talented musician, arranged some of them to be sung semi seriously by a selection of tenors and bases from the school choir. The deeds of the jolly citizens of mobile were like a madrigal, Barber shop, for the bloody great wheel and a Bach-like fugue for those stalwart  tars of the Venus I wouldn’t mention this except for the fact that before the war this sort of choir practise would have been stamped out at birth. One of the monitors as we called the select eight who would have been called prefects, would have sorted out the ringleader and administered 6 hearty curative cuts on the backside with a cane. But in those dark blackout evenings the masters as well as the monitors turned a deaf ear.

 The boys crawled to the Cellars to shelter from the raid.

 At about the time of Guernica and again of Munich, my father who had served in the 1914-18 war expressed himself of the opinion, if there were to be another war it will be the finish for all of us. So it was something of a relief that when the war started, it eased its way in gently, instead of arriving with a crash of thunder. It was a lovely summer and my school extended the holidays for an indefinite period. Well some sort of air raid shelters were constructed it turned out to be 3 or 4 weeks. My father’s school was evacuated to a village near Dunstable, and my mother went with him. So I went to stay with my maternal grandparents at Leigh-on-sea. This was no hardship. I was very fond of both of them. Also there was much fun to be had in the spacious house and large garden where my mother’s sister and my 2 male cousins lived at the northern extremity of Leigh. I have already mentioned eastward woods. My cousin Peter had left school after just scraping through matric, O levels we call it now and had commenced work commuting each day to London. Nevertheless he was not too grand to spend some time with me. I was nearly 14. And James, 22-ish and already working in a hush-hush chemical research job, was also about at weekends. I greatly admired him. He had a sardonic sense of humour and managed to tolerate intelligent people not yet old enough to have obtained the pinnacle of a first in BSc chemistry at Birbeck College. All sorts of engineering fascinated him. He was the proud possessor of a motorbike. But he never rode it. He took it to pieces, some of them very small, and hung each component labelled carefully on strings from the ceiling of my aunt’s back parlour. Aunt Maude’s was that sort of a house and it was a glorious summer right through to Saint Martins and Michaelmas.

 Back at school at last much excited chatter. This was a blank year or two for any major sort of theatrical venture. The school hall was not available for evening use, probably the big windows could not be blacked out efficiently. But throughout the war years we borders very much made our own entertainment. Throughout the war we pushed all the refectory tables in the day room together at one end and there was a stage where reviews could be slung together. An upright piano was trundled in from a far corner of the school, many hands making light work, and the 6th formers would lead the way with a stirring rendering of the song:  “the Cads are here tonight” to the tune of “the fleets in the port again” but where the Society had previously involved only 6th formers, exclusively as any Pall Mall club, some of the severe barriers between the seniors and juniors began to melt away. Theatre became more democratic.

 This, I think, is why the TOPS faded gently away. We did produce one more show. The general consensus was that we had stretched too far on what could be done with author directors in dictatorial charge, so we dug out a one-act play from the school library in best one act plays of 1930. It was called “On Dartmoor” and I elected not to act it but directed it. It was I realised now a very adult piece with masses of sexual tension. It concerns two women, spinsters, who lived in a remote district of Dartmoor and their reactions to the radio news that a prisoner, possibly dangerous, had escaped. The comedy should have arisen from the sexually flirtatious rivalry between the two women and the fact that when the escapee finally arrived he was far more frightened of them than they of him. This was entirely missed by us but we did guy it up fairly successfully into broad farce with a great deal of hiding in cupboards and behind sofas. It was of course far too long for the review format and the seniors were not in the least amused. When two or three of their sketches had to be cut in order to get everyone to bed at a reasonable time. So that TOPS was not at all popular and disbanded.

 The school was at Woodford, at the extreme north-eastern edge of Greater London. The winter of 39 was fairly normal but when the blitz really started in 40, 41 and 42, the hastily reinforced shelter area in the schools cellar had to be used as a regular dormitory. It proved to be quite inadequate. As well as the hundred of us there were matron, housekeeper, nurse, 5 or 6 general servant girls, skivs as I’m ashamed to admit we called them and two porters and four resident masters to be sheltered from aerial bombardment in a space no bigger it seemed to me than Aunt Maude’s two sitting rooms. The truth was there was just not enough air. There was a rudimentary attempt at air conditioning but the fan rattled so loudly it was difficult to sleep. One or two of the junior boys began to develop nasty coughs. The sanitation was far from ideal. There were two huge galvanised dustbins with sloping shelving near the top and a generous hole in the middle. In the bottom there was some liquid chlorine based. These were christened the worms. Explanation: there was much Latin force fed to us in those days. Our schools subscribed to the theory that those clueless Romans could not say the letter V so that an oral exam for Romans would have been a “weewa-wokey”. Some erudite way wag had been studying Ovid’s Ars Amatoria and he suggested faced with one of these objects he would call the Ars vomitarea. No joke should be explained ever but it amused us vastly at the time it was inconceivable that the things could be actually be used for anything other than liquid disposal but this too was frowned upon as the huge hollow drums sounded like Thunder sheets if anything disturbed them. By morning the smell was quite appalling. The sixth form science scholars were challenged to produce some other chemical which would be less noisome in contact with natural fluids. But answer came there none.

 In addition to this blank hole for borders the contractors had made some trenches just below ground level on a derelict piece of ground by the Newhall. The idea was that these could accommodate the whole school in the event of a daytime raid. When raids began to happen almost every night in the winter of 40 and the spring of 41 some improvement was made in the air conditioning so that the third remove and default lower 4th borders could pass more tolerable nights in the Cellars. But the remainder, some 60 or so, slept in the unheated and always damp trench shelters. The resident masters mucked in with thus. The bedding was makeshift but quite plentiful. The problem was not cold, but generally sweaty fug we worked up. At 7:00 or so if, as usually happened the old clear sounded, we would emerge into a bleak dank still dark morning, a bedraggled dressing gowned and blanketed procession, and stumble our way to the ablutions block to make ready for breakfast and 8:50 Chapel.

 Of course Woodford had it cushy we were not quite in the thick of it. But we heard the planes passing overhead, and there was plenty of nearby ack-ack fire. The crumps from central London were worryingly audible. There was no need for two head teachers at the evacuee school in Bedfordshire. So my parents had returned to London, and were put in charge of a rest centre in Holborn, for bomb shocked but not physically injured folk. I helped out in the holidays. And, as the Dorniers returned home after a raid they would shed any undropped bombs on our sort of district. One learned the lesson that it is possible to get used almost to anything. One becomes quite blasé hearing the whistling scream of a falling bomb. Then one held ones breath for a second or two’s silence and the explosion however close and deafening would come as a sort of relief. One’s number had not been on that particular bomb so one got on with one’s geometry prep.

 Whatever acting is, it just isn’t cricket.

 By the spring of 42 the raids had eased off a bit, and more basement rooms were cleaned out and whitewashed and we came in from the damp and cold. And that summer the school play got revived. I imagine there was much argument about this at head and senior master level and with the governors. I think the senior English master was of the out camp. And, one supposes, the argument ran that if a bomb was to fall on the hall when all the borders half the day boys and 100 or so parents and friends were assembled for an extracurricular activity… if!.

 Fortunately the junior classics master led the pro argument. And even better news was that he, rather than the English master, would direct the plays.

 Donald Francombe, a very gentle, not to say timid soul on the exterior, was universally popular and somehow kept good classroom discipline, by the expedient of making it clear he would be terribly upset if any line of good manners were crossed. He already undertook to play the organ in Chapel, rehearsed the excellent boarders’ choir, and provide the energy for a thriving music club to listen to classical music often performed live, but also on 78s with a horn-gramophone and sharpened thorn needles. In long term retrospect I can offer no opinion really as to his quality as a director. What I do remember is that he was able to inspire enthusiasm in his action in his actors. He persuaded us we were good. His first effort was quite a bold concept. We did “Merry Wives” not only in modern dress but absolutely contemporary. There was a mock air raid in the middle of the final masque in the forest scene. The girls looked rather fetching in siren suits. Nim was busy flogging clothing coupons. The innkeeper was an air raid warden in the evenings etc etc.

 Shakespeare had much fun in Henry V at the expense of the Welsh and he repeated the trick, introducing a Welsh Parson, Sir Hugh Evans in “the Merry Wives”. I remember vividly one rehearsal Evans had the closing lines, as we all trooped off to supper. We did have a full blown Welsh character in the school the French master, Jenkins. He had suffered in his youth from some form of rheumatoid arthritis. His legs were permanently bent. He carried a stick everywhere. He also smoked heavily from one of those curly shaped pipes. He also played the double bass, propped up on a high stool in the school orchestra. He loved, with great passion, everything French, and denigrated everything English. The Mabinogion was every bit as good as Shakespeare. And Racine was best of all. He even maintained in the music club that Couperin was the equal of Bach. At the age of 50 ish he took over the school rugby team from a younger master who had disappeared into the forces. Come on you lazy English bastards! he would cry. And he once said to me, as I was the pack leader. “There were moments when you were working together almost like a Welsh pack!”

 The boy playing Evans was the best part of two years younger than me. And on this particular rehearsal he sketched in a beautifully drawn physical impersonation of Jenkins. What is interesting about it is that his fellow actors tried very hard to persuade him to carry this vivid impersonation right through to performance. I do not know what Francombe thought about it, because the boy himself flatly refused to do what we so passionately wanted. We all thought what a prig! What a spoilsport! Even what a coward! But he simply said it was OK as a rehearsal joke but it won’t be true to the play.

 The next year we switched to pantomime and did “Androcles and the Lion”. The performance started at 7 and a problem arose on the Saturday evening. The 1st 11 had a match that afternoon and half a dozen of the cast were in the team. The match was against one of the local grammar schools, Wanstead County High, and for some reason it was played, not on the school field, but on the school’s other ground a mile and a half away in South Woodford. There was a certain amount of snobbery! Me alas very much included. It was beneath our dignity to play against the local yobs. In any case we thought it would be a doddle. The snag was that nobody at high level had suggested to the visitors that because of the school play perhaps the match should be started early and close of play should be 6 and not 630. We kept our fingers crossed as we walked down from the school to the pitch. They’ve been clearly no liaison between Francombe and the cricket master. It was up to us. The only hope was that our captain would win the toss and we could then bat second. The actors in the team would be at the top of the order and would be would be able to leave in time to get back to the school and scramble into costume and perform. Sods law just for once did not prevail and the coin fell right for Androcles, our captain. In went Wanstead and our fast bowlers dismissed half of them for 40 ish. Enter Wanstead’s Flintoff. Our bowlers tired and runs came freely. In despair, so he told me afterwards, Androcles called on Ferovius to bowl. Now I had been two seasons in the 1st and this was the very first opportunity I had been given as a bowler. I took a wicket in each of my first two overs and we’ve broken through. They made 120 all out.

 I was an opening batsman and like to take things steady. And I rather astonished my partner, Androcles himself by playing a few strokes. We rattled up 50 in short time. And when we were both out we left the rest of the team to finish the job and walked up to school in plenty of time for the half. We were confident that the other batsmen would pull it off. On this brisk walk the captain awarded me my cap. In the event in spite of a stalwart last ditch effort by our wicketkeeper, Roman Centurion, our team was beaten by about 10 runs. So perish all snobs! The centurion arrived at the theatre just as we were thinking that somehow we would have to make a sorry-for-the-delay speech he was still breathless when he marched the Christian prisoners, me among them, on stage for our first entrance a tasty feed for the lions.

 Transcendental? What in earth is that supposed to mean?

 Alternative title: a funny thing happened on my way to a professional theatre career. Funny in the sense of strange, wonderful, earth shattering, heart stopping. It happened to me three times that I can remember. This episode tells how I remember my first two such experiences.

 My mother was a professional singer/actress. She was quite successful. Somewhat on the variety side of the profession, concert party work in the summer, principle boy at Christmas. She had at least one West End lead “Dream Girl” at the Scala. She gave it all up when I was conceived or soon after. This, I believe, was out of respect for my father’s views on working mothers: perhaps better expressed as husbands who lived off their wife’s earnings. It is, of course, possible that she misunderstood my father. But there it was. She never worked or sought work again. As well as a rich contralto voice (Dame Clara Butt moreover!) She had a great deal of energy. She was fun, I adored her. She was an avid theatre goer and we often went to matinees. We would go up to the West End about 10:00 in the morning and secure for ourselves, (sixpence I believe it cost?)  a pair of folding stools pre-empting a prime position in the pit queue. Then we would have coffee for about 1/4 of an hour before curtain up.

 I must have been about 7 when she took me to the Lyceum to see the pantomime. It was Ali Baba and the 40 thieves. Wonderful excuse for lavish deco, transformation scenes. Nobody these days could afford a chorus of 40 but the Lyceum did then. George Jack Lee, I believe it was himself, with a voice like gravel being emptied into a dustbin, played Ali. But what I am certain about is that his wife was played by Florrie Ford.

 We lost a lot at the knockabout stuff in the first half. Could it have been Naughton and Gold or was that some other panto? Brokers men in Baghdad? Why not! Towards the end of the second-half, an elaborate palatial scenery was swept away, and were replaced by plum velvet legs and swags. Against the stage cloth stood in profile the figure of what I know now to be an Edwardian lady. Vast cartwheel hat, bosom and bottom accentuated, not much waist, a long walking cane. There was a ripple of applause from those among us who knew exactly what was coming. But she killed it stone dead with an imperious gesture and walked the half dozen or so paces downstage centre. The theatre became absolutely quiet for the first time in the afternoon. The excitement was intense. I felt a tingling in the base of my spine which climbed all the way to my head. My mouth was open and I did not dare breathe. And there was fulfilment for all the audience and me in particular when she ran a steely eye over the whole house and asked with the resonance “has anybody here seen Kelly?” The laughter and applause was tumultuous she sang to us bullied us coaxed us and in general had us entirely at her mercy for fully 20 minutes this was the first fulfilled love affair of my life let’s call it strike one

 My mother was not a particularly religious woman. Sunday mornings found her far too busy with a family lunch to attend church herself but she liked me to go. She was very keen when I went away to school to have me confirmed. I was fairly devout and went along with the scheme. I must have been 13 or so when the Bishop of somewhere or other, could it have been Chelmsford? Came to the school to introduce some half a dozen of us into the church as properly consented adults. I had expected something enormously exciting to happen when I took my first communion and it didn’t! I don’t think I remembered Miss Ford in that connection at the time but I now know which of the two experiences was transcendental.

 The next time lightning struck me was waiting in the wings to make a dramatic entrance in Androcles.  “Lost! Lost! Forever! I have betrayed my master!” and then a speech explaining how instead of being killed by the gladiators I had instead killed all of them and somehow made it seem Shavianly playfully funny but I was thrown. The scene before this was played by Lavinia who’d been OK three years before on Dartmoor, the Christian preparing to be killed by the lions and opposite her was a young Roman captain of the guard. These two amateur schoolboy actors with clear speaking and absolute sincerity produced the same sort of hush as Miss Ford at the Lyceum. In the wings we felt it too. What we ignoramuses had perceived as a rather dull prosy scene with philosophy and religion mixed up with soppy love stuff turned out to be the high spot of the evening. Just you try following that Ferovius.

 I felt the same excitement as I had all these years before but this time there was no fulfilment. The actor who had refused to turn Shakespeare comedy into the Rory Bremner show had a year later being heartily clapped in his role as handsome captain and, as this friend of mine wrote in one of his clerihews, he was Dennis Quilley. He became a very good actor indeed and although I never worked with him professionally, I followed his career with interest and read an excellent obituary for him recently by Dennis Barker in the Guardian. Thank you Dennis quickly for delivering strike two.

 Goodbye education

 When Singapore fell in 1942, one of the masters saw it as presaging the end of imperial history as he taught it. Did he feel there would be no job for him after the war? Deciding to do something about it, he got the headmaster’s permission to harangue the 5th and 6th forms. Weren’t we ashamed, he asked, that we had no OTC  (officers training core cadet military training for cannon fodder subalterns). He called for volunteers to join him in founding a flight of the air training core at the school. The physics teacher would brief us on engines and wireless telegraphy and the geography man would do the same for navigation. Meanwhile the gym master, a retired army officer, would drill us into shape on the asphalt behind the chemistry lab. Most of us volunteered!

 At 17 and a half, I volunteered one step further and was enrolled in the Air Force proper. I went up to central London for a medical and, as I had been led to expect, was told there would be a month or two’s delay before I was to report for duty. Why didn’t I take a university short course? I was paid, 3 shillings, for attending the medical and being interviewed. I called on my parents before going back to school. I gave my mother my first day’s pay, which I thought was the done thing. She affected to be highly amused at such a ridiculous idea. Nevertheless she got a local silversmith to make the two shillings and 6 pence into a bracelet and was quite unfazed when my father told her that she had committed a criminal offence, defacing the coinage.

 My birthday is in October early in the scholastic year. When I had started at the school the system for reasonably bright pupils was to spend 2 years in the sixth form and then take higher schools A levels then selected students might stay on for yet another year and sit scholarship exams for a place in one of the two varsities. It was clear to me that this was no longer an option. History seemed to be my best subject. And Herring, the history man, the very same who exhorted us into the ATC, told me that it would be quite impossible to master the higher schools history syllabus in only one year. I had to go straight for the scholarship. Having delivered this advice in his usual brutal way he left the school to take a head master ship somewhere in the Black Country. So that when I returned from the summer holidays in the autumn of 42 I found a new history teacher who disagreed with Herring about just about everything. History is, after all, only one way of looking at politics.

 So I left school with no A levels. I did however have a handwritten postcard from the Bursar at Christ’s College Cambridge, to the effect that I had been classed in the recent scholarship exam, as of exhibition standard, unfortunately there were not enough of these to go round. I was at liberty to quote this in applying for other awards or grants. I applied, as had been suggested, for the short course and Christ’s welcomed me in the October. The idea was that the Air Force paid for board and tuition for two slightly lengthened terms at the end of which the university would organise examinations which would count as the first year in the tripos, if the student returned after war service.

 At this stage I had no idea what I wanted to do as a career. I had spoken passionately and lost in a school debate: what is education for? A job? Or for quality of life? I still think I was right. I enjoyed my 2 terms at Cambridge, at the university air squadron we did more thoroughly the subjects I had touched on in the OTC. Professor Herbie Butterfield’s strongly belligerent and detailed lectures on 20th century European history were packed out – people sitting in the aisles. I spoke fairly regularly with spasmodic effectiveness at the Milton Soc. the college debating club, I played Schubert at smoking concerts not accurately but with wonderful expression, as Algy says in “Importance”. I read the lesson on occasion in Chapel and sang lustily in the Chapel choir. In conjunction with the girls of Newnham we did platform performances of the choruses from Dido and Aeneas and the wedding feast sequence from Hiawatha. And the girls those wonderful girls!! It was a lusty young man’s paradise. The university male undergraduate membership had been decimated. They had all gone into the forces. In addition to Newnham and Girton several London colleges Bedford, LSE, Homerton arriving among them had been evacuated to Cambridge. We were, as they say, spoiled for choice. I learned some of the basics of ballroom dancing. I played a fair amount of rugby. We did pretty well at the Cuppers and might have won the final if our full back hadn’t broken his ankle 15 minutes into the match. No substitutes allowed in those days. It was close though. The air squadron ran a Team too and we played against the Air Force stations in the East Midlands. In this team were Pat Sykes subsequently scrum half the Wasps and certainly England though he played stand off for us. And Arthur Dorward at the base of the scrum who played after the war for Howick and Scotland. There’s a couple of names dropped with a thud.

 One of my closest friends at Christ’s was Tony Caro he of the swinging bridge. He taught me, or at least tried, to look at the shape of things. With much deference he begged a boon of the master of the college, a certain divine, a canon of the established church common, who maintained some distance between himself and the fellows of the college let alone undergraduates. They were utterly out of sight. Cannon Raven condescended to sit for him while he sculpted a head in potter’s clay. The work was very fine, craggy features strong jaw beetling eyebrows. Very Epstein. It wasn’t quite finished when I went down. Tony told me that the great man had insisted that no cost should be made until he’d seen it and approved it. I’m sure it never occurred to Tony, at any rate at that time, to wonder which was the greater man, the sitter or the artist.

 Tony was reading for a degree in engineering. I might just scrape through with a third he said. I remembered this when the beautiful and enormously useful pedestrian bridge opened in London doubtless it was quite safe as an insurance risk, but the engineering was terrifyingly shaky. Eliot’s 4 quartets were published when I was up and Caro invited a few of us to his rooms to read them aloud. Poetry? Until then I had rather missed out on it unless it was dramatic. Shakespeare I devoured from cover to cover by the time I was 12. My father’s everyman addition began with Henry VI – all those battles and murders you see. I did not think of it as poetry, just action powerfully expressed. I liked the muscular rhythms of Browning even if the muscles tanked into occasionally impenetrable knots. Paradise Lost I did not read to my shame I still have not, believing nothing could possibly improve on the King James Bible. I had no time for the emotion recalled in tranquillity school of Keats Wordsworth Coleridge Tennyson to name but a few. Plus “a drowsy numbness fills my senses” was just as I felt after having had a wet dream. Whatever else it was something to be ashamed of. All that changed with this reading of Elliot the wounded surgeon plies the steel that questions the distempered part. This opened up a parallel view of human endeavour which had never occurred to me before. And the simplicity and beauty of the Seaman’s prayer to keep the ship off the rock. “Lady whose shrine stands at the promontory, pray for all those who are in ships”. It was not earth shattering as had been the discovery of the emotional power of the great theatrical moment. But it certainly changed my attitude to the reflective side of Shakespeare’s characters and the verse they spoke in the quiet bits.

 I went to the Arts Theatre quite a lot. I went to the ballet with a Girton girl. In spite of Fontaine and Helpmann, I was left fairly cold by the Saddlers Wells Company. But I was knocked for six by “Ballet Jousse” who danced in ordinary pumps never on points and emphasised drama rather than liquid beauty. Their pacifist ballet “The Green Table” hit me very hard. I went several times to the London theatre mostly West End successes which I enjoyed,  “Blithe Spirit”, “Peace comes to Peckham”, a revival (excellent) of “Private lives”,  a comedy thriller with Gordon Harker “Men in shadow”. I was very impressed with Harker. There was a scene where he was seated at a table down stage, being interrogated by two heavies, either side of him. His face was utterly deadpan as he made unhelpful replies. But the director had taken care that we could also see his feet and legs. I realised that, as an actor, you had to have superb control of your whole body. Parker’s face and tongue gave nothing away, but his legs and feet spoke volumes. And, again at the Arts, Violet Fairbrother as the paralysed mother-in-law in “Therese Raquin”  shows how an actor can hold an audience riveted by the sheer power of the eyes alone. Unable to utter a word, unable to move, still she spoke volumes.

 As for doing any theatre work myself I never gave it a thought. I did not so much as consider auditioning for the Marlowe. I came down with a smattering of exhilaratingly different experiences and a 2:1 in history. My friends told me this was highly creditable. At that time however I was far from convinced it was good enough to obtain funding to finish the degree after the war.

 I had a fortnight in London before travelling to Scarborough. Waiting for training was over. Six weeks of drill on the parade ground was now top of the menu.

Welcome bashing squares

In the brief gap before I reported to Scarborough, I had something of a crisis of conscience.

Several of my friends at school had decided to be conscientious objectors. A couple of them had been teammates of mine in the first 15 and I knew it could not be a question of physical cowardice. They had been directed into non-combatant useful service as hospital porters. Their life was far from fun. However, I had among several other friends been quite moved when an old boy returned from Spain where he had been fighting on the Democratic government side against the fascists. He warned of the war to come and the dire consequences if we were to lose it as his Spanish friends were in danger of doing. When my time came I volunteered.

Shortly before I came down from Cambridge, however there was a farcical incident of which I am still deeply ashamed. I was one of the people who chucked Mervyn into the college pond. One evening it may well have been after our Cuppers semi-final victory the rugby team well lubricated with beer held a short debate as to whether objection could be tolerated in a democratic society, which was fighting for its life. The debate was short and the decision unanimous Mervyn deserved a ducking.

He was a nerdish individual doing some sort of research degree. It was probably shyness but he did affect a certain intellectualness and liked to keep himself away from the common crowd. He was not the type of man in any case to a fitted into the rough and tumble of life in the forces, being a willowy gangly youth. However, faced with a drunken mob of Rugger louts, he behaved with considerable courage and no little dignity. What had his inner conscience to do with us? He enquired. As it were prosecuting council said something about we all had to submit to war time discipline. “The only discipline I could possibly submit myself to self-discipline,” he said. At least he’s not a Catholic I thought. The debate became more physical in nature. Mervyn suddenly wheeled around, we thought he was going to fight. But instead he took off his jacket. “If you are determined to do this thing, I doubt I shall come to much harm but this coat cost me 10 quid.” Then as we began to manhandle him, he said to one of us would you mind looking after my glasses? I think I was not the only one who is beginning to think the idea was not such a good one. Nevertheless, we went through it. Several of my non-rugby playing friends Caro among them told me the next day how much they disapproved of what we had done. I am still ashamed that I never apologised personally to Mervyn.

So I thought again about the passivism bit. Eventually I decided that if I had been born a Frenchman I’d certainly have joined the Maquis. When the chips were really down, what would you do if a German was raping your sister? I had no sister but the point was valid. I would be there fighting so better start fighting now rather than leave it too late. In any case I couldn’t face the embarrassment of turning up at Scarborough and saying to the sergeant major, look I know I’ve volunteered but I’ve changed my mind. I never gave the matter another thought until well after the war.

The introductory six weeks of drill and pettifogging discipline was not nearly so alarming as the corporals in charge of us imagined. I should not have been surprised but I was to find that very nearly all our intake came from the university air squadrons. Several Christ’s men were among us. Most of us had been at boarding school and we knew a thing about learning to fit in away from home. I made some close friends as we ran to exhaustion at the double up and down those cliff parks. Billy Cook the wittiest man I know until I met Harold Lang, Topher Zeeman a genius of a mathematician who puzzled us all with his “chaos theory of occurrences”  a few years back, John Elkins, a “dancing man” as Anthony Powell has it, who effortlessly picked up a girlfriend at every stopping place, Widge Mackay who was so small that his regulation greatcoat made him look like a Russian general on the news, Arthur Dorwood I already mentioned desperate to get a rugby team together even in snow bound Canada. I’ve never corresponded with any of them since the war but still treasure pleasant memories of companionship through many months of boredom awaiting training. The group I have mentioned were designated as worthy of training in the two skills of navigator and bomb aiming which was a dying breed being more suited to Blenheim. Lancasters carried separate men for those two trades. There was as we discovered even at this stage of the war no shortage of air crew volunteers so we waited.

After some weeks at Heaton Park Manchester, a converted stately home, we were sent to do odd jobs on an operational airfield. I worked all that summer on the bomb dump at Faldingsworth in Lincolnshire. This is the only time I did anything useful to the war effort. My first sight of the bomb dump was alarming. In the corner of the flying field furthest away from the living quarters the bombs were ranged in several banked dugout bays. At one time there must’ve been 100 assorted bombs in stock 500 pounders, incendiary clusters, and thousand pounders. Half dozen of the bomb dump personnel could be descried, sitting astride individual bombs and attacking them with heavy claw hammers and cold chisels. “That’s what you’ll be doing,” said the corporal. “Pop along to that Nissan over there and find yourselves some tools. “ (This was Etkins and me). When we returned suitably armed (I was given a long tool I believe is called a case wrench), he explained that the only way to live in a bomb dump was to assume that all bombs were safe until they were fused, this is a fuse. He went on showing us a delicate locking cylindrical piece of metal with a miniature propeller at one end. This is set to explode after 16 turns of the propeller. He began turning it quite fast. “What the lads are doing is taking off the transit rings so that the lugs are exposed and the bomb is ready to be winched up into the aircraft. Now how many turns do I give it? Only pretending. Tonight’s raid is high-level so I’m only putting on half a dozen turns you don’t ever, understand, ever touch the fuses. He left us to get on with it.  Bombs, of course it stands to reason, had to be stored for lengthy periods in the open air and the important parts like the aforementioned lugs and the nose and the rear end had to be protected. The transit rings on which they could be rolled into place were fastened with metal split pins. And it was more often than not quite a laborious business. Rust we discovered can be quite solid. Then to finish this description of what we labourers did tailfins separately packed in stiff cardboard had to be fixed and then fuse the fused bombs had to be fixed and then the fused bombs. This is the only really dangerous bit were rolled onto a train sometimes as many as four coaches of low loaded trolleys waiting to be pulled by tractors out to the “frying pans”, hard standings where each individual aircraft was loaded. Driving the tractor was an extremely difficult task one more than one on what them on more than one occasion the driver cut the corner too fine and we had fused bombs roll off the trolley onto soft muddy grass. Still John and I seemed to be doing something useful. Shortly after the war the news came through that there had been a nasty accident with some fatalities at just such a bomb dump as John and I rather cheerfully hammered and chiselled our summer away.

Poles apart

Faldingsworth was home to the Anglo Polish bomber squadron. Its existence had been hidden from such “Herbs” as me. I was always entirely ignorant of anything Polish.

I remember being disappointed at the beginning of the war that the wonderful Polish cavalry did not as the Daily Express (my grandparents reading) promised us make short work of the German tanks who were sure to get stuck in the Pripet marshes. And I had seen “Dangerous Moonlight”. I had worshipped Sally Gray with every fibre of my pubescent being. I longed to comfort her and was faintly disappointed when Anton Walbrook recovered from his crash and took possession of her charms but he was of course fighter pilot and nobody could compete with a spitfire.

We air crew volunteers, proud of the white flashes we wore on our forage caps, were kept well away from the air cruise who manned the Lancasters. This was sensible from the morale point of view. It was not until the 60s when I read “Catch 22” that the full horror of what came home to me, of what I had so  light-heartedly volunteered to face. By this particular phase in the war there were not many losses on the nightly raids but we did like Max Hastings on the Falklands aircraft carrier count them out and count them back. And Billy Cook who worked in the repair hanger told us of the damage done particularly to the rear gun turrets.

Most of the original Polish air crews had been lost, but there were still a few. And there were some 200 or so Polish ground crew servicing engines et cetera et cetera. There were also about 20 or so Polish WAAFs.  Some of these girls had that continental chic personified by Elizabeth Berguer, Michelle Morgan Daniela Darrieux etc. Quite enchanting – so was the accent. All announcements over the tannoy were given in both languages first in Polish “Uwagga, Uwagga” and then in sexy broken English: “attention please attention! Eet ees Blackout Time Naow! All Blackout curtains must be ayusted immidgerly.”  And then a throaty gurgle, “Ah weel ripeet.” We loved her dearly. “Observe, admire if you must, but do not touch.” The flight sergeant told me these Polish colleagues of ours have a lot to put up with and they are liable to turn nasty if any of you lot make a pass at one of their women. To our credit I don’t think any of us, not even Lothario Etkins, disobeyed this injunction.

The were for some reason no Poles on the bomb dump. Probably they were all skilled electricians fitters and above such common labouring work. But Billy and John Chapman made a number of Polish friends in the repair shop. One evening there was a party in the Polish Nissan Huts. They were invited and took me along as their gate-crasher. They’ll be delighted to meet you they said and they were right. There was not nearly so much bullshit of course in this operational airbase as we had endured at Scarborough or Heaton Park. All the same there was a bossy Corporal from the Adjutant’s office who used to bustle into the hut mid-morning while we were dumping bombs, et cetera and woe betide us if there was evidence of floors unswept or bedding incorrectly piled. Nothing like that in the Polish huts where the birthday party took place. The walls had been painted highly coloured post expressionist abstract walls and plastered with photos, postcards, bits of Polish colour magazines. The beds were separated by folk weaving blankets hung on electric cable. The round black stove has been converted into something like a kitchen range by building a sort of bypass into the chimney. In the resulting oven a rabbit stew was bubbling. The guests were greeted with home-made vodka served in mugs. The stuff seem to run straight up past your nose ears and blast its way out of the top of your head. There was much sentimental singing accompanied by a guitarist who I was subsequently told had been a professional back home. I subsequently, a long time afterwards, thought: all praise to the station’s commanding officer to relax discipline to such an extent in favour of the exiles. I felt they had converted these few Nissen huts into something which felt to them just a little bit like home, they had no other.

One evening Atkins and I were just preparing to go into the camp cinema where the familiar sexy middle European voice came through on the tannoy. This time she cut the Polish preamble and simply said, all bomb dump personnel report to headquarters immediately I will repeat. Somethings up, we thought.

Indeed it was. We found our sergeant and two armoured corporals in earnest conversation with an army officer and also an RAF officer who I never saw but this once. He was actually responsible for all that went on in the camp. Our sergeant got us all together. “I’ve been told not to tell you this, but I know you  buggers, and you work a bloody sight harder if you know why. The Russian tanks are within 20 miles of Warsaw. The resistance has brought everybody onto the streets and they’ve taken over half the city. Our planes are making this run to Warsaw tomorrow night and they’ll be dropping this lot by parachute. He indicated with a sweep of his arm six medium sized army trucks in convoy nosing their way around the airfield perimeter fence towards us. We will have to clear a couple of bays and will need tarpaulins just in case the weather turns out nasty. For Christ sake don’t let me down. Show these brown jobs that us boys in blue can really get cracking when it’s important.” We didn’t know much about the way to handle the loads but the brown jobs (drivers) certainly did and I don’t think I’ve ever known a gang of men work so fast and by the time the last long thin crate of rifles and the last one marked fragile grenades were stacked it was midnight. “Well done lads” said the sergeant. “That’s it for tonight. Eight sharp tomorrow morning unless there’s a tannoy and remember not a word to anyone else in the station.” They need not have bothered. Everyone in the station knew already, there was intense excitement everywhere and know-all, would be aerodynamic Scientists were explaining how they were to go in low for the parachute drop and implying that we would be lucky if half the planes got back. The next day nothing happened! Nor the day after. On the third day the truck turned up again and we reloaded them up. It took us three times as long as it had to unload and stack, There was deep set misery in every Polish face we met,

In the autumn of 1946 as a commissioned officer and supposedly trained navigator I was working as an air traffic control officer at Boscombe down the air forces experimental establishment where aircraft were tested to their limits. One of the pilots, a much decorated squadron leader, was called Zurakovski. He was a very shy man but had charming manners. As a rather junior officer, it was not my place to speak unless I was spoken to. Nevertheless one morning I find myself seated next to him at breakfast and I mentioned my Faldingsworth days, “Would he be going back to Poland?” I asked now the war was over. “Poland!” he said, “there is no more Poland. The Russians saw to that.” No wonder he hadn’t cared if he lived or died. 10 years later I was working in Nottingham Playhouse where the resident designer was Voytek. He was a wonderfully inventive constructivist artist and a joy to work with. Except that his ground plans will never remotely accurate. But that’s another story. He told me that while I was unloading and reloading supplies for the airlift that never happened he was actually in and out of the sewers in Warsaw sniping at the Germans.

Canadian capers

Sir Cloudesley Shovell (a name beachcomber might have invented) was in real life an old sea dog of an admiral who, about 100 years before Nelson, won several great sea battles against the French. Navigation was not his strong point indeed his career rather foundered as did half the entire British fleet when thinking that he was easing into Plymouth harbour he ran his ship onto the rocks of the Scilly Isles. The rest of the squadron knew exactly how to do their duty. Every other ship followed the flagship lead and all hands on them kept a stiff upper lip as they drowned.

The excellent book longitude by David Sobel suggests that this would never have happened if the admiral’s ship had been equipped with one of Mr Harrison‘s Marine chronometers. Perhaps, but I wonder if he trusted too much on dead reckoning navigation?

My own little band of brother navigation/bomb aimers was eventually snatched from the fairly useful though unskilled work we were doing in Lincolnshire given a brief day or two leave. We were told to forget about the bomb aiming bit and regard ourselves as potential straight navigators. After quite a short delay and an even shorter spot of leave we boarded the Isle de France and after suffering days of seasickness to a man landed in Halifax New Brunswick. Autumn in the Maritime Provinces is absolutely gorgeous. Some Edwardian Poet has a line about “trees like Indian princes, hung with jewels soon to be bare”. He must’ve taken the train journey from Monkton New Brunswick to Campbelltown as John Chapman and I did on one first week of leave from our new holding unit. We spent a further month waiting.

The people of Canada (at least the English-speaking part was then a very divided country) could not possibly have given me a warmer welcome. They opened their homes to us any and every weekend we had free. Not a cent did we pay for our lodging in Campbellton, St John, Winnipeg, Banff, Alberta and we were stuffed so full of food we all started to put on weight losing the lean spare fitness the Scarborough hill paths had induced. Some of the families had young men serving in Europe. In some strange way I think they saw us as the battle of Britain’s Spitfire pilots who had saved civilisation in 1940. We knew very well we were just a bunch of fairly nice mannered pimply adolescents who knew very little about life. Split into? Well, yes. The French Canadians were up in arms or rather they were out on the streets refusing to be conscripted into taking up arms into purposeful hands. Through a school friend of mine (a fly half an Emperor in Androcles) I had an address in Montréal, where, he assured me, I’d find a welcome and his aunt and uncle certainly did me proud in the week that I stayed with them. It was an exciting time to be in Montréal. The leader of the French group on the city Council had been put in jail for creating a disturbance. Nevertheless, he was running for mayor. The French outnumbered the English in the Eastern states particularly in Quebec and evidently been a strong separatist movement in the 30s. They regarded the English overall majority nationwide with the deepest suspicion. And the introduction of conscription for the armed forces and essential industry was what they thought yet another rightwards move by an already right wing conservative imperialist government. Not that they were against the war, so the French-speaking barman explained to me, but they thought Canada was providing sufficient manpower voluntarily. I had sense enough not to discuss the politics of it with the Derek aunt and uncle. They had no time for Churchill they told me, something of a firebrand radical in his youth and they heard he swears like a trooper.

The crowds in the street were triumphantly jubilant when their champion jailbird won the election A merry time was had by all. But it was a close run thing. It could’ve been quite ugly. One of the things which intrigued me was the way all announcements in East Canadian were made in both languages. The lift operator in Eatan’s departments store approximately equivalent to the Debenhams chain never stopped talking. They were two or three floors and a basement when he had to tell the shoppers what could be found in each first in French of course then in English and by the time you got to the foot of the list on each floor he had a full load of passengers in patient to ascend or perhaps descend to ladies underwear for example. The Skeffingtons, my hosts, lived in a suburb called Saint Ann Bellevue where the station master shouted the full name in French and more cursorily Saint Ann’s in English walking the full length of the train. One suburban route was called Bishop. There was the official who called out the name Bishop (upwards on the second syllable) then Bishop downward with very explosive final p.  We couldn’t fail to notice that the same rule applied to longer train journeys to the road to Winnipeg the nearest city to the airfield where we were at long last to start training – in the town called Portage La Prairie, again delivered in impeccably impeccable French but repeated in English.  It snowed during our weeks leave in Montréal and we had enjoyed a ride in a sleigh taxi up to the top of the hill was a very grand building which looked like a modernist cathedral.  It was in fact the insurance headquarters of the Canadian Sunlight. And it snowed regularly all the way to the three buildings which constituted the location shown with the smallest possible dot on the map as Rivers Manitoba.

So back to where this chapter started – dead reckoning navigation. The theory of this is reasonably easy to explain. You point your aircraft guided by compass in a certain direction say west. You fly at a constant speed for an hour. You draw a line on your chart in this case horizontal to the left. You then measure to scale the distance the aircraft must’ve travelled and that is where you should be in theory. You look out of the window and see by the map you’re not there at all. Why should this be? You have been told to expect this. The wind will have blown you off course. You make a mark on the chart of your actual position and you can then by joining up the two dots on your chart measure the wind-speed in miles per hour. If you haven’t followed this so far, feel free to cut to the end of the chapter. You can then as we navigators say D R ahead to an imaginary position and in say 10 minutes time when you can instruct the pilot to turn onto a new course, which will get you to your destination. You can also calculate an estimated time of arrival (ETA) Easy-peasy you might think. It is my belief that this navigational method was the same as was used by the Cloudesley all those years ago except that in his case his navigation officer would’ve been trying to calculate not the wind (Sir Cloudesley’s wet finger would’ve told him about that) but the sea currents. I believe the RAF towards the end was still teaching navigation as it was taught in the 18th century navy.

Of course we all knew that it was all it was now done by radio beam, by assistant system known as GEE. But how this worked was secret and the equipment was far too expensive to be fitted into every training plane. In any case know-alls were telling us GE was being superseded by something called H25 which sounded suspiciously like a bad smell which the school chemistry lab used to produce on occasion. Navigating by day in Canada was in fact relatively easy. Most of the exercises took place in daytime. Very nearly all the roads ran absolutely due north south and the hedges clearly discerned even when under several feet of snow took a similar line so that the country lay below us like a grid map and we were soon to get to know every hamlet – that one had a church, that one had grain elevators and so on. It was about impossible not to cheat and we did it and we didn’t really. We had a colleague and most were intimate friends by now who flew as second navigator and he was kind enough to keep his eyes open which some didn’t and he would keep you abreast of the plane’s actual position and you had every chance to correct any minor mistakes which you might have made on your chart and flight log. These were impounded immediately on landing which brings me to the pilots. None of them were exactly friendly. Most of them did a boring job highly professionally and were decent enough to circle the base a couple of times to give you a chance to close off your plot properly before landing. But there were one or two who emphatically did not follow the navigators’ instructions and who kept to a mere, approximation of the course prescribed and allowed by the airspeed to fluctuate quite wildly. The next day there would be an air and analysis sort of 3rd° interrogation where the exercise was talked through by the navigation instructor trained to pounce on any discoverable cheating like the Spanish Inquisitor.

I made a shaky start on this course but I was lucky to have Billy as my second Nav. in most of the trips. But I got into the swing of it by the last few exercises. In one of them you had to get above a lying blank bank of flattish cloud and navigate by the Sun and one radio station. You then had to return to base. I’ve always thought it was a fluke, but I gave the pilot a course to steer at a reduced airspeed and we descended through the thick cloud and hit base absolutely plumb. The next day I was treated with great respect by the instructor at the air analysis. Evidently the pilot had given me something of a testimonial. The other difficult exercise was a night trip where one had only to use the stars. This time I also gained a bit of kudos. We ran into a thunderstorm and the plane was struck by lightning. Don’t worry, said the pilot, it won’t hurt you; we’re not earthed. Not difficult not to be a little perturbed blue streaks were running all round the airframe.  The radio packed up completely so no contact with base. Come up here, said the pilot and look what’s happening to the compass. The needle was going around like a second-hand of a stopwatch. I’m going to climb to see if we can get out of this stuff. I suggested that if the compass settle down at all, we should do something coastal command navigation did when conducting a square for someone who been lost. You fly for 10 minutes heading north, then turn due East then south and so on then you want to finish up somewhere where near where you started so as we climbed we did this squares search procedure we escaped the violence of the electrical storm, but there was no diminution in the general bumpiness. One minute the floor seems to be drumming your feet pumping you upwards the next dropping like a stone. About 20,000 feet were nearly the ceiling for the ancient aged aeroplane and there was no abatement at all in the extreme turbulence. There’s nothing for it, said the pilot. We’ll have to go down again. On the descent there was suddenly a break in the cloud and way down below some twinkling lights. I said I think that might be Regina. The pilot agreed either that or Bismarck North Dakota. We turned east flew home through blinding sleet and hail and managed to pick up the line of the railway. All the planes on the exercise got back safely but some of the top navigators had got very badly lost indeed and had to trust entirely to the pilot’s good sense to find their way back at all. Tales of the great white Desert Northlake Winnipeg were recounted, where there are no landmarks at all.

I got another good report from the pilot because the instructor at the air analysis said to me, “You know I have been teaching this navigational method for a couple of years now and I’ve come to the conclusion that DR navigation doesn’t really work. Here’s the problem. Does it still work if you have a wind which is backing and steadily increasing velocity?  Before you know it your position would be 40 miles out.” I thought about it for some time and couldn’t get to grips with it at all. Oddly enough if the instructor and I had known in the B flight of our course was in fact Einstein’s rival the future mathematician, Emeritus and distinguished fellow of Christ College Christopher (Topher) Zeeman, the problem would have been child’s-play to him. Come to think of it he and Jimmy Cleveland finished top of our course so perhaps he discovered something that neither my instructors knew about. And up among the Cloudesleys, Admiral Shovell is still perhaps wondering exactly where he went wrong.

Fast forward Voyager to the scrapyard.

It was RAF policy that all members of operational air crew should be of the rank of Sergeant or above. The end of our course came within a day or two of the end of hostilities in Europe. We all expected to be posted to Boundary Bay Vancouver to do our advanced training on Liberators and then be sent to finish off the Japanese. I was in much demand as I could play the piano a bit in each of the messes Airmen’s’ Sergeants’ and Officers’. Somehow or other although much liquor was consumed, there was no climax to the celebrations. I knew by comparison that all of London would force its way to Saint Pauls or Big Ben to hear the midnight chimes, a new beginning. So I think our little lot felt a bit deflated when we hiccupped our way to bed. We were all a little hung over at the passing out ceremony where it was hinted that we had all passed. We were given several days leave and we were to report for orders the next morning to the rail transport officer at Winnipeg station. The telegram was brief. All commissioned officers except Clayton and Fenn. Pilot officers Cleveland and Zeman to report to Boundary Bay in two weeks time.  The rest and Sergeants Clayton and Fenn to return to Monkton to await transport to England.

I mentioned Clayton and Fenn in particular because they seemed to me to be quite capable fellows. About a third of the chaps who had begun with us had been for one reason or another CT’d (ceased training). Some for persistent air sickness, others for failing to get their heads round what I was to think of as the Cloudesley Shovell theorem. Why these two fellows? Really. The rest of us had been earmarked as officer material from the moment we signed on. Why? We have been educated at a public school. This war had done little to heal class divisions at least in the RAF. Percy Fenn had been a popular and amusing member of our class and I at least had nothing against Archie Clayton either. But soon after we arrived at Monkton, we were given a stern lecture by some admin squadron leader on how we were to regard ourselves as elevated to a privileged position above the common herd. For instance he said some of you have been coming into the dining room in the evenings and shoving your forage caps into the shoulder loops of your battle dress. Now this simply won’t do it’s very “Airman-like” behaviour. We understood and make allowances for the fact that you’ve been permitted to return to England and get yourself kitted out as officers there. But for heaven sake that’s no excuse for slovenly dress here.

As a mark of our rank we put a white rope over our left shoulders and through the aforementioned loop. Some wags among the canaille of the other ranks spread it around amongst the Monkton girls that this meant we were under treatment for venereal disease! This put something of a blight on our romantic life for a month or two. “Roll on the boat and lose.” “ I’m fed up and I’m fucked up and I’m cheesed” were the hit songs. It was high summer before we got to Halifax to board the SS Britannic.

The skipper of this prestigious Cunard White liner was extremely anxious to opt to resume its operations as a peace time cruise ship. All praise to him. But he was faced with housing some 200 or so officers being repatriated first class. He solved it by putting an extra double bunk into each cabin. So we were packed in 3 to each single cabin and forward to each double one. I believe some of the state room accommodation accommodated six. The Marx Brothers film said it all. He also headed SSE not due East (he couldn’t fool a bunch of canny navigators). I think this must’ve been to get us into really sunny climes before coasting home on the Gulf stream. Much deck tennis was played. I teamed up with Arthur Dorwood. I used my line-up jumping skills to grab the high ones while he dived about miraculously like the wonderful scrumhalf he was to retrieve the quota at ground level. We reached the final but we were beaten by a pair from the crew. We only discovered afterwards that a great deal of money would have been lost if we had won. There was quite a lot of gambling on the ship with a sweepstake every day on the distance run. We navigators tried desperately hard to win this but there was nothing but the Sun to rely on, the time passed more than pleasantly.

Billy and I one day remembered Percy Fenn. We found Sergeant Fenn, his stripes were fixed as opposed to us being still dressed as an airman, several decks below us, as it were the steerage accommodation. There were no more than half a dozen other ranks in the area. They were strictly barred from climbing up to the sundecks or first class accommodation. He was quite comfortable but rather lonely. And we took to popping down to see him every afternoon, until an officer of the crew told us politely but firmly that this practice must cease. The cruise was idyllic. Even so we made slow progress. The captain probably knew there was a tremendous traffic jam in Liverpool. We had taken five days to make the crossing of the “Ile”. Full speed ahead day and night because of the U-boats it took us eight days on the Britannic and then we had five days to anchor off the north Welsh coast waiting for a berth on the Mersey. We were given about a fortnight kitting out leave. The atmosphere in London was tremendous, exhilarating fresh starts being planned in all directions. Labour had announced it was withdrawing its ministers from the national government and would be seeking a general election. Consternation in my parents’ home. My mother was running as a Conservative candidate for Chelsea council. “I’m afraid David is slightly pink,” she used to say when introducing me to one of her double barrel friends. Fat lot of good being any colour I thought. It will be well more than six years before I can vote. Still there was a wonderful plan for rebuilding London. Best chance we’ve had since Wren people were saying. Alas the county of London plan as I think it was called was only ever partially carried out.

In the previous summer of my embarkation leave the morale in London was not good. The doodlebugs had been bad enough but there was something of a Heath Robinson absurdity about them. How they puttered and faltered to a halt. And for all that you took cover or fell flat on your faces and had a bit of a laugh together afterwards. Not so funny of course for my aunt whose barrister husband Val was killed by one of these infernal things outside the law courts. She was already mourning the loss of my cousin Peter killed in action, a day or two after D-Day. But the rocket propelled V2 was something quite other. I happened to be in London when the first one of these fell in Chiswick. Word of mouth spread the news. I’ve been shopping in the Fulham Road. No warning, no aeroplane, no whistle no nothing! Just an enormous explosion and two terraces of houses destroyed. I thought this can’t be true. It surely just a doodlebug. But it was true. London is were feeling that there was no safety any time anywhere. We had survived the blitz. We had made light of the doodlebugs but this… I had worried for my parents the whole time I was in Canada. But a year later everyone’s head seemed to be up and the girls! – how did they manage after nearly 6 years of grueling war to look so spanking fresh? So delectable, so ravishing.

Our little group was summoned by telegram to go to Herefordshire to take a month’s course in jungle survival. Perhaps we were going to be sent after all to the Far East where hostilities were continuing. The weather was glorious and the course was rather fun rather like being in the Boy Scouts. So my friends told me. I spent some time doing nothing in particular in the Llyn Peninsula once we walked up Snowden and scrambled down the more difficult side and Cranage (near Holmes Chapel in Cheshire). Easy access to Manchester city where some somehow I always failed to enjoy myself. I was in London on leave again swanking around the West End and seeing all the shows when the appalling news of Hiroshima and Nagasaki came through on the radio. There was not so much triumphalism in the celebrations this time. Some of us were more than stunned by the manner in which victory had been achieved. Still there was a huge relief that it was all over.

Yet there was a sense of time wasted when the order came through report to RAF Perth. This has been an elementary flying school for pilots and so it said some supplementary notice it was now to be used as a holding unit for redundant air crew. The word redundant was now common parlance it was new to me. I guess the sense of it but looked it up in the dictionary. Superfluous it said surplus to requirements. Useless I thought on the scrap heat and still under 20.

And always the nagging thought I must make some decision as to what I am to do. Little did I know it was quite dramatic but Perth would be the scene of the biggest turning point of my life.

At the third stroke

Life in Perth as opposed to say Cranage was far from depressing. The weather still continued charming as Cecily says and I had by now joined up again with Cook, Chapman and Etkins as officers fairly free of pettifogging discipline. There was a rollcall at 8 am every morning before breakfast. We had to do two hours flying every week in the stations fleet of Tiger Moths. The navigational skill required was simple map reading. Some of the pilots liked to show off, not merely looping the loop (not unpleasant) but slow rolling (very sickening) and pulling out of deliberate spins (alarming). But a splendid sergeant instructor pilot called Cash felt the time could be better spent teaching these sprog navigators the basic rules of flight. Circuits and bumps take-offs and landings in a meadow away from the base and the eyes of the OC. After initial clumsiness I became possibly good at it. I even pulled correctly out of an accidentally induced spin. Apart from these two duty calls per day, we were free to pursue our pleasurable ways.

 Perth is a charming city, straddling the Tay before it utterly leaves the highlands and debouches into the flatlands around Dundee. There are plenty of stylish Georgian buildings and delightful walks on the “two inches” (Meadows which flank the river to the north and south of the town). We walked to Dunkeld and up Kinwall hill and onto the Moorland. We took a bus to romantic Killiekrankie. There was a weekly dance at the Salutation hotel where there were plenty of lusty lasses to teach us the “eightsome” and “the dashing white sergeant”. You could not fail to notice that in spite of the fair amount of liquor being consumed there was very little bad behaviour (as distinct from the bomber command hops, Etkins and I sampled on Saturday nights in Lincolmbe. But we were wondering what it would be like when the winter closed in, what would poor David or John or Billy do, poor things?

One September morning and an announcement was made at role call, rather diffidently: in I-don’t-suppose-any-of-you-would-be-interested sort of tones. The local theatre was just going into rehearsal and needed to recruit half a dozen amateurs to walk on. Any volunteers report to the theatre at such and such a time. To my shame I hadn’t known nor had any of the others of my group but there was a theatre in Perth. There was no poster in our mess. But enquiry from the civilian staff revealed a great local pride in the place. No one seem to know what play was in preparation. Some sort of mystery play we gathered. Perhaps Edgar Wallace I thought or Patrick Hamilton or something like “Murder without Caine” but there were only three people in that. No walk-ons.

We duly reported to the theatre, laid-back from the High Street by a sort of arcade, so there was no pseudo-classical facade. We enquired at the box office and were directed to retrace our steps: turn right at the High Street and then sharp right again and we’d find the stage door. As we retraced our steps we noticed a poster for the play we hoped to appear in. “The Marvellous History of Saint Bernard”. That sort of mystery we realized. Right again led to a rather unprepossessing narrow “vennel” (Scots for Alley) but we found the stage door and we met by a little gnome called Bill. He suffered constant interruptions as he explained what would be required of us. Different people came in with important problems. A whispered colloquy and off they went again briskly enough. Then a charming smile to us and apologies having to do 10 things at once. He was of course the stage manager. We were to be pilgrims in the first scene of the play, on top of the mountain in the Alps. We would enter singing a Gregorian chant but would be scattered by the devil of the mountain. Exit omnes in confusion. And we would come on again as monks to dress the stage for the dedication of the newly built chapel of Saint Bernard at the head of the pass. That Saint Bernard we thought. Was there a script to the play? No, none could be spared, but he handed us the music of the two chants. I volunteered to pick the unison tunes out on the piano back at the mess. Who is going to play the dog, one of us enquired. Bill begged us not to undertake this unless we would promised on our honour to go on for all the performances. We can block you in on Thursday morning 10 o’clock sharp. And then we probably won’t need you again till Monday dress rehearsals.

We were sent to the wardrobe to have our measurements taken. And the ASM who had met us at the door enjoined us to absolute silence as our little group worked its way onto the stage where a reading was going on, up through the prompt side wings and through the pass door. The wardrobe was situated at the very top of the theatre in what at once been and was still referred to as the Gallery Bar. To get there you crossed the back of one of the stage level boxes. Up to this point we had been rather shruggy about the whole thing. What on earth have we been fools enough to volunteer for.

A sight of the auditorium through the open curtains at the back of the box did much to reassure us or at least me. There was a ravishingly beautiful turn of the century all cream and gilt and red flush seating with delightfully carved circle and gallery and two boxes on each side. I never ever took the trouble to find out who the architect was. Shame on me. Some mute inglorious Scottish Matcham I still suppose. But he at least had not thought that theatre was a waste of time.

Back at base (RAF base that is) we bored everybody by learning our two dirges studiously and could sing them quite lustily. We duly reported Thursday morning and met the director very briefly. And we were given our moves. “Now I don’t want any of you to act,” she said “and sing very quietly”. Try to think as a group. Keep your heads bowed”. The other actors met us with barely a nod. As extras we had no personality. Bill reappeared and said Susan, her name was Susan Richmond, (quite well thought of at the BBC) is very pleased. There’s going to be a run through on Friday afternoon. Can you manage it? We certainly could. If we weren’t exactly enthused, we were at least thoroughly intrigued.

Dress rehearsal was on the following Monday with the opening performance bearing down on everybody like a thundercloud. We tyros were less nervous than anybody else. Lucky us. I had to make another trip to the wardrobe during the run of the DR. My sandals were the wrong size or something. And on the way back, as it says in the song, it happened to me.

They had reached the point where Bernard, our young man from a well-to-do family had felt the call and was going to reject the world and enter a monastery. Father (who is going to carry on the business) and tearful mother (I was so looking forward to grandchildren). All of that young Bernard could handle. But now he had to deal with the girl he was engaged to marry. On the page I had by now managed to borrow a script the scene seemed prosy : Full of high-flown noble sounding philosophy. I realise now that this was exactly the same situation only in reverse that had thunderstruck me and the audience in Androcles. The actor and actress were playing it with a quiet intensity and there was that same stillness in the theatre that expectant hush. I was transfixed and watching, ceasing to breathe as I came to the box I felt the trembling in the base of my spine the buildup of excitement. Just as Miss Ford had done at the Palladium and Dennis and Lionel had in the Shaw play.

This time however there was no release of tension, no orgasm. Miss Richmond‘s soft voice from the auditorium: “just hold it a moment please it’s going splendidly but I can’t light you properly there. Nancy, could you just move a pace to stage right? That’s it: much better.” “Could I try the entrance again since we’ve stopped? I’ve got to get used to this bloody train,” a vicious kick on the offending bit of costume. Miss Nancy Jackson to be Marguerite the 17-year-old and becoming a twentyish actress brisk practical, rather weary. Time was precious at these dress rehearsals. “Sorry John,” she said to Bernard. “Can she just move a fraction further down stage as we stopped?” said Mr Moffett, and the theatrical magic was gone. But I was I had a glimpse as though through a doorway to a secret garden of a wonderful world of creative imagination, full of exciting images. There was beauty lived and truth and fun too. I knew somehow I had to get through that little gate and belong to the magic world of theatre.

Three strikes and you’re in!

I realise in retrospect I was incredibly lucky. True I had to spend more than two further years in the Air Force. But the Perth theatre took me on as an actor ASM immediately I was demobbed in November 1947.

There was no calculation on my part. The first step was to be available at all hours, (apart from 8 am duty roll call and a weekly two hours flying) as an auxiliary ASM cum scene-shifter. I was immensely grateful to Bill Jay for giving me the chance to learn a few of the ropes. And speaking of ropes, my thanks to Jock McClasham, the theatre’s Master carpenter for using me occasionally as a fly man and also the knack not many of today’s trainee stage managers have of joining two 18 foot flats at the top with a flick of the wrist and the length of sash cord. I mentioned this because as a professional I have always been in favour of the unionization of the labour force on the creative side. I do not often care to mention that I began as an unpaid amateur “helping hand”.

Bill became quite a close friend. Theatrical friendships are often short-lived but they are warm. Bill finished up as the technical right hand of Duncan Weldon. Well, not quite finished up. I met him again when I too was near retirement, directing for a drama school and lo –  he was the stage manager. Within minutes of our first beer and sandwich we were chatting away. This was 45 years later catching up on gossip reminding each other of the jokes shared. Neither of us was particularly happy at this drama school and Bill gave in his notice and I sought no further work there after the play opened, immaculately stage-managed of course.

The Perth theatre fell back in 1945 again into the category of an art house. Not many reps would have tackled Saint Bernard. Andre Obey knew how to make a Gallic joke or two as well as how to tug at the heartstrings. But those who came, quite a few, thoroughly enjoyed it. In the run-up to that Christmas they did “Cherry Orchard” guest directed by John Furnell, and  “Ah Wilderness”,  O’Neil’s only and sadly neglected comedy. Richard Johnson younger than me but the trainee actor playing the juvenile lead. “Quality Street”, sentimental but beautifully crafted;  “Dear Octopus”, a family play with a huge cast (at least three per tentacle). “Prunella” Granville Barkers rather touching fantasy. The plot of this was filched into “The Fantastics” and even more “twee” but breaking all records for its long run in New York. John Muffett superb as Scaramouche. And at Christmas Thackeray’s pantomime “The Rose and the Ring.”. And squeezed in was the “Doctors Dilemma guest directed by a gauleiter of an up-and-coming director named Guy Dreghy a Hungarian who stirred the company up no end. Actors’ epigram about a demanding director: “he asked the impossible and gets it”. This man didn’t achieve this, not quite. Afterwards I heard of him once or twice as a director and as an actor of sinister roles. He was perhaps brilliant enough to have made an international name for himself. But he tripped over his own arrogance. I remembered him when after seven years professional experience I became a director myself.

I mentioned this autumn programme, perforce a bit rough and ready, I refuse to use the word tatty. It was performed by a company of people absolutely devoted to their work. They had to be. I don’t suppose many of the company were highly politicised. But they were a Soviet or a commune. They worked for no salary but a basic share of the profits when the overheads were paid. The company found digs for the actors and a sumptuous meal usually stew was provided for all in the basement of an elegant house owned by the theatre’s well-wishers. The theatre was Medium scale perhaps 650 to 700 or so when the gallery was opened and full the actors might pull in to perhaps £8 but with the above mentioned program except for the Christmas show the house was rarely jam-packed.

I also remember this autumn program with astonishing clarity because I was artistic director of a subsidised rep in a town in which I still live in 16 years later roughly similar population and rather conservative (large and small “c”) in taste. I managed to put on apart from Shakespeare perhaps one large cast drama per season and if that one did mediocre business, it was a series of small cast plays for the spring and some excellent actors out of work.

Abler historians than I have traced the history of the repertory movement from its beginnings in Manchester with Miss Horniman. But I’ve read some of Wilkinson‘s memoirs of the 18th century Northern circuit. And there is more than a nugget of truth amid the caricatures of the Crummles’ company. It seems probable that in those days the bulk of the provincial audience was less sophisticated than in the 20th century. Sir Barry Jackson in whose Birmingham rep I had the privilege of serving for six years said to me just before the opening of the first play I directed: “Remember David that you and I are here to serve.” And the stress is important. I wouldn’t have anyone think there was anything precious about Barry. An Edwardian gentleman of taste he certainly was, but a practical man. Nothing arty. He spent his very considerable fortune inherited from his father‘s grocery business into providing provincial audiences with quality entertainment. There were others. I have mentioned Miss Horniman (Horniman’s tea, I wouldn’t be surprised). Robert Digby in Colchester. I’ve no idea where the money came from (and yes I know the standards fell rather in his late rather sodden years) to open to small makeshift theatre during the 30s. Older theatre goers in the town told me when I arrived in 1966, what absolutely splendid work have been done before the war. Another figure was Miss Marjorie Deuce; she was one of the shyest people I have ever met. She had trained as an actress in London and almost immediately after graduation come home to Perth.  Her father – perhaps to get his daughter safely under his wing again (who knows?) bought outright the little Perth touring theatre. Marjorie was an excellent actress. I mentioned figure – well – she was as Shakespeare says of the lady in “Comedy of Errors”, spherical. She played the matriarch in “Dear Octopus” quite beautifully and was playing quite low comedy. I also remember her  (but not the name of the play) as being good at low comedy hurtling around the stage in a wheelchair apocalyptically shouting, in broad Cockney “it’s coming!” to hilarious effect. The company was always begging her to do more performance work. But to very little avail. Pity I’d rather think she was one of those excellent performers – Dirk Bogarde was another such one who found going on stage and an almost unbearable, nervous trauma. He was often physically sick at the half. I believe that Marjorie even when houses were poor made sure there was a pound or 30 shillings in each of the actors’ pay packet every week.

I have left to the last “1066 and All That.” This musical revue had been mounted earlier in the year and is apparently broken up box office records. It was decided to revive it. Most of the actors cheered heartily – it meant they might yet earn a bit of money to buy Christmas presents. Nearly all the cast were reassembled and replaced by one or two excellent singers. I suppose someone had heard me tunefully in one of the onstage revelries which began for an hour or two on the Saturday night after the old setting has been struck before the new one began to be built. But I was asked if I would fill in playing the odd part and helping with a bit of the get out of a bit of body to the chorus. For instance in the sketch with the centurion called out for the right number. I was number IV; HardiKnute in King Knut gag; George the third in the quartet singing the Lorlei et cetera et cetera. Halfway through rehearsals one of the actors asked whether somebody else could play his role in 10 minutes farce, ridiculing the British Raj in the India. Will I give it ago? Does a cat like cream?

The character was a certain Mr. Raffling, a subaltern in the Indian army who was having a passionate affair with the wife of Colonel Biggadsby. Much fun was had inventing excuses for the extra tops on the hat rack. I had seen the Walls/Lynn partnership with my mother at a matinee and thought I knew how to do it when we came to rehearse the sketch, terrifyingly close to run through and dress rehearsal. I prepared a stutter and a curtain ring monocle – Woodhouse silly type you see. After a couple of lines Mrs Biggadsby beckoned me over to the corner of the stage. Eleanor Lithgow known universally as Vicky because of reputedly class performances in Victoria Regina beckoned me to the prompt quarter. “Play it straight,” she said. “ Come on as a personable young officer which is exactly what you are, a winning smile thinking about an afternoon in bed with an attractive older woman.” She looked me straight in the eye, gave me both barrels as the modern phrase is. “I hope you won’t find that too difficult,” then very firmly, “start with the reality it’s a good script the comedy will follow it.” It was from this excellent advice that my theatre career became a possibility.

The spring season: “She passed through Lorraine”, a chocolate box Medieval France too sweet for current hard-bitten taste. “Tovarich” , a wonderful performance by John Moffett as the Soviet Commissar begging the return of the imperial jewels for the Land Utilization Project. Quintero’s “A Hundred Years Old”, (Nancie, 17 in Bernard, now a centenarian and brilliant in each). The company certainly set its sights high when it came to programming. I worked as a member of the stage crew throughout the period but had no opportunity to “go on”.

I got posted away from Perth about Easter time and spent the next year and a half training and becoming an air traffic control officer. Before I left, I posed two questions. The first was to John Moffett whom I much admired particularly for his versatility. Personally, he had a somewhat odd appearance – head too large for his body, prominent spectacles. Slightly ungainly walk. He looked rather like a very young Robertson Hare. But on stage he seemed able to do anything. He looked positively handsome as Bernard. Wickedly sly and graceful as a ballet dancer as Scaramouche in “Prunella”, a young man of the world in a brilliant cameo in “Ah Wilderness”. A tougher Canadians squaddie in “A Soldier for Christmas”. I asked him if he thought I had any future as a professional actor.” Oh for God sake don’t,” he said. Then seeing my disappointment, he went on, “Only go for it if you feel there’s nothing else you can possibly do.” Another pause. “At this stage there’s no advice anyone can give you. But I will say this on stage you have a strong personality. At the moment it lacks how shall I put it? – It seems to wander about all over the place.” He didn’t mention the word training but asked if I had read Stephen Haggard‘s book: “I’ll go to bed at noon”. As it happened I had. He said he had developed as an actor the rough and the rough amateur work and very much identified with the young man whom Haggard had advised after seeing him in a Schnitzler play. I never knew who was Moffett’s guru but I guess he had one, just as Alec Guinness had developed under the tutorage of Martita Hunt. Unaunted by this but nevertheless trembling I confronted Marjorie Dence, “Well yes,” she said.

“We’ll give you a start. Bill J says you might make a decent stage manager. Write to me before you get out and I’ll see what I can do. I was in!!!

The officer responsible

At some point in the spring of 46 the Air Force remembered the little cadre of redundant good for nothing officers doing nothing productive in Perth and off we went severally for a couple of days aptitude testing in Caterick. During the interview I mentioned that I had the promise of theatre work directly I was demobbed. That won’t be for at least 18 months I was told I was sent to be interviewed by a squadron leader. His name was Henry Stryker, who had apparently been a pro before the war. The idea was presumably that I might take charge of a sort of outfit Peter Nichols served in shortly afterwards – a touring concert party. It soon became clear to both of us that I was too inexperienced for that. Striker was very much a West End or nothing type of actor and regarded any sort of provincial theatre except major prior-to-London touring houses with great almost sneering condescension. All the same we had a pleasant chat and a laugh or two. We both adored Hermione Gingold.

I was shortly after this notified that I had been considered suitable for a photographic observer whatever that was and I was to go to London for interview prior to training at Medmenham. All I knew about the location was it was some kind of ex-monastery which had housed the Regency Hellfire club. It was quite intriguing,

I was interviewed in a scrubby office behind a double locked door by a man in his 50s unshaved shirt-sleeved civvies. Dirty coffee cups everywhere, a few television screens and operators for magnifying photographs. A bespectacled resigned elderly typist tapping away in an inner broom cupboard somewhere. He was busy examining some sheets of paper he waved to a chair. “You’re Buxton?” he asked “should be okay. Just have a look at this with you.” He beckoned to an epidiascope like machine which displayed something which looked like an infant school picture.

What do you make of it? Not a lot? I confessed he fiddled with the focus suddenly it looked like a map. What do you see now? A great grey wash which might be the sea, a river and higgledy-piggledy houses. He made it sharper still. Boats, I said it’s good. He smiled at me for the first time. “You’ll do. When can you start?” I said something about Medmenham and training he reverted to a sudden mutter of “bugger that” he said. “I need someone now. You can learn on the job. Two of my staff were demobbed last week and I’ll be out. I’ll be out in the autumn. There’s only me and Morty left. You’ll be hearing”. And he returned to some paperwork I went to the door. “I’m squadron leader X (I can’t remember his name by the way). I was wondering whether I ought to put on my hat and salute then he called me back momentarily, “What you’ve seen here is high security secret you have to sign the defence of the realm. When you come, would you like to know what you were looking at?” I nodded. It was Rostock. I remembered this interview with great clarity because in the 60s I read with pleasure Len Deighton’s novel “The Ipcress file”. The description of the CD office of the Tottenham Court Road in Deighton’s case was so similar to those in Queen Anne’s Gate that I suddenly realise that the Air Force had thought I would make a useful addition to the spy network. It was only there. I looked up Rostock on the map well inside East Germany and behind the iron curtain. Immediately postwar of course my opinions were as far as I have said leftish. And I was filled with dewy eyed idealism about the United Nations. And I felt despite the Warsaw business that the Russians were now our comrades in a new world. I could’ve easily been drawn into the Burgess McLean Philby network. Fortunately it never happened. I got back to Perth and received a telegram saying the Medmenham course had been cancelled. Await orders I did not have long to wait. I was sent a totally different tack to Watchfield on the Berkshire Oxfordshire border to become an air control officer. After a very short period as number three officer in the control tower at an advanced pilot training school where there was a rhythm and routine to the work, I was posted to the Air Force experimental station at Boscombe Down. There I replaced after a week or two the number two. The job was interesting enough and it was obvious that the work was urgent and important. Even nearly a year after the war the fight in the Far East ended aircraft production had hardly started to be wound down and all sorts of experiment were in the pipeline. However such support services as ATO control offices were never told much about were that such-and-such an aircraft was being tested to its limits – signs of engine overheating for example. We in the control tower learn to recognise the clipped tones of the pilot in difficulties and took good care to sound reassuring while we contacted the wing commander who had ordered the experiment.

My other problem was with my boss, a South African, possibly Cape Coloured. I never enquired. A flight lieutenant, he very experienced in flying control at this very station. He had done the job through most of the later war years and what he did not know about it was not worth knowing. The trouble was that the whole system (it was now called air traffic control) was being drastically changed to cope with vastly increased civil aviation activity: so that our immediate superiors’ group – One I think it was called based at Andover – wanted reports in a different language to that used by Tom. Also he had rented a cottage some 15 miles from the aerodrome and his car was always breaking down. So not only did I have to cover for him; somehow I had to find time to use the control tower transport to ferry him to and from work. To say the least, it was a stressful time. It occurs to me now that there is something in my psyche which only allows me to be absolutely at my best when I’m working in a group. The group of friends I have been at university with had disappeared who knew where. I was very much on my own. There were very few junior offices in an officers’ mess full of much decorated war veterans. Up to a point it seemed if you had not at the DFC you weren’t in the club. It’s also perhaps true to say of me that I did without conscious effort on my part drift into the leadership of this group I was involved with. So I usually became pack leader of the rugby teams I played with and more importantly, although I never achieved a great deal as an actor, I found my proper place in the theatre as a director. There was a drama group in the camp and I joined them for a production of “While the Sun shines” playing the French lieutenant. I kept fairly quiet about my ambitions, to be a professional but I did get a few laughs. And they asked me to direct the next play. We decided on Emlyn Williams’ “A Murder has been Arranged”. Then fate described by P.G. Wodehouse as constantly waiting around the corner with a brick struck three times in quick succession. The Fleet Air Arm Pilot who had been coming along quite nicely in the Emelyn Williams hero villain part was posted. Nobody, least of all me, wanted to have a go. I think I was the only one who was really disappointed. Perhaps that is what separates the amateurs from the professionals. To travel hopefully is better than to arrive. The social aspects of a group of people rehearsing together is more fulfilling than the actual orgasm of the performance, frightening though that may be.

Which brings me to brick number two. A certain flight sergeant a pilot had approached us to ask if his wife who was interested in our sort of thing could join our group. We all said of course and she was rehearsing in a rather good part in the murder. She was a delicate little creature, blonde and not unattractive and was not untalented. The first hint that I had that there might be a problem came when the flight sergeant presented himself at the control tower demanding to have a word with me in private. What’s going on? he demanded. What do you mean? I counter questioned.  You and my wife? he said. the scene might’ve been funnier if he had continued to feed me properly but he himself was quite a sensitive soul, (pilots often were) and he broke down in despair. Not  blubbing, but seriously upset. I had of course not had a sexual thought in a direction let alone touched her. After the next rehearsal we were now into a rather wet near-farce by Kenneth Horne called “Love in a Mist.” No not the Round the Horn  Kenneth but a 30s West End play-mill. She of course lingered behind. She admitted she had been fantasising about me. I should’ve been quite brutal to her. But after two sessions, I’ve persuaded her to leave our group and tell the husband the truth. After all, he seemed to be in love with her and a decent enough bloke.

We were in the process of recasting when brick number three was delivered. I myself was posted – the main reason being that I was carrying on an affair with a WAAF.

Another member of the group was a tall brunette, handsome rather than beautiful but quite striking. She had some sort of job in the stores and was an LACW equivalent to Lance Corporal in the army. There was a curfew. I think it was 11 o’clock at the camp, which was fairly rigidly enforced. A special bus would ferry back revellers from nearby Salisbury. One night I had spent the evening at the cinema, then called in for a couple of drinks at the Haunch of Venison where one or two junior offices were usually to be found. So I was a little elevated when I boarded the bus. And lo and behold with an empty seat beside her was let’s call her Marion. It’s about 7 miles I think from Salisbury to Amesbury had a further 2 to the camp. By the time we reached Old Sarum I had ventured to put an arm around her shoulders and rather to my surprise registered a cuddle some response. When we alighted at the camp, we were holding hands surreptitiously and sought a secluded spot for perhaps who knows further cuddles and a snog. We found a hut unlocked and crept inside. I don’t know how the adventure might have finished had it not been interrupted after 10 minutes also by an Alsation dog scratching at the door followed by an RAF policeman, very young and inexperienced, as it happened. I stepped forward leaving Marion in the shadows and said I’m Flying Officer Buxton and I take full responsibility. You don’t need to know who the girl is. This appeared to satisfy him and, as in a play, exit omnes severally. For a week or two nothing happened.

Marion and I rather avoided each other except for rehearsals. I did take her for a trip in the control tower buggy one Saturday afternoon. One of our aircraft had made a forced landing in a field near Middle Wallop and I was sent back to report to our OC flying. No damage except the aircraft, a Blenheim I think it was, it was Tom who put me up to it.  He said, “In spite of what the Group Captain said, I don’t think Middle Wallop will let you get anywhere near the crash site. It’s a nice afternoon why not take one of the girls with you for company?” He meant of course one of our two telephonists but I rang Marion she managed to get the afternoon off. Give me half an hour she said and turned up in civvies. She looked very good although as always a trifle over made up. We enjoyed our ride around the Wiltshire country and managed a kiss or two and I got the expected blank wall from the crash investigating officer. We discussed our situation. We both knew we might be in trouble. It wasn’t the sex or cuddles or what not – it was the difference in rank. I was, an officer and she was what the Americans call and enlisted woman and we both decided we better not take matters further.

A week or so passed and I thought we’d got away with it. Then I was summoned to the Adjutant’s office. He showed me a report from the Air Force policeman. There was no statement from the dog who was a friendly soul and might have seen the absurd side of the matter. “Is this true?”  said the adjutant? Yes I said. “You may hear more of this. That’s all.” I made a swift and correct exit complete with salute. A couple of days later I was summoned again. I was shown and had to initial an adverse report from the Group Captain. It began nicely enough “young officer”, “responsible position”, “above average capabilities” and then what is now called the double whammy “occasional lapses of concentration and carrying on an affair with et cetera et cetera.” I knew only too well the one occasion when I’d infuriated the group captain. We had a request to land by an American fortress bomber and crew on a courtesy call. There was a surprising amount of official protocol to be got through and the Group Captain and I worked through it steadily. The engineer officer American wanted to talk to the foreign office would you believe. We got it all sorted out. “Keep me informed. I’ll be at home.” He had married quarters on the station. When the American pilot told me he’d be with us in half an hour. I informed the group captain. The control tower was crowded. It was crowded with people who wanted to meet the Yanks. The landing was perfect. Everything in the station seems to be lined up, to meet to see the great American bird taxi into position. We made the crew tea or coffee and there was much chatter, presumably some of it of NATO in importance. The air Commodore did his best to make them feel at home. Then they went. I took them through the procedure with meticulous precision. They were on their way again. Five minutes later my internal phone rang. “Dawkins here,” said the group captain “what news of the fortress?” I had of course informed Uncle Tom Cobley and all, but missed out on my immediate grand boss. He was quite understandably incandescent. The adjutant/interrogator managed to trick me into revealing the name of the girl. He mentioned another pretty girl in the group, I protested far too hotly and I stuttered a bit when he said it’s the dark one. I left his office in confusion not bothering to salute. I escaped a Court Martial and was posted to Wigton halfway between Dumfries and Stranraer. I never knew whether the drama group pulled itself together and actually mounted “Love in a Mist”. I was however angry as well as ashamed when I heard what it happened to Marion. She also was being posted. But before she went, she was paraded in full kit best uniform webbing and backpack and marched between two WAAF corporals and given a formal dressing down by the senior WAAF officer, the queen bee. Her own section officer, a nice enough woman, told me privately that she had tried hard to spare Marion this indignity. But they had a directive from West High Command. Such things could perhaps be tolerated in war time when the many volunteers had swelled the ranks but now discipline had to be strictly enforced. The same section officer was flagrantly involved with a young officer entering the mess arms entwined clothes awry. But that was still okay. Both of them were commissioned that apparently made huge differences.

Marion‘s posting was to Sutton Coldfield. I was given a fortnight leave before reporting to Scotland. She was able to get a weekend off and I met her at New Street station on the Saturday morning. We both felt we had been wrongly condemned so we had every right to have some fun and commit the sin. I had booked a double room (no trouble) at the Imperial Hotel. Somewhat to my surprise Marion demurred at this. I shouldn’t have done it without asking her. I saw her point but was more embarrassed by the raised and knowing eyebrow at reception desk when I asked to transfer to 2 singles. We had a good time that weekend she was in civvies again. The weather was kind to us and we took a bus to somewhere like Bewdley. I can’t remember where we found some immediate seclusion. “Do let me come to your room tonight”, I said. “I should be disappointed if you didn’t,” she said. In the evening we went to the theatre – “Song of Norway”,  not great theatre but full of how shall I put it, disrobing music. I was not technically a virgin. There been a couple of short rather breathless episodes in Canada. But I was surprised to discover Marion was. And she made it clear that she was not going the whole hog as she put it, nevertheless, she revealed herself as an inventive lover. She was after all 24 to my 21. I am not proud of the episode. There was little love involved. Elliot has it exactly right a cold coming we had of it but it was you may say satisfactory.

Life becomes surreal.

After Boscombe Wigton was a holiday. As so often I have found in my subsequent professional life you sometimes don’t realise what stress you’ve been undergoing until miraculously it stops. Wigton had been a base for an experimental bomber unit. For some reason, possibly simply to provide employment for such as me it was kept open. We had one Lancaster carefully, serviced and a fighter I don’t think it was a spitfire. I have some memory of a radial engine. It may well have been a Tempest. There  was a full air crew – navigator, flight engineer, bomb Aimer, rear gunner and an experienced bomber pilot who also occasionally flew the Tempest. Weather permitting, each aircraft made one trip a week. The control tower was perfect was fully manned but only in daylight hours. The CEO was risen through the ranks to become a squadron leader engineer officer. He lived out of camp with a rather drab wife. We rarely saw him in the officers’ mess or anywhere else for that matter. The station was run by a warrant officer – admin adjutant he would’ve been called except that he was non-commissioned. The class barrier again. He must’ve had a lonely life of it. There were very few sergeants and in some ways it would not have been proper for him to mix with them.

It was pleasant during that summer in the borderland. I was determined to get no further black marks on my record. I had half a dozen people in my at my disposal and we kept ourselves busy smartening the place up always managing to find another corner with dirt and general out of date material all piled up during the war years. From 8 am till 5 pm every day except Sunday we were prepared to receive any aircraft in distress. We were relieved that none came but there was a sense of non-fulfilment. In the evenings there was tennis on a hard court, right in the centre of town. The local people were most hospitable and the local lads did not even mind are flirting with their girls. Occasionally half a dozen of us officers would cram into the doctor’s car and take a pub crawl to into the Isle of Whithorne a piece of coastline with a desolate marsh beauty not unlike certain parts of East Anglia or we might go over the ridge and drop down into Kirkcudbright, as picturesque as St Ives, with a colony of artists displaying the work on the quay side. Holiday makers were few and far between. We invited one or two local people to be honourable members of our mess. The local civilian doctor for instance, another such was the huge Falstaffian figure of James Robertson Justice. He was fun and an excellent raconteur and from him we learned a few bawdy ballads and randy recitations with me thumping out an accompaniment on the out-of-tune mess piano. We would sometimes hold a ladies night. We had no WAAF officers in our mess and only a handful of other rank WAAFs on the station and then civilian honourable members would bring their wives or in Roberson Justice’s case quite a Harem of likely young women. In the Air Force officers’ mess it was strictly forbidden to play any card games except bridge and what you won or lost was not paid directly by you but debited or credited from your monthly mess account. So naturally, Wigton offices mess had a thriving poker school.

In September this pleasantly surreal existence came to an end. Our pilot, the senior man in our mess was demobbed. He was replaced by a briskly efficient squadron leader. He was air crew (a pilot, I seem to remember but he did not actually fly either of the aircraft).

There also arrived another pilot who took all the airborne work. The squadron leader, very public school, easy of manner, very assured, was of course a career air Force officer on a permanent commission. He elected himself Mess president and called all officers to a meeting. He made it clear that it had filtered through to higher command that our particular a lot of officers were enjoying themselves far too much. Great deal more discipline was required not only during the hours the airfield was open. We must behave like gentleman in the evenings. To that end, he instructed us there would be a dining in night once a week. He would prefer it if battlefield battle dress was not worn in the mess during the evening hours. But for dining at night dress uniform only. Wine or water if we preferred could be served at table. We would dine at eight sharp and start with the loyal Toast. I’d experience this rigmarole on two occasions at Boscombe. This is when the civilian chiefs of the British aviation industry were entertained by the Air Force top brass. So Frederick Hindley Page was there and so was AV Rowe. I believe someone called Royce was there he sat down to a formal banquet of over 100 of us and everybody congratulated themselves and what good chaps they were and everyone got us drunk as skunks. So I knew the form. “I’ll be chairman for the evening,” said the squadron leader. “On my last station, we usually appointed one of the junior offices to be the vice. How old are you Buxton?” “21” I said. “You’ll do, you’ll be vice you know the form.” “Yes” I said, remembering some acerbity. The form was that at some point during the dinner the chairman would tap on a wine glass the silence and say “Mr Vice the king” and at the other end of the table Mr Vice would rise to his feet when raising his glass his voice trembling with emotion would say, “Gentleman the king!” and so it fell to me to play the leading part in this little charade a couple of times. The station commander a lonely totally unnoticeable little man attended these occasions not just overshadowed but obliterated by the glamour of the squadron leader Mess president. He wore a jacket, the first I’d ever seen, cut away in the front and the bowtie optional formal dress apparently in peacetime Air Force. I’m not sure but I believe he also wore a stiff shirt front, I seem to remember some pearl studs. Everybody was so scrupulously correct. A pretty dull evening was led by all. Robertson Justice was not among those present. I simply do not know whether this was by design of the mess president or whether James was already deserting his position as local eccentric laird. He was an expert falconer and loved to demonstrate his birds. Perhaps more likely he was already signed up by the film companies. Not an actor at all of course and it showed occasionally, but a huge all-embracing personality. We missed him,

The other innovation by the new squadron leader( I think he was scheduled to become station commander next year when our old CEO was demobbed) was much more of a success. We held an open day when the denizens of Wigton were welcome to the station more or less from dawn to dusk. I used up the entire stock of cartridges for our very-pistol ammo. One of the kids, offered a shot, said, “Can I save it for Guy Fawkes?”

The high spot was of course of air display. The other new officer, the pilot who arrived with the new broom squadron leader was on the exterior a rather sedate man. He was slow and reticent of speech and always sloped. I remember seeing a cartoon of a simple line drawing of a man, back view, in a suit leaning at an alarming angle. The caption was “I’m inclined to think”. Usually he leaned slightly towards you, but as the still somewhat boozy mess evenings were on he would lean sideways. His pint pot was always half full and if you offered him a refill he would demur. He always spoke very quietly. I’m alright thanks. Yet he was scrupulous in speaking up when it was his shout. I never knew him to start a conversation but there was a faint smile and a twinkle in his eye in response to other people’s witicisms. I seem to remember him in earnest conversation with an engineer officer soon after he arrived. He said something like not much experience with four engines so I’ll just do circuits and bumps tomorrow. For the display he elected to show off the Lancaster, first attempting nothing spectacular but swooping fairly low and wagging a wing at the control tower. But what he did with the fighter was something else. I called it the fighter because I mentioned a Tempest previously. I have nothing but my own memory to rely on. But in my mind, I see a spitfire. I cannot conceive of an ugly, snub-nosed stocky little monster as a Tempest achieving such beautiful effects. Before he took off he said to me, “Crash Tender and fire engine on hand?” I said yes of course.  Okay he said ,here we go and in that one moment he was more proud than ever before to be part albeit a small one of the fight of pilot tradition of the RAF. He climbed corkscrew fashion until we could hardly see him stalled her into a spin then at the last moment pulled out and flew just over our heads. He climbed up to a respectable height, calm and slow, rolled the top of a loop and flew over us upside down. The spectators were impressed but I was shaking internally for the rest of the afternoon, not just from simple terror although was part of it but from the orgasm of emotion I occasionally felt in the theatre.

I never knew or even enquired of this pilot whether in fact he had battle experience. His chest was bare of metal ribbons. Such enquiries were not usually welcome and many DSO and DFC‘s who graced the mess at Boscombe never never indulged in shooting a line. I did not care much for the direction of the peace time Air Force was taking. Wesker in “Chips with Everything” speaks of a pointless existence among the conscripts. But the somewhat withdrawn flight lieutenant that air display day showed me the guts and spirits of 1940s still survived in odd corners of the service.

In parenthesis having spoken of Wesker, one ought perhaps to mention Rattigan. The mannerisms are all too easy to parody but he got the characters of the RAF types exactly right in “Flare Path” and “Deep Blue Sea”. Above all the film script that caused me to volunteer – “The Way to the Stars”.

In late October the warrant officer agent received a letter giving the date of my demobilisation. When he showed it to me it was I thought it was singularly graceless. Shortly after I volunteered in 1943 I received a letter, obviously standard, but not exactly standard signed by the minister then a Mr AV Alexander thanking me for coming forward and welcome me to the RAF. No such thing on demob. The adjutant was instructed to see I was issued with dated travel passes to get me there on time. I thought this treatment was perhaps because I had put up an even bigger black mark at Boscombe than I that I thought. But the agent explained that it was to stop officers hanging around for weeks to cadge a lift in an aircraft. He reminded me that I myself had arrived at Wigton it just such a flight. My replacement was  a fresh faced career officer train solely as an ATCO arrived before the scheduled date. Callow as he looked, he was still a year older than me. He had recently married and the Mess president squadron leader went up considerably by ferrying this young officer around the local villages in his squadron leader’s rather flashy SS sports car. The tower staff ,marshalled I presume by two charming West Indian corporals or where they sergeants? They saved me a bottle of scotch which was sweet of them. But I did think deep down after spending four and a half years as a servant of the crown, somebody might just have got around to saying thank you. Sometime in the 60s I read two novels which brought me to re-evaluate my time in the service. One of course, “Catch 22”, not merely a very funny book but a rather shattering expose of actual air combat from a bomber point of view. The other was Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse 5, based on the fire bombing of Dresden. If I’d been born a year earlier, my life could well have taken a Sinclair course and I would’ve been the navigator in one of the Lancasters that committed that particular crime. I’m glad not to have such an atrocity on my conscience.

There’s no discouragement that will make him once relent

Directly I had a date for my release I wrote to Marjorie Deuce. I would not have blamed too much if she had pulled out of our rather casually worded agreement. But she wrote back charmingly enough saying of course she remembered and would I like to join the company for the pantomime. She gave a rehearsal date early in December. And she’d like me to stay on to play-as-cast and undertake the duties of an assistant stage manager. I did not realise until much later how incredibly lucky I had been. I had almost no experience, no training and, as I was soon to find out, my talent was quite questionable.

Perhaps I had a subconscious inkling about what my parents’ reaction would be. More likely it was because until I had the job offer in the bag I did not want to face my father. However, he was not the problem. He snorted a bit and said some things one absolutely to the point, “Are you sure you’ve got any talent?” He had seen me of course in my school plays and had been sparing in congratulations. The other was less to the point. “I met a fair number of the profession before I married your mother and to tell you the truth I didn’t think much of them,” and with that he returned to the sports pages of the Sunday Times. I had somehow expected some support from my mother but very much the reverse. “Like summer tempest came her tears”, Her elder sister Maud told my wife some years later. Maud had grown very close indeed to our side of the family now she was widowed and had lost Peter. She said that over one weekend when my parents were at Leigh for the weekend she had to cope with three solid days and nights of hysteria. This had been occasioned by my letter. My mother had calmed down into bitter shrugging by the time I arrived in Chelsea in my ill-fitting demobilisation suit. Phrases like throwing away an excellent education, you can’t expect any support from your father. After two or three days of glowering misery she suddenly said, “It’s what I’ve been dreading. I always knew it would happen.” And she then reminded me of how I had attempted to direct Peter and his friends in a play I had written. I had totally forgotten the incident but then it came flooding back. I did remember it after her prompting and I have described it, as I see it now in the first scenes of this saga.

 My mother came round slightly and threw a lot of energy into helping prepare my civilian wardrobe. I had no guidance from the theatre but I knew that in those days actors were expected to provide all their own costumes for modern dress plays. The company would’ve course provide period clothes and character costumes. Aunt Maude produced her husband’s tails and dinner jacket. I’ve kept them in case James wanted them but I don’t think he’ll ever be persuaded to use them. He despises formality, bearded heavily short cord trousers and polo neck sweater. That was James. He did not marry until 1949 and although his wife did much to civilise him, it never occurred to me to return the evening-dress, which should rightly have been his. But in any case he so hated his father that I doubt he would’ve felt comfortable in the outfits.

I had been in touch that spring with Nancy Jackson when I was at Boscombe. There’d been a major re-organisation up in Perth – part of the Labour government’s new central funding for the arts. But a company like Perth, committed to good drama, was very eligible for Arts Council funding. “We are so rich now,” wrote Nancy – “no more weekly share out no more communal eating in the basement. We are all on salaries.” To raise the standard the company played one week in Perth and a second week in Kirkcaldy, the Adam Smith Hall, a bastard of an echoing auditorium as opposed to the perfect acoustics at Perth. This is something to explain why Miss Deuce was pleased to take me on. She now had a double company twice as many actors to find. And the major drama schools have not yet begun to pour out their fully trained three year post-war graduates. I also heard from John Moffett. He told me that he had quite a success playing Wishy-washy in Aladdin with Leslie French as Dame and they done a Panda-walk – a smart new dance.

But the most useful contact to have kept up was that with Billy J. He had now left Perth and was stage manager at the Bristol Old Vic. This was a number two position in that particular theatre. The stage director was a woman called Jessica Morton. Billy was not the complaining kind of mate so I may have got it wrong in which case apologies to Miss Morton but in the two weekends that I spent at Bristol lending a hand in a changeover in the theatre Royal, she never lifted a finger herself. Billy did all the hard work and much of the organisation. Doubtless she was an absolute wiz at the accounts.

The first changeover was from an Irish play called “Throng of Scarlet”, patchy but brilliant by a man called Vivian Cornell. It was about the hunting fraternity in a garrison town before the 1914 war. Some British officers, mingling with the natives. Margarita Scott was excellent in the lead. But the triumph of the evening was the long very long lament by Kenneth Connor as a stable boy lamenting over the body of a favourite hunter and I do mean a horse. The play in preparation was Hugh Hunt’s production of “Much Ado…” Rosalie Crutchley wonderfully flashingly darkly beautiful as Beatrice. Hunt set it absolutely contemporary in World War II Naples which suited Miss Crutchley’s looks perfectly. I must’ve seen the play four or five times since, but never, not even by Miss Ashcroft who was very good, was the “Kill Claudio!”  injunction delivered with such devastating force.  Benedict the Australian Clement McLiney staggered back from the power of it.  “Not for the world!” After that it was difficult for Hunt to put the comedy on track again but he pulled it off with much Capella singing (There was some good almost operatic tenors in the cast) of “Back to Sorrento” and “Santa Lucia” in Italian. This was my introduction to what could be done with old Strand Pattern 43 spotlights. Perth had only half a dozen spots stage lighting, redid in old-fashioned foot lights and batteries. I was more than a little interested.

The next play I remember seeing in Bristol was Synge’s “Playboy of the Western World”. Pegeen was Wendy Hiller, a carefully studied, carefully varied, perhaps a little over-deliberate performance. She was immensely enlivened in the long Act II love scene with a superb silver voiced Cyril Cusack as the playboy. If I had not seen any other play in 1947, this play and the performances would absolutely have hardened my resolve to enter the magical world of professional theatre. Cusack was a peasant – hands looking clumsy and worn with toil, the walk a heavy plod, the voice, absolutely convincing, so bog Irish; yet the prose poetry of the long speeches was tenderly lovingly delivered. I saw the play twice once from the wings, perch position. “If you move (said Billy) so anyone knows you are there I will kill you”; the second time from the back of the auditorium – wonderful acoustics in the old theatre and I know that the whole house felt the same ecstatic thrill of pleasure as I did, this was number four the biggest yet

Sometime in the summer of 47 en route to see Henry IV at the New, I bumped into Dennis Quilley and we had time for a quick drink. He told me how he been taken straight into the company as a student member at the Birmingham rep on the strength of a wonderful letter, Don Francombe had written to Jackson. He was just about to go into the army to do his national service. He had had a wonderful time in Birmingham. He was he told me nicknamed the “Juve” by his fellow actors. This was because of a supposed likeness to Ivor Novello, I told him I was starting my career as soon as I could get out of the RAF at Perth. He immediately became the old pro giving me immensely helpful advice. This amused me subsequently because it reversed the rules the roles we fulfilled at school with me being a senior monitor and him being a year my junior. He congratulated me on my luck and said he was sure I would do well. This emboldened me to go afterwards to my old school to see Mr. Francombe. (Dennis called him Don and I found it difficult to write the word in the previous paragraph. All my teachers remain Mr or Sir in my vocab.)

He was no longer a resident master but I sought him out in his Loughton house and he gave me tea. We talked about Quilley. Frankham didn’t call him Dennis and he rhapsodized about his performance in Caesar and Cleopatra. “You know Buxton,” he said “It seems absurd to say so, but there were scenes when I thought Quilley did better than Claude Rains. Have you seen the film?”  I hadn’t at the time but when I did I found Rains disappointing. I think, great actor though he was, he had somehow mislaid the power of handling a long speech. Never saw him on stage but I’m sure at his best he was perfectly splendid. Maybe film technique had killed something off, but he did rather drone monotonously on.

I then told Francombe my news. His reaction was astonishment rather unnerving for me. The conversation splattered to a halt. Eventually, he said “I believe Kenway is finding it very difficult to find work.” Tony Kenway, still more junior than me and Quilley, he played quite smallish parts in my school plays. I did not know him at all well. He had been a day boy. He was however tall rather good looking with a confident delivery. Day boys often achieved much more savoir-faire (I suppose I’m talking about sex) much more worldly wisdom than we monkish borders. I never met him in my professional career but 20 years after this conversation the leading lady in a production of mine mentioned his name. She’d done a season with him in rep somewhere. He’d obviously stuck to it for a long time. I remembered my conversation with Francombe and reflected how lucky I’d been. Always a charming man, he pulled round and wished me all the best and he paused. I thought he was going to say, “Come to think of it,you were quite good at Ferovius,” but instead he said, “You did read the lessons rather well in chapel. Shades of my aunt Irene, mother‘s younger sister, who thought I was a very solemn child, at age 6 she declared I would grow up to be a bishop. With this interesting endorsement ringing in my ears, I set out to start a new life in what some Scots insisted on calling north Britain.

Beginners, please

I travelled up to Perth on Sunday and checked in at the North British Hotel close by the station. I had thought to find some digs on the Monday but about 11 o’clock I arrived at the stage door with my suitcase – my trunk of modern clothing I checked in at the station. “Who are you?” said a rather rat faced pugnacious little woman. I told her and that I was to start rehearsals for the pantomime the next day. She said, “You’re my new ASM. I was expecting you at 8 o’clock sharp this morning. Most of the hard work’s done.” I stammered some sort of apology. “Anyway, you’re here now,” she said and she thrust a storm lantern at me from a nearby property table. “We got away with this last week at Kirkcaldy but the fire chief has just been in and insists it must be electrified. I’ve only got girls as ASMs on the show. Men know about these things or are supposed to. Keep a note of what you spend on a battery bulb and insulating tape. I foolishly stuttered out something about it being an electrician’s job. “Look here,” she said and dragging me to the prompt corner. “There is the electrician,” pointing to a chap on top of the tall ladder focusing a spot. “He’ll be busy for the next hour. She bustled onto the stage when she turned to me again and sang out over her shoulder. “I’m Gracie Dodds by the way. I shall want it back at 1:45 for the dress run through”. And I was left to get on with it. I realised that I’d managed to get on the wrong side of my direct boss the senior of the two stage managers. It was a double company and the director had asked for a dressed run through. The play “The Hasty Heart” was due to open in Perth that night having played the previous week elsewhere probably Kirkcaldy but it might just about have been Inverness.

It must be confessed that at my headmaster’s suggestion I had given up physics after one term and taken Greek instead. I went on successfully, graduated at O-level with chemistry, but otherwise science was a closed book to me. I had tried hard in the Air Force to understand the basic theory of radio but I was always, fathoms away from understanding the water analogy, though I did grasp that Watts plus water was a dangerous equation. Nevertheless, I managed to strip down a flat pocket torch, bought some wire and a mile and a half of insulating tape and breathless I delivered the prop in time for the dress run through. “Bit untidy” said Gracie “but it’ll do”. And then the rodent jaws opened in a broad smile and the sharp little eyes turned quite warm and friendly and I knew I had made a passible start. Gracie was something of a feminist and chased her male ASM around bullying them rather more than the girls. But she was a superbly efficient stage manager.

Which is more than one could say for her husband who stage managed the other show. I believe I mentioned that Perth was now a double company. The contrast with Gracie was astonishing. Where she was quick, crisp and volatile he was laid-back casually witty and conferred all responsibility to the ASMs. Gracie insisted on everything being ready dusted, props set at the half and although she farmed out considerable responsibility, one felt she was there busy double checking. Bernard was okay as long as it was ready at Beginners and if something went wrong which it did, he would unleash a storm of temperamental abuse at the unfortunate ASM. With Gracie when something went wrong, which it occasionally did, one got the feeling that she blamed herself as much as you. Added to which Bernard was decidedly careless about setting up petty cash accounts. Whatever else it was, the marriage was not of true minds. I left Perth after 18 months and I never came across Grace’s name again. I was grateful to her, she taught me a lot. Bernard became the number two in a rather swish West End agency and 20 years later made quite an impression. HE had quite an impressive string of actors under contract. I met him once or twice – affable friendly as always quite witty but although it was on the tip of my tongue I didn’t dare ask after Gracie.

That first afternoon there was nothing to do backstage which hadn’t been covered and I was sent out front to sit next to the director and jot down his notes. This was my first meeting with Edmund Bailey. He was a stocky man, something over 40, with nervous eyes. His head was broad and generous. And so was his smile. As a director, his principal interest was in the acting. He seemed to have an uncanny sense of why an actor was not perhaps at ease with himself in certain scenes. He was wonderful at encouraging actors particularly with fellows like me who had so much to learn. He himself was a good actor and, without totally miscasting himself, he often played a leading part in his own productions. He was the son of a quite well-known actor who had toured intensively with Benson excelling so I’m told in playing the clowns. And young Eddie toured around the country with him and began his walk on parts. He very rarely spoke of his previous career. But he did mention Croydon from time to time where he had run a rep for at least a couple of seasons in the 30s. He was not one of those directors who waste a lot of time giving inspirational visionary talks to the company. (I can think of one such who now has a pen in his hand). Perhaps most of his productions were workday efficient rather than brilliant. Though I do remember a very charmingly choreographed “Imaginary Invalid” with stylized balletic entrances to one of the few productions which he did he didn’t personally act. But he was immensely helpful to me as a very raw actor. And I remembered how sympathetic he was to actors when years later I began to direct myself. I owe enormous debts of gratitude to Gracie who turned me into a competent stage manager and Eddie who taught me how to treat actors and so much else beside.

Pantomime rehearsals were fairly chaotic. I knew already that I could sing (several years of bashing out the baseline in the chorus for the Messiah at school) but I had been worried about dancing. But I found I had no difficulty moving on the beat which mercifully was all the choreographer demanded. The alumni from a local dancing school did the pretty bits and two lads who were no Nijinsky-s occasionally hoisted them loft often and moving more attractively than I did. One of Scotland’s leading principal boys, Kay Lanterer was playing Dick Whittington splendidly warm and jolly. The cat was Stella Richmond short, darting and smart. She became very big cheese in ITV drama. These two stayed on to go into rehearsal as Helena and Hermia in “The Dream”. Kay who tended to spend her summers in the concert party or a musical was evidently worried about tackling Shakespeare – she need not have been.  She found much comedy in the proud tomboyish pride-to-be-humbled side of Elena. And she was comically undercut by Stella. I’ve never seen a Hermione more spiteful. Principal girl was Gudron Ure, heart-shaped face petite jumble of blonde curls. She also followed up in the Dream as a lightweight to Titanya. Subsequently, she caught Orson Wells’ eye and did some work with him. And she made a few British 50s films under the name of Anna Gudron. When the film contracts ran out, she returned to her own rather fascinating Scots name.

Dame was an actor George Bradford whose forte was rather camp comedy. But he elected to play Sarah Cook in a bass voice, hairy legs and an incipient moustache. It seems only fair if one is to drop a few names to mention that George was among the three best dames I ever worked with at Christmas. The panto was directed by Vicky Lithgow. I nearly wrote “my old friend” but we never were that close. I wonder now though I did not at the time. Perhaps she put in a word for me with Marjorie. In which case I owe something for her to starting my career. In the early rehearsals she did nothing in particular and in the event transpired did it very well. She asserted herself very little, leaving much rehearsal time to the musical director (excellent) and the choreographer (dull but efficient). She was also immensely helped as far as the comedy was concerned by the theatre front of house manager Jimmy Montgomery. He was an ex musical comic probably a feed in an act which had broken up. This is pure conjecture. He was well into his 50s and had started a new career on this side of the footlights. He had at his fingers tips, a stock of comedy gags routines which seemed inexhaustible. Some 10 years later when Joan Knight who had worked as my stage manager at Coventry was director of productions of Perth, Jimmy had quite rightly taken full director control of the pantomimes but to get back to Vicky she pulled the show together very successfully in the final rehearsals.

Jack the charming layout in service to the Fitzwarrens is always the main comedy part in Whittington. This was played by “Martin” (a good idea this in inverted commas for any derogatory remarks), all an actor has is his name and this actor is as they say still going and good luck to him. However this actor was to my mind a non-actor. He had a nice smile beneath a blonde mop of hair, carefully combed, and would constantly beg the audience to love him. To be halfway fair to him, he did have a certain weak appeal to spinsters of a certain age who regretted never having been mothers. He had played Yank in “Hasty Heart” a part demanding raw energy. He played it as he played everything for charm. After the panto he went into the Dream. Charm is not the perhaps the attribute needed for Bottom.

This left something of a hole in the comedy side of the panto and with a deftness that made one think he had been born to the musical in stepped Donald Pleasance the second string of the Bosun-mate double act. I have in the course of my career the pleasure of working with two actors to whom without hesitation I would attribute genius. The other was Patrick McGoohan but will come to him later. Later still Derek Jacobi was a very versatile actor and thunderously excellent in everything he ever did for me but one always knew as it were where he was coming from and whether he was headed. Donald and Pat quite simply helped me spellbound with utter unpredictability. But then I was only stage director for the shows I did with Pat and cited many and acted many times with Donald in my season at Perth. I never directed either of them. I think to some extent this genius in being director proof.

In the early days of rehearsal for Whittington Donald would mutter “I just don’t know what I’m doing and I can’t find my character for this chap” but he took a lot of advice from Jimmy Montgomery. He was excellently fed by David Broomfield, a gangling broomstick of an actor in contrast to the anxious little nincompoop but Donald eventually worked up into a character. I’m sure someone else has said it. If so, it is so true that I will be saying it again. A good comedian is only as good as his feed. David had a fluid delivery for complicated speeches and was doing quite well as a TV anchor-man (Southern I believe) when illness struck him down. He was still quite young. But the pantomime was Donald’s triumph. Another of his triumphs was his Perth swan song as Willie Mossop in Hobson’s choice – a part he also played with great success at the Birmingham Rep and also in London.

Gosh, I was lucky in my first professional season at Perth. “Martin” who left after his sweet and charming Bottom remarked on it. He had also been commissioned in the Air Force also a navigator I believe, so was Donald, shot down and having spent a year or more as a prisoner of war. So that has splendid performance in “The Great Adventure” came as no doubt no surprise to me. Somebody else in the company I think it must’ve been Bernard the stage manager had been in the same camp as Donald. He told me how splendid Donald had been in a camp production of “The Amazing doctor Clitterhouse”. A year later in Coventry I worked with Kenneth MackIntosh also RAF and a POW, a good actor, excellent in Odets” Winter Journey”. He became a staff producer at the National under Peter Hall. The cliche of the RAF type “shooting a line: there I was at 2000 feet but flack all around me and so on” is totally false. I cannot think of one of the much decorated air crew at Boscombe ever talk like this. And the three I have just mentioned with whom I had a close working relationship with were very reluctant indeed to talk about their experiences.

 I had good parts in my first four plays after the pantomime and acquitted myself passably well. Leslie French, a very accomplished comedian, who had played for two previous Christmases had missed out on this particular year because he gone out on a supposedly prior-to-London tour of the creaky old farcical romantic comedy “When Knights were Bold”. This had folded after a few weeks perhaps because there was no theatre available or perhaps again because the backers felt this rather camp diminutive fortyish leading man did not quite persuade in the romantic side of the story. It was perhaps remembered fondly by the older patrons as a vehicle for the charm and adored good luck of Jack Buchanan in the film. Leslie had doubts, understandably enough, about my ability to carry off the silly ass part, who was transposed into a medieval jester in the middle act dream sequence.  And as a director made little effort to disguise these doubts and confined himself to making sure I stood in the right place well downstage himself and giving the inflections with which I was comfortable. He had however, brought with him from the town a dark willowing leading lady and a wonderfully inventive eccentric character actor called Peter Bayless who played some sort of servant and ever present footman called Whittle. He was one of a very rare breed who was amusing both off stage and on. In addition he was generous to his fellow performers. In act one of the piece I had to play the page of dialogue with him to all intense and purposes a crosstalk act. “Get a bit further down stage,” he muttered to me at the dress rehearsal “Don’t worry I’ll follow you.” We played the scene right he fed me beautifully _ Budd Allen he was to my Flanagan. As we exited from the scene the first night he grunted “Got more laughs than the other fellow”, meaning the actor who’d he’d been in tour with him. I think now but without these few words of encouragement, I might seriously have considered jumping off the Tay Bridge instead of struggling on with a theatrical career thank you Peter.

Peter came into my life again shortly before he stole the show in “Matchmaker”  in the minute part of the coachman. He joined the Midlands theatre company based in Coventry where I was stage director. “Hello David” he said, “I’ve just finished my seventh prior-to-London tour which didn’t come in. He was always an actor who delighted in going in for the big effect, but he showed considerable versatility at Coventry. He started with an excellent Harleton Earnshaw in an adaptation of “Wuthering Depths” which did much to compensate for a poor performance by the unfortunate actor who was miscast as Heathcliff. He stayed on in Coventry to play at least four nicely contrasted roles in “Victoria Regina” and stalwart work in a comedy about funny foreigners called “Travellers’ Joy”.  In retrospect one can see why the London theatre was right for an injection of raw energy in the mid 50s much was done to keep Edna reasonably happy but the time was by then, very ripe for an injection of roar and energy from the likes of Osborne, Wesker, Arden et al.

Peter stayed on in Perth to give the funniest Flute in the Dream that I’ve ever seen. Of course it is perhaps the best part in the play. Shakespeare knew what he was doing when he gave the final speech in the play within the play to Thisbe rather than Pyramus. And Peter then scared the pants of us all with the violence of his Bill Walker in “Major Barbara”. I too had a good part in “Barbara”. I played Stephen the previous stiff shirt son of the arms manufacturer. Vicky Lithgow played my mum Lady Britomart and gave me a wonderful tip which I occasionally passed on to actors I directed. In the opening scene of the play I had two or three long speeches. “Look,” I said to her in an early rehearsal. “This chap is a boring man and eventually he’s so boring that people will hopefully laugh at him but in these early speeches, exposition of plot of course I bore myself. How can I make it interesting for the Audience?” “Go home,” she said “and underline the principal verb in each of the long speeches. Then build each sentence around each verbs. Verbs are active words. The scene will go well you’ll see.” It did, no laughs but thanks to Vicky who was excellent at listening. I knew I held the audience’s attention. Plenty of laughter in my clashes with the interloping cousin played by Donald Pleasance. This performance elicited the only really good notice I had at Perth. “Another who shone was David Buxton.” “I’m always telling you David,” said Donald in the dressing room on the second night. “You simply must learn to use more powder over your make up.”

During the run of “The Dream”, I had been in the other company in an Esther McCracken light domestic wartime play called “No Medals”. Vicky again played the lead, a wartime housewife with a husband at sea. I was a young Air Force officer, (I had to get my mother to pack my uniform and send it by train), who was keen on her daughter. The last scenes were a bit sticky. The RADA medalist opposite me eventually snapped. “Do you think you could give me something more solid to play against?” The double-entendre  struck both me at the same time and after much giggling, we began to get on better. It was true of course that I found it easier to do the shy inarticulate stuff comedy of course rather better than the determination to win. 18 months later in my last play at Perth “The Case of the Frightened Lady” I played opposite the same actress. She succeeded at looking at me as though I was attractive so perhaps I had made some progress as an actor. I was bad as Careless in “School for Scandal”, perhaps not quite as bad as Sarah Lawson fresh from the Webber Douglas and making her professional debut as Lady Teasel. She looked stunning, a smashing figure, luxurious red hair, wide smile. She stayed at Perth for best part of a year. She never made much headway. How wrong can one be a couple of years later? Splendid performances in films and particularly television. Well-deserved award one year as best actress. I never saw her again on stage, but I’m told she did some splendid stage work too.

She was a first rate company member though at Perth electing to be in the chorus of Mother Goose at Christmas she was that keen to learn.

After “School”, parts rather dried up for me although later I came back quite strongly. I thought that I had proved inadequate as an actor and was in despair. I realise now no actor can succeed, unless he has totally unbound confidence in himself. However I also now realised that my chance was diminished at this particular time because of the arrival of two blindingly brilliant talents into the company both of them were younger than me and had been trained. One of them already had quite a lot of professional experience.

Richard Johnson had been in the Saint Bernard Company playing amongst other things Satan with a reverberating base voice, surprising in a 17-year-old. He was dark with a shallow complexion tall and quite handsome. He been splendid as the young Eugene O’Neal in “Ah Wilderness” while I was gaining experience as an amateur stagehand. He was called up right after the run of the play finished and had spent two years in the Navy. He was now in position to demand by law of the land his job back on his release. I wonder if Marjorie would’ve been quite so keen to employ me, had she known that Dickie would be knocking at her door in the spring. As it was she was clearly glad to welcome an excellent actor back into the company and after all was I not quite useful as an ASM?

The other, even younger than Dicky was Edward Woodward. He began by playing the lead part in “The Guinea Pig”, a cockney boy sent by special scholarship to Eton or some such where. Ted is one of that very rare breed of protean actors who seem to be able to make an excellent go at anything. I was of course much too tall to be simply considered as a 13-year-old. So there was no jealousy. I simply envied him his talent. He was convincing shortly afterwards as an Irish 40-year-old odd job man in “Spring Meeting”, a young doctor in “Dr Andrews” and another schoolboy frightfully public school in “Housemaster” and a dissolute Rodrigo in “Othello”. Best part of 10 years later he came to Oxford Playhouse where I was stage manager in a touring production of a romanticised history “The Queen and the Welshman”. He fitted in a Stratford season shortly after this, but his career did not really take off at least as a live entertainment until Sir Laurence saw an episode of Callan and invited him to join the National Theatre.

Dicky Johnson did some excellent light comedy work in the season we did together at Perth notably Dickie Winslow the elder brother in the Rattigan play. But after the next Christmas panto, (Leslie Francis as Dame this time) he was offered Silvius in “As you like it”. He quite rightly fancied himself as Orlando and went off to conquer other worlds. So I got Silvius. Ted was already, learning the songs he would sing as Amiens. I enjoyed playing Silvius hugely – not even Leslie could spoil that though he tried. He stayed on after Mother Goose to direct the Shakespeare and played Touchstone. One of the scenes ends with Silvius deserted by the girl who he loves and he exits after a line or two crying “Phoebe Phoebe Phoebe” but at every rehearsal Leslie said “Oh feeble, feeble, feeble!” which may have amused some of the cast but was not much help to me.

To return to Dickie J:  he won a well-deserved accolade for his performance which I saw and much admired as the Earl of Warwick in Dorothy Tutin‘s splendid Saint Joan. He was at his very best when slightly overstating for comedy purposes he played a certain type of died in the wool upper crust English Tory. He was okay in romantic leads too. he had rather good notices for the Stratford season including if I remember correctly Orlando. In the 60s when I was production manager occasional director at the Birmingham rep, out of the blue I had a phone call from Dickie. He was by now a pretty successful film actor and was going through a starry period. He had never met Julie Christie who was in the Birmingham company at the time. It seemed that he like everybody else who seen “Billy Liar” has fallen for her very heavily. “I’d like to meet her,” he said. I replied, “She’s quite accessible. Just come round to the stage door 10 minutes before the half.” He said “I thought I’d of doing it rather more stylishly I’d like to invite my two friends you and Monica (my wife by then) to supper and perhaps she’d like to make it a foursome. It might not seem quite so blatant if…”He left it hanging in the air. Monica who had been at Perth too (much more about her later) and Julie were at the time playing in “The Good Woman of Szechuan”. He certainly did it in style we had an excellent late meal at one of Birmingham top hotels. I’m ashamed to say I can’t remember which. In general conversation he mentioned that he was joining a shooting party one weekend in the near future – more of the Tweedy image, I thought. A month later Monica and I received by special messenger at our flat a brace of grouse. The message said “thanks a lot, love Richard”.

Blame the time warp for the last leap forward in time back to the sensible chronological story. But roughly the same time as these two brilliant young actors arrived in Perth “Basil” left and Helen Craig the senior ASM was promoted to stage manager. She was a jolly Edinburgh lass, great fun to work with. Not for you will note. You worked for Gracie and no mistake about it and pretty efficient too. She was quite a cuddlesome attractive girl but suffered from a seemingly incurable disease. Of course I realise now that everybody who makes or seeks to make a career in the shadow world of theatre must be to some extent mad. Helen‘s madness took the form of falling violently in love with pretty juvenile actors. And if her quarries were anything at all rather than self- admiring they were probably (as we say now) gay. None of this would have mattered much except three or four times in my period of Helen‘s emotional upset it led her to complete physical collapse for a couple of days so that that I had to take over the running of the show. Somewhat to my surprise I found I enjoyed being in charge. I carried a great deal of responsibility of Boscombe Down, but I also felt squeezed between my two superior officers – my frequently absent Flight lieutenant and the Group  Captain. At Wigtown (even though it was by comparison a ridiculously easy job.)the control tower was my absolute fief. So it was in the theatre. I love the feeling just before curtain up of firing as it were the starter pistol or breaking a bottle of on the bows of a new ship. Sure it was quite a responsibility but it was exciting. Time warp again forward to Birmingham.

Nancy Burman who had stage managed for Barry Jackson for donkeys’ years before becoming supremo at the rep told me even then when she had no longer any stage managerial duties and did not need to attend every performance she felt at seven thirtyish each evening a sense of excitement a trembling in the pit of the stomach. It was the time of day for standby everyone curtain going up. At the time Nancy spoke to me I was of course in the thick of quite a stressful job. I did not appreciate the full force of it until nearly 20 years after my professional career started in Perth. I became director of productions in the town in which I live. I too did not have to be in every night. I too felt as Nancy did – that irrepressible sense of impending climax every evening between seven and eight. And it is just the same now I have retired.

Another aspect of the stage managers life that I positively enjoyed was prompting during rehearsals. A good prompt can help a struggling actor to master his lines. It takes sensitivity and judgement. In those days stage management duties at least at ASM level were undertaken by young people desperately anxious to get a toe-hold on a career as actors. Even then most of them found prompting a boring chore. Nowadays stage managers are trained for a technical profession. In general I thoroughly approve of this. But as regards prompting the downside is that the stage management regard themselves as a separate breed rather than a sympathetic to actors. You do your job I’ll do mine if you want a prompt just ask. But for me the joy of being a prompter was that he was privy to all those confidential conversations the director has with individual actors. And he is in an ideal position to observe what effect these words of wisdom are having. Often I noticed, minimal.

The management at this point began asking Gracie to direct one or two productions. These were usually what we thought to be sure-fire hits at the Boss box office and therefore perhaps director proof. In fact these are sometimes more difficult to get right than heavier drama or the well-made play. Nevertheless, Gracie did a very decent job on “You can’t take that with you”. Donald as grandpa and “Ghost Train”. This acted on me rather like a distant beacon perhaps there was after all a glimmer of a career for me not as an actor but true stage management as a director.

The chip shop.

The old salary structure based on a weekly share out was a thing of the past. All the actors and most of the stage management were now on a weekly wage. There were also two or three unpaid students playing tiny parts and helping with stage management. Train yourself as you sweat seem to be the watchword. They did not usually stay long. I was incredibly lucky to be taken on an immediate salary of £6 per week. The communal after the show kitchen in Eppie Stirling’s basement was also now assigned to social history. Eppie was a well to do theatre lover who owned a large house in a posh part of Perth. She still let rooms at a cheap rent to several of the company’s actors. Elspeth to give her her proper name must have over the years subsidised the theatre to the tune of many thousand pounds. In return she expected to be treated as a lady entertaining polite guests. This could sometimes be a strain. Actors of both sexes were and still remain as somewhat harum-scarum lot. So after the show a lot of the company, particularly the poor ones would forgather at Guilionotti’s fish restaurant in one of the shabby byways off Perth High Street. The staff were tremendously friendly and would keep the place open until the small hours, happy to serve endless coffee (awful) or tea (better) and delicious deep fried chips. The fish was good too but we could not afford that luxury often. The charm of the place was that the proprietor seem to regard us all as part of his extended family – a gaggle of young happy people. They made a point of staying open until the second company returned from Kirkcaldy. Strictly no drink on the premises. The police occasionally looked in after midnight. Papa Guilionotti believed that if they saw someone lacing his tea with a shot of whiskey the rozzers would report him for keeping disorderly hours. And he’d be in trouble with the council. He probably made a small fortune out of us, but he and his staff worked hard for it. They closed down as far as fish frying was concerned at about midnight but the chip fat was kept hot for another couple of hours then last orders for chips would ring out. But even then particularly in the summer months delicious home-made ice cream would be available. We had great cause to be grateful to this charming family of emigrants.

Thus it came to pass (forgive the pomposity but it does not seem quite momentous) that I met the love of my life in a fish and chip shop. Monica Stewart Jones (note the lack of the hyphen) had arrived in Perth the previous spring as a student. She had, she subsequently told me, £30 in her post office saving book and a £50 gift from her father. She was armed with glowing notices for her amateur work in a good company in Liverpool. Of more weight probably were two letters of commendation from a couple of established actors who had who had seen her work. One of them had been a stalwart for a season in Perth. Just at the point when the POSB was practically exhausted, one of the female ASM dropped out of the Highland tour. In the summer months, the theatre was let to a variety company with a change of program every week and the Players Company went out on the six week tour:  five nights in Stornoway, to open; three, two and one night stands elsewhere in the Highlands and islands. Monica was offered a salary to go as ASM and play the tiny part of Pimple in “She stoops to Conquer”. When the company assembled in the autumn Edmund Bailey in particular and others as well said she had a great possibility as a character actor. So by the time I arrived she was heavily involved in playing assorted mums and aunts apparently age 40 to 60. As a result her ASM duties had been reduced to occasionally being on the book for an act or a scene or two in which she didn’t appear. She was an excellent prompter – even better than I was, I have quite a vivid memory of when I first spoke to her. I had gone to Guilionotti’s with a disorderly gang of junior members of the company. I believe it was during the week “Hasty Heart” was playing. Or it might’ve been a week or so later after the pantomime rehearsals. My colleagues couldn’t have been more friendly towards me, but I was feeling a little bit out of my depth amongst the merry banter. It concerned some scandal about a couple of company members, unknown to me of course, who would recently have left. Monica was the late arrival. It was probable that she had just returned from Kirkcaldy. The road trip nearly an hour each way was arranged by the company in a chartered bus. However shortly afterwards she sensed that I felt out of it. She gave me abroad warm smile and said where do you come from David? So it began in a chip shop with a polite conversation.

There is a line in Rattigan’s “While the Sun Shines” delivered by his frightfully English heroine, a Dukes daughter: “White hot burning thingummy is a mistake”. It was certainly not one we made at any rate in the early part of our relationship. She had a splendid mezzo soprano singing voice, very sexy. A hint of the Schwarzkopf’s. I still have a recording of the diva singing Viennese light opera music Johan Strauss and others. Monica chalked up a big success in the pantomime as a gypsy mum singing a lullaby. As night fell on the gypsy camp on Highgate Hill, Whittington’s turning point. It was a piece of gibberish, cheap barber, cheap barber Chihuahua but quite high in the 1947 parade. During the song the chorus pair of romantically and wondered humming the wild sentimentally around the stage. This was the build-up towards the great scene where Dick and the cat fall asleep exhausted and dispirited only to be woken by those inescapable bells. Kay rose to the occasion splendidly, spouting appalling Christmas card doggerel as though she were Henry the fifth inspiring the troops at Harfleur. It had no right to be great theatre particularly played to a Scots audience who really could not have cared less about a 14th century rags to riches parable. But it worked. It always does. Traditional pantomimes are desperately hard work but fun to be in. They are fun to direct too. I directed some 15 of them and I’m quite proud of some of them. But why British provincial audiences love them quite so much is still a mystery to me.

Monica and I sort of grew into each other largely because of a shared sense of humour or perhaps more precisely a sense of the ridiculous. Semi detachment from stage management did not allow her entirely to escape the heavy changeovers from “The Dream” to “Major Barbara”. In those days the old show closed on Saturdays and the new on opened on Monday- no exceptions. it was well after midnight before we began to dress and light the act one drawing room set. Bernard sent me under the stage to bring up the turkey-red carpet. Under stage was where large props were stored. Well “stored” suggests some planned stacking; “crammed in any old how” is a better description. Of course the required carpet was deeply buried so I had to ask Bernard for assistance. He sent Monica. In such simple happenstances a life can alter direction. When we had moved several wardrobes (where to? that was precisely the problem), and a couple of chest of drawers, we found four carpets on top of each other. The turkey was the largest and of course the largest was the heaviest. When we had loaded it and corded it and heaved it onto the stage and spread it out a difference of opinion arose between the director (“I think the lime-green would look better”) and the designer, “but the walls are green. The contrast would be splendid”.  So we took the turkey red back and unearthed the moth eaten lime green. When the latter was spread out, we straggled down again with the red one only to hear when the wardrobes etc. were back in place the cry, “ Sorry, I think the red was better.” Monica and I collapsed into a heap of hysterical laughter on top of the pile of dusty carpets. This resulted in a cuddle which I remember being both extremely pleasant and promising.

In the early summer we both went on the Highland tour, Monica’s second. We took three plays. Neither of us was in “An Inspector Calls”. I had a cameo part in “By Candlelight” based on Schnitzler and we both had supporting parts in “And so to Bed”. I sang and danced a demonstration minuet “Lately come from France” and Monica had a couple of numbers as the rackety actress Mrs Knepp. I’d owe a great debt to Helen Craig my boss. “Inspector” was the easiest show of all times to stage manage particularly if you do it straight not on a revolve, as in its first London production, or all loaded down with symbolism as seems to be the fashion now. And Helen realising that I was smitten, more smitten than Monica, played Cupid and gave me evenings off for the Inspector. The tour was a wonderful travellog of wonderful scenery and the weather was good throughout. I’ve already mentioned. Tobermory the very name is romantic. Margaret Deuce turned up there and entirely her own expense organised a coach and ferry trip for the full company to the other end of the island of Mull so we could see the fantastic cliffs of Staffa en route for the awesome peace of the monastery of Iona. It was quite a day’s outing. We only just got back in time to ace the half for the evening performance. Monica and I had a full free day on Skye – could it have been a Sunday? We climbed a boggy track from Portree Harbour to the top of the Quarang, a hilly ridge with a wonderful view of the Cuilins. The previous year, Monica had seen a very rare golden eagle there. We did indeed see a couple of very large birds but they were not close enough to identify them positively. We however were quickly identified by hordes of flying sheep ticks. It was a blazingly hot day and as we splashed through a rather marshy bit we suddenly discovered that every bit of our skin was covered by these jiggers as the locals call them. And if you don’t shake them off immediately, they start borrowing into your skin. Monica suffered one such invasion just below her left eye. It was too well stuck in to be removed manually. But I did succeed in sucking it out. When we descended, there were one or two arch remarks from the wags in the company. But I didn’t end up telling them exactly what sort of intimacy had taken place.

Banchory; Alogne (with hundreds of stags’ heads in the village hall where we played); Ballater by Balmoral where we were proudly shown a backcloth before which a 10-year-old princess Elizabeth had performed amateur theatricals; Fort William; Oban (Brighton on the Firth of Orme; Grantown-on-Spey Aberfeldy; Kingussie – the very names are redolent of romantic beauty. at Killinen, we climbed quite a small mountain for a wonderful view of the Cairngorms. Carried away by the grandeur of it all I said, “I suppose it is quite out of the question that you might consider marrying me”. She replied with some spirit in the negative making it clear that she thought as proposals went, that this was a weak spirited and half-hearted attempt. And to be honest, I was quite relieved. I hadn’t thought of the suggestion through at all. I felt as though I had miraculously escaped from falling into an abyss of uncertainty.

The tour came down to earth with something of a thud. Leaving romantic touristy, underpopulated Highlands we played our last week in Motherwell Lanark and Kilmarnock in Scotland’s industrial belt. The audiences were large and friendly but the weather was vile and the magic was gone. There was still about three weeks or so left of summer when we were given a rehearsal date for the opening of the new season. So I went south to spend these in Leigh-on-Sea with my family. School holiday time and my parents were very partial to my aunt Maud’s large and well-kept garden. Monica went back to Birkenhead. She invited me to spend a few days en route for rehearsals starting in Perth. But I declined. I couldn’t bear telling my mother that I was keen on a girl but let alone a girl who had turned down a proposal of marriage. Absence it says does make something or other into the heart. In my case I realised I was deep in love (I hadn’t felt this before) and something had to be done about it.

“Like sweet bells…”

“Reader, she married me”. While we were walking one cold winter’s night on the North Inch I proposed again. I must’ve made a somewhat more forceful fist of it because she said yes. Spot on cue all the bells in Perth did ring in panto time. Afterwards people tried to persuade us that this had something to do with the Queen just having given birth to Prince Charles. Only the two of us knew the real reason.

Monica had quite a success in the Christmas show stepping out of the chorus line for no accountable reason and launching into “Waltz of my Heart” from the ”Dancing Years”. The Dame entered immediately afterwards. I suspect it was Jimmy Montgomery who gave him/her the gag line, “Wind around my heart from advancing years”. Leslie French played Mother Goose and directed. He gave a very accomplished performance and as they say carried the show. His dame however was feminine to the core. Personally, I like the masculinity to show through George Jackley of course and Les Dawson for examples. Although I admire the consummate artistry, I do not care for Danny LaRue. Ted Woodward was cast the second comic. He very bravely chose to play it in broad Scots Glaswegian and got away with it. He did not however get away with the whole show lock stock and roll out the barrel, as Donald Pleasance had the previous year. Leslie kept a tight directorial hand on the whole thing. Others might shine but not too brightly.

Monica was a Devon girl born in Torquay when her parents, both London originally had moved to Exeter. Her father was an art dealer and had run a highly successful art department in a classy stationers and bookshop near the cathedral. The shop was destroyed in the Baedeker raid of 1942 as was half of Exeter. So the next year Monica moved to Liverpool where her father opened a shop in Bold Street for the Medici society. Neither Monica nor her mother really cared for life up north. Monica made some close friends through her drama work. She became secretary to the manager and proprietor of a small engineering firm up to its eyeballs in government contracts. So she finished out the war in a reserved occupation, her middle sister four years older than Monica who had been called up sharp at 18 into the ATS. The family lived in Arrow Park in Prenton a suburb of Birkenhead. Monica and her father commuted to Liverpool by the Mersey rail link.

Marjorie graciously arranged for us to have some time off for a fortnight for, just a week for me, and we got married in Birkenhead. Monica wore a little new suit in powder blue with dark blue collar and cuffs. Little dark blue hat and rudimentary veil and bearing a chief of freesias. She had said to me the night before, “whatever you do try to raise a smile when I come in tomorrow”. Apparently her brother-in-law Reg had looked very glum on the occasion a couple of years previously at the marriage of her army sister. I did in fact feel very fraught and I don’t doubt my best man felt the same, never having so much as cast eyes on Monica let alone her family. but suddenly there she was looking absolutely stunning and I had no difficulty at all in believing that all our life together was going to be okay. Lucky me.

 I owe a great debt of gratitude to Derek Smith (no not the actor but my best man). This was a tricky one. I had not yet made any close friends in the profession. I got on very well indeed with Ted Woodward, but there was no way I could ask for a play out for him. Dickie Johnson (a similar possibility although we were not that close had left the company) so I had to fish into what already seemed to be a distance past. Derek had been a close friend of mine at school. His background was very similar to mine. His father was a London based headteacher, just like mine but he had stayed with his school after evacuation to the wilds of Wiltshire  to little Coxwell not far from Farringdon. For my last two summers at school I had spent a fortnight in early September helping with the harvest. And on land-lease arrangement Derek had had taken to spending a few days with me in Chelsea doing a show or two. The two sets of parents have met on sports days and cricket matches and got it on along quite well. Derek left school at the same time as me winning a scholarship to Dartmouth at the same time as I was trying and failing to win an Oxbridge scholarship. He had poor eyesight which precluded a career as an executive office officer (gunnery included) and was going for a career as a paymaster of ships. Despite the eyes he had been a great sportsman – vice captain and fly half in rugby and a terrifyingly fast if often erratic fast bowler. I was lucky how often that word occurs in the scribblings to have kept in touch with him and doubly lucky to have met him again that autumn. “By Candlelight” opened on the tour And was now scheduled to play in Perth and Kirkcaldy. A new setting prepared for the full sized stages. But prudently the touring set had been preserved and off we went for a special week in Rothesay where Derek‘s shift was based. We picked up immediately where we had left off. He and his junior officers on the destroyer entertained me to a boozy but jolly high tea on board. Many witty salvos hurled at rugby hearties is which were redoubled when I admitted to having been a commissioned Air Force officer. Three of the new friends piled me with into a two seater 1928  sports car And drove me from the quayside to the stage door just in time for me to call the half more than usually cheerfully as the company told me. The pink gin had flowed rather freely.

The wedding was quite as small affair. I had met Monica‘s parents. They had spent a week or two on holiday in Perth in the September. They were lovely people. Monica‘s mother was still recovering however from an operation, a prolapse. Someone once explained what that was but it was too ghastly to be repeated here. Neglected throughout the 30s but now given proper treatment under the NHS. Many middle-class women before the war, in lean tight years for the household economy, made sure their families were regularly seen by a doctor, for paid consultation but struggled on somehow without getting proper treatment for their own problems. End of party political broadcast. She Monica‘s mother was upset that she could not entertain my family as she would have liked. Derek however, who would never set eyes on the bride before she arrived at the church struck up an immediate rapport with Monica‘s elder sister who had come up to act as matron of honour. My father’s younger sister Elsie also did her best but she was one of the shyest people I ever met. Derek and Kathleen managed the little gathering perfectly. It has to be said however that although we were very grateful for wonderful help from both couples particularly after our son was born right in cue the next January, they were always edgy together. My mother was by now well into her stride as a Chelsea Conservative borough counsellor and she did rather tend to dominate a family meeting as though she was chairing a committee. Derek however hosted the occasion in a strange house where he had had only ever met two of those present with great charm and grace. I know he rose to the rank of Commodore but I believe he was a rear admiral by the time he retired the highest possible rank in the paymaster category. I regret that I never met him again. Correspondence petered out to. I am ashamed to have wasted a charming friend.

 So Monica and I have lived together happily ever after, give or take the odd sticky patch, usually when one or other of us was on tour. It was snowing intermittently on that important morning in Birkenhead. Taxi from Preston to the underground station standing by, we went under the Mersey and the bride insisting on carrying her own heavy suitcase in the quick dash to Lyme Street to catch the northbound train. I had booked us in at the Axworth hotel at the Gateshouse in East in Leek where I had spent a week on leave en route for Wigtown. The management had changed but the new people were very friendly and business-like: not one coy remark about honeymooners while we were there. The weather continued rather wintry so walking on the moors was rather out of the question let alone scrambling to the top of the of Cairnsmore but Kirkcudbright with its artist colony a sort of Scots Saint Ives was charming as ever as indeed was Gatehouse itself, straggly but with a certain late 18th century elegance. We made our way back to Perth conscious that at all events we had made a good start.

A short time after Monica to my surprise and delight had accepted me. I had decided to make a career in stage management and ultimately direction rather than acting. When it was no longer my ultimate aim I became rather better actor. I made a good job of a comedy part in a play called “The Missing Years” about the university Newcastle students about two years after the war. It was not that I had conquered my nerves very much in the reverse. I was a beginner in “Missing Years”. We opened in Kirkcaldy always a fraught experience. We only just got our dress rehearsal finished a minute or two before the doors opened for the audience to come in. There were director’s notes and then the mad scramble to get all the props. I called “beginners please” just a minute or so late and suddenly realised that I myself was a beginner and I was still in my Act three clothes from the dress rehearsal. There was just time to scramble into the correct gear and arrive panting on stage to join my fellow beginner Monica. She made something of a speciality of dragon landladies in their 50s and 60s. She was standing at an open door up stage centre preparing to deliver a well-aimed rocket at her unfortunate oaf of an undergraduate (me). The curtain up music on the panatrope had already started. “Are you alright?” she whispered as I passed her to take up my position. I nodded and took up my apologetic stance down left up with the curtain and she delivered herself of the opening diatribe and exited firmly by leaving me, ineffectually apologetic to get on with the play. She told me she’d been fascinated to see the drops of sweat gathering on my forehead and running right down my nose and landing with the visible marks on the stage cloth. And this as I have just pointed out with one of my best performances. What price Stanislavski and an actor prepares?

Marjorie generously gave us a set of Irish Waterford glasses as her wedding present to us – pale green colour and a beautiful ring. They are still among most treasured possessions. Well five of them are. They serve elegantly as champagne glasses when there is a really festive family occasion. I have mentioned grace and generosity as two of Marjory’s attributes but as lurking behind an appearance of shyness was the steely ruthlessness of the successful theatre manager. It was getting near the end of the spring season and Monica and I were walking one afternoon teatime on the Inch and Marjorie bore down on us. We had been wondering what might be cast in the next Highlands tour. Marjorie after much humming and hawing and blushing profusely, let us know that neither of our contracts would be renewed for the tours or autumn season. We were sacked.

Monica had been with the company for over two years and it was probably time for her to move on. Gracie was staying and so was Helen Craig and I know wanted to be in charge of stage management. So the time was in fact right for me, I had learned much in Perth not only about stage management but about acting. I knew what it felt like to be directed competently (Eddy) and downright badly (David Stewart). The third director let’s call her June talked a good game she had been and still was but not in her own productions a leading lady with the company – “Saint Joan”, “Major Barbara”, “Viceroy Sarah” and she made sure everyone in the company knew she came to Perth after having been in “The Duchess of Malfi” at the Haymarket playing opposite John Gielgud, as the Cardinal’s mistress Julia.

Her ideas were all actor-based, digging deep into psychic and the emotional state actors were in vis-a-vis one another. This was always immensely absorbing. Unfortunately rehearsal time was finite and under June we often approached the run-through stage without ever deciding where we should stand or sit in Act Three. Her work sometimes seemed experimental. Gracie, who occasionally stepped into the director’s role from stage management was quite the reverse. Subtlety was out. Pace was all. I learnt a lot from Eddie but from the others a string of things not to do.

David Stewart was very much a major figure in Perth theatre. He and Marjorie had been students together in the early 30s. There was money in her family – a lot of it. And shortly after she graduated she came home to Perth where her father bought outright a lease on the theatre in the High Street of his hometown. David accompanied her and became as it were director of productions or artistic director as the current nomenclature goes until some years after she died. There were those who thought they must have been lovers. It wasn’t easy to imagine them in bed together though we junior members of the company had much fun trying to envisage such a scenario. Marjorie was very straight laced not to say prudish. And David was doubtless always too self-absorbed not to say self-admiring to be strongly attracted to a person of either sex. He was not a good director; to be fair to him he knew it. “Barbara” was the only play he directed in my time at Perth. Vicky Lithgow might have been offered it but she was beautifully cast as lady Britomart and wisely did not fancy doing both jobs. June who was soon to establish yourself in the number two director after Eddie was playing Barbara herself so David had to step in. Eddie was directing the other company. The actors, as so often, rescued the production. As well as the two leading women there was a strong if eccentric performance from Donald Pleasance as the Greek professor, there was excellent work in the soup kitchen from Rosalie West, a wonderful character actress one of the best I have a worked with as Rami Mitch, and a frighteningly violent Bill Walker from Peter Baylis. I might also mention that Monica provided some energy and new impetus into the final of act two as Mrs. Baines (Blood and Fire) Barbara’s Superior officer of the Salvation Army. But it needed a director’s hand to solve a positional problem posed by the end of Act One. Character after character introduced themselves and joined in a family discussion. David’s solution was to get us all to draw a chair into a semicircle, a yard or so away from the centre of the footlights. There was a course of fireplace with a cheerfully burning fire on one of the side wall of the set. Peter Bayliss who did not enter until Act 2 remarked after taking a peek from out front, that it looked as though we were going to embark on a poetry reading.

The three great sibilants of English drama Shakespeare, Shaw and Sheridan followed one another in my first post panto season at Perth in the right alphabetical order too. Pinero’s “Dandy Dick”, Bridie and Barrie”, “Mr Belfry”, “Tobias and the Angel” “Storm in a Teacup”, “Mary Rose”, “Quality Street”, “What every woman knows”  Priestly hot off the presses “An Inspector calls”, “The Linden Tree”. Quality plays all of them. No revamp of Brian Rix style faces, no Ben Travers either but that is another story. Choice of play very much to David’s credit. He was an excellent actor to when rightly cast. He was very good indeed in Scottish character parts, old crofters, rectors, Glasgow mechanics. He’d been very good indeed as a guest star in a guest director’s production of “The Doctors Dilemma” as the fashionable surgeon Bloomfield Bonington. He was blessed however with a beautiful speaking voice, his curse was that he knew it. His speaking of Shakespeare was subtle mellifluous in short he was Scotland’s answer to John Gielgud. In the 30s though in into his mid 50s this was of course the style of acting to which we all had to aspire. Others in the mould, excellent actors all, were Robert Harris, Robert Speight, Felix Aylmer (who pushed the style into self-parodic comedy), Alek Clunes. David was doing very nicely when I arrived in Perth, spending much of his time in Edinburgh or Glasgow on sound radio. He kept a firm hand on the choice of play and casting in Perth, occasionally descending like Jupiter from the clouds to snatch a plumb part away from eager actors in the company. He had facially good looks too, a strong nose and chin. I suspect that he never was a graceful mover and now he was 40, he had developed something of a humpback and his feet were out of proportion. One noticed them in particular in his Oberon. They seemed to enter half a second before the rest of the actor. The vocal music rescued him if you like that sort of thing. Later in the season it was a mystery why Desdemona should’ve found this Othello physically attractive. He played Hamlet for the 13th time shortly before I arrived to be in Whittington. Eddie had directed it. He had a tendency towards indiscretion when he had a scotch or two. He said he had wanted to cast Donald Pleasance as the prince but David decided he wanted to play it for the umpteenth time. It was all very predictable nothing exciting happened. Donald apparently doddered about to some comic effect as Polonius.

I’m sorry to be so bitchy about David. He could’ve had me sacked at any time during the 18 months, I was at Perth. So it is possible that you felt that somewhere I had potential but he never really encouraged me. I did leave feeling I’d learnt one or two things, apart from methodical science of stage management. I don’t think I learnt much about actors or acting from Donald although he was far away the most brilliant in the company. He was charm itself off stage and very friendly yet on stage with him I always felt that the piercing eyes was somehow evaluating me as an actor and finding me wanting. It is true that Cousins in “Major Barbara” does not have much time for Stephen Undershaft and nor did the housemaster in “Guinea Pig” here have any reason to regard an arrogant six form with anything but a jaundiced eye. Nor did I learn much from my as it were rivals, Johnson and Woodward, but I remember Anthony Grosser with grateful thanks and affection. Still in his late 20s this actor was giving excellent performances in hefty roles: Undershaft in “Barbara”, the professor in “the Linden Tree” Blunschli in “Arms”. When I was on stage with him I felt at ease. We were actors creating a scene, part of a play we were selling to the audience. Two cogs in a big machine. Tony had married the girl who had made a comeback as Desdemona she was good but they had started a family and he had decided to emigrate to New Zealand, where he believed there might be more opportunities for him than in the English rat-race. I never heard of him again professionally but I was told he turned up at some sort of Perth reunion looking very prosperous. It was only now that I realise how much I have learnt during my couple of seasons in Scotland. Not only had I acquired the skills and even more important to the attitude of mind of a good stage manager, make the best of everything and for the impossible persuade him that can be achieved by other means. Not only that but I had learnt a great deal about the art of acting.

Just before I left, I had a word with Jimmy Montgomery. “Were you in the business in the early 20s?“  “Indeed I was.” “I wonder if you ever knew my mother?”  “What was her name?” “Truda Morena? Good God he said you’re her son. I never worked with her but I heard her sing. She had a beautiful voice personality enough to fill Wembley. I wondered what happened to her.”

Another piece of guilt to carry from the rest of my life. Perhaps I should’ve confronted her with my views on a wanton wastage of talent. But she would only have been upset.

I do love to be beside the seaside.

So we packed up our bits and pieces, including the precious green glasses in three large tea chests. Highland fit-up tours a taught us a thing or two about the transport of quite valuable props and Carter Patterson delivered them to Chelsea, a day or so before we arrived to sponge on my parents while we looked around for work. My mother and father had both come from large impoverished working class families. And there was never any question of us paying anything for bed and board. They were and remained so until they died, what is jokingly referred to as true blue Conservatives. Did we really have to demean ourselves by going to the Labour Exchange on the Fulham Hammersmith border to collect unemployment pay? My father said grumpily, “I suppose we must learn to live in the benefits society. You take whatever is going.” My mother just sniffed. However, the benefit allowed us not to cut too deeply into our shrinking savings and allowed me to enjoy myself squiring Monica around London – boat trips on the river, the parks were looking lovely in the fine summer weather. My mother suggested we should go to a big charity dance at the Chelsea town hall. “There will be lots of big names in the theatre. It will help you with your contacts.” It was not in fact the Chelsea Arts ball but all the same it was a glitzy evening. Of course Monica hadn’t a thing to wear. Absolutely true in this instance. Full evening dress was de-rigour. I looked reasonably okay in my uncle’s tails. I’d already worn them in a couple of modern dress plays in Perth. We ran a dress to earth in the Regent Street area which though expensive was a tremendous morale booster. Low cut neckline, tight waist, fullish ankle- length skirt. Even more expensive was the haircut in a West End salon. Monica had gone in with £15 in her wallet and had to endure the humiliation of waiting in the shop until her husband called for her to settle the bill. And on top of that, there were about half a dozen people expecting to be tipped. However, the net result was ravishingly beautiful. There were indeed big names at the ball but we were far too shy to accost them. In the event we greatly enjoyed the evening dancing exclusively with one another and applauding the cabaret with Hy Hazel, the height of sophistication and Elizabeth Welsh.

Luck was on our side. Antony Holland (I think I’m right to omit the “h” in his Christian name) had been in the Perth company for the post-Christmas season. He played Oliver in “As you like it” to great effect. Celia is a marvellous part, particularly if you have as we did a rather school mummy Rosalyn, but Oliver, I cannot remember seeing a remarkable Oliver. He was an expert swordsman and had begun to give some fencing lessons to those in the company who were keen at lunchtime and afternoon rehearsals. He had however given a very fine performance as the crabby schoolmaster in “The Corn is Green”, characterised right down to the arthritic hands and bitten fingernails. After that he had worked out the rest of the season being unspectacular in several  small part cameos.

So it was a great surprise when Tony rang us in Chelsea and suggested we join him for a season of weekly rep that he was directing in Cromer. After some hesitation (actors are very quick to despise those lower down the ladder, Perth was emphatically fortnightly) we accepted: me as stage manager and Monica as actress. It was after all only for 12 weeks.

There is little to be said in favour of weekly rep as an institution. But that milligram of praise is nearly always drowned in the tons of, contumely which is poured onto it. Far from being always amateur, as some critics love to describe it, it really is one of the most professional branches of the performing arts. The rapidity with the first night approaches is similar to that faced by the condemned man in his cell. It concentrates the mind wonderfully. Or in other words there is no time to faff about. Some subtleties will of course be lost. But subtlety in acting, if not carefully handled, can slow down the action and ruin the author’s exquisitely written build-up to a dramatic climax to say nothing of wrecking the rhythm necessary to play any sort of comedy. We were lucky too that the Cromer company were friendly and generous to one another and greeted another actors success with pleasure rather than ill-concealed grinding resentment. No great epoch-making drama was attempted at Cromer, at least not that summer. Light comedy, farces, thrillers. Tony gave a cracking performance in “Shop at Sly Corner”.  The novelty was that we opened on a Thursday immediately after the previous show closed on the Wednesday. This seemed a horrendous start for actors and stage management alike. But Sundays were already always entirely free – an opportunity to learn the lines of course but also a leisure day. For one thing the powers that controlled the town hall theatre, public servants, all locked the place up after the Saturday show and no one in the company had a key. The idea behind the bizarre Thursday opening was that if the weather was bad you had a chance of persuading people on one week’s vacation to visit the theatre twice. Irrefutable economics!

 When Tony played a heavy lead, the relief producer was Michael Reddington. He had been a small-part actor with the old Vic and had accompanied the Oliviers on the Australian tour. He had an enviable light touch in comedy – excellent as Gary in “Present Laughter” for instance. He was quite demanding as a director. The lighting rig was rudimentary in the extreme. He persuaded me to make extra spots, well acting areas really, out of biscuit tins. To his credit he stayed up with me on the particular Wednesday night before his version of “Rebecca” opened. The problem was that the tins got so hot that everything and everybody else had to be kept well away from them including the local fire chief. The other problem was that we could not devise an intense floodlight with colour. The heat always burned through the gelatine within a minute. Still if you wanted to flood the stage with coarse white light the Buxton-Reddington biscuit tins would do you nicely.

Shortly after the Cromer season Tony went to the Bristol Old Vic school where he did good work as a teacher as well as instructing in swordplay. He was there for some years. He was married to a South African girl, not a theatre person at all. They had two children and during the summer they lived in a caravan on Cromer’s crumbling cliffs. I believe he emigrated to his wife’s home country when he was suddenly jobless following a root and branch regime change at Bristol some five years later.

Reddington pursued his directing career by going into television. When I last noticed his name on the credits, he was head of religious programs at Granada somewhere up north. Pity really. He was rather good at the acting lark, I thought. I expect he felt happier telling actors what to do than being on the receiving end of each instruction. Aren’t we all?

It was in Cromer of all places I have worked where I had the most pleasurable meetings with an intelligent segment of the audience. A theatre struck young man worked as an assistant manager in a local jeweller and silversmiths. He not only arranged the loan of some priceless silverware for plays like “Rebecca” – an enormous help to a fraught stage manager – but he persuaded some of the antique dealers in the town and in the west Seaside towns (there were many) to loan us even more priceless furniture and pictures. He also occasionally invited a few of us for a drink in his flat after the show. There one would meet some very discerning friends of his, mostly older sophisticated (was he a bit of a gigolo?) women. In other towns meet ups with play going societies always left me somewhat bruised: ashamed when the criticism seem justified as indeed it sometimes was and resentful and angry when it just seemed just plain ignorant. In Cromer however the conversation focused on the actor and each relationship. Did we know “Our Town?” I did a matter of fact. Did I know what the Theatre Guild was doing in America? And what about Brecht on the continent? My woeful ignorance on such points made it clear I would have to redo a lot of reading if I was ever to become a director.

Next spring Monica was approached by the general manager of J Baxter Somerville Enterprises who ran the summer rep at Cromer. Would she consider doing another season at Cromer? She had been very popular last year. When she demurred, he offered quite a lot more money than the previous year. She felt that one stint in weekly rep did no harm early in one’s career, but never again. It’s always nice to be asked but there was another reason for her refusal which will become apparent.

Beside the seaside (bonk) beside the sea.

The following episode may safely be skipped by those who are only interested in the theatrical side of these recollected sketches. It just so happened that my father was a Norfolk man born in Brundall, a straggly village well to the south of Norwich. Grandfather Buxton, who died a year or so before I was born was a publican. There are well to do Buxtons all over Norfolk. The North Buxtons the Fowler (anti-slavery) Buxtons and just plain Buxtons connected to the Gurneys. These great county families all derive their money from Truman Hanbury and Buxton, large scale brewers. My grandfather‘s connection (and there probably was one) was emphatically with the plebeian selling side of the business and not the landed moneyed. In short my father‘s people were part of the rural poor.

My mother, for reasons which it would take a psychologist to unravel, absolutely hated beer. Not that she was teetotal far from it. She was fond of wine – particularly the sweet wines later in life. But she never touched spirits or beer. Consequently, my grandfather‘s profession was kept a secret from me not to say lied about. What did your father do for a living? I asked my father once. I must’ve been 20 at the time. With some hesitation he said he sold agricultural machinery. Was the travelling salesman? Not exactly.

My mother‘s elder sister Maude who figures occasionally in these annals fell about laughing when I repeated the gist of this conversation a year or so later. When she was able to speak, she said they kept a pub and explained that probably in the 20s depression they did have some second-hand Ploughs and Harvesters on the premises. But this was trading on the side not the main business. Daddy, let’s call them daddy and mummy was extremely reticent about his early life. For instance I never really found out how he came to lose two of his middle fingers of his left hand. A year or so before the 14/18 war so it seems he was working part time in the north Walsham steam laundry and fell foul of some machinery. I believe this is when he was supplementing his income as a sort of in apprentice teacher perhaps a break between terms. This of course made him unfit for full military service. But the army apparently found him more than useful. He was a wiz at bookkeeping and columns of figures and he rose to the rank of quartermaster sergeant. He never ever talked about his wartime experience. I think he felt guilty at having survived at a desk- job in England when so many of his contemporaries were being slaughtered in France. Monica‘s father had a miraculous escape saved by his pocket watch but carrying shrapnel elsewhere until the day he died.

Daddy did sketch in one scene. Shortly after he joined up he was sent for by his company commander in the Norfolk Regiment – very upper crust and condescending. I think it was likely he was on the lookout for material for officer training. The captain said he had been struck by the name: Are you a Norfolk man? Yes, said daddy. Which branch of the family? Connected to the North Buxton or the Gurneys? The two families intermarried a lot. Daddy of course had to deny any such connection. He never exchanged another word with the captain.

Early on in our Cromer season Monica and I along with the rest of the company were entertained to sherry by the local vicar. “This is Monica Stewart one of our actresses,” said Tony “Ah!” boomed the vicar clasping Monica‘s hands, “Are you a Fowler Buxton?”

Daddy was one of six children. An elder brother a railway man who rose to be a station master and four sisters one of whom died in in her teens. His father a real old Victorian Barrett of Wimpole Street, a proper Paterfamilias according to my mother Died soon after being presented to the actress wife his second son had married in secret. His eldest sister Ethel was by far the strongest character of the brood. She never took to my mother, she regarded actresses as suspiciously “fast”. Mummy was very fond of her mother-in-law an extremely amiable gentle soul. Mummy was also very fond of Alice the middle sister. She had gone with daddy as a foursome with the newly wed Alice and Ted (Ex Air Force) to France. Ted had been employed by the War-graves Commission shortly after demob. So he obviously knew all the answers about France which is probably the source of friction with my mother. Poor fellow he was out of work for most of the 20s and 30s until we started preparing for war in 1938. He was some sort of engineer and he had at last found a job manning an emergency water tower and pumping station in Fakenham. Mummy hated him. She always maintained that Alice would have been a very pretty girl, but had been worn down by years of being married to Ted. Worn down?  A fractious scold of a housewife she certainly was. This is really unfair. A small boy’s impression. Elsie the youngest was the most impressionable. She had a sweet kind nature And would’ve made an excellent wife to anybody who asked her. Except no one did until she was 45 and then it was a widower older than her who treated her badly as a sort of unpaid housekeeper and whose family treated her worse still after he died. She was trained in the catering trade and she was in charge of the restaurant in a big Norwich department store. She moved from there to run a refreshment room at Liverpool Street station. During the war however she returned home to help Granny who was by now getting frail and Alice had moved to Fakenham. She became a popular figure as a porter on the north Walsham great Eastern station. In common with most East Anglian small towns, North Walsham had two stations. The other was the Midland. Mummy used to invite Elsie and Granny to London regularly and I believe the women were very fond of mummy. Not so Aunt Ethel. She thought my mother patronised her Norfolk in-laws to the n’th degree. Relations with her were always starchy.

Ethel was trained to be in service during the 30s. She had worked as cook housekeeper with various large houses in the district. Nothing really grand – gentlemen farmers mostly but when Alice and Ted moved out she had come to the rented house in Millfield Road, North Walsham.

It is difficult for me to write about the Norfolk side of my family because naturally as a little boy I tended to see them through my mother‘s eyes. But it is true when that I directed Birmingham rep in “Roots”, I felt I knew the people in it. There is an East Anglian motto Suffolk rather than Norfolk actually, but it still applies, “Do different”.. I got some dialect tapes from the company to work on. The language was totally unfamiliar. They got the hang of it eventually. But the key to success was the attitude of mind. Don’t take anything on trust. Don’t expect life to be easy, ever! Scowl at the world if you must. Don’t bother hoping for the best. It won’t never happen. Three wonderful actresses, Hillary Liddell, Nancy Jackson and Rosemary Leach, (Elsie impressionable) never knew it but they gave a very fair imitation of my three aunts. I loved them. my aunts I mean and the actresses too. All that was in the future. There we were, Monica and I in Cromer. The women of this branch of the family were very devout. North Walsham church with its war damaged tower was under the direction of a Vicar of the loftier reaches of Anglicanism. Some of this rubbed off on me and my cousin Olive, Alice‘s daughter, just a year older than me. One summer the pair of us were shepherded by Aunts Ethel and Elsie to Walsingham, the shrine of our Lady. We went by bus in our best Sunday clothes. I never quite understood what the connection was with Anglicanism, but I believe there was one in the 30s. It is now quoted as a Catholic magnet for pilgrims. I found it all an insufferable bore! But I managed to smile a lot. Olive seemed to enjoy it which is one of the reasons I did not care for her as a boy. More recently I have come to admire her stickability. Failure at primary school, she somehow (evening classes reading you name it) got herself educated and finished taking a degree from Bedford College. She worked as what used to be called an Almoner in hospitals in Surrey. And she showed true guts in her last years, struggling with multiple sclerosis. And her death for that matter was grindingly hard. Just set your jaw and get on with it that’s a Norfolk woman for you.

But back at last in Cromer. Digs are always difficult in Seaside towns. The worst digs I ever had shared on this occasion with Monica were in Blackpool. Mucking in with the family is all very well. This particular family were in fact a very cheery bunch. But you had to take them as you found them. And what you found in the small spare bedroom was a double bed and a large Harley Davidson type motorbike which needed to be moved against the door if you wanted to open the wardrobe. We did quite well in Cromer. After much enquiry we found a boarding house which would take us for the 12 weeks at last under the standard rate for bed breakfast and an evening meal. The problem was that the evening meal (it could hardly be graced by the name of dinner) was normally served between seven and eight. We had to make a special arrangement to eat at 6:15. Gulp, gulp and no time for chewing to be at the theatre for the half. We frequently had to make do with cold leftovers from the previous evening and a rather, limp and sparse salad. And a special crab teas came up with rather off-putting regularity twice a week.

The bed was very comfortable, however. And we were making excellent use of it one Sunday afternoon (you will recall that we had only been married three months) when there came a knock on the door. “We have someone downstairs to see you.” “Is it important?” I asked. “It’s your aunt.” It was in fact the shy and nervous Aunt Elsie, not the battle-axe, Ethel. None of the aunts used make up although Elsie did touch her lips with red. But constant acquaintance with the east wind (there was nothing between Norfolk and Siberia except the flatland and the sea) had ensured that their cheeks were the colour of ripe red apples. We scrambled into our clothes. I seem to remember I couldn’t find one of my socks and descended breathless and giggly. I don’t know what Elsie thought we’ve been doing but it was clear that the realisation dawned on her after a few minutes’ conversation. Her cheeks went a deeper and deeper red and she became about speechless. This is the first time Monica had met one of the Buxton straight laced aunts. Elsie had a sweet nature though and Monica came to love her dearly.

Sent to Coventry.

I had written a post-bag full of letters before we left Perth. I reasoned that every theatre needs a good stage manager and I had worked steadily through the Spotlight contacts booklet. Most of the provincial theatres replied – only two positively. One of the positive responses had great charm. I wish I had kept it. It was handwritten obviously in haste. It was from Sir Barry Jackson, then supremo at Stratford on Avon. Yes, he remembered Dennis Quilley, a very promising actor just out of the army, he had heard now specialising in musicals. No he couldn’t help me. He was in the process of relinquishing the reins at Stratford and he believed the new regime had already recruited a full staff. There might just be a chance of something at the Birmingham Rep where he was planning to return full-time. He recommended I write individually to Nancy Burman who was running things for him. But he feared they were fully staffed too. Nancy duly replied promptly and courteously in the negative. Never mind I had my first contact with a great man of the theatre.

My first interview of after we arrived in London was with the director of the little theatre in Bromley. It took place in an office in Bromley Main Street which I believe the director had borrowed for the occasion. He seemed more nervous than I was which is saying something. He had my letter in front of me him and kept fidgeting with it. He said the theatre was closed for the moment, but he knew, where to get in touch with me if he needed me for the reopening. He asked me no questions. As I was about to leave I asked since I had taken the trouble to come down to Bromley, “Could I see the stage which I might possibly be invited to manage?” No, he said. I never heard from him again. But a couple of months later I chanced on a small paragraph in the London evening paper. He had committed suicide.

The other positive reply was from Anthony John who ran the Midlands theatre company in Coventry. He interviewed me at the Cranbourne Street offices of the Spotlight and I left Monica waiting for me in the sunshine in a pretty frock in Green Park. When I returned, I said I don’t think anything will come of that. Tony had asked me plenty of questions. But these were all related to my Air Force career of which in any case I was not inordinately proud. He was an ex-RAF officer himself. Ground duties, too old for flying career, worse luck! He was particularly interested in my time at Boscombe Down and knew at least by reputation some of the senior pilots whose lives had been in my somewhat tremulous hands. He was perhaps the least theatrical person I ever dealt with in the course of my career: smart in his dark blue suit, immaculate linen, stiffish collar his necktie, rich but modest but asserted with a simple pin. Elliot knew a gent. in the 20s was not one himself but the shoes, brown suede uppers crêpe soles, brothel creepers I thought. Rather borne out by Monica. As I was actually writing this I asked her how she would describe Tony.  “Ladies man” she said.

So it was a great although very pleasant surprise to be asked just over halfway through the Cromer season to join the Coventry company in August. There was some difficulty with the Baxter Somerville‘s manager when I asked for a release from my contract. But I was able to bypass him and appeal to the top man himself. Baxter Somerville must have been in his late 60s. He was a Brighton solicitor and a great lover of theatre. In particular he loved calling on actresses while they were preparing for a performance. He may have cut quite a dash in the 20s and 30s as a sort of leftover Edwardian stage door Johnny. He had several of these seaside summer ventures and in spite of stingy economic squeezes from his general manager by the time I worked for him he was probably losing his shirts on all of them. Most of the girls thought he was a sweetie and wouldn’t say boo to a goose. And in the event, he let me go without a murmur. The Coventry management were happy for me to start a fortnight later than the original date. The first play was a doddle for stage management and they explained we rehearse all our plays for three weeks. Paradise I thought.

I arrived in Coventry at about 7 o’clock in the evening the Sunday before I was due to report. I had been given a lift charmingly by a couple of playgoers, Coventry holiday makers coming to the end of their fortnight by the sea. They whiled away the tedious journey (to this day, there are no decent westbound roads from the east Coast) by chatting enthusiastically about the Coventry rep. It was sometime before I realised that they were talking about the pre-war theatre, irreparably damaged by the Luftwaffe. Yes, they had seen a couple of shows by the company I was to join. But they played in a makeshift theatre in the technical college assembly hall. It was not a venue that in itself engendered any sense of dramatic occasion. They themselves were part of a pressure group trying to get funding for rebuilding the old rep or better still a brand-new theatre. Still, they wished me luck as they dropped me off in the city centre. Their wish was fulfilled. Sunday night is not the best time to be looking for digs in a strange town. There was no question now of being able to afford a night or two in a swish hotel as I had done when I went up to Perth with my last month’s pay as an officer in my bank account. I went into a café for a cup of tea and asked the pretty waitress if I could leave my bag with her while I went outside, to accost passers by or even a policeman to help with my immediate accommodation problem. She told me that she was only recently married and she and her husband had been discussing only the other day the possibility of letting the spare room to help defray the furnishing expenses. So there I was fixed up. Talk about luck.

The college proved to be a rather grim looking grey-stone neo-classical building. It might have looked quite impressive if one could’ve had more distant view of it than was available from the offices of the company. These were above a shop immediately opposite across a busy narrow thoroughfare called the Butts. I presented myself there at about 9:30 and met Bill Logan the general manager. He was very friendly and also extremely busy. He had the perpetual air of one who still felt he might miss the train despite having arrived at the station an hour before departure time. Also present was Elizabeth Mills, sharp-eyed, sharp featured and (it afterwards proved) sharp tongued. I immediately knew this was an extremely business like lady and a person to keep well on the right side of. She was it turned out Tony John’s right hand, a power behind the throne. Tony himself was directing the first play “The Paragon” but Basil Coleman would be responsible for most of the rest of the season. He would be arriving in Coventry next week, to take charge of “Musical Chairs”. The company was rehearsing in the hall behind the YMCA just up the road. The setting had been marked out on the floor in coloured chalk. This was something unknown to stage management in Perth let alone Cromer. Not quite so necessary of course. In both these venues the actors had ample opportunity to rehearse on the stage itself and the floor would have needed washing not merely sweeping before every performance. Nevertheless I immediately realised that slapdash stage management could not be tolerated here.

I met my fellow ASM‘s and the stage manager. He cultivated an aura of crisp efficiency. Spectacled rather camp quite witty he had the air of an accountant making a perpetual Audit. “Here you are at last this is a fairly easy show and we’ve got it pretty well organised. So what am I going to do with you? I don’t know but I don’t doubt I’ll think of something”. He winked at me. I didn’t respond. If he had meant to make a suggestion he certainly never tried again. After a brief pause he added “or Peter will.” Peter Banks was the stage director. He made something of a point of it not being his job to attend many rehearsals. He relied upon daily notes from minions such as me to keep him informed.

The actors began arriving. They all regarded me with very degrees of jaundice. Actors are not often at their best for the first hour or so of a rehearsal morning. And without exception, they all resent strangers dropping into see what’s going on. Tony himself arrived making an entrance exactly timed two minutes later. He made rather a meal of introducing me which scarcely improved matters. Coffee time and an actress who had a late call that morning crept in so mouse-like that I didn’t immediately recognise her. It was June, my ex directrice and leading actress from Perth. She fell upon my neck as though I were a prodigal son and re-introduced me to the girls in the company as my “favourite stage manager in Perth”. She told me that she had not had her contract in Perth renewed because audiences found her inaudible. What rubbish? It only needed a word from the management and I could have deafened them in the gallery with a whisper. You never found me difficult to hear did you? David? I replied that I have really rarely had the privilege of seeing her from the front as I was preoccupied with my backstage duties. The truth, alas, had been all too apparent to the company if not the audience in Perth. June had a drink problem. It had not got to the stage where she needed stimulation during performances and I have known actors like that – poor fellows, but she certainly took a snifter or two between the half and curtain up. Perhaps this was the reason why the management had employed her mainly as a director during my second season at Perth. Rehearsals mainly take place in the daytime and if a director is the worse for drink after dark, it’s nothing to be done. However lunchtime proved June was firmly on the wagon in Coventry.

I had naïvely suppose that the work pressure would be less when I moved from fortnightly in Perth and weekly in Cromer to the more tranquil waters of three weekly rep. For the actors there was an undoubtedly a great relief from the sheer panic of having inadequate time to master the lines. But for the stage management the labour was unremittingly sweated. We were a touring company with its own transport department maintained by just one very efficient motor mechanic and driver. We had four vehicles. The company had when I arrived just taken delivery of a brand new cream and maroon Bedford coach with comfortable seating for about 30. This was a replacement special funding from the arts council for the ex-RAF Ford liberty bus with lengthwise bench seating. This vehicle was retained in case it came in handy. The third vehicle was a medium sized removal van, grey painted like an old bus. The Luton (the overhanging storage space above the driver’s and passenger’s seats) had been specially converted so that five people could be accommodated on a bench seat. A glass windscreen been fitted. Passers-by would stare in amazement at the strange sight of five faces gazing down at them. More worryingly they sometimes caught the eye of approaching drivers in the opposite direction. There were several near misses in my time. The fourth vehicle was a well-worn Hillman minx. What view the arts Council took of its purpose was not at all clear at least not to me. But its sole use seemed to be to ferry Anthony John to and from his rather grand residence in Kenilworth.

It would be libel us to accuse Tony of being a crook. Let us rather say he had certainly learnt one skill in his time in the Air Force: namely how to maximise an expense account. Kenilworth is quite close to Coventry and attractive enough with its handsome green and impressive castle to be an expensive dormitory town for well healed senior management in the car industry. Tony has taken a lease (no digs for the lights of him) on what estate agents would describe “as a period house of character”. Dead centre right on the green. The rates must have been horrendous.

We played in four venues: only one of which was readily recognisable as a theatre. This was the Theatre Royale Redditch, in which we played the last week of our three weeks cycle. Unfortunately, it had been neglected and fallen into a very bad state of repair. Not all the tip up seats in the stalls could be used because they had collapsed under the weight of generations of Worcestershire playgoers. It was fortunate that the Midland Theatre company did virtually no scenic work involving flying. Because the Redditch grid and lines were in a shocking state of repair. Dust and dirt abounded. We had to bring our own broom so that the acting area at least could be swept. There was no staff except one stage manager/electrician old bored and cantankerous. Strangely, the theatre still maintained three musicians on the payroll. Their job was to provide music for the intervals and five minutes before curtain up – largely selections from pre-war musicals: “Lilac time”, “Chu Chin Chow” and even “Flora Dora”. This did no harm when we were presenting light comedy which as it happened we rarely did. But it was difficult to follow the music from the pit with any sort of recorded music of a dramatic nature. Tony for instance was fond of a bit of Richard Strauss or Holst.

I have mentioned already that the Coventry venue was basically a lecture hall but its stage was reasonably well equipped. Grid and lines were adequately maintained. Four dressing rooms had been designed to open directly onto the stage. Unfortunately, some prehistoric fire chief had insisted on a steel wall to be erected 4 feet or so away from these doors and this restricted the wing space to practically nil. The staff unlike those at the Redditch were crisp and efficient. Unfortunately, they were none of them remotely interested in the theatre. They were the caretakers and porters for an educational establishment trained to repel interlopers and us: constantly quoting more and more regulations governing the use of the venue. They were probably faults on our side and experience had made them the enemies of any sort of theatrical innovation.

The middle week was split between the Co-op hall Nuneaton and the library, Netherton. The former was basically a dancehall in which we used the band platform as a stage. The seating was hard metal stack away chairs. The stage area was lop-sided and awkward from every point of view. The lower part was the clothing department of the Nuneaton Co-op. Some of the apparel was surprisingly stylish. Every piece of equipment for use on stage had to be carried up two flights of stone steps through the emergency exit doors. Flats, 14 foot high to a maximum of 6 feet wide. Rostra not too bad if the carpenter had made them collapsible but treads! (steps to the Layman) always solid and very heavy. Three Strands portable (ha-ha), racks of sliding dimmers. Six or eight stage weights (not allowed to screw anything onto the stage) our own black borders and stage cloth costume and properties skips… No staff to help, just a caretaker worried that we would scratch his paintwork, which of course we did. Nuneaton was hell. Towards the end of my time at Coventry, I was asked if I would spend an evening with the Nuneaton playgoers society. Think it must have been during the Coventry run of my first professional production, “Laura”. I found the society very friendly and full of intelligent questions about theatre that I found difficult to answer. Brightest of all was a 14 year year-old schoolboy. He quite enjoyed going to the theatre for sheer entertainment. And he’d liked most of the shows we recently brought to Nuneaton. But shouldn’t theatre in the mid 20th century be more relevant to people’s daily lives? I answered the best I could. Something about it being up to the playwrights. We were still chatting long after the rest of the playgoers had gone. I asked his name. Kenneth Loach, he replied.

Netherton library was my favourite venue of the four places we played. As its name suggested it was in fact the town’s public library – books on the shelves all around the walls. Perhaps libraries have some intrinsic imaginative aura which can easily be transformed into theatricality. The get-in was if I remember correctly also up some stairs but much easier than Nuneaton. The caretaker was as pettifogging as the others. But his wife rather charmingly prepared, an urn of tea, some sandwiches and beans for the actors when they arrived at about 6 o’clock. It’s seated perhaps 250 to 300 (stack away metal chairs again) and that may be why it was possible to create a warm theatrical atmosphere, rare in Coventry, impossible in Nuneaton and depressingly sporadic in Redditch.

The company rehearsed from 10 till five during the Coventry week and from 10 until 4.30 the other two weeks. We opened a new show in Coventry on a Monday after only one dress rehearsal on that very afternoon. Technical rehearsals we had to get it right the first time. A particular regulation of the technical college staff (overtime no doubt – we got no overtime at all in those prehistoric days) insisted that all lights be put out by master switch at 10 pm on the setup Sunday. At the time this seemed an appalling guillotine but it certainly concentrated the mind of directors designers and senior stage management. Subsequent theatres I have worked in Nottingham Oxford Birmingham and (mea culpa) Colchester all opened at least a day later. But somehow the workload spread over the change-over period and nobody expected to get any sleep, for a night or two.

On such a treadmill it was essential for each member of the company to enjoy a good personal relationship with each and every other one. There is an excellent fringe company at least I hope it’s still exists called the “Cheek by Jowl”. Well no company ever lived cheek by jowl more than the Midland theatre company. And during the four seasons I was at Coventry morale and personal relationships were remarkably good. Not so alas in the autumn of 1949. Six weeks into the season, half of the acting strength including half the stage management who all played as cast were given notice to quit. I was lucky enough to be a survivor.

Choppy Waters

We are just started rehearsals for the third offering of the season the Rattigan double bill “Harlequinade” and “the Browning version” when Basil called the full company, one morning sharp at 10. He made a short speech. “I am well aware,” he said “that there are divided loyalties in the company. I have made the company call to assure you all that there is no division between Tony and me. As a management we are as one. I also assure you all I have a great respect for Tony’s experience and achievements as a director. We have a good company here and if we all work together we can make some exciting theatre. If the stage management will oblige, we will have an early cup of coffee. I’ll work out a detailed call for the day’s work with Griff (the stage manager).” The company was stunned. And it was a couple of days before he got any good work out any of us. If there were indeed divided loyalty and this was the first some of us (like me) had heard of it, this little speech made sure that such feelings came out into the open. Note in my little metaphorical black book the directors “Vade Mecum”: never divide the company into two camps. A week or 10 days later half of the company received with their pay packets a notice to quit before rehearsal started for the Christmas play. Tony was to direct this and the preceding play, “Shooting Star” a lightweight comedy about a footballer. Those leaving included the actuarial Griff. I was promoted into his shoes as stage manager with a welcome 50% rise. Just the sort of luck an expectant father needs.

Peter Banks the stage director, was having a rather unfortunate season. More things went wrong that could possibly have been tolerated at Cromer. He was in his second season with the company and had built up a reputation for meticulous technical efficiency. He believed firmly that the person in charge of the prompt corner had to be solely responsible for the timing of everything lighting music cues off stage shouts door slams bells, Thunder sheets.(Quite right too!) But Peter was a maniac for cue lights and he forcefully discouraged anyone from using common-sense or initiative in a crisis. “You are a piece of machinery. When you see the green light you act accordingly to your cue sheet”. There had been a shortage of portable cue lights (to Mr Banks chagrin) in the previous season and he had commissioned the new electrician to construct new portable prompt desk. Unfortunately the electrician had made it battery operated and with flimsy low voltage wiring and housings – it did not stand up well to the rough tumble of the company, always on the road. It all had to be made again using regulation rubber clad mains cable. Meanwhile we stumbled on as best we could.

Griff was a very experienced stage manager and had been in charge backstage of several theatres rather further up the ladder of respect ability than say Cromer. He was a somewhat gossipy man and made no secret of the fact that he was on the same salary, I believe it was £12 a week as Peter.

And he often hinted that fewer of these disasters would’ve happened had he de facto been in full charge. Griff’s downfall was he really rather wanted to further his career as an actor. And neither in “Harlequinade” nor in “Month in the country” did he show anything very positive in the quite, nice character parts.

Also leaving were the two dull leads from “Harlequinade” and a rather wet juvenile who had been an ASM in the previous season. No great loss I callously thought. I was quite sorry to see June axed. She had been very good indeed I thought in “Musical Chairs”. Of course I was looking at the performance from the prompt corner. Perhaps it didn’t get across. And again, perhaps, sexually frustrated plain girls of 35 are meat and drink to a halfway decent actress of modest physical attractiveness. But there was no doubt whatsoever that she was rather drab in the role of Natalia Petrova in “A Month in the Country”. Turgenev’s comedy stars an attractive young woman bored to extinction with life on her husband’s estate, deep in agricultural Russia, and drawn sexually towards the new tutor for his 16-year-old daughter. June’s performance was by no means weak but certainly lacked sparkle.

I was also sorry to see Edward Waddy going to the guillotine. He was a first rate character man of I suppose 50, excellent as the assorted fathers in “The Paragon and “Musical Chairs”. He was also good in “The Browning Version” although lumbered with a rather two blowsy wife. Good again revealing quite a light touch as the manipulative doctor in the Russian classic. Such an actor was then and still remains very difficult to get and keep in provincial repertory. However, Edward demanded time free from rehearsals to learn his lines and, like some of the best wine, he did not travel well. He wanted to sleep on all the coach journeys and complained about the noisy chatter of us youngsters. Among the company he was the one who most criticised Basil’s production methods – breaking the play up into a thousand little scenes and exploring relationships in depth. There was indeed a difference of methodology between Basil and Tony. And in that troubled autumn I was unquestionably a Basil man. Edward and the leading lady who I have perhaps unfairly described as blowsy were in the opposite camp. At the time I rather short-changed Tony.

Toni was in fact a solid reliable Director reminiscing perhaps of Eddie Bailey in Perth. In the late 20s he had been stage and company manager for Ivor Novello. He had begun his directing career by restaging one of Novello’s London successes in New York about the time I was born. In the 30s, he ran the York Theatre Royal as a weekly rep and he tended to hark back to his glory days in York rather than firing the present company with enthusiasm. At his best, he was pretty good. I judge him from a distant retrospective point of view. At the time I thought he was old hat. His no nonsense sensibly cut revenge tragedy, “Hamlet” was one of the best I have seen or been involved in, fast moving clearly spoken and a company effort not a concerto for a leading man. But then he seemed out of date to some of us younger actors. His early career as a theatre technician led him to base his productions on solid settings rather than inspiring the actors to take wing. Perhaps we were all marking time waiting for the revolution in theatre that was to be marked most memorably by “Look back in Anger” in 1955. The well-made play set in a well upholstered drawing room could still draw an audience of sorts. But postwar actors and directors were thirsty to tackle work which would satisfy a wider audience than Terrence Rattigan’s Aunt Edna. Basil Coleman was not perhaps in the forefront of this movement towards a new style of theatre. Indeed, his mania was for opera and he had several of Britten’s Aldeburgh successes already to his credit. But he did have enthusiasm and spoke the same language as those of us in the company who were under 30 and given his head with the casting he attracted some excellent older actors too – Edward Jewesbury, Michael Aldridge (what a leading man!), Cecil Winter, Daphne Heard, Rosamund Burre. No more no more “old sweats” like Edward Waddy.

Post Christmas, the company developed some of the ethos of a group theatre. Those that remained included Graham Stark – an excellent character actor who seemed able to play everything. At that time, with no make-up, he could look young enough to play the 15-year-old Taplow in “The Browning Version” and also be excellent as Grandpa in “You can’t take it with you”. The traditional Rosencrantz/gravedigger double was of course meat and drink to Graham. And he was a very suburban Pater familias with a crooked double life in Priestley’s “Laburnum Grove”. He was in his second season with the company and sometimes suffered rather by being, as it were, the resident comedian. The audience knew him well and were disposed to laugh at his every entrance. This did not always work in his favour particularly when he was cast as the young tutor in “A Month in the Country” where the comedy required a very delicate touch.

I believe that I personally had a very narrow escape here career-wise. A long time afterwards I was told by Elizabeth Mills who was privy to many conversations between the two directors, Basil had wanted me to play the tutor. At the time that it was being cast I was earmarked for promotion on the stage management side. As Tony quite rightly said, I could I couldn’t take on that responsibility and give a halfway decent performance as a leading romantic juvenile. I was glad she did not tell me at the time. She could sometimes be commendably discreet. I would’ve felt quite a pang that time. I am 6 foot tall was then dark haired and possibly well featured. Graham was five foot nine sharp faced and fair headed. (He is still to be seen as Sellers’ sidekick gendarme in the Inspector Clouseau films) but my Perth experience had taught me that the straighter the juvenile part I played the more unconvincingly I acted. Graham though miscast gave an experienced actor’s performance in “Month”. I might well have been utterly dreadful.

I would however have enjoyed playing opposite Sheila Sweet (as good a juvenile actress as I have worked with. Pass her in the street (and you would you would do just that without a second thought) a dumpy little thing with a head just too large for the body. But in her war paint and a nicely cut frock she could bring to the stage a freshness and prettiness which was very stimulating. “A flurry of little jingle bells” as Clifford Odets put it. And she could do pathos to heartbreaking as Ophelia. Shortly after leaving Coventry she had a starring role in the West End. This was in a play about nurses – a somewhat solid evening the critics thought. Off stage apparently (I never met her again) her first marriage with “the Dark of the Moon” handsome American William Sylvester broke up. And more or less on the rebound she married my old colleague Dickie Johnson. Both these redoubtable swordsman probably had some difficulty fending off with young ladies. I mentioned Sheila‘s name when Dickie entertained us to supper in Birmingham. “Miserable girl” he said briefly and changed the subject. I felt sad for Sheila – so much talent so much waste – “so quick, bright white bright things come to confusion”.

Also in the company was a tall, very beautiful dark girl called Benedicta Leigh. She began as an ASM, in parallel with me, but was soon playing a string of leading parts and was unable to do much on the technical side. She was very witty and had the gift of tongues. She could be convincing in various accents or rather funny voices and she was an endless source of amusement on the never-ending bus journeys. On stage she exuded potential. She had more than a few good moments, for instance as Eliza Doolittle. But the potential was never quite fulfilled. I met her daughter at an audition several years later who told me Benedicta was now rather better after suffering serious bouts of mental illness. I was saddened though not entirely surprised by the news. The daughter also seem to be full of potential. But though I wished her well I had nothing immediate to offer her.

Another who stayed was Leonard White, saturnine of feature, dark complexion a powerful stage presence. He was good as the dilettante, philosophic friend of the family, sponger Rakitin in “A Month in the Country”. He had weight and authority. He was young enough to be convincing in juvenile parts too – for instance in the two fraught sons with dominant fathers in “The Paragon” and “Musical Chairs”. He continued to do good work after Christmas but he left over the casting of the spring blockbuster Hamlet. It was no secret that Tony was having difficulty casting the lead role. Rumours abounded many of them with no foundation at all, now I believe. Dennis Price was tipped for instance, Denholm Elliot, Richard Todd and great Richard Green. About a fortnight before rehearsals were due to start, Tony offered it to Leonard. Leonard (not then a close friend of a lowly ASM such as me) turned it down and said “I’d rather thought you might offer me Laertes I’d quite like to play him.”  “Ah” said Tony “I’ve cast that part already. I’ve invested in an actor who is an expert swordsman – the duel you see.” Well Edward Jewesbury was already working on Claudio.  So not fancying the suffering Horatio, still less, doddering, pompous old Polonius, Exit Leonard, rather sharply down left.

Years later I met Leonard again. I was looking for work after six years at Birmingham rep and toying perhaps half-heartedly to get into television. Leonard was by now quite a big cheese in the new medium. He was in charge of Armchair Theatre. Much to my surprise and pleasure he greeted me most warmly as an old friend. He said I’d have to be trained before being let loose on a TV studio. This I knew. What I did not know was that the BBC was the only organisation that offered any such training. I will mention briefly my dealings with the BBC later on in this chronicle. Leonard discussed with me in detail one or two of my productions at Birmingham. And I was able to explain how I had occasionally yearned for a camera to concentrate the audience’s attention on details – for instance Derek Jacobi’s labourer’s hands, aching with toil, seen through the window of his labourer’s cottage in “Roots”.

Leonard promised me an Armchair Theatre if I could get the all-important basic training. As I was leaving I mentioned Tony John who I knew was also working in ATV. Said Leonard I’m afraid poor old Tony is having rather a difficult time. I’m afraid he’s going to be eased out. Tony’s fate did not seem to worry Leonard much. In the event Tony simply transferred to another department and a few years later it was Leonard who was shafted. I had a letter from him at Colchester saying he was now working as a freelance director and if there was anything he could do for me at Colchester… The whirligig of time.

In the end Basil was persuaded to have a go at the named part. He had trained as an actor and had been in the old Vic Company and had tales to tell about understudying Bernard Miles as Iago. He would never actually have to go on, although Bernard was frequently nowhere to be found at the half. This was just as well as the blunt man of the people which was which was Miles’s speciality was probably beyond Basil’s grasp. Basil was a sensitive soul – no bad thing in Hamlet. His verse speaking was flexible and fluent. The Times’ critic- the only time London critic visited Coventry in my first four years – was generally kind although he thought Mr. Coleman was a shade parsonical. The rest of our car cast loved our director dearly and I believe that it was this rallying support which made the show look like a company effort.

Desmond Tester arrived just before the first Christmas show to play the brilliant but often but dim footballer in “Shooting Star”. He had great success in the 30s as a boy actor in films notably “The Drum” and also as the ailing boy King Edward the sixth in a Tudor epic. He was thirtyish and anxious to make a new career for himself as a character actor. He had not the physique or physiology to make the grade as a leading man. He could still look certainly young on stage. He was good for instance as Sheila‘s twin brother in “You never can Tell”. And a few years later in a different theatre he was the best Fancourt Babberley I’ve ever worked with. Looking younger than his fellow undergraduates. He had in such roles a beautifully light touch with comedy. Alas, in false moustaches and padding and heavy makeup, he never looked quite at ease in the character roles he essayed at Coventry. The poor fellow was in desperate trouble financially and domestically. He had three or four children and an understandably desperate wife. I was deeply shocked to hear some years after I left Coventry that he had killed himself.

Peter Banks recovered from the bad patch I mentioned earlier. He was a bit of a bully or should I say he rather bullied me. But I had nothing but admiration for the way he organised Tony’s Hamlet. Remember our “get in” was at 9 am to a completely bare stage on the Sunday before we opened after just one dress rehearsal on the Monday. Tony was a very demanding director technically. But his own stage management origins deterred him from asking us to tackle any technical problems to which he himself could not see the solution. Basil on the other hand and Paul Lee who succeeded him as director in my third season sometimes had rather vague notions of what they wanted to achieve and only knew that they did not want what their technicians and designers presented at dress rehearsal.

Peter had arranged to go with Basil to Aldeburgh for the summer season and this entailed his leaving me in sole charge for the last show of the season, “Laburnum Grove”. This was indeed a piece of cake for stage management. But a nice surprise for those of us returning for the autumn season. We were to take “Laburnum Grove” on a fortnight tour after we closed at Redditch. A week in Brighton and a week of the Bristol Old Vic would at least see us work for two of the 10 week break between the company’s seasons. Tony directed “Laburnum” which allowed Basil to make a start on the Aldeburgh season. He took Peter Banks with him which left me in charge as backstage supremo. True “Laburnum” was an easy show. But touring even for a short period as this was has its own problems. I acquitted myself quite well and Tony left me to do the lighting which was a real education – learning on the job. Peter came back from Aldeburgh for the new season and promptly handed in his notice. He was going to be general manager for the English Music Society which ran the annual Aldeburgh festival. There were transfers in the offering of course to Saddlers Wells, the Lyric Hammersmith and Covent Garden I was I believe the last person in the company to be told this news which would have caused me much anxiety. In the event I got his job. I was subsequently told that Peter had done all he could to block this. But Tony thought I deserved the chance. Thank you Tony.

So there we were, an excellent band of actors, Desmond, Ros Burne, Teddy Jewesbury, Benedicta and my two stalwart male ASMs were re-engaged for the new season. These last mentioned were Michael Barrington and David Marlow both very talented young men. Tony had, all praise to him, taken a chance on them both and given them Horatio and Polonious in “Hamlet”. Neither of them even flinched or complained, about much of the gruelling physical work involved in such a company as ours. Remember we had no permanent staff to help us in any of our venues. Redditch staff were the reverse of useful. Michael left Coventry with a string of hefty parts behind him and went to work with John Harrison‘s company at Nottingham Playhouse. He was doing quite nicely in television when apparently quite suddenly he died ridiculously, young.  Bill went for a couple of seasons to Geoffrey Ost in Sheffield. He was immensely versatile and 18 months at least year younger than me. He chose understandably to play Polonious as very old indeed; got all the possible laughs in the earliest scenes and managed some degree of pathos, as things in Elsinore began to get out of hand.

We were joined by a versatile leading actress, Antonia Pemberton and for Basil’s last half season a smashing leading man in Michael Aldridge. I remember with great pleasure my time under Basil’s regime as the nearest thing to genuine group theatre that I experienced in the engine room as it were of a company. When eventually some 10 years later to be on the bridge of the ship as captain. I hope some of the companies I directed had come to the same spirit but the director’s life is by its nature a solitary one. So how could I know? However I remember with pleasure of my time under Basil and Tony and thank you Graham, Desmond, Sheila, Benedicta, Roz, Daphne, Teddy, Leonard, Michael and Bill for being such splendid colleagues.

Insert

Basil made an excellent job of “The Ladies not for Burning”. Gielgud who I’ve seen play the soldier in London of course revelled in the verse, speaking so subtly, so beautifully that he made you think you were listening to Shakespeare. Michael Aldridge however looked and sounded like a war weary veteran. In London the evening belong to Pamela Brown. Michael conquered the audience with energy, muscularity and sheer virility. Antonia was good too as the witch-girl Jeanette. I was quite proud too of the lighting. It was very exciting theatre.

Regime change.

Basil was taken seriously ill during the rehearsal period of the last show of his second season – “The Importance…” and Tony had to take over. It was well received – Aldridge an excellent John Worthing. But not surprisingly it lacked the top polish of style which for example, Basil had achieved with a piffling Somerset Maugham trifle called “The Noble Spaniard” or “School for Scandal”. Elusive quality of style not quite the same thing as “camp” or “precious” which could correctly be described to Basil’s “The Glass Slipper”, my second Christmas show in Coventry.

Paul Lee who followed Basil was a charming perhaps rather weak man who attempted to keep a light hand on the tiller. His arrival coincided with one of the perennial crises in pre-Jenny Lee arts funding. The consequence of this was that I was asked to do more than was wise in the way of acting. The stage management rather suffered. And because of this I began to resent being cast. In a curious paradox, the less I desperately wanted to do it, the better I carried it off.

I had fun in a sort of double act with John Humphrey, the new leading juvenile man. I was the Corporal to his “Captain Carvallo” in Paul’s opening production and followed it by playing a police sergeant to his inspector in the thriller, “Grand National Night”, which followed. Neither of us could do the Scouse accent and to our shame nobody seemed to care much. I used my all-purpose north country voice which had to do for all places upward of Luton on the map. Television had not then made everybody familiar with various provincial accents. I believed then that we got away with it though I realise now we shouldn’t have. It was difficult to know who got away with what, because Paul himself played the leading part. He said right from the start that this would be the only time he would tread the boards in Coventry. It would be his way of, as it were, announcing his presence to the audience. He should’ve known better.

As it happens Tony directed “Venus Observed” early in the season and cast Paul in a supporting character part. He was very good indeed. As a straight man he exuded a sort of genial friendliness niceness in sufficient quantities to carry the weight of a dramatic evening.

Venus was fun. David Dodimead who had led the company in the season before I arrived returned to play the lead. He was an accomplished hand with the comedy and the play had more than a few good laughs.

Duke: (contemplating a middle aged easeful life) And I as unlaborious as a Laburnum tree hang in the tresses of brightest gold.

Edgar (his son who fears being disinherited) And what do I hang in Father?

Duke: You Edgar, hang in abeyance.

There were many such moments in the play and the audience passed a very pleasant evening and we actors loved it and ourselves in it. But “Lady’s not for Burning” was about something important to everyone who had been through the war. It raised amid the comedy the intolerance and the fury of the mob. Venus was about whether the middle aged swordsman of the bed chamber can really be bothered to seduce just one more and ingenue. Was this the best that postwar theatre could offer?

Paul did quite a tidy production of “By Candlelight”, but cast the two leads the wrong way round. Doddimead should’ve played the 35-ish man-servant who yearns for one night of passion with a well bred beautiful lady. And Humphrey would’ve been better as the young aristocrat disentangling himself from an affair with the Demimondaine from café society and beginning a serious relationship with a woman of his own class.

But the Christmas show that year was an atrocious production of “Charley’s Aunt”. The old war horse needs careful handling. It loses all its charm if it does not have a very young cast. Bill Fraser was a very good comic actor, but he was well into his 40s when he came to Coventry to play Fancourt Babberley. He played it like a pantomime dame. Of course the audience loved it. This was Paul’s Nadir.

He bounced back with a decent stab at “The Eagle has Two Heads”. The main interest in this piece was whether an actress alone on stage for the 45 minutes can keep an audience unbored for that length of time. Antonia could and a new leading man coming like the cavalry to her relief did his best but he was a rat-featured little fellow and the audience probably wondered what all the fuss was about. Be wary I thought of continental playwrights. When in doubt they tend to become operatic. English audiences do not buy histrionics for their own sake,

Peter Bayless as I have mentioned cheered up Wuthering Heights no end but Heathcliff rather lacked lustre. Paul however against the general trend did a highly stylish piece of work on “Victoria Regina” – Antonia again. Peter played no less than three parts culminating in a deliciously fruity John Brown. And there was a decent “Man and Superman” – Alan Cuthbertson excellent as Tanner. The rest of the cast did not always manage to keep their heads above water drowning in the exuberance of the author’s verbosity.

Monica and my son Christopher were by now living with me in Coventry and with the kind help of her sister Billy she was able to return to the stage for the latter part of the season. Her first part was to sing upstage centre behind a gauze panel while the tone deaf heroine mimed operatic singing. The play was “The Imaginary Invalid”. There was no musical director appointed just like Basil’s rather unsuccessful “Glass Slipper”. I am an indifferent musician and can play the piano after a fashion. But I had to try to impose some sort of order into a stylised finale from the offstage piano. I also was cast as Harpergon’s all-wise philosophic friend. I was very bad. Something to do with feeling like a cocker spaniel in the full bottomed wig – embarrassed and embarrassing. Just like I had been as Careless in “Scandal” several years before. I never saw any of this production of course from the front and I have no right to sit in judgement on it. But from backstage and in particular from the piano, it seemed the worst presentation I had ever been involved with. It seems so still

Monica showed to some effect in “Superman” as the ramrod disciplinarian Miss Ramsden. This I did see from the front. She brought much-needed energy towards the end of act one when everybody else’s was beginning to flag. She was not in Wuthering Depths – lucky her!  She played a series of non-entity ladies in waiting et cetera in “Regina” and finished the season by turning in a neat nicely turned performance as the Swedish hotel secretary in “Travelers’ Joy”. This was the only postwar play by an English author in the whole season since Cannan’s excellent “Captain Cavallo” opened it.

“Travellers” was a fairly vapid affair. Most of the jokes were of the funny foreigner variety. Peter showed us he could play sophisticated light comedy as well as heavy character. Looking back it reveals exactly how sorry the state of British Theatre was,

Pat McGoohan join us to lead the company in Paul’s second season. He brought an edge of dramatic authority to everything he did with us. He was excellent as a straight leading man “The Seventh Veil”, a rather hammy melodrama which started as a film. “Private Lives” we still did it in modern dress in the 50s and best of all a superb Petruchio. But Pat was not afraid to have a go at practically anything. His first part with us was as the blustering Victorian father beset by daughters in “Hobson‘s Choice”. Wilfred Brambell also joined the company for the season playing Henry, Horatio’s drinking club companion, Jim Heeler. They formed a wonderful double act, which continued through “Born Yesterday” where Wilfred played yes-man factotem to the corrupt wheeler dealer, right through to Gromio/Petruccio. in Pat’s farewell to Coventry. Pat was able to use his Irishness as the whimsical psychiatrist in “The Cocktail Party”. Perhaps there were stirrings in British theatre after all. Tony perhaps not admiring the work of his associate directors in the two previous Christmas offerings decided to resurrect “Housemaster”, Ian Hay’s tribute to Eaton or Harrow or some such superior place. Harmless stuff but not exactly a cracker. Pat held it all together as the avuncular kindly schoolmaster. He left us after “The Shrew”, trailing clouds of glory. His boots were never filled during the remainder of my time at Coventry.

Bill Lucas, a fine actor, did his best. He was an excellent Tesman in Hedda Gabbler for instance. One would find no fault either in his performance in the rather grim sociological thriller “Payment Deferred”. It was a well-wrought, very plausible piece but it needed a bit of star personality in the leading part. I believe that the audience did not care much whether Bill as the hero/villain got away with the body in his back garden and the audience were left feeling rather glum

Tony in a moment of supreme indiscretion sometime later told me that he and his masters in the Arts Council had decided after “Shrew” that Paul should be given his conge. Truth to tell, apart from the Catherine/Petruccio duologues, the general scenes has been rather scruffy. And the Christopher Sly induction although difficult to play for many laughs does in fact supply a distancing effect on the crudeness of the male-dominated battle of the sexes. Paul cut it entirely. Paul was not told about his demise until just before he went into rehearsal for the show before Christmas “To Dorothy a Son”. He left immediately,

I think he had some reason to feel aggrieved because his socks were more firmly suspended in the beginning of his third season. He had three strong leading actors in Kenneth McIntosh Stephen Boyd and Gwen Watford. They were very well caste in “Winter Journey” Odets’ hefty saga of the return of a dipso actor to the big time in American theatre. it was as good a production as any that I had been involved in in Coventry fast moving neat settings by our designer Jenny Webster and never pretentious – the trap that English directors so often fall into when directing Arthur Miller. Paul and Jenny followed this with a stylish presentation in “The River Line” by Charles Morgan. I don’t suppose anyone reads him now but then Morgan was thought to be the English answer to Thomas Mann, deep philosophy made easy. Not many laughs but again Paul moved it along briskly. It could’ve been very turgid, this philosophical justification of counter-brutalism in the French Maquis during the fairly recent conflict.

Boyd’s origins was somewhat mysterious. He claimed to be an expatriate American but sometimes pure Irish (Ulster I think) showed through. He had pleasant looks and a personality although it lacked anything approaching McGoohan’s impact (what could?). It got across quite attractively.

Kenneth McIntosh was tall dark and saturnine. Indeed, he was a Cassius of a leading man rather than a Brutus. He went eventually from us a few miles west to Birmingham where I’m told he was very fine in a play about the dying days of the Romans in Britain. By RC Sherriff, not Howard Brenton. “The long Sunset” it was called. Gwen Watford excelled in understated suffering. I say understated I should say that pangs of misery went winging to every corner of the house. If Gwen was fighting against tears then so every woman was in the audience, men felt someone somewhat ashamed of their sex. But that is not very fair to a very splendid actress indeed. She could sparkle quite brightly too in light comedy as she showed in Paul Lee’s deft production of Lonsdale’s “On Approval”. Underpowered performance by the Duke of Bristol Company casting – not Paul’s fault. Stephen would have been worse.

As indeed he was in Paul’s last production for us “To Dorothy a Son”. Perhaps he was an American after all. Roger McDougall‘s play was perhaps a heavy handed with the comedy. But Stephen seem not to appreciate the comedy of lower middle class husband coping while his wife is immobile, unseen, but not unheard, in a bedroom stage centre. Simple rule of comedy. If an actor does not see the joke the audience never will, and of course the true comedian’s skill is often to persuade us that he doesn’t see the funniest side of it at all. I was quite sorry to see Paul go. He was an amiable extremely friendly soul. He was one of a very few people I worked with who could pick up a friendly relationship years later. Four or five years after he left Coventry, Paul got me a job to cover some of the long vac from Oxford Playhouse. I was stage plus company manager for a play on a short provincial tour. But 30 years later than that, when I was working in America, I went to Cleveland Ohio with an interview with a man who ran the Great Lakes Shakespeare festival. While I was there, I thought I might well drop in on the local repertory theatre. Lo and behold the foyer was full of pictures of Paul Lee who played leading character parts with the company and directed about half the plays. Associate director in fact. A helpful stage manager, a telephone call and a taxi delivered me to his flat where we were again immediately on intimate terms. He had become an American citizen, was very proud of his Ford Mustang. “I could never have afforded a car like that on what a director was paid in England.” He’d done several years in the drama department of Ohio state. I was working at SMU Dallas with the Dallas Shakespeare festival to come. No, he wouldn’t want to do any more of that. “Oh God, those working breakfasts, casting students into a program of plays at 6 o’clock in the morning.” No he was very happy indeed where he was and so he seemed. His company was in recess period and the director was on a sabbatical which can mean and did in this case, he was on a general length of notice while the board of directors set about finding a replacement. When I got back to England, I wrote to the Cleveland theatre trying to drum up some more wonderfully paid American work. I received a prompt and courteous reply. A new director had been appointed and they could see no immediate possibility et cetera et cetera. I wonder what it happened to Paul. Also later I heard he had died quite suddenly. Heart attack I believe was given as the cause. I was saddened by this but not altogether surprised. America seem a well-paid paradise, but it is no place at all to be out of work.

A change of gear

Frank Hauser who succeeded Paul was the fastest speech gun and tongue I ever met. Everything he did or said was charged with tremendous energy. Kenneth McIntosh who stayed on until nearly the end of Frank’s stint said to me, “He makes you feel that you are on the crest of a wave leading onto tremendous success. And yet Paul Lee’s “The River Line”, considered as a production, was better than anything Frank has shown us yet. Stephen Boyd and Gwen Watford also stayed on and Frank produced out of the hat, as it were, a new leading actor to join them in Joss Ackland. This tall blonde giant was a happy-go-lucky untidy careless individual, like many actors. But just stood literally head and shoulders above anyone else I have ever worked with for sheer disorganisation. 10 years or so later when I was casting a play for Birmingham Rep I suggested Joss to John Harrison. He fell about laughing and said, “Joss was on a Shakespeare tour with Daphne Slater and me in Australia when I was still an actor. We came to regarding him as a walking disaster area, he was always dropping his spear or tripping up his fellow guardsmen”. Of course I tried to persuade my boss. But he was adamant. And when I came to think about it, when I was directing Joss at Oxford, he did seem to require rather more stage space than any of the other actors. He did some lovely work for Frank at Coventry and at Oxford however. He captured exactly the dashing ex-heroism in “The Deep Blue Sea”. There had been several such men at Boscombe Down with expensive sports cars and expensive debts; charming companions, each with an eye for the girls, seeing no future in civilian life but facing it with indomitable optimism. Gwen was splendid too of course and there were good performances from Kenneth as the husband/Judge and Stephen playing a character role as the philosophical Jewish doctor and neighbour.

Sartre’s “Les Mains Sales” and “Streetcar” added weight to the season. By now I had the best number two I ever had on the technical side – Joan Knight. Somewhat to my surprise, I found myself asking for a part in “Street Car”. I just didn’t want to be left out of the general excitement. Frank gave me Pablo the Mexican member of the poker school. I think I managed not to let the side down. Gwen was in her fragile element as Blanche. Stephen was dogged and indestructible if not quite frighteningly violent as Stanley. But the outstanding scene of the evening was when Blanche tries half-heartedly despairingly to seduce Mitch who is forced to reveal predilections of a homosexual nature. I have mentioned Joss’s size and apparent clumsiness. But here he revealed a wonderful delicacy of touch.

Frank had a certain flare for blockbuster drama which drew him towards continental or American heavyweight plays. He could also throw himself wholeheartedly into light affairs. Some other directors I stage managed for gave the impression that popular comedy was rather beneath them and did not deserve their full attention. Not so Frank. He put as much of his own energy into plays like “Fools rush in” or “The Man who came to Dinner” or God bless us all “The Hollow”, as he did into Macbeth. Indeed he had a very ready appreciation of the fact that a theatre without an audience is a pathetic non sequitur. He began his regime with an outright old-fashioned melodrama “Johnny Belinda”. Of course he did have the ideal actress in Gwen Watford to jerk every drop of moisture out of every beholder in the part of the deaf and dumb Belinda. This is not to say that I think Frank was the best director I ever worked for. But he did have the knack of persuading us all that the work we were doing was excellent and worthwhile. In short in Coventry Frank presided over what can properly be described as a company.

Meanwhile, what about me? When Paul Lee left, I wrote to Dick Linklater at the Arts Council. He was far away the most sympathetic and helpful officer in the drama section of the Arts Council for the whole period when I had dealings with that body. Why he never became the number one in drama is a mystery. He served as deputy to some chiefs who had very little grasp of what we were trying to do in the provincial theatre. To have been scrupulously correct I should’ve approached Tony first but his expenses were being investigated, et cetera et cetera and after all we were a directly managed arts Council company. I simply asked Nick if he would put in a word for me to whoever was appointed in Paul’s place, I now had the excellent stage manager Joan. I was sure. I told Nick that she would revel in the chance to take full charge backstage if I could be given my head to direct a production. I received no immediate reply other than a secretarial acknowledgement.

As it happened, I struck up close friendship with Frank as well as a good working relationship. Two or three weeks after he arrived, I was nerving myself to approach him on the matter when he quite suddenly broached the subject himself. “I hear you want to be given charge of a production”. “That’s right,” I said. “Well,” he said “I’ve no objection in principle I’ll see what can be done. By the way, something I’m curious about. What does Tony actually do when he’s not directing a play?” I could make no coherent reply. Sit behind a big desk all day and make high-level decisions. I don’t still don’t know how I ought to have replied but Frank went straight on. “I’ll be deciding all policy matters from now on.”

I could’ve course have pointed out the energy and time Tony was spending trying to enthuse local councillors and big wigs into finding money to build a new repertory theatre to replace the blitzed hulk in central Coventry. Tony was just the first of several directors. I have known who have put heart and soul into planning a new theatre only to find the board of directors, in Coventry’ case a brand new foundation, deciding that an entirely new broom was necessary for the new building. I am thinking of Nottingham, Birmingham and Ipswich. in the latter case it is possible that John Southworth did not want the job in the new theatre. I have no knowledge of Suffolk politics but I know something of what was going on when I worked in the three Midland towns in the 50s and 60s.

There is a charming story, the detail of which may not be quite accurate explaining how in Coventry the rep came to be called the Belgrade. It seems there was some sort of exchange in the late 1940s between the mayor of Coventry and his counterpart in the Yugoslav capital. Some sort of goodwill gesture, exactly what I am not sure, was made. Possibly a charity was formed to help build the wall torn Serbian city. What I’m sure about is that the Yugoslav government wanted to reciprocate with a gift to the people of Coventry. Both cities were facing appalling rebuilding problems. The Serbs were glad of cash. What could they do? They decided to send a load of timber of which they had plenty.

This, they suggested, could be used for the stage and grid of the new theatre which they had been told was on the drawing board. Theatres in Eastern Europe were and remained, until the wall came down, an absolute top priority.

The last paragraphs of this story rather lose their charm. It takes many years to build a theatre in England. The Yugoslav gift was offered at a time when timber was in very short supply in Britain, rationed in fact. (I think we were allowed an inadequate decimal pointage of standard of timber each year to build sets. But when trading conditions eased the Coventry council saw no sense in paying for storage of quite a large quantity of a commodity which there was now an ample supply. They sold it. I do not suppose this highly practical if mercenary decision received any coverage in the local press. But at the time of the arrival of the timber there was considerably heart warming stuff. I seem to remember an article suggesting that in a year or two an English actor might get some inspiration from the knowledge that the boards he trod were a generous gift from desperately poor theatre lovers from a far-off land. It is from such quantifiable things as this that theatres acquire an atmosphere. Anybody who has ever sat on the cold stone tears at Epidaurus will know what I am talking about. So will any actor who has played at the Bristol Old Vic. It is utterly intangible but is but it is there. Some theatres may never acquire it – the Littleton or the newish Birmingham rep, but the old Station Street venue had it in spades.

 Frank gave me “Laura” an entertainment thriller with a witty script. Vera Caspary was a journalist who was much admired even if she was not a member of the New York wits who in the late 20s and mid 40s for gathered in New York Algonquin (Thurber, Woolcott, Dorothy Parker, Lillian Hellman). In common with the majority of English audiences, I am very partial to a good detective story. Gwen Watford was leaving the company and Frank produced, from among his friends, a very beautiful girl whom he was anxious to try out. Barbara was the wife of Alfred Burke an excellent actor who was a pillar of strength at the time for Dougie Seale at the Birmingham rep. She had trained as an actress, but married Alfie quite young. Seale had used her in various my new roles in Birmingham without giving her real chances to show her paces and develop. She certainly had the looks, not unlike Benedicta Leigh – a statuesque brunette. It is not easy to stand, rather reminiscent of Patience on a monument smiling in the centre when the boys on either side of you have the best lines and get all the laughs. But she acquitted herself pretty well. She and Alfie were the parents of twins and shortly after she left us, she repeated the trick and presented him with another pair. This I suppose put pretty well paid to any serious ideas for a career. Pity!

Rumour had it that Alfie, a charming man who accompanied us on the tour bus on a couple of occasions, had insured himself against this event. And so my gossipy informant told me he had done very nicely out of the deal,

I owed much to Stephen and Kenneth for whatever success I achieved with “Laura”. The one persuaded us that it was conceivable that a hard-bitten New York copper, investigating a crime scene where a woman has just had a face blown off by a shotgun, would immediately fall deeply and romantically in love with her portrait. The other quite correctly hamming it up as the witty charming aesthete of a villain.

Joss, much to my consternation, had decided at very short notice to give up the theatre altogether and go to Rhodesia to plant tea. Apparently his wife had land or landed connections in the Dark Continent. I’m not sure how far he and Rosemary had got with their progeny at this stage. They eventually had seven children, Devil-may-care Joss! Apparently it was Joss who suggested his own replacement to Frank and Frank signed him up sight-unseen. Joss was quite right in one respect. Ken Wynne proved to be a versatile and very useful addition to the company. He arrived to play as cast in “Laura” – all 5 foot seven at half of him, nice wavy, receding dark hair, swarthy complexion and a lived-in face. He had to play a big hunk of sex appeal – the lover, Laura had just ditched and a prime suspect for the murder. He came to me immediately after the first reading and said, “Look if you think I’m wrong for the part, I’ll leave now without demanding compensation.” I said. “I really don’t know if you’re right for the part. I don’t know anything about you. But there was great intensity in your reading. Persuade yourself that you are still desperately in love with Laura and more importantly, persuade the audience that you can be savage jealous enough to kill someone and will be home and dry.” We never spoke about it again but I did miss the 6 foot animal sex appeal that Joss could’ve brought to the part. The rest of the company (I benefited from there being an excellent ensemble feeling to work with) played up valiantly. This included Joan Knight not only shouldering all the stage management responsibilities but playing a sizable part too. Frank was pleased and that was the main thing. He said, “The only thing wrong with it is the casting and that was my doing. At least we won’t have to employ a guest director to give me a break next season.” I was there after more than six years before the mast. I was a director!

Essex Interlude

One of the problems of an extended period in Coventry and indeed any provincial rep was that the program closed in June and did not start up again until late September. All praise to Equity for securing a fortnight paid holiday after a season’s hard work. But the summers, for the 13 years or so that I was a stage manager were very tough on the pocket of a pater-familas. It was equally tough on the actors of course. But they could hope for a special week or so in a summer season, or a bit of radio work. This particular year, with my first show under my belt as a director, I was asked if I would stage manage for a season at Frinton. I replied in the negative but said, remembering my early exit from the Cromer company, that I could perhaps start the season off and leave halfway through. Just before the company went into rehearsals I received an urgent phone call. They agreed my terms and sounded so desperate that I was able to squeeze an extra pound a week out of them.

The management was called the “Under 30 Theatre Group” which was a laugh in itself. I had to go up to London for a briefing from the management and did not meet anyone who appeared to be the right side of 40. There was a strong tie in with Leatherhead theatre, a fortnightly rep with a decent standard. The two senior actors Richard Vernon and Geoffrey Edwards had both directed at the theatre and the resultant pool of actors they could call on was rich in talent compared with that of Cromer. The two juvenile actresses Tara Bassett and Irene Sutcliffe were nicely contrasted quality performers. But I remember them in particular for looking after the company with supplies of coffee, tea and sandwiches, throughout the change-over Saturday to Monday mornings. We had no wardrobe mistress. Modern plays you see. Management had no responsibility for anything a person might wear in ordinary life. Character clothes were hired and of course did not fit. Tara and Irene rallied round, particularly when it came to “Charley’s Aunt” and did miracles with needle and thread,

The management was every bit as mean as Baxter Somerville had been at Cromer. For instance they did a deal with the Sanderson wallpaper people. In return for quite a large advertisement in the program this firm had agreed to deliver sufficient wallpaper to cover the walls of the set for each play that was presented. No need to have a designer, scene painter let alone a stage carpenter. I inherited from previous seasons four door-flats, a 6 foot French window flat and various plain flats of other widths. These were stored in a garage some way from the theatre. A local painter and decorator came in with a paste pot at 9 o’clock every Sunday morning and wallpapered the set. He was not contracted to do more but he was a good handyman and good natured and would sometimes give me a hand re-hanging a door for instance. I had a couple of ASMs, willing but inexperienced. However, we tried we could not somehow light the resultant set so that it looked like a proper background to the actors. Thenew wallpaper shouted at us. So Geoffrey Edwards and I took to to spatter-dashing it with dark grey distemper which worked rather well for the decaying vicarage for “The bad Samaritan”. William Douglas Hume’s comedy-cum-melodrama which opened the season.

Irene was married to a chunky youngish actor in the company, more convincing in character parts than the juveniles he was usually cast for and wanted to play. At an early stage of his career he had become a very close friend of Peter Cushing. This fine actor was already making a name for himself in films and television work. He came to Frinton on most of the weekends in my period there. He was accompanied by his wife, a pleasant matronly lady, who had not, I believe, ever been an actress.

She seemed to keep Peter well under control not that he seemed to mind. They brought with them Waddington games not only Monopoly but Buccaneer Milestones and one called Rich Uncle. The school  had all the excitement of a poker school but strictly for fake money raged from curtain down on Saturday night until four or 5 o’clock on the Sunday morning. My stage management team and I were of course far too busy to participate but we would often hear cheers and laughter from the adjacent Green room and it was nice to find out who was winning, usually Peter, when we took a break for a cup of tea. I mentioned this because it was a wonderful tonic for the company to have some fun together away from the work – much better than going back to the digs and failing to get any sleep worrying all night about some particular scene with Monday night’s opening looming ever closer,

A few years later at Birmingham rep there was a similar relaxing therapy. There we ran our Christmas show for an even seven weeks. Matinees on most days. There was space in the wardrobe storeroom at the top of the building if we pushed the cutting table to one side and erected a ping-pong table. Between the matinees and evening performances, a tournament was arranged. Most of the cast and staff took part and everybody came to watch the semis and the final. The arrival of a new wardrobe mistress, a very good cutter and it must be said a great improvement on the efficiency of the department, put paid to this diversion. She was backed quite correctly in this stance by the new director of productions who had had many virtues but it is fair to say did not worry too much about the general morale of the company, unlike his predecessor. But then come to think of it, Bernard Hepton had always won the tournaments.

Richard Vernon implored me to stay the season out. He even went so far as to offer me a full season at Leatherhead to follow. I suspected that he was exceeding his powers. When I met Hazel Vincent Wallace in the late 60s I met a woman who would not take anybody else’s opinion about such a key post. She like Maud Carpenter, Marjorie Dence or Lillian Baylis would be the one who made the decisions about whom to employ in the theatre. In any case, I told Richard I was not prepared to chuck Coventry unless I was assured of directing some plays in the season. I do not know quite how the Frinton company filled the gap I left. The change over from “Charley‘s Aunt” to “Dial M for Murder” began with me being in charge. The Peter Cushing game was starting up in the green room. I do not think I would’ve been able to extricate myself from continuing my responsibilities, had it not been for the presence of my Wife, recalling me to a fortnight family duty before the Coventry season commenced. She and my son Christopher were spending a week at my aunt’s house in Leigh on Sea. I gather it was auntie who suggested she might like take the train to Frinton see the Saturday performance and return on the Sunday with me. She dragged me in the small hours as it were by my ear away from the middle of the change-over – away, temporarily, from the theatre and into real life.

Time to move on but whither?

Back at Coventry Frank was showing signs of restiveness. Kenneth was still with the company. George Selway, not exactly a commanding leading man but a very reliable actor, had arrived. So had Dilys Hamlett, an actress of great potential but no adequate replacement for Gwen. Who would’ve been? A little older than me, Frank had been in the army at the end of the war and served postwar as a commissioned officer in Italy. He rarely spoke of his period of his life. But I think he was in for a shorter time than I was and got out again rather quicker. He took a fair degree at Oxford was involved with OUDS and the ETC and went straight into a job at the BBC producing plays, features and poetry. This was a time when TV was in its absolute infancy. Top line actors were delighted to squeeze in a bit of radio work between theatre engagements. Frank was a very social creature and made friends easily and was on Christian name terms with many of the top stars from Sir John Gielgud downwards. He had switched from radio to professional theatre with a season’s stint at the Salisbury Playhouse under Guy Verney, three weeks touring similar to the Midlands theatre company. But it was clear that by the time he started his and my last season in Coventry, he had his eye firmly fixed on making a career in the West End. Many friends of his who might have been influential came down to see his Macbeth, the keystone of the autumn season. I gathered that the friends – Tony Richardson from the Royal Court for instance – were rather faint in their praise. Old-fashioned not to say quaint, I was far too involved backstage to make any sort of judgement playing Seyton the Thane’s sinister factotem as well as supervising 100 lighting queues and an extensive sound effects plot. Old-fashioned perhaps. But it was fast moving and exciting. Selway was devastatingly good as Macduff. Kevin and Dilys each had sublime moments. But the play I think (who am I to pontificate?) only works if the Macbeths are first and last a couple, facing triumph and damnation together. There is a much tighter bond than mutual sexual attraction although perhaps a touch more of the latter might not have come amiss in this particular case. Not that I have any reason for personal smugness about this particular play. When I directed it, I poured heart and soul into it. The company believed more in the quality of what they were doing, than was the case in any of my other 15 Shakespeare productions I have done. The notices were terrible and some discerning friends concurred with the critics.

Tony had taken responsibility for the Christmas shows after the unsatisfactory “Glass Slipper” and a vulgar “Charley‘s Aunt”. This particular year he had elected to do “Little Women”. This treacly melodrama has only one virtue. It is the only unfailing dramatic success where the women have all the key parts and the men are entirely subsidiary – mere cyphers. Actresses, not all of them rabid feminists, have often complained to me that their leading men impose themselves and dictate the way their partners should approach a scene. This particular piece just for once restores the balance. On the company is touring bus for weeks before the cast list went up on the noticeboard, the girls were chattering eagerly about who should play what. And the men who had read the script – None of them had of course read any of the novels which to play was based on – looked forward with no enthusiasm to weeks of rehearsal and performances trying not to look sick with boredom at the whole thing The audiences found the whole thing quite charming.

Frank did a good production of “She stoops to Conquer” in the spring. Selway was excellent as Lumpkin and McIntosh harrumphing  amusingly enough as Hardcastle.  But the big event was “The Queen and the Rebels” – an Italian Republican’s take on royalty,

We had got quite used in the early nineteen fifties to the most exciting theatrical hits being Anouilh or Giradoux from France or transatlantic from Tennessee Williams or Miller. English theatre certainly the theatre of revivals of which we were part was in the doldrums. Peter Brook was shortly to make us practitioners (but not our audience) rather ashamed of what we were doing. “Deadly theatre” he called it. Yet here was this Italian showing us that serious theatre, overtly political theatre, philosophical theatre could be very exciting. For this production Frank produced his ace. He not only sold Irene Worth the play. He sold her the whole idea of being a company member, all the discomfort and disadvantages of our touring life.

Monica and I did a fair amount of entertaining during the Coventry weeks inviting the company to our flat – half a dozen to eight at a time to supper after the show. And Frank had become a close friend of both of us. Monica with a young child to bring up was housebound after his bedtime and Frank, who did not of course feel obliged to attend every performance during the touring weeks, often used to drop in on her for a cup of coffee. He was worried that Irene would feel lonely in Coventry during the rehearsal weeks. It would not of course have been sensible or proper to fill the void himself. So he asked Monica if he could introduce Irene and suggest if she wanted company in the evening, Monica might be glad to see her. It worked very well. Touring, nights back at 11 pm from Nuneaton near midnight from Netherton and Loughborough which had superseded Redditch, I would find the two ladies chatting away animatedly lightheartedly about nothing in particular. I asked Monica just a minute ago if she had helped Irene in her part by taking her through her lines. “Oh no,” she said. “It was just women’s talk about nothing in particular. I was glad of the company.” And with a wry dig at me or perhaps at males in general, “it was a lonely time for me if you remember.”

Irene was the first great actress I had worked with. I nearly wrote comedian rather than actress in the last sentence. Heavy drama is much easier to play than comedy. The word comedian suggest something inferior to tragedian it shouldn’t. Everybody seems surprised, even critics who should’ve known better, when Jimmy Jewel turned in a beautiful performance in Trevor Griffiths’ “Comedians”. They should’ve course have been delighted but were right to say so and they shouldn’t have been surprised.

Irene asked if she could come to the Friday run through of “For better or Worse”. And of course I said yes, I would be delighted. It was a cruel lesson for cast and director. Not once did the grand visage crack a smile let alone so much as stifle a titter.

I hate having someone else in front when I’m directing. Even if it is someone whose opinion I respect. Perhaps even more so in that case. I find I am worrying more about what they think about it rather than concentrating on what the actors are doing. This is the only the third play I directed. I had done a passable job on a slightly heavier comedy about a runaway child called “Escapade”. And if Irene‘s presence had a dampening effect on me, the effect on the actors was quite devastating. Even the older hands like, Edevain Park, McIntosh and Selway who ought to have known better started trying sledgehammer where we thought laughs to be. The run through was embarrassingly dire.

Irene, honest lady, did not rush to congratulate me or say a word to her fellow company members. When I asked what she thought of it, she said this sort of play is honestly not my cup of tea. But it should go quite well if they put lots of pace and energy into it. And out she went I think I’ve never seen before or since the company quite so glum. I said to them, “Take no notice of that woman. She has no sense of humour. No notes now. Just an hour for lunch come back at a 1:45 and run it again. You’ve done each act separately leading up to this point. Lightness and rhythm and for heaven sake lean heavily on the feed lines. Underplay the laugh lines.” There’ll be just time for a cuppa.  

Night after night, watching from the prompt corner during the last act of “The Queen and the Rebels”, I would watch Irene transfixed and feeling that strange Mystic sensation starting at the base of my spine that I had first felt at seeing Florrie Ford in pantomime. It was very similar to sexual arousal although it produced nothing below the waist. And I knew from the pin drop silence manifestation throughout the theatre that Irene had them all absolutely at her mercy.

Come to think of it, I felt this rather more rarely since I became a professional. I had admired and envied the talent of McGoohan and Pleasance but never felt the same almost intolerable ecstasy. Two other examples of about this period:  Edith Evans walking diagonally across the stage in “Daphne Loreola”. The other characters had done their best to convince us that the centre area had been bomb-damaged and was not safe to walk on. Dane Edith/Laura persuaded us that there was indeed some risk to life and limb. Nevertheless with God’s help she was going to do it. Another was the wonderful re-entrance for the Duke (Harry Andrews) devised by Peter Brooks’  “Measure for Measure”. After a couple of acts skulking about in hood, cloak and sandals, disguised as a humble friar, there he was – every inch a king or Duke and I swear the audience felt constrained to kneel before him: Christ in Majesty. Wonderful!

Irene was a splendid company member, never complaining about the dreary hours of coach travel in the two touring weeks. Of course like a true thespian she knew she had a spiffing part, an opportunity which could come rarely even to such a talent as she was. I directed the lightweight comedy that immediately followed, and it was a harmless piece of sitcom about early matrimonial disasters called “For better or worse”. No one writes such plays now. Their place has been taken by the 30 minute TV sitcom. But then nobody would these days expect viewers to sit through two hours even of the best sitcom, “Good Life” say or the more boisterous “Men behaving badly”. Eddie Bailey had once said to me, “Comedy that’s a serious business.” Something similar was said by Richard Briers the only time I met him.

It was sometime during this last week of “The Queen and the Rebels” that Frank asked us to keep the company on stage after curtain call. He wanted to have a brief word with the company. For all I can remember it might have been the Friday night after the run through of “Better or Worse”. “Well boys and girls,” said Frank, “I’m happy to tell you that several London managements have expressed interest in the show. Henry Sherek has secured the rights and plans to mount the play in the West End in the autumn with me directing. I believe he has already talked to Irene‘s agent.” All eyes on the primadonna. A nod in agreement. “Nobody will be happier than I had to take the whole cast with us. But Sherek as a manager insists on full casting rights. So I can’t promise. But thank you from the bottom of my heart for doing the splendid play so very well.

I never saw the London production. The notices were fine but I believe only one member of the Coventry cast played his original part. This was Brian Wallace who played the lead excellently in “Better or Worse” who caught Sherek’s eye in the small part of the dimwitted but deadly gunman who was part of the firing squad, executing the supposed queen at the end of the play.

I have no doubt whatsoever that Irene excelled herself but I would hazard a guess that the ensemble work I don’t just mean the crowd work. I mean the supporting cast from top to bottom from the two leading men down to the guards like Brian was much stronger and more coherent. In the West End at this period and it is probably still true now the actors in good supporting parts competed with each other for the limelight. Sometimes this was very exciting but one rarely saw a pair of actors or rarer still a group of three or four actors working together to make an effective scene. In Perth it often happened under Basil and still more under Frank it regularly happened in Coventry.

The curtain address by Frank was of course the cue for me to burn the midnight oil, literally after getting off the coach and write against everybody. I could think of  – Birmingham again Sheffield, Liverpool, Leatherhead, and got a positive response from John Harrison in Nottingham. Frank lent me his car and I drove over to see him.

I met a bespectacled, lean nervous man schoolmasterly not to say donnish. He gave the appearance of being more nervous than I was. The hand holding my application letter trembled so violently that he put it back on the desk in front of him and bowed his head to read. I think he had decided to offer me the job if I did not seem an absolute duffer. He spent much of the interview warning me what to expect from his brilliant Polish designer Voytek. Apparently it was the conceptions which were brilliant. The ground plants and elevations were far from accurate. He introduced me to the current stage manager, a very affable individual. His wife was his stage manager and they had decided to emigrate to New Zealand. Who wasn’t, I thought remembering Tony and Joanna Grover from Perth. John has recently published an autobiography. In it he mentions that the three successive stage managers had resigned having presented him with a “Voytek-or-me ultimatum. I took the job having been having been assured that I would get a chance to direct. In the event I got on very well with Voytek personally as well as professionally. I was very happy to leave though just after one season but for very different reasons.

Shortly after this, I was contacted by David Stuart. It may all have been done by letter but I have the feeling at the back of my mind that we had a conversation face-to-face though how and why he came to be in the Midlands, I am at a loss to guess. He was after all every inch of Scotsman and felt utterly out of place in England. On the other hand he always wore his kilt and that post war was becoming something of rarity except for ceremonial occasions even north of the border. He was artistic director at Perth. Eddie was still director of productions. They were still at a double company. Would I return a stage management supremo? He was greatly taken aback when I said I was contracted to Nottingham with a guarantee of plays to direct and more to follow if it went well. I’m ashamed to say that I felt a touch of Schadenfreude. I spoke to Joan Knight who was also thinking of leaving Coventry and I wrote to Marjorie telling her of David approach and heartily recommending Joan. She took the job and sometime later superseded both David and Marjorie becoming queen bee for a long reign in Perth. I met David only once more. It was sometime in the late 70s. He turned up in the green room of the Mercury theatre. He was on his way to see Norman Tyrrel and Angela Brooking who had a cottage in Suffolk. These two have been stalwarts in the company in the seasons before I arrived. Indeed Angela I was told had been a most affecting Ophelia in Eddie Bailey’s “Hamlet”. Norman had been doing excellent work for John Southworth in Ipswich – particularly good in Edward Bond’s “Saved”. David was clearly desperate for work – any part he said that  he quite enjoyed doing cameos these days. No schadenfreude this time. I would’ve been glad to have found something for him if I could have. But I had to explain we were getting towards the end of the season and I was fully cast. No end to the whirligigs in this business.

At the end of the season in Coventry Frank lent me his car again for quite an extensive period while we sponged again on both sets of parents and also drove to Nottingham flat hunting and finally with his Ford Eight bursting at the seams we transferred all our worldly goods to Nottingham What a friend to us was Frank.

A brilliant comedian and a star actress.

My problems in Nottingham began two hours into the first fit up. The newly engaged electrician went out for a cup of coffee and never came back. I believe he rang the general office in the middle of the week we opened and made a brief apology. “I realised I couldn’t cope.” We wasted precious hours on that set-up day hoping he would turn up. I remembered all I’ve learned in Cromer – biscuit tins and all – and took on the responsibilities of chief electrician as well as stage director. Fortunately, the play was a one setter a rather nice light comedy by Dennis Cannon who had also written “Captain Carvallo”.

The second play of the season was a piece of Noir by Anouilh. It is interesting that I don’t remember even the names of many of the plays I did it Nottingham whereas Coventry and even Perth came immediately and vividly to mind. Long range memory is quite selective. The company secretary, treated by the management as a dog body to be kicked around, actually held the admin administrative side of the company together. She managed to engage a local amateur who did the lighting for the operatic society. I was promised a new first rate chief for the third play. Amateur backstage during a change-over weekend – I hated the idea. The secretary, her name was Dora, volunteered to come in herself and act as his assistant. Pleased me even less. I found myself very ashamed of this attitude. Dora turned out to have had some ASM experience including switchboard work before she decided to marry and begin a family. The pair of them worked most efficiently which was more than could be said for the rest of us sweating away for hours with chisels and hammers making Voytek’s bucket sized set for the necessary fit into the pint-pot of the Playhouse stage. It was I who I thought truthfully was the amateur.

The play was pretty well received – not quite funny enough, not at least for an English audience to be a runaway comic success; not yet quite tragic enough to be as shattering as “Ghosts”. But Frederick Bartman, who had been a refugee as a little boy and always had a hint of Europe in his diction, was the leading part. Perhaps the audience felt a little queasy at the hint of incest in the complex sexual relationships. Bread and butter of course to the Gallic taste.

I flitted on and off as a would-be sinister butler called  Urbain. Some years later when we were both working at Birmingham John Harrison asked me in casual conversation whether I had ever been an actor. I reminded him of my gem of a performance in the Anouilh. Oh my God, yes, I remember now, Urbain and he moved away laughing heartily. No wonder he never asked me to act again. The next play was “Miandolina” often performed under its subtitle “The Mistress of the Inn”. It was done with some style as indeed was the way but I had always thought this is my first acquaintance with Goldoni that his plays were rip roaring faces. I believe the audience expected that too.

Then it was my turn.

Nottingham was a fortnightly rep. The scheme was to choose a popular comedy sure-fire box office to run for an exceptional three weeks to give Harrison  3 weeks to rehearse “The Winter’s Tale”. It fell to me to direct the old Walls, Lynn, Hare farce “Cuckoo in the Nest”. I was terrified. But as I discovered in my flying career through an electric storm, terror can concentrate the mind wonderfully. As luck would have it Frank Owen now calling himself Kendrick was in the company. John wanted the same actor as had led in the Goldoni play to play Ralph Lynn. I said that it would be better from the audience’s point of view to give someone else a chance. John conceded the point. All praise to him. He could easily have insisted. If so, the Nottingham audience would’ve been denied the chance to see a comic genius. Frank had been a late arrival into the company in my Cromer season. He had impressed me in a couple of cameo performances. I was confident that he was ready to attempt a big comic part. Kendrick himself was eccentric to a degree of course. “Great genius is to madness allied” – if I’ve got the quote right. Sometime later again in Birmingham I met up with Pat Haywood herself no mean comedienne who had been close to Kendrick for some years.  She told me how close he had come to big-time success. A series of half hour comedy sitcoms had been outlined for Kendrick to star in. All was going well, at last this year was the break Ken had been waiting for, sweating for, longing for. Alas the well-established TV comedy director who was preparing to risk his shirt on Ken collapsed and died suddenly shortly before the schedules were announced. Ken’s series was postponed and further postponed then abandoned. Pat said this absolutely shattered him and she feared he might never recover the spark.

Again, years after that at the Mercury Theatre in 1973, a guest Director was doing Ayckbourn’s “How the other Half loves” and the fat actor, a well-known TV character actor from the Avengers, cast for the Robert Morley part, walked out on us. I remembered Ken. He had been out of this world superb in “Cuckoo” and although rather young for the part had done pretty well for me in “Little Hut” in Nottingham. He came to our rescue. He was very good in the Ayckbourn. Of course an Ayckbourn comedy is never quite as light as Travers. All the same Ken seemed to have lost some of the engagingly manic quality that had so delighted the Nottingham audiences. Continual disappointment can blunt the sharpest comedian’s career.

The Nottingham supporting cast was strong a couple of Bernards – Kay and Horsfall a diminutive but sharp character actress in Mavis Edwards. Bartman, cast as Robinson Hare, thought that farce which he’d never done before needed some special quality which he felt he lacked. He fussed and worried. I did my best to persuade him to base his performance on a real character and speak the speech trippingly et cetera, et cetera. Freddie gave an excellent performance as a little man. Possibly his uncertainty as an actor helped to some extent. Fortunately the first night audience saw the point of the jokes even if Freddie didn’t. And he picked up the necessary rhythm from the rest of the cast. The youngest female member of the company was a fair figure of the girl. She might perhaps have been miscast as the ingenue bride of the hero. We needed to cast one more actress (the Yvonne Arnaud part was well cast) and I rather wanted to ask Monica to play the battle axe mother-in-law. There would’ve been some domestic difficulty. Our son Christopher was now of school age, had in fact just started at a new school. So a visit to my wife’s middle sister was out of the question. Christopher had enjoyed this a couple of times during our Coventry years. For one thing Billy had three sons or below the age of 10. It was quite fun in some ways for an only child to have some peer company. The point however did not arise. John Harrison suggested I cast “Jenny” as the battle axe. If you want a big effect “Jenny” will provide it and so it proved. Voytek’s girlfriend – they subsequently married and as far as I know are still living happily ever after – came into the company and did very well.

The Yvonne Arnaud role fell to the highly talented brunette who had played the naughty but wise sexy hostess in “Mirandolina”. In the Travers she was hampered by a scene stealing little dog. The author’s command not mine. I would cheerfully have cut the little blighter but there were some quite funny lines from the leading man about it. All went well at the dress rehearsal. But of course when the audience turned up, the dog saw them as so many hearts to be won. Instead of sitting obediently at his mistress’s feet, he strained his short lead to the limit and sat down stage-centre cocking his head, winsomely at his new friends. The actress solved the problem by picking the dog up. The little bastard’s feet never touched the stage floor again throughout the three weeks run. I am quite fond of dogs off stage. In “See how they Run” at Cromer we had a little fox terrier who joined in for the act three chase. All had similarly gone like clockwork at the dress rehearsal. As everybody who has seen this peerless farce will tell you, nearly all the cast are involved for different manic reasons in this chase. The stream enters via the French windows up stage-centre and exit through the kitchen – in our case down left. Dhoti (I can’t remember why he was given the name of an Indian jockstrap) entered excitedly tail wagging, ears pricked up. When he realised the audience was there, a couple of hundred of pairs of eyes, fixed upon him’ he stopped stage-centre, his tail and ears drooped and he slunk off down right through the fireplace! This proved the biggest laugh and round of applause I’ve ever seen in any theatre. Understandably the director had wanted to keep the business in. A friendly ASM was stationed on the second night behind the fireplace backing to attract the dog’s attention. But Dhoto, a real pro, as though apologising for his first night lapse insisted, doggedly, on doing no more for the rest of the run.

My leading lady in “Cuckoo” was not going to let the little blighter spoil her scenes. If he decided to lick her face (I think he liked the taste of her make-up) she would break off and kiss him back and then repeat the feed line immaculately. Who was it who said a comic is only as good as his feed. Whoever he was, he would’ve appreciated this actress’s performance. To be absolutely truthful, she was struggling a bit as Perdita in “The Winter’s Tale”. Ingenues were not exactly in her line and still aren’t. She might have made a shattering  Hermione but John Harrison brought his wife Daphne Slater who was fine into the company. I cannot remember what my leading lady played in the next production. A guest director for Christopher Fry’s “The dark is light enough” a rather turgid affair, where the actors seemed to be competing as to who could shout loudest.

I said in the previous paragraph “my leading lady”. I remember remarking to the company assembled, “Welcome to the Buxton‘s first reading of “B” productions. It seemed to be natural enough. She had missed out on Hermione, Alice in both Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass was coming up. (Daphne again) and word was getting around that “Jenny” (the reason for the pseudonym will be explained in due course) the strapping 5 foot 10 beautiful brute was going to play St.Joan after Christmas. My leading lady settled in to give an absolutely stunning performance in the title role of “The Case of the Frightened Lady.”

This preposterous old war house of a thriller has cropped up a lot in my life. I had done it at school. It was my last play at Perth. I rather think I was better as the young policeman sergeant Ferraby than some of my other straight juvenile parts. And here I was directing it. I did it as a guest director in 1966 at Pitlochry and my general manager boss persuaded me to include it in my first season of plays in Colchester in 67. Edgar Wallace was a hack journalist and made a fortune writing Pulp Fiction. He was a much better writer. I actually mean he wrote better richer English than he is usually given credit for – just like Raymond Chandler. The sleepwalking scene (move over Lady M) was wonderfully played by my star. The lighting by Anthony Church (I learned a lot from him) set up tremors of expectancy. I felt that almost orgasmic excitement at the base of my spine. I could go on about this actress her name for those who haven’t guessed it was and still is God be praised Joan Plowright.

A brilliant star from the east

During the run of Alice – excellent manic work from Graham Crowden and Kendrick as Hatta and Haigha there was the bombshell of a headline in the local paper. “Playhouse actress arrested”. Not the sort of publicity which is helpful to a provincial repertory company. Nottingham‘s papers often ran anti-letters and one or two articles on the theme: “We have a beautiful theatre Royal do we really need two theatres?” “Jenny” – now the inverted commas are explained – had been caught shoplifting. John Harrison asked me what I would do if I was in his position. “Jenny”, he told me had wanted to resign immediately, leave the town and return only for the court case, where she proposed to apologise and plead guilty. I said and I’m sure I spoke for the company as a whole that he ought persuade Jenny to stay. The actors would, as always, rally round when a fellow artist is in trouble. It didn’t affect anyone’s work in the slightest no more than if she been caught speeding. John said “That’s what I’ve decided to do. I’ve asked her to stay. There will be a couple of board members who will think differently”. I mentioned this episode in some detail because it reveals a very strong loyalty streak in a man who often seemed academic, withdrawn and cool. I was to benefit greatly from his loyalty factor in the in the  four years. I worked with him later in Birmingham. He could easily have offered Joan to Joan P.

Jenny was very good as the blunt rough peasant warrior with God on her side and grasped with both hands the pathos of the prison scene. It’s such a wonderful part no wonder the actresses are always queueing up to play it. But I would still have liked to have seen Saint Joan Plowright.

John gave the direction of “Harvey” to Peter Duguid a useful actor in the company. Kendrick did well as the fey dipsomaniac. Initially I regarded this as something of a slap in the face for my ambitions, but Harrison told me he would be quite happy for me to do “A pair of Spectacles”, a charming Victorian fantasy with farcical overtones at the end of the season. So I was eventually greatly relieved because the more I saw of “Harvey”, the less I liked the play. The author rather over-egged the pudding by making all the supporting characters in varying degrees unpleasant.

The real surprise of the spring season was that John Harrison was going to redirect “The Winter’s Tale” in Zagreb with a Yugoslavian cast. The Arts Council had arranged for a Yugoslav director to come to Nottingham to direct two plays on the trot: “Blood Wedding”, about which we all tingled with excitement and a Yugoslav play for which scripts were still being translated but were on the way. Over this latter play excitement was tinged with apprehension. The designs for both plays sets and costumes had arrived by post. It was immediately evident that the Zagreb stage was at least twice as large as the playhouse postage stamp. This fazed Voytek not one whit. He settled into reducing the scale of it all. He produced a rough model by the time the Yugoslav director arrived. I believe he felt a genuine rapport with the designer in Zagreb – chords of Pan-Slavianism.  Warsaw is a long way from Zagreb, but it is twice as far from Nottingham.

Large and very heavy skips of costumes also arrived by rail and sea. We had no wardrobe mistress in Nottingham – all maintenance washing and ironing had to be done by the female ASMs. There was an outworker who would, if you buttered her up enough, sew you up a couple of dresses. It took all of Voytek’s continental charm to get her to do that much. The conditions backstage in the old Nottingham play has were grotesque. So they were in my very own Albert Hall and art gallery which was the Colchester rep until 1972. But by then I was way above the fray in the director’s seat in the stalls piling the problems up and leaving it to the hard pressed production manager to solve them. I am or at any rate was then 6 feet tall and I could not stand up in the under stage dressing rooms at Nottingham without scraping my head on the ceiling. Bernard Hull must be 6 foot three and served nearly a full season. He must’ve suffered agonies. The actresses in the company who knew that they were to be in “Blood Wedding” but not the parts they were going to play eagerly helped my less enthusiastic female staff rig up extra costume racks in the already stingily cramped dressing rooms. Who was going to play the bride? Several hearts broken among the young actresses. When the cast was posted, the part was given to a special engagement guest. Nobody helped much with the bulk of the costumes – the lower half of the first skip and all the second skip. Quite a strong smell emerged from the lower, we delved into the closely packed pile. These costumes were unlike the blood wedding ones screwed up into bundles and crammed in any old how. The smell was not just that of human sweat. It was predominantly something else. Then quite suddenly we traced it. They stank of size, glue-size used in paint. It was obvious that when the play was premiered in Yugoslavia, at the dress rehearsal, the director had complained that the costumes looked too new. The short term answer had been to brush them over with scene paint. There were also a quantity (something like 40 pairs) of striped woollen, stockings and several of socks had no partners. “Blood Wedding”, we had an inkling about. But what about “Blizzard” by Pero Budak? We had reason for our apprehension.

John Harrison had set sail to conquer the east by the time Kosta Spaic arrived in Nottingham. He brought with him no more than 20 words of English and an interpreter of whose services he rarely made use of, preferring to talk directly to actors and staff with profuse and intense gestures. Fortunately his 20 words of English included faster, slower, louder, and quieter and left and right. We soon taught him upstage and downstage. It has to be said his English had improved dramatically by the time he left us. Even so he got wonderful results out of all of us with his energy and never failing enthusiasm and good humour. He made it clear to me that he wanted a full company on the final call. His French was much better than mine. His address to the company was very short to the point. He said (I think I remember accurately). “I see “Rivals”,” (John’s very decent production of the Sheridan had opened the night before.) “They good acting”, gesture to chest blowing kisses. “I luff you all. Ve do good work no?” (titters of sycophantic laughter). He seemed to need some response. I said “We will do our very best for you, Mr. Spaic welcome to the Playhouse. He said “Kosta please! we together now” – long pause for thought- “In Yugoslavia many peasants, everybody peasant. In England no peasants” – short of pause – “Very difficult. we try read play and we’re off.”

I believe this under a foreign director was the best piece of sheer theatre I was ever involved in my 50 years as a professional. Of course Kosta did have the advantage of being an utter stranger among us. We somehow felt the British theatre was on trial here and we absolutely must not let the side down. But by the end of the first week’s rehearsal Kosta had somehow moulded us all into the rarest of things – a theatrical company. Never before and rarely since I experienced the truth that the whole can add up to about 50% more than its individual parts. This was a bunch of actors all talented to some degree but none blindingly so. The nexus of the large company Kosta took over knew each other well and respected each other’s work. He made them work together so that everybody understood scene by scene how the dramatic tension mounted. what climaxes to work for as a team. Not individuals. We had no stars in the company. A director like Kosta didn’t need them.

Not that the play was easy. “Blood Wedding” is a young man’s play. Badly done it would seem ludicrous particularly as Kosta was acutely aware to an English audience. More difficult still – it is full of poetry! Yes I know Shakespeare. But just name me another great poet English or American who was also a great playwright. Browning?  – well Frank Hauser was eventually bold enough to do “Pippa Passes”. Unfortunately, I couldn’t manage to get across from Birmingham to see it. But I gather it was a rather heavy affair. Hardy? – well some brave soul of a provincial director tried out “The Dynasts”. Personally, I’ve never managed to read it through to the end. Elliot? – an interesting series of attempts. Ernestness (say sanctimoniousness) keeps breaking through. Shelly in the “Cenci”? – it has none of the intensity of “’Tis pity she’s a whore”. Tennyson? – well his Beckett certainly finished the career of Henry Irving. He died on stage in an attempt to perform it. I was far too busy with technical problems to pay my usual attention (always learning) to what the director said to the actors. When we got to run through stage, it was clear that Kosta was controlling them like an orchestral conductor. All the stage hands, hard handed men, were with some difficulty persuaded to don costumes. There were plenty of those and go on for the wedding scene. Kosta found time during the technical dress Sunday night remember we opened on Monday to instruct them carefully. He explained whether they were bridesmen or groomsmen and gave them about half a dozen cues where they were free to react. They were never to be audible except at these points and to make no sudden movements either. He spent no more than half an hour with them in the foyer while we worked out some lighting problem on stage. And he produced the most convincing crowd scene I had ever seen equal, until I went to Romania and saw Liviu Cuiler at work some 20 years later. I’m still at a loss to explain how Kosta did it but I’m a witness to the fact that it was done.

This production allowed me to take a big step forward in my career as a theatre technician. Until this time the creative side of lighting had been done by the director. At Perth, on the touring circuit from Coventry, the chief electrician had little or no input into the creative side of lighting. He was well described by one such as a tradesmen, by which he meant he had started as an apprentice electrician and had his City and Guild’s certificate. As such he was and did an excellent job, well organised and difficult and not insensitive. Of course in Coventry I’d become quite skilled at reproducing the effects demanded by Messrs. John, Lee and Hauser in the other houses on the circuit. And my own productions to this date had consisted of domestic interiors, apparent sources of light: wall brackets or French windows. Tony Church (no not the fine actor of the same name) who ran the Northcott in Exeter for some years had made one or two very useful suggestions for “The case of the Frightened Lady”. For which I have been very grateful so when Kosta told me during the last week of rehearsals, that he did not know the first thing about lighting and in Yugoslavia it would be presented to him for approval at the dress rehearsal, panic gripped me. Kosta went on to joke that it usually took ages before he could see the actor’s faces. Tony Church seized the opportunity with both hands and I learnt more about expressionistic theatrical lighting for this production that I had done before and possibly have done since. Keith Davis was a brilliant chief electrician at Oxford and I was able to headhunt him to Birmingham. Nowadays no theatre staff or theatre program would be complete without a prominently named lighting designer. What is more with Tony and Keith unlike many I have worked with since it did not take ages at the technical to get the actors faces visible. nor did it on this occasion at Nottingham. Kosta said it was better than in Zagreb. Small stage more intense effect.

There is a scene in Clifford Odets’ play “Winter journey” ( American title “The country girl”, as it was copyrighted over here by an  Edwardian musical comedy) set in a dressing room on an opening night. The star’s wife is sitting alone, knitting, preparing herself to greet her comeback-kid husband, flushed with triumph or disaster. She cannot face actually watching from the front. A knock on the door. Enter the director of the piece in question. She is surprised to see him. “The world’s most useless man,” he says. Kosta had the same feeling after the Monday afternoon dress rehearsal. He gave notes and had a personal note with me. “There’s the show, David. It’s yours now.” I asked if he’d like me to keep the company on stage for notes after curtain down. “Oh no!” he said. “I’ll give notes after tomorrow’s performance. I never watch my own first nights”. In the event we took 10 curtain calls. I know the exact number because the critic from the Times counted them. I also remember that having no fly space that the house tabs (stiffish at the best of times)  were opened and closed by winch. The rather slightly built ASM who was operating under my instructions understandably was exhausted after number six. And I had to take over. I tried bringing up the house lights after I realised how it must’ve been number nine but the audience were insatiable. I explained the situation to the cast. I had hoped that Kosta would in fact appear from the bar or some cubbyhole out of sight from the stage. But it subsequently transpired he had been tramping the streets of Nottingham in lonely vigil for the full two and three-quarter hours. The cast persuaded Mavis Edwards to step forward on the final call to explain that nobody knew where Kosta was but that the audience were quite right. The cast knew that they owed absolutely everything to the wonderful director. The cast turned to centre stage on this graceful speech and as the curtains closed for the last time only Mavis bowed to the audience.

Another change in the wind?

The Nottingham Theatre-goer could’ve been pardoned if he thought that the rest of that season was small beer compared to the champagne of “Blood Wedding”. Of actors are always deeply suspicious and tentative when a guest director is introduced. Joan Swinstead, a very experienced capable director had problems getting the company off its high tremblingly intense excitement of the Lorca into the pseudo Chekhovian melancholy of NC Hunter. Particularly at the first reading of “Day by the Sea” at 10 o’clock sharp on the Tuesday after “Blood Wedding” opened. Nothing wrong with the touch or two of nostalgic remembrance of things past. But imagine going to the Proms and the LSO under the Henry Wood or Basil Cameron opened with the wonderful Elgar cello Sonata and then returned to play the same thing again after an interval and to crown the evening offered nothing different  for act three. I believe the actors gave quite a decent performance of Mr Hunter’s frightfully decent play but in the words of Sellar and Yeatman (1066 and all that), it did not succeed in being memorable.

Kosta had insisted before setting off for England that mounting a play in a fortnight was impossible but he would attempt it. Doing two plays on the trot was quite out of the question hence Miss Swinstead’s interregnum. He arrived back, greatly welcomed by the company. “Blizzard” proved to be a rather bucolic melodrama hampered by an inept translation. “Blood Wedding” had the benefit of a splendid free translation by the poet Roy Campbell. Pero Budak’s heavy drama had a translation which was much less felicitous. Actors were constantly asking permission to change their lines. Somehow the same actors who had all seemed miraculously to be speaking the same dialect in “Blood Wedding” spoke with many tones. Yorkshire, West country, Brum and Cockney! The people of the remote Serbian mountain Village seemed a very mixed lot. Kosta still provided the audience with an exciting evening with carefully worked changes of pace and there were some fine performances. But where he had welded us all into a company for the Lorca, here we disintegrated into a collection of individual actors.

John arrived back from Zagreb during the run of “Blizzard” and I was already in rehearsal for “A pair of spectacles”. This has been a vehicle for a very popular late Victorian farceur called John Hare. Was he related to Robertson? I was never able to find out. It was basically a fairytale. Man loses spectacles world looks different changes character from an amiable paterfamilias to a foul tempered misanthrope. Kendrick then still in his 20s did well in sentimental Scrooge-reformed leading character – 55 if he was a day. The broad comedy was in the safe hands of Bernard Horsefall and Colin Jeavons as Yorkshire yokel relatives – strangers to London and good for patronising West End laughs. I’m not sure that the Nottingham folk saw them as quite low comedians conceived by Sydney Grundy the author or John Hare the star. I had discovered that in common with many English classic comedy writers, Wycherley, Sheridan, Pinero (in his farces) Beverly “Boeng-Boeng) Cross (the best) Ray Cooney (his coarse and clumsy  “Not now darling” and partly to show I could do it. I laid on the style with a trowel directing it fussily every inch of the way. John Harrison returned and was more than faint in his praise for our work. He did say he found a particular piece of farce/drunk business very funny. And clearly believed it could not be my invention but that of one of the actors. “I have to tell you,” he went on. “I cannot stomach what Jeavons is doing with his part.” I had been delighted with Collin’s work.

Freddie Bartman came back into the company to play a juvenile comedy lead in summertime, a bucolic comedy by Ugo Betti. A charmingly slight affair with Daphne Slater, not absolutely as at her ease in the leading part. English rose somehow stifled Italian passion. We did an exchange with Sheffield Playhouse importing Geoffry Ost’s very decent and unfussily designed production of “Misalliance”. The stage management struggled with the weight of Voytek’s designs by lorry and rail to Sheffield where our carpenter had to cut some of the roster into to get them into the theatre and then join them up again. Possibly but I doubt it looked quite bright and airy.

This gave John four weeks to prepare three Coward one-acters. The problems with what are now I believe correctly called logistics of transporting and appallingly heavy set back to Nottingham after the Saturday performance in Sheffield and opening a new show with three or two solid sets on the following Monday were quite daunting but we managed it. Sparse thanks we got. This is what we were paid to do.

The Coward playlets were well directed and performed. We did “Fumed Oak”  “Still life” and “Red Peppers”. Just over 10 years later I did a similar trilogy at Birmingham not “Fumed Oak”. I came to the conclusion then that there was no point in doing such a trilogy unless it was to demonstrate the diverse talents of the two leading artists. As far as I know no pair has attempted this in the West End since Noel and Gertie themselves. West End managers may be short sighted and Philistine but they are not fools. They know well enough that a theatrical evening requires a series of mini climaxes mounting in excitement leading to one major one no more than 20 minutes from the end of the play. It is possible though difficult for a company to present 2 one-acters in a very satisfactory evening but each of them needs to be a masterpiece. After the Coward the company started doing what the theatre manager describes as potboilers. Certainly John Harrison went into cruise control. I personally am quite fond of detective stories. So is the British public. How else explains the omnipresence on TV drama in the 21st century, Frank had taken pains with “Dial M for murder” in a decent production at Coventry. Not so with Harrison. His was adequate but the cast rather lost confidence in the play and him when they had to explain to him the intricacies of the plot. And nobody saw any virtue in a peace called “Castle in the air”, a Scottish baronial fantasy – worse even than the treacly TV series, “Monarch of the Glen”.

Somewhere in the Nottingham section I have to confess the very good reason John Harrison had for treating me even more coolly than he had most people. For” Saint Joan”, Voytek had designed two very different expressionist cloths – one quite faintly, sinisterly religious the other wall-like and very busy. There are seven scenes in “Saint Joan” and we closed the house tabs after each one – a scrambled rush to strike and reset any furniture and on we went again. Speed was everything. Well perhaps not quite. All that went well at the dress rehearsal but on the opening night I scrambled back breathless to the prompt corner and took the curtain up with the wrong cloth in place for the sombre reflective scene in the Cathedral at Rheims. The biggest black mark in my record as a stage manager.

So perhaps I should not have been quite so upset as I was, when John deputed the theatre manager to tell me I was to direct the last player of the season, “The little Hut”, as cast. Neither John nor I got on very well with the theatre manager. John departed on holiday well before “The Hut” opened and he never saw it. The theatre manager could scarcely contain his glee when he informed me but after “The Hut” had opened my salary would cease and I would be free to look for work elsewhere.

“The Hut” went pretty well actually – charming pantomime set by Voytek helped a lot. I had rather expected the axe and had more or less made other arrangements, but the cursory dismissal by proxy still rankled.

Frank had left Coventry at the same time as I did. I had kept in touch with him Christmas cards, first night cards for the London opening of “The Queen and the Rebels”. Frank told me a week or so before the axe fell at Nottingham that he was trying to get funding together to reopen the Oxford Playhouse, which had fallen dark in the spring, with no immediate chance of further subsidy. I refrained from telling Frank that I’d been sacked and he quickly settled terms including promising me the chance to direct and I looked forward to the future with confidence.

The first season

We had just called quarter of an hour please. Through the house tabs we could hear the beginnings of the audience buzzing. Sometimes it sounds subdued, nervous as though people were in church. But this time there was real excitement in the air. One thing about Greek tragedy is that there are mercifully few bits of furniture or properties to be reset and checked. We were ready. We were just about to start the tape of Chabrier’s Marche Joyeuse , which Frank had requested as the first sound, to strike the first audience, to attend the first show, in the reborn Oxford Playhouse.

Alone on the stage was a silently meditating figure. She sat on the central rostrum steps, a half drunk mug of tea beside her, in white robes and coronet. She was not a beginner. Half an hour before she had quite correctly asked by permission to do this in order to escape the general buzz of the dressing and green rooms and get a little peace. We had carefully swept the stage around her.

At the five an ASM told me her husband’s and wants to wish her luck. I mentioned this to the lady. “Oh,” she said with a vague yet imperious gesture, “Put him somewhere.” She was Clytemnestra, otherwise known as Catherine Lacey, a truly great actress. At the five, without being asked, she returned the mug and thanked me. She went to her dressing room to check her make-up. She was ready. It was, one might say, an occasion.

I had discovered in Nottingham that if a stage manager were to step up a rank or two and direct a play, he must have a first rate number 2 to take care of the back-stage duties. In Coventry I had been lucky in having Joan Knight who subsequently became a distinguished director herself running Farnham, directing in the West End and presiding many years over the Perth theatre where as it happens my career has begun as a panto-chorus boy in 1947.

The staff Frank had recruited for me at Oxford were all would-be actors with no great interest in stage management as such. So it was just as well he did not fulfil his promise that I would be used, occasionally as a relief director until quite late on in the first season. For the second and subsequent seasons he engaged Michael Simpson who took pride backstage as he did in his excellent work as a character actor. No, not the same Michael Simpson who was Peter Dews’s assistant in Birmingham and subsequently ran the rep for a year or two. Although he was an undergraduate at Oxford at the time,

Frank’s success at Oxford sprang from his impresario’s flare for choosing the right play at the right time and above all from the ease with which he made friends. He landed a producer’s job in BBC Sound radio immediately on coming down with a degree from Oxford. This was a time when TV was at in its extreme infancy and everybody from so John Gielgud, downwards was happy to do a bit of radio. And Frank had friendly relations with nearly all of them. When he asked Mai Zetterling in his second season and Dirk Bogarde to open his third, you may be sure that they had friends who would tell them Frank was okay. He was fun to work with. He was a very witty man  (mustn’t write of my old friend in the past tense) and he can be waspish. But I never knew him destroy an actor with sarcasm (as Peter Dews). The general chumminess at Oxford was what got us through some pretty difficult times. Rodney Diak summed it up years later. Frank cast two sorts of plays. There are those where there is a chance of a West End entrance and there are those casts from chums. Never the twain shall meet. Rodney was rueful but not but not bitter. Frank had the wonderful knack of blending a series of companies together so that a theatre has a strong forward-looking impetus. I stressed this because otherwise what follows might suggest a theatre torn apart.

The Avery Brothers. They were identical twins. There were personality differences and that was largely how we learnt to tell them apart. Wilf was the steadier. Sam was all passion. They were artists – two dimensional paintbrush and picture frame and were fed up with trying to teach school children to draw. They came to Oxford as designers with no theatrical experience but a wealth of bright ideas and a tremendous enthusiasm for theatre. They had seen just about everything in the London theatre in the previous years and could criticise sometimes favourably the work from the design point of view. The idea they sold Frank was to create a neutral permanent surround into which would be placed free standing significant details. I was summoned to meet them in their Chelsea studio several months before we were open. Several people were there as well Frank and Elizabeth Sweeting who was to become a general manager. Sam and Wilf showed us a model theatre they had constructed roughly the same stage audience proportions as the playhouse. And in it they showed their permanent surround and solutions for one or two classic plays. Not I think “Elektra” or “Knights of the round, Whatnot”. But the final one was for a Feydeau farce (no specific play you note) quite fun it looks though. Lots of levels with bright coloured ladders linking them.

We should really have seen some of the problems. I can’t draw but I’ll try to illustrate my next point. Here is a ground plan of a proscenium theatre with conventional 18th and 19th century wings on the right stage left. An actor can stand in positions marked Y and make a nearly straight entrance to centre stage. Not so from position X. There now also the problem of getting bulky props on and off. The Averys insisted on plan X. It made stronger sculptural effect.

The choice of grey was also something of a disaster in spite of much time and effort expended and seeking an exact shade of warm grey. If you cast a sharp edged beam of light on an actor centre stage in a black velvet surround you achieve an immediate dramatic effect. Any other colour, perhaps particularly grey, will pick up a good deal of bounce from the stage and the impact is considerably reduced.

When the highly respected critic TC Worsley came to see “The Knights of the Round Whatsit” at Cheltenham (more about this second play later) he gave it a pretty favourable rating. But he remarked privately to Frank (Frank knew everybody) that, “if you’re going to have a dull neutral setting, you’ll have to spend a lot more on the costumes to make sure the actors stand out. “Actually, perhaps the Averys were just a little ahead of their time. John Berry, Sean Kenny, Christopher Morley at Al was shortly to come to the floor with brutalist designs. And in 1954 – 5 I had spent a year in Nottingham with a brilliant constructionist Voytek,

Actually, perhaps the Averys were just a little ahead of their time. No doubt the problem was mainly that of inexperience. For instance about four days before we were due to open I received a panic stricken phone call from the workshop. Could I give them the recipe for mixing dry colour with size – what proportions?  To my shame I did not know but I was able to put them in touch with a London firm of scene painters who obliged.

On the subject of painting I am reminded that Frank quite rightly decided that the public areas could do with the face-lift. So after rehearsals for the day concluded at about five the staff set to work slapping distemper on the walls. The staff was not numerous. I had a stage manager Jack Humphries and two ASM’s Stephen John and Pat Keane who worked very hard, but all three were recent graduates from drama school Anxious to make a start on an acting career. They had no real interest in stage management as such. There were also two students, Neil McCarthy and Susan Hampshire who were unpaid yet slave driven just as hard as the rest of us. I think Stephen and Pat were paid £5 a week just about the hourly rate these days.

We succeeded in cheering up the front of house somewhat. It was Susan I remember, who insisted that we bring we buy a couple of radiator brushes. I’ve never heard of such a thing but useful gadgets they proved to be. We had no stage management float until rehearsals were well underway and I believe we paid for this equipment ourselves.

There was a master carpenter, Will Tipping, resurrected from a previous regime. He was a good carpenter but had a very gammy leg. To all intents and purposes he was disabled. The workshop was crammed with scenery from the past and it was always a problem to create enough space to work. It takes two people to move even the simplest theatrical flat so Neil spent most of his first half season in the workshop as carpenters mate. We also had a chief electrician George von Kuh. “Master and chief” implies some sort of staff working under them. Will and George were on their own. George was of Austrian extraction. The “von” implies aristocracy which became more and more believable as we got to know him. He was a shambling figure, in an ancient sports coat and non-descript trousers. No one ever knew how old he was. But then when I met him a dozen years later as general stage manager at the Weber Douglas, he seemed exactly the same age ancient as ever. His far distant theatrical beginnings had been in Vienna as a trainee director. I believe the electrician’s cubbyhole backstage, was the untidiest I had ever seen and that says much. His electrical know was very basic. He knew how to connect a live wire and a neutral to a plug. But earthing and phasing were not his strong point. But if you wanted an intellectual not to say philosophical discussion of the content of the play and after all Frank did a lot of French plays then George was your man. Frank remarked that it was like having Albert Schweitzer operating the dimmers and George certainly had the moustache for it. We had no property master so Jack Humphries disappeared below the stage for long period during the first season. But “The Knights”, “The numbered” and “Princess” were very demanding on the props department. Jack had considerable talent for making things out of nothing but we tended to have to do without him above the stairs. Of course the backstage staff could be and were supplemented by a raft-load of willing volunteers for set up and show work from the ranks of OUDS and the ETC. But if you don’t pay people you have no right to expect efficiency and if things don’t go quite right you can’t deliver a blistering rocket. I mentioned the staff in detail because it shows the shoe string nature of what could be afforded backstage. When in 1960 I left Oxford to go to Birmingham rep at a theatre with a very similar aims to the Playhouse under Frank, I had my disposal one stage manager one ASM, four day-men who could be used as stage staff or auxiliary for any department and a Chief and assistant electrician and a Master and assistant carpenter.

It will be noted and I do not mention wardrobe in this list of the staff. This is because, in every theatre I’ve worked in, the wardrobe chief has been a jealously guarded self-governing autonomy. Any stage director or production manager (as I was rather gradually called at Birmingham doing the same job) will insist on the brutal truth. You tell the stage management team what you want done and expect them to do it; you make sure that the creative members of the staff: chief electrician, lighting designer scene designer and carpenters are working towards realising the director’s ideas. But nobody tells the wardrobe mistress what to do. You negotiate with the wardrobe mistress rather like the butler and the housekeeper in a well ordered Edwardian Mansion.

The Perth theatre in 1947 was a double company playing in the Adam Smith Hall in Kirkcaldy as well as its home-base which gave a rehearsal period of a fortnight. After the seaside spell in weekly, I went to Coventry which maintained a three week touring cycle. The pressure is far greater in fortnightly than in the other two. As an example you asked to provide a prop let us say a butter dish. In weekly you produce your borrowed butter dish and that is that. In three weekly the director will say “oh no not that sort of butter dish that’s quite wrong it should be more and so on” and there is time to find another butter dish close to his heart desire. In fortnightly there is no time to find a range of butter dishes for the director or even designer to choose from. But it is unlikely that his nibs will see it that way. Black mark to the stage management.

To some extent the same thing is true of the acting side of a production. Frank thought, as indeed so did and do I, that a three week gestation period was the minimum needed to get a group of actors ready for presentation. All the same I believe we only rehearsed “Electra” and “Knights” for only two weeks. We needed to be taking some money at the box office soonest. It was at this stage (once again I’m not sure of this) that a gift from Richard Burton with no strings of several thousand pounds saved us all from shipwreck.

But what a splendid bunch of actors Frank recruited. Catherine has already been mentioned. In addition there was Mary Morris, powerful to smouldering and scowling her way through the title role; Michael Hitchman and Priscilla Morgan were deft hands at some bickering domestic comedy. Philip Guard, torn agonisingly apart as the reluctant avenging assassin, Orestes. James Maxwell played  Aegisthus, Clytemnestra’s lover. He was subsequently to hitch his wagon to Michael Elliot’s comet rise as director at the National (still at the old Vic) and as co-ordinator and co-founder of the Royal exchange Manchester.

N.B. I must try to resist the temptation to quantify actors by the degree of fame they subsequently achieved. Neil McCarthy I have already mentioned. He later gave some excellent performances on TV, including Joe Gargery in “Great Expectations” but that doesn’t mean he was a better actor than Jack Humphries who also did, sterling work in the latter part of Frank’s first season. Every successful actor knows that you need a great deal of luck as well as talent.

Back to Maxwell. I do not mean to imply that he was a bad actor. Aegisthus (at least in Giradoux’s version of the classic) has every reason to feel and express discomfort, caught as he is in the crossfire between two powerful women. This impression of being at ease with his character that an actor must have if he has to communicate with his audience? Well perhaps at Oxford anyway  Jimmy never quite convinced and of course the poor fellow had to follow with Lancelot holding his friend and feeling thoroughly and length ashamed of himself. He was a strong presence though.

Frank Windsor was and still is a fine solid real bloke sort of actor and made a wonderful job of Giradoux’s chorus figure, the beggar. As such he was more or less outside the action so there needed very little interplay with the other actors. But in “Knights”, “The Numbered” and “Mulberry Tree”, he revealed himself as a very poor rehearser. Until the audience turned up he could never get his lines straight. On the night of course he sailed triumphantly through and it was his fellow actors who seemed to be fumbling. I never had a scene with him but I’m sure two or three nights into the run he was the most generous actor and gave a lot back to the actors he was playing opposite. This Frank was quite experienced although he was probably under 30 but he had something of the old pro about him whereas other members of the cast had trained at the Old Vic school and imbibed something of the acting methods of Michael St Dennis and valued rehearsing in a more improvisational manner. Frank required nothing more from a director than to be told where to stand. Frederick Bartman also had a bit of a solo turn in Electra delivering a commentary on the action from the viewpoint of a young gardener. He demanded a great deal of attention and support from the director. I know because I directed him Nottingham. He was a very subtle actor indeed full of nervous energy which could rise to considerable passion. He needed constant reassurance or passion could lead to hysteria. During a rather poorly attended “Mulberry Tree”, Frank snuck in with a visitor. It may well have been a manager who might consider a transfer for the piece. Out of the corner of the actors eye which is always trained on the audience, Bartman perceived that they were whispering. In the following interval Freddie threw a hysterical fit and Frank had to be sent for to placate him. “I felt as if I was doing an audition!” sobbed Freddie. Freddie suffered agonies of indecision before he agreed to go into “Emergency Ward 10”. This was slamming the door on a career as a classical actor. He had after all even before Nottingham played a very well received Romeo opposite Diane Cilento in Manchester I believe. In Electra he gave out a great deal of simple charm. In “Knights”, he gave an immensely detailed study as Merlin. Possibly Cocteaul had in mind more of a comedians performance but Bartman was impressive.

“Knights” required a great deal of magic. An invisible character at the opening of act two had to come through a door shutting it behind him, sit down at a table, play a chess game to a stalemate, knock the pieces over, rise from his chair, knocking that over and exit (doors again). We managed it using about 50 yards of fishing line and an ASM, Pat Keen, crouched under the table. The young Pat was an attractive girl, but of ample proportions and we had to design a table to go round her.

There was also the Holy Grail. This was supposed to appear over the heads of the assembled Round Tablers. Up to that point it remained invisible to everyone including the audience except Galahad. Jack Humphries had spent of frantic fortnight making props (like chessman and chandeliers) for the Averys to paint grey of course, but no one had given him any idea of what a Grail should look like. So come the dress rehearsal no Grail had been prepared. I had rigged up a system of pulleys and lengths of  fishing line down which the famous Grail would slide into view. Ultraviolet lighting has been hired. The last minute I grabbed a piece of chicken wire shaped it into a bowl covered it with gauze and explained to Frank that the actual Grail was not ready, but I was prepared to try a mock up. I still think I could’ve got it to work. In these days the director himself did the lighting and Frank had not realised that for the UV effect to work, the rest of the lights had to be very dim indeed. My Grail became known as Buxton’s Christmas pudding. It made a jerky entrance in almost full light and everything ground to a halt for a 10 minute laughter break. Quite sensibly, Frank decided that enough was enough and the actors were instructed to imagine a distant Grail somewhere above the audience’s heads. It sort of worked but every time during the three week run when we got to what’s happening? what is it? Can you see? In a hushed whisper, it’s the holy Grail someone or other would be observed suppressing a tendency to corpse.

Frank had called on some chums for the second production – Rodney Diak, Keith Baxter and Charmian Eyres – excellent as Merlin‘s wicked spirit inhabiting Guinevere’s body and movingly grave as the real Guinevere. Dare I say that the WH Auden translation of a French play of which we did many was the heaviest of all particularly in the last act. French drama, even perhaps especially tragedy, needs to be delivered with a nimble wit.

In order to create three weeks rehearsal for the next play, we took “Knights” to Cheltenham after its fortnight in Oxford, where Ustinov’s “The Empty Chair” was brought in by an ad-hoc Arts Council company. Frank and I recalled our experiences with the Coventry company and for what was after all a comparatively short journey we hired a bus and driver to transport the company. Rehearsals for the next play “The Numbered” were shortened to finish I believe at 4 pm. Temperament from Bartman who claimed he needed two and a half hours to put his make up on as Merlin, difficulties with the guest director Minos Volinakis who complained that every day when he was just about beginning to get somewhere, he had to stop.

Actors are rarely political animals (pace the Redgraves). They cannot have strong political convictions of their own because they may need to be convincing in presenting a series of characters whose opinions cover the whole social and political spectrum. Nevertheless there was heated political discussion on these bus rides to Cheltenham. The Suez crisis broke and sorted sheep from goats. Minos several times travelled with us, rehearsing lines with pairs of actors. Much of “Numbered” consisted of dualogue. I felt for him. “I spend my time when I’m in Greece arguing with friends. No, I tell them Britain is no longer an imperial power. The British Empire is a thing of the past. Look at India and how look at what you’ve done. I’ve lost all credibility.”

In Cheltenham we found a theatre that had fallen on hard times. It had somehow lost its spirit. An air of dinginess hung over the place. The audience too seemed not only sparse but creaky, dusty and deeply suspicious of us. Later we were able to go fairly regularly to Cambridge, a much happier experience. The Cheltenham Everyman recovered with the increase in subsidy that reps got under the Wilson government and the sainted Jenny Lee. It was to thrive in the middle 60s under the directorship of Ian Mullins.

The play in rehearsal was “The Numbered”. This is worth reporting at length if only to show how bold was Frank’s choice of play. It was written by Elias Canetti. He subsequently received the Nobel prize for literature for various prolix unread and unreadable works of fiction, but certainly not “The Numbered”. That may be unfair. rom the start it was clear that “The Numbered” was a heavyweight play. See the play, we thought and you’ll never think in the same way about politics or religion – a sort of 1984.

The premise was a society where at birth everyone was given a number rather than a surname. That number determines the age at which every person would die. And people were so conditioned by the social religious powers-that-be that they dutifully curled up and died, spot on cue! Everybody was given a locket and were told it contained their number. But they were forbidden ever to open it. Pandora‘s box would be nothing compared with a disasters that would follow if anyone disobeyed and opened his locket. If you could swallow this basic precept, disregarding totally any notion of accidental death then a certain amount of mild comedy and a lot of pathos could be got out of the first half of the play. The actors, bless them. swallowed it whole and tackled it with enthusiasm. In the second half, a character called 40 decided to defy augury and open his locket. He found it empty and encouraged everyone to refuse to die. Results: revolution, disaster, Civil War, chaos, catastrophe. A very middle European joke as Jerry says in “Zoo Story”.

I never knew how much discussion Minos had with the Averys before, gripped with great enthusiasm for the play, they began to make an elaborate model. Minos was to prove himself subsequently a very brilliant director. But he could never have been described as a great communicator. A week or so before rehearsal started the model was presented to him. He rejected it out of hand and disappeared again back to London leaving Sam and Wilf depressed and with not much idea of what he did want. When he reappeared again, he said something might be done with the constructivist Avery Towers in the model. But they must only appear in the second half of the play. He gave some idea as to one or two significant props like cemetery memorials which could be useful in the first half. The consequence was that we had no set for part one – I mean not even for the first part of the play. This first half was much lighter in texture than the cataclysmic second. It consisted of a series of short scenes showing episodes in Canetti’s imaginary society: courtship Patricia Green and Neil McCarthy very touching as a couple of adolescence with a number in the low 20s; working an office (Diak and Baxter); a funeral for a chap named seven. George von Kuh and I did our best to define by electrics the areas in which the actors were to move, attempting to persuade the audience they were in various rooms. but the grey surround insisted on bouncing light everywhere. No sharpness.

To be fair to Minos and Canetti, the actors were persuaded that the play had got something. So was I and we all did our very best to give the play our best shot. Frank Windsor was magnificent as the revolutionary who opened his locket. Sebastian Shaw a senior actor with a vast list of impressive West End and film credits struggled hard to find some sort of tragic dignity in the governor (or archbishop who knew?) trying to hold things together while society fell apart. Edgar Wreford joined the company for this production. Minos’s methods with actors were different from anybody else that our actors had worked with. But after the play had opened, I seem to remember that most of critics found it interesting. There began to be a faction who questioned exactly what we were all trying to do. I’ll leave Minos’s way with actors until we come to his rave success, “Lysistrita” is in the spring. Let’s just say that the girls had more confidence in him than the boys – a touch of the Mediterranean lover.

Edgar Wreford (I don’t think he was in “Knights”) joined the company at this time. Years later he returned to Birmingham where he did excellent work. This is when John Harrison was artistic director and I was production manager and occasional director. When Nancy Burman, our General Manager- boss saw the saw the cast for “Heartbreak House” on the company noticeboard she snorted to me:  “Wreford troublemaker” and stumped off. Now during the Oxford period this hadn’t occurred to me but some come to think of it…  Bartman I’ve already mentioned needed a great deal of care and attention from his director. Oddly enough, I can’t remain remember what either of these two played in “The Numbered” which may be significant.

Another actor (to be up-to-date – no longer an actress) who joined at this time was Avril Elgar. George Von Kuh had worked with her, more properly I suppose, illuminated her in a “Twelfth Night” up in Manchester. She was, he told me, the best Viola that he’d ever seen or hoped to see. He mentioned some famous actress it could well have been Elizabeth Berguer whom had seen he had seen in the 30s Vienna.  Avril was not a particularly attractive young woman. But as with many good actors doubtless she could exude an all suffusing radiance if it was called for. This was a major actress. Frank cast her in a series of parts,  20 or 30 years above her age. I don’t really think she objected to this. If it was a meaty part she would get her teeth into it and get on with it. She was also James Maxwell‘s wife.

In “The Numbered” Avril played a series of character sketches of middle-aged women and also I have a picture of her with Frank Windsor hunched over a locket as a crone called 85. The other person in the picture is Gillian Neeson equally aged, but then a promising young actress. Whatever happened to her? as Strich sang in “Follies”.

I can’t be sure of this but I think the next play, Angus Wilson’s “The Mulberry Tree”, was mounted with just a fortnight rehearsal. Anyway, immediately after “Numbered” opened, we assembled in the foyer for a reading. To the Frank Windsor school of acting, a reading was pretty much a waste of time. And many directors these days like to start straight out with a semi improv. In provisional blocking, Hauser felt and I followed him in this as many other things that a reading gave everybody a feel for the shape of the play and how they could begin to form relations with the other characters. On this occasion, after Act 1, Frank congratulated everybody on a lengthy or highly intelligent reading but thought if possible Avril should use a deep deeper range in her voice. She was after all playing a senior university don‘s wife. Must’ve been in her late 50s.  Avril reacted cheerfully enough, “Right,” she said. “Grandma Buggins coming up.” From that moment on Jimmy Max became less of an actor with his own problems than a loving husband overprotective of his wife. When we were blocking, (I think it is an Americanism – we used to call it setting) Jimmy question Frank suggestions not only about his own moves but also about Avril’s. This wasted quite a bit of time but at this stage there was no great edge to the antagonism.

I  cannot remember very much about the play. I remember being disappointing in the writing. I’ve read a bit of Wilson’s fiction a collection of stories for instance called “The Wrong Set”. This play didn’t have the same cutting edge of savage satire. Come to that the nostalgia for the departed joys of academe had been done better, not all that long ago by Priestly in “The Linden Tree”. I do have a picture (but no programme) of the company with Pat Keane central emoting strongly. The rest of the cast Bartman, Baxter, Eyre, McCarthy and a rather attractive young younger actress I can’t remember and Maxwell giving her close attention and Avril dead centre glaring in quite the opposite direction. She is clearly on the point of heaving herself out of her chair to give the prompter a piece of her mind. The setting looks more suitable for act three of Dracula.

Sebastian Shaw was not in “The Mulberry Tree”. I suspect he stayed around because there was the whiff of a possible transfer for the next play, “Lock and Key”, a three hander sex comedy. He was one of the last of the matinee Idol actors of the 20s and 30s. He had a vast list of credits. He was a strong and subtle actor and I came to love him dearly when he came to guest lead in the Birmingham company under my direction in Mortimer’s “Two Stars for Comfort”. Even after that, he was doing stalwart work in Stratford in such parts as the king of France in “All’s Well”.  Charmian Eyre played his wife or perhaps she was his long-standing mistress and Avril played the bedraggled and desperate young tart that the man needed additionally in his life. Ariadne Nikolaev wrote the play. I hope I have this right. No program no photos for this production. She certainly came up later in my career as a translator of Russian classics.

During rehearsals of “The Heartless Princess”, world politics impinged on our consciousness again. The Hungarians tried to escape from Stalinist Eastern Europe. The revolution was crushed with the utmost severity and Oxford was full of refugees. The playhouse did its best. We needed a few extra seamstresses to finish the elaborate costumes. Three Hungarians were employed and did valiant work. One of them was a ravishingly beautiful girl. The same time we needed two extras to play footman. One of them was Anthony Page now distinguished professional director. He was having difficulty with his supervisor (so they call them supervisors in Oxford or is that just Cambridge). He was spending far too much time playing theatres rather than reading for his degree. So the playhouse agreed that he should perform without program credit. The other walk-on was a sweet Hungarian boy with no previous interest in the theatre. He had practically no English and it was a week or so after he first came but he managed to communicate to us that our beautiful seamstress was in fact the most famous film star in Hungary – equivalent to say Ingrid Bergman!

The play was full of acerbic wit about what after all is a fairly common situation. Unfortunately only a minority of the audience felt any compulsion to laugh at it. Most younger people admired the intensity and sheer drama our trio of actors brought to it. A certain don, Gerard by name, was bursar of St John’s and by that token our landlord. He accosted me at the bar after the first night. “Who wrote this play?” he demanded. I told him. “I knew it must be a woman! Only a woman could write anything so nasty!” This sexist chauvinist tradition at that time still pervaded certain areas of north Oxford. If I had had had any foresight, I might have retorted, ”Roll on the 60s!”  Looking back I reckon this was a crisis time for all of us at the Playhouse. Frank needed to pull a rabbit out of the hat. A success was needed for Christmas or the ship might founder.

Frederick Bartman had sold his soul to Frank in return for a promise to stage his play written under a pseudonym, “The Heartless Princess” at Christmas. The piece had a great deal of gentle charm and which (in common with “The Rose and the Ring” I had been involved with as an unpaid stagehand while still in the Air Force in Perth). But that is another story. It was a long way removed from the belt and braces style of traditional pantomime. In a less sure hands than Frank’s, it would’ve seemed ridiculously sentimental and insipid. Frank got this one to my mind absolutely right. The show was crisp, light and funny and got by without belly-laughs. It was of course ideal fare for the well brought up Oxford family, familiar with “Wind in the Willows”,  “Alice adventures”, and Peter Halls’ great success in this field, “Listen to the Wind”

If Freddie could be something of a pain in the neck to direct that was nothing when he had to preside over the birth of his play and play the key comedy role of the dithering king. But Frank managed to settle him down.

Wreford played the wily fox, the only animal in the show. Gary Raymond, by now getting more assured, was commanding as well as very handsome as the prince. Avril grabbed the opportunity for grotesque nearly over-the-top comedy as the ugly Duchess mildly undercut by Monica Stewart, an old Coventry buddy as her faded companion. Jimmy Maxwell, did good work as a pompous fussy politician. He also imported a very camp designer Harry Cordwell to cheer us all up. His background was dancing in the classical ballet. He was a decorative confectioner. He had a little experience of the practical side of scene painting and Mark King was engaged to expand his beautiful Pollocks toy theatre model into a 24 times bigger reality. He recruited the stage management to go round the auditorium after “Lock and Key and collect the ice cream cartons (a remarkably thin number per performance). He wouldn’t tell anybody what they were for until the set up when he proceeded to make a chandelier using some heavy duty cable he scrounged from George von Kuh and a lot of glue and scrim. The overworked Cordwell was pressed into service (he was very reluctant) to get us all waltzing for the finale. He claimed no cred in the program. No doubt some ballet friends could’ve seen it as a poor choreography. But it served its purpose. I remember clearly the unlikely figure of George Von reviving his Vienna youth and teaching a few of our clumsy oafs, the steps. He trimmed his moustache and fished out a cummerbund for the occasion.

Frank also introduced some musical numbers a brilliant idea. These were done in front of a drop-cloth allowing us time to shift scenery and props. Music and lyrics were by George Hall a teacher at Central school later to become principal.

The success of the show was in the casting. Frank produced his Ace. Susan Hampshire was to play the title role. She had been a wonderfully willing gopher call girl and stage sweeper. She had played a beggar in “Electra” and flitted on and off (who didn’t?) in “The Numbers”, but this was a big leap in the deep end. She had a delightful  freshness and coltish charm. Sure she sang a bit sharp but her voice and presence were never flat. There was and still – see “Monarch of the Glen” a certain edge to her personality. If she was inexperienced, well the cast were there to support her for princess.

It was noticed in the week before rehearsal started. It must’ve been the last week of rehearsals for “Lock and Key” that she and Gary Raymond were disappearing into a cubbyhole below the stage for many hours and they were taking their lunch breaks down there. The company and stage management assumed they were having an affair. To our credit, I can’t recall any sniggering or off-colour remarks from staff or actors about this. Everyone thought “Poor loves – she’s working so hard on stage management and they’ve no place to go.” Some of us coarse folk thought “Good for Gary!” It was sometime years later that I discovered the trouble. Susan was very dyslexic. And since she was to play a lot of scenes with Gary in princess, he was actually teaching her her part so that she could come to the reading of the play and pretend to read something she already knew word perfect.

All went well with “The Princess” which ran for five weeks. I can’t remember but I believe the box office held up pretty well throughout. But the unrest in the company which had surfaced during “The Numbered” was not dead, mainly dormant. It culminated in the second biggest row in any theatre company I worked with in 40 years in the theatre. The biggest came when Dulcie Gray threw the book at John Harrison at the close of the run of a not very distinguished performance as Arkadin in the Seagull at Birmingham. I say threw the book. In actual fact, she grabbed back the autographed copy of her latest detective story from his desk.

Frank was a highly talented pianist and musician. He composed music including a string quartet. If any music was needed, he would supervise it. This worked very well when the music could be taped. Unfortunately, he thought a musical director was something of an unaffordable extravagance. Neil McCarthy could play the piano a bit and was pressed into service to accompany the songs. All went well during the rehearsals and the beginning of the run. Midway through said run, Frank popped in to see a matinee and spoke to Neil on the first interval. You mustn’t let them dictate the tempo; some of the numbers are dragging. Neil duly swung into multo-accelerando in the numbers for the next scene breaks. It was pretty chaotic and the actors were bewildered. Maxwell was furious. We had a direct telephone line to the office and Frank was summoned. There was no scene change in the second interval and I happened to be in the vestibule by the stage door when Frank came charging in.  (The theatre had no pass door). “Clear the green room!” he commanded. “There’s going to be a row!” Things were said and the interval ran a full five minutes. I had to intervene to say “Look are we going to go on with the show? The audience are getting restive.” It was clear that Maxwell and Hauser would never work together again. Frank had hoped that Avril would stay on for the spring season. In spite of the quarrel with Jimmy. I think she would’ve been quite happy to do so. But Frank’s immediate offer was the nurse in Anouilh’s “Medea” and Marie in “The Lesson”. I think it quite possible she would have accepted this. She was a trooper. I don’t think she was falling over herself to tackle the title role. But the news leaked through that Joan Miller was to join us to do just that. Well Avril knew Joan was nearly twice her age and just couldn’t see herself carrying the nurses part of with any conviction. The playhouse lost the services of the first rate player. Pat Keane got switched into Medea and Monica Stewart was asked to play the small but important part in “The Lesson”.

Edgar Wreford was to play the professor in this latter play and Prunella Scales came into the company to play the pupil. These two played off each other perfectly from the word go and only needed the lightest of directorial touches now and then. Much of the rehearsal time on this play took place in my flat. Monica is my wife and most of the stage rehearsal time was devoted to “Medea”.

Joan was a commanding presence as Medea and looked as though she could have eaten Jason (Jerome Willis) three times before breakfast. Perhaps this was right for any interpretation of the classical story. But dramatically the play might as well have been a monologue. Joan was condescendingly polite to her fellow actors and the staff. But in my opinion, she integrated into the company least well of all the star names Frank used during the four years I was at Oxford. She kept her sense of humour well hidden from the rest of us. If indeed she had one. I had a narrow escape much later when I suggested she might come to Colchester to be in an American play I was premiering. She asked to read the play and I went to her London flat to see what she thought of it. It was quite a relief when she turned my offer down because she all too clearly could not see anything remotely funny in it. The part called for a comedienne. Fortunately Vander Godsell accepted the part and was very fine.

Mark King and I devised a way of burning a caravan on stage. I never saw this from the front. The effect lasted two or perhaps three minutes, but there were about 20 exactly timed cues to be given during that time as well as smuggling Joan and her two stage children safely into the wings.

George Selway, a solid reliable actor who worked with Frank at Salisbury and Coventry, joined us next for yet another French play. We sometimes wondered if we ought really to do the plays in French with subtitles on a screen above the proscenium. This one was Obeys “Frost at midnight”, a charming Christmas card of a play. Its pitfalls are now obvious. If “Noel”, which is constantly mentioned as a play worth doing in these days runs the risk of being twee, this play was in danger of falling into the treacle of sentimentality not to mention melodrama. Frank got the balance absolutely right. Selway was excellent. Scales was the local tart who almost got to play the Virgin Mary. Willis, McCarthy, Humphries, Malcolm Rogers Ian Hendry ?? (I’m not sure) played together like a true ensemble. Quite a trick really for a Jewish boy like Frank to pull off. A moving seemingly simple Christian Catholic sermon on faith and hope in the face of a harsh absence of charity,

Success too when we took it to Cambridge Arts Theatre. This became the most popular third week venue for Playhouse productions. In those days if a theatre company bought a certain amount of rail tickets, British rail would supply a scene truck to transport scenery and properties free and British rail guaranteed to have the wagon ready for unloading on the following Monday morning, Oxford to Cambridge was a sickeningly tedious journey in those days, (it’s probably even worse now) involving a two hour wait for a connection at Bletchley a cheerful way for actors to spend their Sundays.

I believe unless my memories plays me false, (I have no program for this spring season except for my own “Change in the Wind” that it was on this trip to Cambridge that we travelled the rostra for Lysistrata with the “Frost” scenery so that the cast could rehearse on them before the Oxford change over weekend. We had a difficulty finding a rehearsal room where they could be assembled. However, John Barton, then still an English don, dreaming maybe of his Stratford future with Peter Hall. And Barton managed to persuade the city fathers to let us have a room in one of the municipal buildings, (could it have been the town hall itself?), This room was unfortunately up several flights of stairs. Nevertheless, Humphries, McCarthy, Stephen John (all involved in the evening performance of “Frost”) and I engaged them to get all set up ready for a 10 o’clock rehearsal.

This run through on the Friday before we opened on the Monday in Oxford was conducted by Frank. Minos Volonakis had gone down with some sort of nervous two-day fever. The company however managed to pull itself together and the actors were ready by the time we all returned to Oxford.

As with “The Numbered”, Minos’s untraditional rehearsal methods had caused some difficulty in the company. Dudley Fitts’ translation or perhaps Aristophanes (who knows?) provided little in the way of character clues to the men’s parts. A chorus of old men at the base of the Acropolis in the first part. And a lot of standing around as young soldiers in the second half. Minos had worked hard on movement and assigned the lines. But after all, the show belongs to the girls and here Minos laid down the roots of the show’s colossal success. He taught them (no musical director again it may be noted) to sing various Greek folk tunes. I don’t remember there being any words. But there was a great deal of a-cappella singing. What was wonderful was that he got these well-bred and educated English girls to sing with a particularly sexy Balkan Mediterranean nasal twang. This was more recently shown us with the success of the middle aged ladies of the Trio Bulgarka from Bulgaria. Minos‘s ladies spoke Fitts’s double-entendre in perfect English but when they broke into song and dance (also invented brilliantly by Minos) they transported us to the Isles of Greece.

Much credit is also due to Constance Cummings. In the name part, she delivered all the smutty jokes with the accuracy and timing of Max Miller. Yet she managed to preserve the appearance of everyone’s idea of a perfect lady, beautiful, witty and tantalisingly sexy. She was wonderful. I never saw the Royal Court show (basically the same as the Oxford one with Joan Greenwood in the part). She was a highly talented comedy actress and I’m sure she got all the laughs but she could not have been as serene beautiful as Constance,

A digression. I believe the reason she was replaced for the transfer was that she was Ben Levy‘s wife. Levy was a successful West End playwright and had several West End successes for Binky Beaumont who as HM Tenant had the commercial theatre pretty well sewn up. George Devine had recently reopened the Royal court and was carefully nurturing a sort of working class rough theatre as opposed to West End gloss. A no French Windows sort of theatre where provincial accents were de-rigeur. Ben Levy felt that Devine’s ideas debased a noble art. Scruffy theatre was bad theatre. Unforgivable things were said on both sides. Devine got his revenge by refusing to accept Lysistrata into his theatre with Constance in the leading part and Joan Greenwood was sent for.

By now we were opening new productions on a Tuesday. This meant there was more time to get things right at dress rehearsal stage. But it also meant that change-over weekends last in 72 hours of pressure rather than 48. Nicolas Georgardis had designed Lysistrata. There was a certain cartoon like effect as though drawn by a child. He was demanding in wardrobe property making and scene dock. Rough and ready might be the desired effect. But it must be his sort of rough and ready.

Old proverb: when Greek meets Greek there comes the screaming match. Early in this change-over weekend Minos and Nico were no longer in speaking terms and my staff had now learned a rich vocabulary of Greek swearwords. Messages were sent via ASM and sewing lady (it is a long trek from the prompt to the wardrobe) to very little affect during the lighting rehearsal. On the day we opened harmony reigned again; everyone had something to wear and Nico was pleased with a general look at the set. The volatility of the Mediterranean temperament has its upside as well as it’s down.

“Figure of Fun” came next. This Russian farce had already had a West End run (only a partial success with John Mills in the lead). I can remember very little about it. Various actors Pat Keane Jack Humphrey and Ian Hendry were replaced for the tour of the Greek play. I seem to have appeared in it in the far from memorable part of Eddie. Frank had been trying to get Pamela Brown to act in one of the plays but she was not keen to return to her old Playhouse stamping ground. Evidently she said she’d always wanted to direct a play. Frank was commendably willing to take a chance on a friend. Pamela, a sweet and witty lady, spent most of her time advising the actresses (Annie Walford, Fanny Carby, Edevain Park, an old Coventry alumni) on the subtleties of character building and Frank had to stand by and credited himself as co-director on the program to sort out a few basic positions. For all I remember of it, the play may have been a success.

Next came Bob Bolt’s play “The Critic and the Heart”.  Jack Minster, a West End impressario in his own right, came to direct it. Pat Keen, Ian Hendry and Malcolm Rogers were cast in it from the Oxford company. The stage management and actors travelled to London on an early train and rehearsed in the YMCA in Great Russell Street. This often happened when a play was rehearsed with the names in it. Minster was a reserved quietly spoken man. He exuded the impression that he thought provincial theatre of any kind was way beneath him except as an experimental try-out. He brought with him. (I know Frank had other ideas) a leading lady called Margaret Vines.

She was good at doing neurotic jitters. Unfortunately she was not so good at showing the same character transformed by a psychological shock into a radiant pulsating sexy and beautiful middle-aged woman. Robert Eddison, lovely man with roots in the provinces (Bristol Old Vic) was smashing as the critic in the title. Minster got Frank to sack Malcolm before he even read the part of the doctor. I hope he was adequately compensated.

Bolt had several goes at this play. I have a picture of the production and I cannot remember the name of the solid and experienced actor who played the doctor in Oxford. I know the face but when I was in Birmingham, it surfaced retitled on a prior to London tour with Laurence Naismith playing the much inflated Doctor’s part. I cannot remember who played the leading female part which speaks volumes.

Interestingly, the Oxford production of “Critic” was a year or so before “Man for all Seasons”. Bob Bolt remembered the quality of Pat Keen’s Oxford performance and was able to insist that she played Margaret More, Schofield‘s daughter in the West End production with McKern as the common man.

We next plunged into restoration comedy with “The Beaux Strategem”.. This is an attractive morass and has proved (as I myself well know) the graveyard of a number of English directors. Frank got a lot of it right and the production was generally liked. But he was hampered, by a somewhat lopsided set. And Ian Hendry never looked comfortable as Archer. But Delana Kidd was splendid as Mrs Sullen and Richard Butler who arrived with a reputation of being rather staid actor spoke to speech “trippingly on the tongue” and cheered up the last act wonderfully. Anne Walford was charming, heartbreaking as Cherry.

Frank then handed over to me a sense of company playing together. I had something of a success with my production of “Change in the Wind” and I owed it to the actors. George Selway gave the performance of his life as Zamore the little man with the restive wife who had strayed into a remote corner of southern France. Scales joined us again to play the wife. Hendry was good as the shifty lover as was Pat Keane as a motherly village gossip-cum-fortune teller. and John Church carried off a wonderfully sinister harbinger of death as the play swung to a tragic end. Full marks to George von Kuh for the lighting.

This play ran just over an hour. As a curtain raiser, Frank directed a very short piece by Robert Tanitoll an undergraduate wit and sketch writer. Hester Paton-Brown was imported and brought a dotty absent minded comedy skill to the piece. It was an attempt at Wildean comedy. There were plenty of witty lines. I remember one about a dog: we called him Rover to give him confidence. It was a highly mannered piece and the Oxford audience was perhaps too well-mannered to laugh a great deal. Nevertheless the evening went quite well.

The plan, as rumour trickle down to us in the engine room, had been to round off the season with Clifford Odets’ “The big Knife”. I think Scales had been promised a juicy part which is why she had returned after Christmas. However something went wrong with the rights or whatever and the project had to be abandoned. What is more we desperately needed a box office success to get a little money in the coffers. Frank bethought him of “The Man who came to Dinner”. He had had a success with this play in Coventry. George Solway and Monica Stewart had played the guest and Secretary in Coventry. Frank had insisted that these two characters be played in an English accent in the vain hope that the audience would realise George was being asked to impersonate Gilbert Harding. This time they would be allowed to play American. There is a long cast list in this play. And Frank decided to cast quite a number of parts from the students of the Oxford theatre school. The play went pretty well. But Monica and I have a photograph, with me dead centre overacting like mad as the doctor and the assembled company looking like village hall amateurs. It was not perhaps the playhouse’s finest hour.

Something which was extremely healthy at the Playhouse (and absent from all other provincial theatres I worked in) was the thriving coffee bar. For all new plays and interesting revivals (and all Frank’s plays fall into the three categories) the Bar became crowded with students and younger Dons. You knew if you’ve got a success by the general buzz. It was excellent for actors and staff to get some feedback from the public. We had to make special arrangements to make sure that the actors could actually get a cuppa. Les the commissioner did his best to organise a queue-jumping system for the workers but no director was able to declare 24 hours in advance when exactly to the minute the right time for a breather would come. The company was undoubtedly invigorated by this animated intercourse with the outside artistic world even though the coffee was barely drinkable.

PS not strictly to do with Oxford but my wife was good enough to run a critical eye over some of this and points out that I’ve missed the climax of the Ben Levy story. After George Devine turned his thumbs down at Constance in “Lysistrata”, Levy rushed out his own Greek based comedy “Rape of the Belt”, so that in effect Constance was playing a Greek lead at the same time or shortly after Joan opened as Lysistrata in the Court.

Further education

We always rather hoped that Christopher would not want to follow his parents’ footsteps into the profession. So it was someone with some relief that despite showing some talent in a school Shakespeare and a tellingly vicious parody of one of his own teachers in a CP Snow adaptation, he announced shortly before he went up to university and after talking at some length with my father, he had decided he would become a teacher. Nearly 40 years and from that momentous decision he still enjoys the actual teaching process. Indeed I know from having met some of his former pupils that he is good and inspirational at the job. However, he is finding the administrative work demanding these days And he finds all that side of very considerable strain. To say the least.

He did however make a sensational first appearance in the professional theatre when he was one month short of four years old. Tony John had directed the Arabian Nights in Coventry as a Christmas extravaganza. This was in effect two one-acters, Ali Baba and a handful of thieves (when I saw it as a child they actually had 40 on stage I could count them). And Aladdin. They were proceeded by a short prologue played in front of a tiny apron in front of the house tabs. In a dim-out two attractive actresses took their places. We had tried a total blackout at the dress rehearsal and one of them had fallen off the stage. Then, through the house tabs to hugely dramatic music, there entered the sultan in a furiously bad temper. Perhaps there had been a no butter on the imperial slice of bread. And Scheherazade and her companion prepared to sooth him down with a tale of love and adventure.

Kenneth McIntosh was the Sultan. Bearded, turban berobed and with much use of white eyeliner to get the angry flashing look, he could’ve launched straight into the last act of Othello. Meanwhile Monica and Christopher had taken their seats dead centre about 10 rows back in the stalls. The music (I believe it was part of the Grand Canyon suite) reached its climax. Lighting cues timed to perfection. Enter Sultan. Awful silence as he glares at the cowering women in the corner. A treble voice from the stalls. “Oh look it’s Uncle Kenneth”, perfectly timed with the inherited clear diction of both his parents. Christopher got the best laugh of the afternoon.

I also remember with great clarity an early visit to the cinema the three of us. Christopher likes stories with lots of violent action. And he used to draw battles with literally hundreds of little matchstick men brandishing swords. Deeds of Crusaders and wars with the French and castles perched precariously on hillside. On Saturday afternoon in Nottingham (it must’ve been one of my own productions was running) we decided to take him to see the epic “Genghis Khan”. He was in a state of high excitement before the film started. We were in some middle-eastern defensive bastion (Persian? – I can’t remember). The cry of Tarter Horseman echoes out and we were into the first battle. Lots of chopping. Cut away to Susan Haywood being jogged along by an open oxcart elaborately curtained and furnished. She looked nervous under her 1950s Hollywood make up. Quite in character for a princess in danger from barbarians. But to the discerning eye, the fear seem to be saying: why the hell did I ever accept this bloody part? Away to Genghis Khan, exhausted mounted and looking weather-beaten. Messengers rode up breathless reporting various doings on various fronts. He barked out orders in response. This is the sort of thing he had done in countless westerns. He felt comfortable on his horse. Eventually, of course the script required him to dismount and speak a sentence or two in coherent English tones that befitted the ruler of half the world. The actor was not equal to the task. It was at this point that Christopher complained of feeling sick. We only just managed to get him out of the stalls and into the street before he brought the contents of his stomach up. Monica racked her brains for several days as to what he must’ve eaten. But I knew better. I knew that Christopher was going to going to grow up into one of those terrors to the profession. He would finish up as a critic. The actor, in case you haven’t guessed, was John Wayne.

I left Nottingham for Oxford under strict instructions to find a school for Christopher. A decent state school – after all he had made a fairly happy start in Coventry. But perhaps we might consider a private establishment. The Dragon school, we had been told, was one of the best prep schools in the country. Yes, said the forbidding school secretary: “We might just have to squeeze him in next term. Of course it would be better to wait for the beginning of the academic year but there is a long waiting list for next September already. The headmaster will want to meet him. When did you say you would be coming up up?”  “Up” and “down” seemed somewhat appropriate to the grandeur of the establishment. But somehow absurd to a child who would be no more than six at his next birthday. Eventually I got around to enquiring as to the fees. End of that conversation. Of course, she said as I rang off, there were plenty of cheaper establishments in Oxford. I cannot quite remember the exact mathematics whether it was four or five times the amount we had been paying in Nottingham.

I knew nobody in Oxford. But Frank introduced me to some of his mostly youngish Dons. On the subject of early education not many had any view at all. But general consensus was that the Dragon school was undoubtedly the best. In the summer break between Nottingham and Oxford I met Louis Frank’s elder brother. He was a highly successful barrister already a QC and Frank hinted that in a few more years he would undoubtedly be a judge. He was a charming man and talked easily on many subjects. He was not afraid to give voice to a rather left-wing principles. He had three children of school age. You can’t do better than have the boy educated at a state school. Mine are doing very well at the primary just up the road from me. His wife Phyllis was something of a joke to Frank. And one did see why. She was the archetypal upper middle class conservative mum – behaviour, manners with everything. Ideas were not her strong point. Nevertheless I thought, if she of all people was happy with the schooling then state education must be okay. We enrolled Christopher at Saint Philip and Saint James Primary School in North Oxford.

The Averys departed from Oxford at Christmas, leaving us the sole remaining tenant of a flat with accommodation for three. So there was no frantic hunt for us to live en famille as there had been in Nottingham. Nice timing of course it was three times as expensive. But Frank saw plenty of virtue in Monica as an actress and had already offered her a part in the Christmas show. So with two salaries we were financially viable. During school holidays if Christopher went to stay with grandparents or Monica’s sister there was the possibility of subletting his room to an actor. This helped financially and fairly successfully with Edgar Wreford who fitted into our family space and time most self-effacingly. He also understood the dos and don’ts of the particular location particularly as they applied to the shared bathroom. We had absolutely no wish to be on the company’s digs-list. The lease holders of the flat were a couple of young academics called Wolf on extended sabbatical in America. Our sublease, through a firm of solicitors, made amusing reference to the refrigerator, acknowledging it was a temperamental piece of equipment which was on its last legs and the departing people had been told by an engineer that if it went wrong again, it would be finished, kaput, expired, dead – one might say as a parrot and any replacement would be at the expense of the sub tenant. The monster made lengthy and disgusting, sometimes alarming noises throughout the tenancy but somehow it was still alive and spluttering when we left.

We were on the top floor of a narrow terrace house in Little Clarendon Street. The ground floor was inhabited by a warm-hearted Irish widow with strong Catholic views and an authoritarian tone of voice and manner. She was probably a friend of our transatlantic landlords and had some sort of remit from them to keep an eye on things. When the Averys and I had moved in the previous September she had taken pity on us, poor bachelor boys and on one occasion had cooked us oxtail casserole. It was indeed delicious but she refused to come in and have a glass of wine with us let alone share the meal. We felt rather like a poverty stricken family of brick workers pensionaries of Lady Bountiful. Her flat had its own bathroom which was just as well because she did not get on at all well with the first floor tenant with whom we shared a bathroom. But then nobody did get on with Mrs. Gandolf,

Two Oxford eccentrics

When you saw Mrs G which was very rarely, she was an emaciated little woman with a small shrewish skull like face, dead white with frightened little animal eyes. It was as though she could not bear to be seen, much less to look everybody else straight in the eye. As one passed by her door on the way up or down the stairs one could sometimes see sharp little eyes peeping through an inch wide space in her doorway and as one passed her, the door clicking firmly shut and the noise of several bolts being shot. She used to complain through Mrs R about the state of the bathroom. Anyone who has worked for two days and nights on a changeover weekend backstage will know how dirty one can get and how tired. What is more the Averys spent weekends with literally gallons of scene paint. The only time she ventured upstairs during the entire year we lived there was after just such a weekend. She was incoherent and screaming “little hairs!” She said this repeatedly “Not just dirt little hairs!”(a stream of German) and she scuttled off downstairs again. We made our apologies with the greatest humility we could muster through her door. But all she would say in reply was “Pigs dirty pigs!” A month or so after this incident I decided to take a bath after the show. I found a pile of tea leaves, a broken comb of pink elastic with several bits and pieces of kitchen detritus all of which I had to clear away before I could bathe. I was more than doubly careful to leave the bath immaculate ever afterwards. Nevertheless, one evening when I passed the bathroom, I heard the unmistakable sounds of scrubbing. And from upstairs about 10 minutes later the noise of the bath filling. Mrs Gandolf scrubbed the bath before as well as after use. Things improved a little after my family arrived and not just because, with a woman about the place, maybe personal hygiene improved.

My son Christopher won the hearts of our widow neighbours. Mrs. R on the ground floor seized on the undeniable fact that Christopher and Monica too at that stage of her life were easy-going Catholics and I believe most of her conversations with him were designed to make him stricter in holy observations. All done with charming friendly condescending Irish good manners. The Bath obsessed Mrs Gandolf was a different matter. We gathered from Mrs. R that the Gandolfs were Jews, leaving Germany or Austria in the 30s, with the Holocaust devouring family and friends left behind them. I believe they were interred for the early part of the war. I wish now that I had made more effort to offer the hand of friendship towards this frightened unhappy, lonely old lady. “She lives on bread and scrape,” declared Mrs R briskly. “I have no patience with her and she’s not strapped for cash. Do you know she has Biedermeier furniture in there?” I was ashamed to admit I knew nothing about early 19th century domestic appurtenances.

“Nature I loved and next to nature art,” said WS Landor in a self-valedictory poem. For Christopher even at the age of six substitute the word books for art and he would’ve appreciated the smug Victorian sentiments. Monica enjoyed revisiting the imaginative world of her own childhood by spending, from the boy’s earliest grasp of language, an hour before bedtime reading to him. On the rare occasions in Coventry Nottingham and Oxford when I was able to be at home for tea I would sneak away to be in time for the half leaving behind me a pair of them wrapped in concentration of the wonderful world words of Beatrix Potter, E Nesbitt, Kenneth Graham or eventually Dickens. Monica was still is a splendid reader, characterising lightly but cheerily in all of the bits of direct speech breaking off sometime to ask can you remember what for instance Mole said. And they would chorus “oh my! oh my!”

Christopher inherited from me an inability to appear smart, whatever clothes he was wearing. I literally managed to pull my socks up a bit when I had to appear in public as an actor. But as a stage manager it was almost to de-rigeur to appear somewhat overwrought and under strain in dress as well as mentally. The pair of us were Monica’s despair. Yet Christopher at six, clothes dishevelled, spectacles never quite straight, I think appealed to Mrs G because he looked so like an academic. And one day she opened her door a crack and beckoned him in. They became it seems friends. He reported that he had never seen so many books in one room. I never had so much of a glimpse inside. But Monica did catch a glimpse when she knocked one day to tell him his tea was waiting. It was quite true she told me about the books and the furniture too was indeed the most impressive.

It was through Mrs R that we heard that the Wolfs would soon be at our door and resuming possession of their flat. Then the bank informed us that they would no longer accept the rent and we knew that at the beginning of September we would be homeless.

As every journalist who is interested in wealth distribution in our country has discovered, nearly all north Oxford is owned by Saint John’s College. I have already mentioned that the Bursar of St John’s was in effect the landlord of the Playhouse. He had been very helpful in finding a very attractive flat for Elizabeth Sweeting, our general manager, in Beaumont Mews, just opposite the theatre. And I rather hoped that he might be able to give us similar assistance. Elizabeth, who is not only an unflappable and resourceful administrator, but also witty and convivial at the occasional  company party. I rather hoped that the bursar might help solve our housing problems. Alas for us Elizabeth was a scholar in her own right, A PHD and Doctor of Science. And as such could hold her own as an equal at any high table to which she was invited in Oxford. But for the gentleman in question, it was clear that he regarded stage management team as at best artisan class if not serfs. At the third time of asking he offered us a tenancy a detached cottage in Plantation Road at a very low rent. Inspection revealed it not to be just damp. The walls were wringing wet and in several rooms the floorboards were rotting. I said it was quite unthinkable to bring up a young child in such conditions and could it be put in a better state of repair? He became quite offended. “At that rent, all repairs would be at the expense of the tenant.” He suggested that tarred paper might solve the problem. I did in fact consult a builder. “Demolition is too good for this property”, he said.

It was Mrs. R who suggested a solution. An old academic of her acquaintance had a large house in which he lived alone and might be happy to let us live in part of it. We met a large quite good looking upright Victorian gentleman in his 60s. He had a somewhat magisterial manner which we hoped concealed a heart of gold. There was plenty of furniture, he informed us. Some of it was if not on its last legs, certainly on decidedly shaky ones. The house had generally a House of Usher gloom about it. It was an end of terrace, solid mid-Victorian building with three floors and a basement. Steps up to a flaking heavy front door. Cast iron quite graceful steps down from the back sitting room into a large but unkempt garden. We settled on a very reasonable rental for the basement parlour- kitchen- scullery and afore-mentioned back sitting room and a sizable back bedroom on the second floor.

The walls of the kitchen were crumbling away and Mr. Faulkner volunteered to have something done about them. He also agreed to let us redecorate the parlour to our own taste – white gloss paint on the woodwork good quality distemper on the walls. He would retain possession of the front of the house sitting room and two bedrooms.

To his credit, he employed a first rate builder and decorator to put new white distempered plasterboard walls in the kitchen and dig out a small front garden to allow more light into the small parlour windows. We volunteered to do our own decorating and Monica set to work making curtains and covering the furniture, a procedure which helped enormously in holding it together. We worked very hard during the early part of the break between the Playhouse seasons (the long Vac, our students stage hands called it) and made our new domain much more cheerful and inhabitable by the time we went down to spend a week or 10 days with Monica‘s parents. Her father had retired and they had moved south to a remote bungalow in Alderbury near Salisbury. We moved in and started paying rent in early September. So far from unbending a bit as we got to know him better, Mr Faulkner began to reveal the classic symptoms of an old bachelor who had lived too long by himself. There had been in our parlour sitting room and scullery a great deal of miscellaneous rubbish. Old magazines, newspapers, books, presents from Margate, knickknacks, several antediluvian brassieres, a pair of well worn corsets. We piled them all on our rather nice Victorian kitchen table and asked him to drop in to inspect. What should we do with this stuff? He glanced at a couple of the cupboards, fresh paper on the shelves, a coat of distemper on the walls. “There seems to be plenty of space. Put it all back where you found it.” There seems no alternative to obeying his instruction. His sitting room was now as I have mentioned our bedroom. There was plenty of furniture in it which he declined to move. This included a pretty little Victorian desk crammed full of papers. One night in the small hours Monica woke me up, I think we have a burglar she whispered. Indeed there was a shadowy figure with a pencil torch near the foot of our bed. I snapped on the light. “I only wanted to look for some papers,” said our landlord. “Here they are!”  He was wearing a great coat and a workman’s peaked cap. As he went out, he waved the papers in triumph. The next day while he was out, we moved the offending desk into the passageway between the two doors and we went to bed with a little bit more sense of privacy.

I mentioned the proliferation of books in Mrs Gandolf’s flat. This was nothing compared to Mr Faulkner’s house. There were books galore in every room and piled up on the staircase, leaving only a very narrow passage in the middle. He claimed to know where every book was. We daren’t move one of them. Shared bathrooms are always difficult. In this house there was an immersion heater and a special tank in the bathroom and he complained if it was left switched on for more than half an hour in the mornings. Stage management is not the cleanest of occupations. There was also a primitive hot water system based on the metal stove in our basement sitting room. As autumn approached we wanted to keep a blazing fire at all times. That year autumn was in effect an extended beautiful Indian summer.

We did in fact find the old gentleman way more amusing than tiresome. We invited him down to share meals with us on a couple of occasions and he could be charming and entertaining conversationalist relaxing facially into surprising the handsome features. We thought he would be ideally cast for Badger in “The wind in the willows”. His politics turned out with the nearest thing to fascism I ever met with directly. The country had gone downhill in a handcart ever since the Labour post-war administration. It was at such a meal and pleasant talk afterwards, that he released his bombshell. He had lived with a housekeeper, a widow who had cooked cleaned and mended for him for many years. She had died the previous spring and he had unburdened himself to Mrs Ratten. Mrs. Ratten somehow gave him the idea that Monica, family and all, might be a splendid answer to the Victorian bachelor’s domestic problem. He told us that he had been very patient with us while we settled in; that he had spent a lot of money on making it habitable for us; and it was about time. Monica started doing a great deal more towards satisfying his household needs. I said quite heatedly, “I’m afraid my wife was by profession and actress not a domestic servant.” And we would keep our share of the house clean and heated and that was all he could expect from us. In any case Monica was by this time heavily involved in “Under Milk Wood”, which was to go on tour after its Oxford run. Christopher was to stay with a friend of Monica’s – more about her later – who lived in Jericho. I would of course be away too. He muttered as he stumped away and for sometime afterwards kept up a monotone of implications occasionally rising to a shout. The next morning I apologised for speaking strongly myself and explained that whatever Mrs Ratten had said to him, she had not mentioned to us that the tenancy involved duties and this he seemed to accept with a reasonably good grace.

When we returned from the week in the Kings Theatre Southsea, he announced that he had put the house on the market, mentioning that we were sitting tenants and that he had accepted a job in a boarding prep school and we would not be seeing him again until Christmas. In fact he was back within a fortnight, mostly because the house was being snapped up by a sharp sparrow little woman married to a businessman and anxious, now the family was about grown-up, to prove herself as equal as a money spinner. We have reason to be grateful to Mrs. Alden because she kept us on as sitting tenants while the house was converted above our heads. She warned me that the rent would have to go up in completion. There was another reason for Faulkner’s early return. This is mere hearsay, but I believe it to be true. Our informant was the builder and decorator Faulkner had employed, who had come to terms with Mrs. A over the major conversion. He knew for a fact that Mr F was a queer, (we didn’t use the word gay in those days) and he would sometimes invite rough and ready chaps in for an evening’s entertainment in return for sex. It was certainly true that he sometimes had male visitors late at night which partially explains why he was dressed in outdoor clothes when he invaded our bedroom at 3 am. Builder went on to suggest that he also knew for a fact that Mr F had been a teacher in a good class private school and that there had been some scandal involving a pupil. He reckoned that the prep school had engaged him in a hurry, investigated his references and got rid of him before he started.

The house and contents had been sold to Mrs. A. She proposed to auction off the contents. Enter the housekeeper’s daughter all guns firing. She did not live in Oxford and found out about the sale from a friend. The house never did belong to Mr Faulkner. It belonged to her mother and she had the deeds to prove it. True she said that her mother had put something in her will about allowing her bachelor paying guest to stay in the house as long as he wants. She had become quite attached to some of the furniture – a wing chair Queen Anne style, two Victorian smokers tub chairs and an ancient wall clock which kept excellent time and worked on a system of weights and only had one hand. Mrs A had no time for any of this sort of stuff and presented us with a modern three piece suite upholstered in hideously brush-tartan and we had to accept curtains in the same material. It was well on into the spring before the conversion was complete. Faulkner’s old front sitting room was turned into a bed sitter whose tenant shared our kitchen. The large back sitting room which was our bedroom was divided making a cabin like rather attractive room for Christopher and the top floor became completely self-contained flat with its own bathroom.

We were happy enough during the three years we spent at Leckford Road. The one major disadvantage was that the house was absolutely next door to Christopher‘s school. At playtime when Monica was at home, she would hear her own son being bullied by tougher boys. Earlier on she had been unable to bear it and stormed into the playground giving everybody a well-deserved piece of her mind. Of course six-year-old Christopher had to give his mother a very firm piece of his mind. She was never, never, ever to interfere again. She had made matters worse much worse. He would fight his own battles, thank you, and so he would.

Meanwhile on the domestic front

I still have one or two of the cards my mother had printed for me. In her day an out of work actor resting between engagements would leave Gentleman’s calling cards at various agents’ offices in the vicinity of Shaftesbury Avenue. She had been struck I believe with the grandeur of the address, Three Marshall Place Perth North Britain. The house was indeed part of a splendid Georgian terrace. But we lived in the basement: stone floors, no carpets one cold water tap, no electric sockets (radio and iron had to be twinned perilously to the lighting) no bath – sink in the main room – gas stove in minute cupboard recess, a few chairs, a bed and a saggy sofa. We were of course blissfully happy.

It seemed not to have occurred to my mother that the address on these nicely printed cards was not exactly likely to appeal to an agent who might want an actor quickly for a special week. Monica went home to mother for the latter months of her pregnancy. I was lucky to find digs in Coventry with a kind hearted hairdresser who lived above her shop, only a yard or two from the company office. And she was a very keen and discerning theatre goer. Two or three times in the year I was with her, Doreen threw a party for the company. They were expected to bring the drink. I acted as Barman and Doreen always provided a couple of bottles of gin and food galore. I cannot remember her real name but I don’t believe it was Doreen. She chose it as a business name because she thought it sounded comfortable and friendly which is exactly what she was. The bulky Monica came down from Birkenhead for a weekend in the late autumn. And in the spring, she was able to leave baby Christopher to be cared for by her mother for a couple of further weekends.

Monica and Doreen got on pretty well but Doreen after the second conjugal visit spoke very firmly to me. If I was to come back for a second season, I really must find somewhere else to live with my family. And it was she herself who found the answer. A friend of hers, the youngest of three daughters, had been looking after her father (a grocer) in a comfortable house in the Earlsdon district of Coventry. Still within easy walking distance of the theatre. The old man had died. The older sisters were teachers in distant Oswestry. What to do? The Buxton were the perfect answer. Lucky me

Marjorie Hewitt was a fortyish spinster, mildly epileptic, which ruled her out as a babysitter. She was very religious, a non- conformist and eschewed every sort of female vanity. She dressed plainly with no sense of style, wore no make-up, had her haircut brutally. She was, it seemed to me, just waiting For some character actress to overplay her in some second rate comedy. It became clear to Monica and me that her father had been a sanctimonious old tyrant who had squeezed the life out of his three daughters. The older two were also very spinsterish not quite so gauchely inept as Marjorie. However harsh she was on herself, nevertheless she had a very generous loving heart so of course she fell in love with Christopher.

The object of her adoration had had, to say the least of it, a fraught beginning in life. The Midland theatre company were on tour with Miss Mabel (Miss Marple as a gentle murderous instead of a detective). One of the actors playing the Vicar managed to introduce the name Christopher Buxton into a list of parishioners which of course corpsed those on stage with him. Apparently this was a theatre tradition (Crummles?) which would bring good luck to a newborn son or daughter of an actor in the company. I was not to know until the next day how much in need of a bit of luck Christopher had been. Peter Banks came up trump‘s and said he’d cover for me. “See you at Redditch on Monday,” he said. I made all haste overnight to Liverpool and arrived at the Jones’ house. “She’s had a very difficult time,” said Monica‘s mother. “Touch and go for both of them.” I never needed to ask from whence came my wife’s talent for delivering highly dramatic lines. Up at the hospital I was allowed a bare two minutes with my nearest and dearest. She gave me a wan smile or two before cheery nurses closed the curtains around her and shoved me away. I spent rather longer gazing at Christopher sleeping disgruntled in an incubator. I tried very hard to find something profound to think. “Doctor wants to see you,” said one of the indomitably cheerful nurses a brunette. “She lost a lot of blood,” he said “and we had to give her a transfusion. We had to put in a stitch or two internally.” He paused and shot me a rather laddish smile (he was younger than I was). “You’ll have to go a bit easy with her for a while. You know what I mean?” I said I did. As I was leaving, he said she’ll need to come into hospital for the next birth. Just to be on the safe side. No reason why she shouldn’t have a large family. He was of course, as were most of the nurses, extremely Irish.

A day or two after the birth Monica developed chickenpox and was whisked off to a special isolation hospital for rare tropical diseases. Christopher was now doing quite well. But it was thought he better not, accompany his mother into isolation. There’s just the outside chance he pick up some other disease. So mother Jones shouldered the burden of bottle feeding Christopher for the first month or six weeks of his life. There’s no chance he’ll develop chickenpox they said as she took him away. The baby has a natural immunity against childish diseases. Of course a day or two after she got him home he was covered in spots.

So from his earliest days, Christopher had become accustomed to being away from his mother. Mrs. Jones had been recovering from an operation when we were married and to some extent in caring for her fourth grandchild she revelled in the opportunity and it was she who had suggested the couple of conjugal weekends in Coventry I referred to earlier. I managed another day off for the christening and my parents travelled up to Birkenhead for the ceremony. My mother by now well established as a Chelsea borough councillor was rather inclined to be authoritative on matters of child welfare and the dos and don’ts for young mothers. Mrs. Jones listened to what she had to say and took no notice of it whatsoever. She had produced after all three daughters and had three other grandchildren whereas my mother had only practical experience of me. Monica‘s father however took a deep offence. The two families met only very rarely subsequently. Just as well perhaps.

I did my best to be a decent family man as well as a hard pressed stage manager. Two Sundays out of three we took weather permitting bus trips to Kenilworth, Leamington and Warwick. We used to take tea (no more than a couple of bob each) in the winter months at the Lord Leicester Arms in Warwick pretending that we were of a class who could afford better things of life. But weekdays Christopher saw little of me. My morning at work commenced at 9 o’clock sharp and then did not finish until curtain-down say 10:30 pm. Very occasionally I could get home for tea when the company was playing in Coventry.

When he was nearly three Christopher developed a squint. Our excellent GP (he treated our landlady, Mrs. Hewitt and took us into his practice) recommended a specialist. I insisted on some time off and we both attended Christopher‘s examination. I had been exasperated with the boy once or twice for what I took to be willful obstinacy. He was splendidly bright in conversation but incredibly clumsy with some of his toys – in particular a wooden train which took to pieces. Christopher just could not see – so it seemed to me – how to reassemble them. “Of course,” said specialist. “You realise your child cannot see properly he’ll need glasses probably to the end of his life.” I have rarely felt so ashamed of anything in my life. How easy it is to misjudge people when you do not have all the facts.

It is worth recording on a political level the rest of the conversation with the specialist who saw Christopher two or three times and against whom we have no cause whatever to complain. “Let’s see,” he said. “My secretary has your address?”  “Yes indeed,” we said. “She’ll make a new appointment for you. And in due course send an account for the consultation.” I mentioned we were national health patients and the atmosphere in the consulting room grew cold. The friendly atmosphere, the camaraderie between two members of the officer class not to say ex-public school boys went straight out of the window. “I hold a surgery one morning a week at the hospital. My secretary will tell you of the hours. You’ll need to come early. I can’t always see all the patients.” When we were at the door, he relented slightly. It will make no difference whatsoever to the treatment. Nor did it to his credit. The difference of course was in me. I believe I may have mentioned earlier but my mother introducing me to double-barrel friends would say “of course David is faintly pink”. I think it was when I left the consulting room with my astigmatic son that my political colouring turned violently red. My support for Labour has been unwavering ever since. I appreciated then what the party was about and I firmly believe that Blairism will soon have had its day and the party will return to its roots in a abolishing unearned privilege. Of course in my later years in my career, I kept my political views under wraps. My theatre’s survival depended on a board of directors most of whose members were of the philanthropic conservative persuasion.

We did a fair amount of entertaining in our Coventry years particularly after Frank arrived. The meat ration at one stage stood at £.10 per person per week. Reminder for those of mathematical turn of mind there were 240 pennies in a pound and there are now 100 p. So that Monica had the princely sum of just over four pennies per person per week to feed us and guests. When I mentioned this the other day she pointed out that offal, liver, kidneys oxtail, tongue et cetera were unrationed. Marjorie self-effacingly was happy to let us have the run of her house in the evenings in return for the company of young Christopher in the afternoons. We often as a sort of courtesy offered her a glass of wine. But her non-conformist principles would not allow it. Monica was able to do a bit of work under Paul Lee’s direction – Christopher going to stay with auntie Billy and her three sons or grandma Jones. Granddad Jones had retired and they moved into a bungalow in a remote densely wooded district not far from Salisbury. Billie’s husband Reg was a rep for a timber firm and they lived in Southampton,

Monica made her Coventry debut in the tiny part of Miss Ramsden in “Man and Superman”. She injected a certain edge and much required energy towards the end of act one just when we were all, actors and audience, getting rather weighed down with wordiness. I hasten to add that Paul’s production was not at all bad. I did the play at the Mercury Colchester in the 70s with a better Tanner (and Ann Whitfield, David Horvitz and Gillian McCutcheon) than Paul had. In my production as well, the audience started to flag at the same point. My Miss Ramsden was a perfectly competent actress but did not liven the play as Monica had in Coventry. From then on Paul used Monica in a string of unremarkable parts much as a 12th man all rounder might be used in a cricket team. Frank regarded her differently. He cast her first as the English wife in “The Love of Four Colonels” – a wonderful chance for her to show her comedy timing. He then integrated her into the company as a leading player for example as  the apocalyptic Dea-ex-Machina in “The Confidential Clerk”, the secretary in “The Man who came to Dinner”, the murderess in “The Hollow”.

It must be said that Monica‘s double life carried a price tag and this was born mainly by Christopher. He never, I think, quite welcomed the disruption to life that Monica’s working entailed. But he I believe came to terms with it as the modern phrase is. In any case, he became early on, quite fond of both sets of grandparents. And they spoilt him rotten. And until he started school at four and a bit, (no nursery schools in those days) he was rather starved of friends and staying with his Southampton cousins was an exciting change for him. I have to confess I was greatly in favour of Monica doing some stage work. Of the two of us she was much more talented and I was not happy that family life should entirely snuff out her creativity. Christopher had great imaginative qualities and I believe they were stimulated largely during these Coventry years. Monica read to him tirelessly and he himself after the glasses was reading quite fluently before he started school.

When we moved to Nottingham, we had considerable difficulty finding a flat we could afford. Eventually we settled for the ground floor of a crumbling mansion in the Sherwood district, two trolley bus rides from the town centre. It was very similar in inconvenience to the flat we took in Birmingham some five years later. The two became slightly confused in my mind. Were there two stories above us in Nottingham or three? I can’t remember. I do remember that the tenants were constantly changing for the first six months we hardly got to know any of our new neighbours. Then Monica became quite friendly with the lady who took the first floor flat. Her husband had been an army major and he had recently been demobbed after some time in Egypt. He was clearly finding it hard to find a job in civy-street and they both, the wife too to my mind, tended to suggest they knew they had come down in the world (domestic servants in Egypt) and didn’t much care for the riffraff, they were now forced to live amongst.

The layout of the house was peculiar. The main entrance had been in Victorian times at what is now to all intents and purposes the side of the house. Doubtless it once had a rather grand drive leading out to the Hucknall Road. But this door which led to a dirty tiled hall and staircase was rarely shut even at night. The people living above us had self-contained flats and keys. No one except Monica occasionally ever cleaned this hallway and even she never tackled the stairs. Every tenant in the house had a key to the old servants’ and tradesmen’s entrance from which a tiled passage led to the foot of the stairs to one’s right the grand never used front door. This passage, a public right of way it seemed, cut our flat in half. The living room was quite spacious and well-proportioned with French windows opening onto a large garden somewhat overgrown.

The firm of solicitors who leased the flat to us had not I think been responsible for it very long. There were two stipulations. As ground floor tenants they expected us to be responsible for keeping the garden tidy and would be providing a few garden tools. Sure enough there arrived a hand pushed lawnmower, a rusty spade, a bent fork and a strange implement which could be forced into service as a hoe. I did in fact rough-mow the grass occasionally – it really needed a scythe. We confined our efforts to planting a few flowers in the two beds nearest the house which looked most attractive in the spring with the wilderness forming a not unattractive backdrop. We just hoped the agents would not come and inspect. In fact they never did. However, Major and Mrs Walker moved into the flat above us around Christmas. The agents had told them they would have access to a large and attractive garden and that a man was responsible for keeping it tidy.

When the Major found out, that the man responsible was me he harrumphed. “Can’t stand an untidy garden!”  It was clear that the grounds of the officers’ mess in Egypt were immaculately tended by a team of gardeners. I explained that the chore has been thrust upon me and I did not believe in undertaking labour unless I was paid for it. He snorted and stumped off. To be fair to him I ought to mention that before I left in the summer, he had taken charge of the tools, borrowed some better ones from the neighbour and made a start taming the wilderness.

The other thing the agent asked me to do turned out to have considerable pecuniary advantages. Each flat, apart from ours, bought its gas and electricity through a shilling in the slot machine. I was given keys to all the padlocks. I collected the money every quarter and we paid the bill for the whole house. I absolutely hated calling on our neighbours to collect the money. The tenants were always complaining about how little heat and light they got for their shillings worth. But I could reply quite truthfully that the meters were the property of the agents and any complaints about the calibration should be addressed to them. The net result, the upside of the whole arrangement, was that we paid little for our gas or electricity. In fact, I believe that the post-Christmas collection allowed a small profit.

Our flat was in cross roads joining the two main roads to Mansfield and Hucknall and on the corner stood Hucknall Road which left Central Nottingham at roughly 45°, on the corner of Hucknall Road and the road in which we lived stood a Boys’ School – council run. Junior and senior departments. It was a large square brick building, at a guess about 1920, with a small asphalt yard. Christopher’s school in Coventry across a park from Earlsdon was a much more makeshift affair, erected immediately postwar. It had a makeshift bungalow appearance but there were plenty of windows and fresh air and green space play areas. Monica looked at what went on at playtime at lunchtime at the Hucknall Road school and blenched. This seemed to be a totally different sort of school to the one in Coventry. To be fair, it was probably the switch over from an infants department to a junior boys school which led to a more rough and tough environment. We were nevertheless preparing to enrol Christopher into Hucknall Road. The theatre manager asked casually soon after I arrived in Nottingham what we were doing about school. He said his son, a year older than Christopher, was down for Uppingham and was doing rather well in the private prep school called Waverley in our neck of the woods. “It’s a day school and the fees are we think very reasonable”.  “Neck of the woods” was right. There was a little garden gate at the far end of our wilderness which led out onto a little used road. Waverley School was immediately opposite. The fees were indeed reasonable. And we never had any cause to regret entering Christopher. I don’t think he learnt very much academically while he was there but the huge bonus for us with an only child was that he immediately made a circle of friends and if I, as I sometimes did, came home for tea. I was enchanted by a gang of cops and robbers having a great deal of fun in our wilderness garden. Socialism went you will note straight out of the window when it came to education for one’s child.

For some reason when I left Nottingham and took up a post in Oxford, Monica and Christopher stayed in the Nottingham flat until Christmas. It may well have been that we had paid a terms fees in advance which was non-returnable. This period was very exciting for me the reopening of a dark theatre which it was commonly thought had closed forever. Christopher had his Waverley friends but for Monica I believe it was the most miserable three months of her life.

The second season

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Frank succeeded at Oxford it seems to me because he set about creating a theatre for a university town. The partial downside of that was that he had much less interest in what happened to his theatre between the terms particularly the long Vac. This affected me personally. Frank had said when we discussed salary, “And of course some sort of retainer when the Meadow players are not producing in the long Vac.” Of course the financial situation at the end of the first season allowed of no such thing.

The theatre was let to an ad-hoc touring company which also ran Seaside summer weekly reps, under the general management of J Grant Anderson. Elizabeth Sweeting was rather shocked that I was not willing to stay on through the summer as resident stage manager. I had to explain that my contract (unwritten if I remember correctly) was with Meadow players and I regarded myself as a creative stage manager and not somebody who would remount the scenery for productions which had been put on last summer at Barhill-on-Sea. (I had done the stint of weekly in 1949 in Cromer and Frinton – quite creative enough really – but not again).

In effect this proved to be a rather snobbish view. Sure the set ups were somewhat scruffy but the casts were highly professional in the two shows I saw. The general standard was more than comparable with that by us in “Man who came to Dinner”.

I mentioned this because I was shocked to hear some years after I left Oxford that there was quite serious trouble between Frank and Elizabeth. There is always friction between theatre management and artistic directors anyway. But Elizabeth clearly worked for the theatre landlords rather than the Meadow players.

We opened in October, again a week or so after term started. The play was “Dinner in the Family”. Only two chums, Ian Hendry and Delena Kidd were immediately re-engaged from the previous season. John Justin and Jill Bennett led the company with some solid middle ranking West End supporting actors. Justin was a nervy man, perhaps all too conscious of being only just young enough to get away with playing romantic juvenile leads. He was from the same stable as Sebastian Shaw, the previous autumn. Jill Bennett too had some years (not nearly as many as John, of course) of experience, mostly as an ingenue “English rose”. Jill was immediately the best of company members. John was a fusspot. However they could both recognise a good theatrical scene when they saw one to play together well. I had seen and much admired Lally Bowers in 1949 at Birmingham rep. I was working with the arts Council touring company based in Coventry and we used to take in a Saturday matinee at the rep on route for Netherton. She had been wonderful in “A Phoenix too frequent” and “Glass Menagerie”. And I had often bent Frank‘s ear about her. She was excellent in “Dinner” but I was a little disappointed to find one of my minor galaxy of galaxy goddesses a little cool and reserved towards the lower orders i.e. stage management. Alan McNaughton was fun though and so was Gabrielle Hamilton who later came to do splendid work for me at Colchester in “Mr Sloan” and “Daughter-in-law”. I played a tiny part. It was a short scene with Jill Bennett at the end of act one. I was as nervous as any of the cast of course and entered thinking as usual on my first night what shall I do if I dry?  Jill managed to convey to me, (Not directly – of course she never met this anonymous doctor before) not to worry, David the show is going well.

London Theatre managers were interested in Anouilh in those days. They were looking for another “Ring around the moon”. Michael Codron and Sherek were perhaps the exceptions to this cycle of repetition. Anouilh himself divides his plays into “Pieces Roses et Noires”. At least so I was told by Ian Curteis who joined us as a student ASM. I said this must be a piece rose because it has an upbeat ending. Ian took himself very seriously. It was like having a visiting drama scholar on the staff. He later made quite a good job of running Hornchurch as a director. And when the theatre gave him up wrote several worthy heavyweight plays for TV. He fell in love with Mrs Thatcher and his career somewhat foundered over his version of the run up to the Falkland conflict and poor Ian has sunk without trace.

If the piece was a pink rose, there was certainly a degree of black comedy with it too. Another “Ring round the moon” there could never be. “Ring” was perhaps the last of the post-war optimistic romantic plays (even John Whiting was writing comedy: “A Penny for a Song) and it had a translation by Christopher Fry and direction by Peter Brooke, pleased at this early stage of his career to enchant rather than excoriate us.

I mentioned Michael Codron because (I hope I’ve got this right) it was about this period that a prior to London tour came to the playhouse. It was “The birthday party”, Pinter’s first play. It totally changed the way I looked at theatre. I was one of many.

Plenty of chums flocked back for the next play. Frank was a Cardiff boy and revealed himself to be every bit as Welsh as he was Jewish. “Under Milkwood” had been done in the West End shortly after its runaway success on radio as a play for voices. In the theatre it had been something of a flop. Frank had seen it and felt it has been ruined by having cumbersome scenery and too many props. He was determined to give Dylan Thomas another airing. Simplicity and the words:  that was what he decided on.

Paul Mayo had been hired to design “Dinner” and also did “Milkwood”. He was a very experienced designer and had worked in most of the better reps (what an unforgivable snobbish thing to say). In particular he knew the possibilities of the partially counterweighted Playhouse grid very well indeed. I can’t remember anything about the first set for “Dinner”. But the basement I do remember had a correctly oppressive squalor to it. The house must’ve had a certain Grandeur however or Donald Albery would not have accepted it. Mayo’s instruction was to provide us simplicity for “Milkwood” and this he did. A stock Rostrum for Captain Cat to sit on. One flat with a window for Mary Ann Sailors. A black surround and it’s up to you actors. I’m not sure that Paul didn’t decline to have his name on the program. The actors felt very naked with virtually no set behind them. Nevertheless, it was a triumph.

Edgar Wreford was superb as the narrator. He had lived in the little Clarendon Street originally shared with the Averys. So I had ample opportunity of listening to his theories of acting. He was intensely analytical of his own performances. It was as if he was standing outside himself preparing to give himself notes. And indeed he wrote up these notes and delivered them to himself after each and every performance. Not altogether healthy you might think. Indeed the last I heard of Edgar was that he had had a severe mental physical breakdown and had to give it all up which was a pity because he was very talented. However, this somewhat detached nature of his served him well as the narrator. Standing just outside himself and the action he found just the right Lord-what-fools-these-mortals-be sort of humour to pass onto the audience. Ackland had returned to Frank’s fold. He had done good work at Coventry but had given it all up and gone tea planting in Rhodesia. Frank had received a letter from him which he had passed on to us. He and his wife Rosemary Kirkcaldy were now broke, working for less than peasants in a theatre in South Africa and were on their way back. Happy-Go-lucky is an out of date phrase but it suited Joss’s off stage personality to a Tee. Rosemary, a promising ingénue, soon gave up her theatrical career. She wanted a large family and Joss, easy-going in all things, obliged. He was an excellent Captain Cat.

But with “Milkwood” Frank’s trump card was to cast and introduce us all to Rachel Roberts as Polly Garter. I’ve seen the play many times and also directed it. At least three times I’ve seen a production where Polly has been entrusted to a mezzo soprano with excellent light operatic credentials They sang its haunting Tom Dick and Harry quite beautifully and the audience applauded politely. Rachel was a star actress who not only had a beautiful voice but had enough warm and generosity to embrace everybody in a packed theatre. Sure she could be temperamental but it was over – finished in a flash. As a company member she was quite simply great fun and could (oh, how we should’ve foreseen the future) drink any of the boys right under the table.

Chums had flooded back of course for “Milkwood”. And a lot of them could painlessly be absorbed into the next play, “Madamoiselle Jaire” . This was another Minos masterpiece unearthed from Continental Europe. Like “The Numbered”, it had been mounted several times in France and Belgium and had been greatly esteemed. It was in effect a passion play but at two removes. You are to imagine a charismatic figure, a preacher and healer, whose teaching has spread like wildfire through the middle and lower ranks of society. He was never seen in the play and was to be arrested and executed by the authorities. It was set in mediaeval Belgium. A small country of which we know little – that’s one remove. Against the background of this (passion plays after all a rather predictable type of drama), Ghelderode placed centrally two characters who had been raised from the dead. Jairus’s daughter, only child of a well to do Bourgeois family, and Lazarus with bits of the grave still hanging around him. There was a very weird scene set in some kind of limbo between the two returnees from the grave. Ruth Meyers was very touching at Madamoiselle J and Joss Ackland frightening as Lazarus. It was clear that neither the young adult woman nor the man in his prime felt that after the hiatus in their lives, it was possible to continue as though nothing happened. They would spend the rest of their lives marked out as different from the rest of mankind and an inexpressible shadow layover them.

Minos, this time brought his own designer with him, a lad called Frank Thomas. He was very fresh from art-college and looked as if he would fade away at the first sign of trouble. Not a bit of it. He proved as tough and obstinate as any designer I ever worked with. The settings were pretty nondescript – but the costumes! Well, they were drab too to; but meticulously accurate as to detail. And he could produce his Breughel reproductions in evidence. I grew to respect this young man who was the only English designer who ever seemed to understand what Minos wanted. I am surprized I never heard of him again. Minos used Orff’s Carmina Burana to great effect to give the feeling of unrest in the streets. And of course the music is based on monkish medieval chants. It worked.

It must be confessed that except for my own productions I never saw any of these plays in toto from the front, although I did see most bits of them at odd times. Checking the lighting, checking the lighting plot, watching out for general messing about in the crowd scenes et cetera et cetera. So what I’ve been saying should not be taken as valid theatrical criticism.

On a personal level I realised that I’ve never been drawn to heavy slowly building tragic drama. I like things savage, sharp and laced with black humour. Or put another way I don’t like plays with no laughs. I can sometimes admire these sorts of plays from the front, “The Crucible”, “Death of a Salesman”, for example or “Blood Wedding” but I’ve not been drawn to directing one of them. Into this category I would put “Madamoiselle Jaire”. On the other hand there is no absolute truth particularly in the theatre. I did do a quite decent “All my Sons”. But I still prefer Albee to Miller.

A new resident designer, Michael Richardson, began his regime with the next play “Cards of Identity”. Michael was a gently spoken controlled measured sort of fellow. In his angry moments he would go paler than ever and speak even quieter.

He was a set designer and never dared to assert himself as to costume. He had no talent or training for drawing and flatly refused to provide much in the way of pictorial suggestions for what he had in mind. But he made meticulous models. I like to work in three dimensions straight away he told me. He may have had some architectural training. Instead of reveals and wings and legs, the talk was of soffits, transoms and wait for clerestories.

At the same time a wardrobe mistress was engaged who also designed the women’s costumes. So there were in effect two designers for each production. For most of the time they worked pretty well together. Jane Greenwood and Michael outlasted me at Oxford. She then left for America where she worked for and married Douglas Seale, a prestigious ex director of Birmingham rep and by then running the Goodman in Chicago. Jane then went to Hollywood big time and her name appeared as costume designer in many period films.

“Cards” was an absurdish piece which had already been premiered to some eclat at the Royal Court. Richardson’s setting was also puzzling. He provided the required doorways for entrances and exits with 17th century architraves and pediments, broke several large pieces of each one and (hardboard hung on black gauze) dotted the broken pieces of Palladian architecture all over the stage. Everything was painted pillar box red. Nobody was going to be the 1st to say they could not make head or tail of the play. So the cast appeared rather sheepishly. “This is Michael‘s idea for a setting” said Frank revealing a meticulous model – “a sort of pyromaniac dream”. Nobody laughed. To be a little fairer to Nigel Dennis, the piece was written with masses of hard edged cool elegant wit. And if the play meant anything, Michael was probably right. It was meant to be a deconstruction of the Somerset Maugham style drawing room upper crust comedy. Fortunately, there was a lot of Lewis Carroll-like absurdist witticisms and the cast seized on them and made the most and best of it. It occurs to me in long sighted retrospect that audiences can stand a one-acter of absurdist jokes (a truth well understood by Beckett and learned painfully by NF Simpson). But not a full play.

The puzzled cast was brilliant. Rachel returned to show she could do high comedy as well as tarts. And she brought her husband Alan Dobie with her, an ultra sharp and very clever actor. And Robert Burnell who must’ve been in his 30s but revelled in playing extreme old age. He was also a militant proselytising Irish Catholic and after 10 minutes conversation would always try to convert a new company member back into the old religion.

During the second week of the run a collection of second year undergraduates lecturing some of the still bemused company over lunchtime beer at the Gloucester Arms. Well said Rachel rising to her feet. I’ve been playing it for nearly 2 weeks and I still don’t understand a word of it and I’m a graduate from Aberystwyth.

Frank loved Gallic Wit, always sophisticated. Perhaps he was sometimes less at ease with English  middle-class bumbling as with A.E. Matthews. But he also had a huge admiration for American fast talking wisecracks. I was a bit harsh in a previous season on “Man who came to Dinner”. It is a very funny play and we got all the laughs. I was very flattered when he asked me to fill the Christmas vac with “Life with Father” rather than do it himself. I immediately realised that I’ve got to get it right. A company of chums who been in Milkwood still seem to be available and seized on the play. There was a real company feel to it. All I had to do really was to make sure the large cast didn’t stand in front of each other or move during the feeds or laugh lines. Michael gave me a very splendid set and Jane Greenwood produced some beautiful 1880s costumes in which our actresses looked stunning. Joss took the William Powell part. (I speak of the 40s film) and my wife played Irene Dunne. They played off with and against each other to perfection. The two younger sons were played by actresses. I dislike having children in plays. At least people say they don’t look like actors. Well, of course they don’t but they make the other people on the stage look false and drop the scene to the floor. And I hate Italia Conti graduates. So Ruth Meyers for whom Frank had spring plans and a tiny tubby girl called S.K. Astrid played the two younger sons. They were okay except when put when the pub and stage door cronies were in, when there was a tendency to send up Ruth.

The two teenage boys were played by Christopher Hancock and the gangly youth who had joined us as an acting ASM. He was occasionally to observe the observed scribbling in a corner. He was Alan Ayckbourn.

French Theatre again in the spring – Roussin again. “Darling” was the story of how a French theatrical company coped, with a brilliant but temperamental leading actress. A star part if ever there was one. Frank produced, as it were, out of his voluminous hat Mai Zetterling.. She proved to be all that could be hoped for. Beautiful and capable of great passion. Those of us who had seen frenzy knew that she could do that, but in comedy she turned out stunning and very funny. She was also a very good company member, always spot on time and never a sign of temperament. She left all that to her stage personality. There was a nice scene towards the end of the play where she had to deal with a very young man in the stage company. Lovesick, lust-sick whatever Ayckbourn played it to perfection. Walford, Hancock, Wreford and Ackland from the chums played up splendidly.

On the last night in Cambridge the show was running so smoothly that we lent her our ASM June Speight, quite a wonderful character actress to and between them during the last act, she and Mai managed to cook  a vast amount of some sort of Swedish style pasta. Smorgasbord-etti?The Swedes certainly know how to throw a party.

 Hangover or not, back we went back to Oxford to plunge into the production weekend of Pirandello”s “Henry the fourth”. This was directed by the other up-and- coming Frank.  Dunlop by name, he was an explosive little man bubbling over with enthusiasm rather than anger. He had no “r”s in his vocabulary so we used to get used to being told endless things were “vewwy impowtant”. Yes, he really tried and failed to pronounce the ”w” in the second word. It became a catchword with the stage crewmen, scene shifters, stage management. Wreford was impressive as the millionaire who retreats into a sort of madness recreating a mediaeval fantasy for himself or was he quite so mad after all? Was it an escape route from intolerable personal pain? But Edgar couldn’t stop Joss stealing the play and running away with it lock-stock-and-roll-out-the-barrel. It was a sort of Basil Rathbone-Vincent Price imitation. (Joss was an excellent mimic), but in this play, the sinister forces won hands down. I threw a minor temperament about the casting of this play. The play or perhaps Dunlop called for two Swiss guards to stand on either side of the door in the middle of the first act. I said I would play any part he cared to cast me for, but I drew the line at being used as set dressing. I can’t remember why it was impossible to engage two undergraduates. But the only answer was to strip Michael Simpson, my stage manager of his small part and make him stand as the guard and allow me to come doddering on as an old monk with several lines and a bit of character. It says much for Frank Hauser’s generosity that he saw it my way. I’ve had it on my conscience ever since. Michael was a better actor than me and I rather regret it taking my stand. Particularly as neither Frank ever gave me a note on my meticulously made up and studied performance. Shame on me.

In parentheses Michael had got all his laughs as Mr Pugh in Milkwood. After a rather disappointing matinee in Southsea, Rachel Roberts said to me, “it’s come to something when the only person to coax any laughs out of this lot is not one of the actors but the stage manager.”

Wreford and Ackland were “seen” in this production and moved on. Wreford immediately to the Royal Court, to repeat his tour de force in “The lesson”, this time with Joan Plowright and Joss after finishing the Oxford season went to the Old Vic.

With no pause for breath we were into a Peter Ustinov premier, “Paris not so Gay” – Ustinov’s take on the Trojan war. I can remember very little detail of it, but I do know that it was the funniest play I had ever had anything to do with. Elizabeth Sellers a calmly beautiful actress was at the centre of farcical mayhem. The basic premise was to give some thought to Helen‘s marital status towards the end of a very long war. Did Menelaus really still want her back? Paris might certainly be glad to be shot of her. Robert Bernal reappeared as Priam, older than the God himself, in a Greek-ified wheelchair Richardson parked up for him. John Stratton who had scared the wits out of us with John Slater in “The Birthday Party”, came back and played Menelaus – or was it Paris? or was it Ustinov’s bright idea to have the same actor play both? Ronald Leigh Hunt, a big strong actor played Agamemnon. It played well in Oxford and set off on what we all thought was to be a prior-to-London tour. Sadly no one picked it up. I suppose what with Redgrave doing ‘The tiger at the gates” and “Lysistrata” and “Rape of the Belt”, it was thought that London had seen quite enough Greek stuff. And there were those who remembered the pre-world war “Amphytrition 38” and maintained (was that Giradoux again?) that play had said all they needed to be said about the Greeks.

It was during of my Cambridge visits this spring either “Darling” or” Henry the fourth” that the police rang. We’ve picked up a man in a collapsed state in St Mary Street. We thought he was a vagrant. Says he has some connection with the theatre. Name is Curteis. He is in Addenbrookes. I have mentioned Ian previously as a student ASM. He joined us for “Milkwood” and acted in it. He had also played a tiny part in “Life with father”. Meanwhile he had worked hard as a stage manager gopher just like Susan Hampshire had the year before. He had evidently assured Frank that he had sufficient private means to live on for a student year without salary. He was suffering from malnutrition, making do with one meal a day of bread and soup. Frank came rushing over to Cambridge in a high old state and he probably found some money somewhere to pay Ian a pittance for the rest of the season. he was cast as Lacoon in “Paris not so gay”. That’s the geezer (ignorant reader) who allowed some sort of boa constrictor to strangle two of his sons and then really rather carelessly suffered the same fate himself. Ustinov had given him two short comedy scenes stating his plight.

“Paris” closed in Oxford and set off for a supposedly prior-to-London tour. While they were playing at the Shakespeare Theatre Liverpool, Sam Wannamaker was spending someone else’s millions trying to set up in rivalry to the Liverpool Playhouse but that’s another story poor Ian was taken ill again and disappeared from my life to reappear some six years later as a TV director offering Monica some work. I remained back in Oxford while “Paris” went on tour. Michael Simpson rang back to base to give me the news. Ian‘s okay, he said but he won’t be returning to the show. What on earth did you do? Did you cut Lacoon? Oh no, he said Alan went on for him very short notice. How did he do? I asked. Ian had played the part rather elderly. And Alan looked about 17. Wonderfully well, said Michael. In his usual lugubrious tones;  he got a few laughs.  Which is more than Ian ever did, I thought as I rang off. With hindsight I might’ve added even at this age the lad knew a lot about comedy.

 I hadn’t gone onto tour with “Paris” because Frank had suggested that I direct “Voice of the Turtle”. I expect this bit of popular theatre was timed to coincide with the Easter vac. I gathered the opportunity with both hands. “I think Rachel and Alan might come back to do it but I won’t ask them if you think they are too explosive a couple for you to handle.” “Fine,” I said – privately thinking, clever, if it all falls apart he can say he gave me the chance to cast differently.  And Walford was engaged to play the lead. And there was a play cast to perfection. Another class stage management team were engaged and we rehearsed in London. I developed a taste of doing without breakfast at home and eating Toast and Cooper’s Oxford marmalade on the journey up. The production manager was very cool to start with. Annoyed for example to find that in the provinces we had no budget for domestic props (we sent assistants and students on borrowing expeditions in return for program credits). In the West End Landon informed me, such things were bought out of hand. Landon was his first name he was very efficient and I won’t mention his full name in case he is still in the business. He was rather like Jeeves, disapproving of Bertie Wooster‘s choice of sock. However I insisted we all came back to Oxford for the Friday run through before the opening. When Landon saw a bit of it from the front he said, “You know this isn’t bad” and from then on, reserved efficiency became enthusiastic creativity. No one could’ve done more to ensure success.

Alan Dobie turned out to be a very easy actor indeed and excellent at inventing amusing domestic business. Michael Richardson produced a very stylish triangulated set. The whole New York apartment flat had to be presented. I had seen the play in Nottingham with Derek Godfrey and Diana Fairfax as the romantic couple. They were excellent. It was no surprise for me to learn shortly after the run of the play they married, but the set, three oppressively narrow rooms, faced head onto the audience: living room, bedroom and kitchen. In the auditorium one felt as if one was watching from the corridor of a train and seeing three separate compartments at the same time. Michael had two massive corners at right angles and a slight perspective as though the flat was one of the upper stories of what at once been rather a grand building. Rachel revelled in the Eve Arden wise-cracking role of the heroine’s friend (seriously and too subtly underplayed in Nottingham). It is just worth mentioning that the Esher standard contract for repertory in those days gave the responsibility for costume when the play was contemporary to the actor not the management. And Walford would not sign her contract until she had wrung out of the management a bit of money to help her with the wardrobe. “This is a glossy play” she said and “I just ain’t got the clothes.” In the event the management coughed up for the outfit.

Alan Doby was going deaf even this early on in his career. He had difficulty hearing a cue from any distance across the stage and needed to be able to see the actor in order to lip-read. He was a wonderfully easy and natural actor and how he overcame his disability so well was astonishing. We did, it is true, have one rather hilarious rehearsal when Rachel and Alan had had a domestic row and were not speaking to each other.  “Would you ask Miss Roberts not to…. please Mr Director?” “Is it right that Mr Doby…” but after about half an hour of this all the three of us collapsed into laughter. Some people might say that “Voice” is easy to direct. Van Druten sets it all out so plainly. I think all the plays I’ve directed, I got this one most nearly, absolutely right. It was certainly a happy production.

“The Hamlet of Stepney Green” was a first play by a new playwright. Various chums re-joined the company for a bit of Jewish family schmaltz. The theme was the attempt by the only son to break free from the suffocating bonds of Orthodox Jewish family life. Nowadays such a theme might seem a well-worn track. But Portnoy’s Complaint”, “Goodbye Columbus” and “Sunday bloody Sunday” was still very much to come. And Wesker was only just beginning and his big success was with Norfolk agricultural workers in “Roots” rather than “Chicken soup with Barley”. The time was right for Bernard Kops. His play was saved from mawkisness by the sheer energy and bubble of the writing or perhaps by Frank’s brisk direction. Any case it worked.

Regulars returned: Myers to play the sort of Ophelia creature, Ackland and Keen to play neighbours who are difficult to live up to, Hancock, Bernal and a new friend who has to be treated as a chum, Gilbert Vernon, gave us sharp impressions of very varied Jewish dealers. A trio of small stature actresses were engaged to play a chorus of street urchins – and charmingly they sang and in the middle as the Pater-Familas, Harold Lang.

Harold was a highly respected drama teacher at school – Central, I believe. I am not sure exactly what his experience had been as an actor before the teaching years but doubtless there was a fair amount and in reputable company. I seem to remember Frank telling me that he had seen Harold give a wonderful performance in “Our town”, as the stage manager. He was a close friend of Frank’s. He was a warm hearted and very generous friend to everybody in the company. He was quite simply the funniest wittiest man I ever knew. If I mentioned Paul Merton, it is not to suggest that Harold was like him in any way, except, as Merton showed us occasionally in “Have I got news for you?”, given a theme Harold could extemporise wittily, hilariously for 20 minutes on end, but that was off stage. Frank kept faith with him for a long time but the truth is Harold lacks something as a leading actor. He never quite dominated the house or the play in the way that Roberts. Ackland, Wreford could, let alone Mai Zetterling. It wasn’t that he was unconvincing. He seemed perfectly natural but…  The first rate accordionist Leon Rosselson, himself a Jew, provided music and the street urchin chorus sang sweetly. The show bowled along, we had a success – so we thought.

During the Cambridge week of “Hamlet” with a production of “The Dream” well underway Frank managed to persuade Raymond Leppard no less to round up a brass quartet  -trumpet, two horns and a trombone and got them to come round to the Arts theatre to record the music he composed for the Shakespeare, very much based on Mendelssohn. Frank was mercifully a very straightforward director of Shakespeare. Very few highfalutin ideas like setting it all in post colonial Borneo or whatever. The concentration was on the words. Five beats to the line and a tiny pause of the end of each line. The actors were encouraged to enjoy doing it. And the three he did in my time, all comedies, were audience successes. I can’t remember what the critics said.

There were parts of plenty for chums Gilbert Vernon who had been a ballet dancer and got the straight acting bug after appearing with real actors in “Share, my lettuce” was an agile physical Puck. Joss played Bottom and made the most of every opportunity. Walford was a delightful Hermia and revealed she could be very spiteful if necessary. Two excellent young actors John Woodvine and Alun Owen joined us as Lys and Dem.

Charles Laurence, a close friend of Harold’s, played Flute, which always turns out to be the best part in any production of the play. Harold was Oberon (and please no one think I thought him a bad actor). He just lacked a certain leading man charisma And Ruth Myers brought a touch of heartbreak to Titania. I am always amazed at how little attention Frank and other directors I’ve worked with paid to the casting of Theseus. It is the longest part (and I’ve known actors count the lines) in the play. Frank’s production of the play was in advance of a rush to copy Brook’s brilliant idea of doubling Theseus and Oberon I have seen productions where the same voice seems boringly to be dominating the actios throughout. You need an actor par-excellence to carry it off. As Theseus, we had a pretty boy protégé of Harold’s. I suspect who was barely out of drama school. Pease-blossom, Moth and Mustard Seed were played by the same sweet voice Trio as had, graced “The Hamlet of Stepney Green”.

The emphasis of Frank production of Shakespeare was the attention he gave to the speaking of the lines. Settings seemed unimportant even irrelevant. The reason for this became apparent shortly before “Dream” opened. We were going on a continental tour playing largely in the open air. Great excitement. We were to open in a public park in a dormitory suburb of Amsterdam then travel to be part of the Venice Biennale be playing at the Teatro Verde on the Isola Saint Giorgio. We were to come home via a week in a park by the lake in Geneva. It was incredibly exciting. We learnt a lot from our first date we had hoped for masking shrubs of some sort. But the seats and lighting control point with 50 yards from the changing rooms. In broad daylight entrances and exits were almost impossible to time of course as at night we were able to define an acting area much better by means of lighting. Perhaps it was a mercy that the weather intervened and most of the performances were rained off. I do remember that the pavilion used by the actors to change and make up was used by, believe it or not, a cricket teams. As we began on Saturday night, a cricket match was coming to its end, quite popular in Holland we are told: “And the run-stealers flicker to and fro”.

Our hosts in Blumendahl were amateurs of the theatre and the Company were entertained free as houseguests which saved a lot of money for our sharp Impresario, Jan de Bliek. The difficulty was we felt obliged to buy some sort of thank you present for our respective hostesses. Lighting and amplification was supplied by willing charming amateurs who had connections with electrical shops. I may have mentioned before the stage director does not get good work out of a crew unless they are paid.

Venice was a different matter. The company was swimming with romantic orgasms just to be there in the evenings it was quite, cool on the island. The open air theatre was not often used but a crew assembled who at least had put on a play before. They were distrustful not to say surly to begin with but I managed to pick up a few mild Italian expletives and they took us to our hearts. It was an absolutely blissful week and the audience half Brits and Yanks, half high sophisticated Venetians were a joy to play to.

Geneva was also a happy date. I do in fact have a little French and life was easier. But strangely, I preferred the Italian crew and audience. We didn’t feel quite so loved by the Swiss. The theatre was more of a wide open space, whereas the Venetian theatre was enclosed on three sides by poplar trees and the fourth by the monastery buildings and handsome Saint Giorgio church. There was a torrential thunderstorm during our last performance. It was beautifully timed, arriving just when the lovers had lost each other in the forest. It cleared miraculously as the artificial dawn light came up. Annie Walford had a running exit and took a nasty fall in the mud which got a big laugh from everybody except our wardrobe mistress who desperately tried to make her decent again for the final scene. But after all it was the end of the tour.

But not quite the end of the season. Just as we were departing for the continent we had heard that James Laurie (I may have the spelling wrong) was going to mount “Hamlet of Stepney Green” for a season at the Lyric Hammersmith, to be followed more than likely by a prior-to-West End tour. An autumn West End opening seemed a possibility. Joss left us for loftier realms to conquer. George Selway replaced him. Selway, an immensely friendly fellow blended in very well with the company many of whom were old friends. Joss however had carved out a little corner for himself as markedly different from the family. I think we lost something but Dorothy Phillips was also to be replaced. I believe this was not because she had something better to do but that it was felt, by playwright and director that she ought to have got more laughs. After all the Yiddish mama is a stock comedy creation Thelma Ruby a “name” who played comedy parts in musicals and I believe had been “on the halls” was engaged to replace her. She, like Selway, fitted in perfectly well with the rest of the company, but there was not a very noticeable increase in the laughter. Replacing supporting parts is something which needs doing with great care. Some years later John Harrison‘s first rate production of the American play, “The Easter Man” transferred from Birmingham rep to Shaftesbury Avenue. Derek Smith and Angela Pleasance who had given a lot of comedy support to the excellent leads were rather carelessly replaced and under rehearsed I think this contributed to the play’s West End failure. Not that “Hamlet” should be counted as a failure. It played very successfully for four Hammersmith weeks but didn’t quite set the Thames on fire. I think nobody except poor Bernard Kops was disappointed.

“Hamlet” was a first play. The author was a busy little man, rather overwhelmed by his success so far. A lot of the small rehearsal time in Hammersmith was spent with Harold complaining about one or two abrupt emotional changes his character went through. A more experienced playwright might have pointed out that abrupt changes of mood were what made his plays dramatic. But Kops was anxious to please – in consequence, to my mind, two of the big father/son clashes in the middle of the play lost some of their dramatic impact.

In any case… the continental tour and the “Hamlet” transfer neatly kept the Stage Management and regulars of the company in paid employment for most of the long vac.

Fytte the third

The exciting continental tour and the London suburban run did much to soften the pain of being out of work again. We came back to find that our first production was to be graced by no less a star than Dirk Bogard. It was to be in “Jezebel”, a piece of even more noirish or Rose than “Dinner” had been. It was an Anouilh examination of a particularly tough umbilical cord. Dirk at one end of it and Hermione Baddeley at the other. Painful stuff. I can’t remember who else was in the cast except for a rather jolly girl called Wendy Hutchinson – more of her later.

We probably held the early rehearsals in London so the major problem did not arise until we came to Oxford. Everywhere that Dirk went he was besieged by teenage female autograph hunters. This apparently happened wherever he went. A nice and very hard-working man and actor, called Anthony Forwood, was Dirk’s manager, bodyguard, factotum. He instructed us how to cope. All attempts to use the stage door had to be totally abandoned. Gloucester Passage or whatever the alley is called was permanently choked. The pub of course complained. Dirk’s arrival at the theatre had to be timed exactly and he arrived by car or taxi and entered through the front. The stage door had to be policed either by Tony or the stage management. And Dirk always arrived at the theatre at least an hour and a half before curtain up. This was simply to avoid the crowd. He had to use a very little make up. And he waited patiently in his dressing room for an extra half hour after curtain down to make sure there were no fans still hanging around the foyer.

Richardson’s set was suitably claustrophobic. Dirk and Hermione played out the Gertrude- Hamlet relationship to perfection. The piece was, as I have said, a trifle sour. Incest or near incest is a trifle nasty. And I think might well have transferred for a West End run. Except for the offstage agonies Dirk suffered. On stage and off Dirk put a lot of effort into being charming and nice to everybody, but before every performance he was in a terrible state of nerves. If he had eaten anything in the afternoon, he was likely to be sick during the half. Tony had to be on hand to get him on stage. Once on stage, his performance was fine and he tended to collapse in a heap immediately afterwards. Tony told me that it had been like this during “Point of departure” (Anouilh again) and it had been a tremendous task to get him to agree to face a live audience again. After the Oxford run the play went into Brighton for a week. And this is where Wendy came in. She had been in “The birthday party” which had come to the Playhouse on its prior to London tour. So she was as it were almost a member of the family. Apparently it was easier to cope with the crowds of fans if he attacked them boldly with an attractive young woman on his arm. So Dirk was able to enjoy a little peace and quiet and sea air. But not sufficiently to persuade him ever to tread the boards again.

Hermione had been one of my favourite actors during the war in the Ambassadors reviews with Gingold and Henry Kendall. She was a sweet person, exuded warm friendliness, but I was disappointed (quite unreasonably) to discover that in herself she wasn’t a particularly witty woman.

Harold Lang directed the next piece, “Waiting for Godot” and played Gogo himself. He persuaded Frank, with some difficulty I believe, that Christopher Hancock should, despite being quite a young actor, play Vladimir. Gilbert Vernon took Lucky – very good: did wonderful things with his body. And a bulky West End actor (I am ashamed that I cannot recall his name) did a very good job as Pozzo. Harold was quite explicit as to set. He wanted nothing – not easy to achieve. However, after Michael R had produced a plastic model of a mound with a bare tree on it he expressed himself pleased and then said maybe we could have some boulders dotted around. The next thing we knew about it was at a 9:45 for 10 o’clock rehearsal we arrived and we found an angry landlord of the Gloucester Arms demanding action. Apparently at 8 o’clock that morning a tipper truck had backed up the alley and deposited a huge block of sandstone in the alley outside the scene dock door. A rather sheepish looking Michael Richardson appeared. “Oh” he said “I meant to warn you about this. We can work it quite easily into any shapes that Harold wants. It’s not costing us anything except transport. The quarry don’t even want a program credit.” It was roughly spherical in shape and 6 feet or more diameter. It must’ve weighed more than a ton. We tried to move it using baulks of timber as levers but there wasn’t the width in the alley to get any real leverage. Anyway the 10 o’clock rehearsal had to start. We spent the day scratching our heads over it and the landlord fumed in and out and sent for the police who also scratched their heads and left muttering “obstruction to a public highway”. Eventually the quarry found us a stonemason, with a huge electrical saw and he cut it into manageable pieces. They were still enormously heavy but with improvised levers and a piano truck we managed to get them into the theatre. Had a wonderful time over production weekend. The stuff could in fact be quite easily cut with an ordinary saw. And he and Michael, sculpted away and eventually really did produce what Harold wanted. The remains of an Ozymandias style temple which had disintegrated and sunk into the sand. For months afterwards, however carefully we swept the stage, there always seem to be an endless number of corners with a little pile of Godot sandstone dust. I cannot remember if we toured this play. I think not. And there must have been two plays between “Godot” and “Singing Dolphin”. I can only remember one. This was “Crime on Goat Island.”

Frank had a success with an Ugo Betti play, “The Queen and the rebels” at Coventry and it had been remounted in London without a great deal of cast change. Betti could write light comedy. John Harrison had done a charming production of “Summertime” when I was in Nottingham. But “Goat Island” was hefty as was “The Queen and rebels”. In late 60s or early 70s there was a horror-comic of a play (it could’ve been by Heathcote Williams) where three women in a man’s life invited him for a meal one evening on to a houseboat and cooked and ate him. Quite funny in its way. Betti had his hero marooned on a deserted island and trapped down a deep well where three ladies were keeping him alive, just as if he were a captive animal, until he died of natural causes. The play was strongly dramatic and not only Frank but Keith Michel, his wife Jeanette Sterke, Patricia Neale, had been attracted to it. The play was fine although the first act exposition was a bit tedious and would’ve worked beautifully as a Radio play. The trouble was that for the whole of the last act, the man was out of sight with nothing but his voice to work with. This conundrum Frank rather failed to solve. Catherine was very fine. A real sun-baked Mediterranean earthy mother type of performance.

Then for Christmas or in fact shortly after it was my turn again. Beverly Cross’s father had been a comedy character actor, I believe that he had played some Shakespeare and clowns with some distinction. The father had also done a tour round the music hall circuit as a low comedian. Anyway, when it came to writing gags for a Christmas show panto style but with the emphasis on a story for kids rather than near the knuckle jokes to keep dads happy, Beverly was certain a certainly a whizz. And he or Kitty Black, credited in the programs, had come up with a simple adventure tale. “The Singing Dolphin”. My favourite book as a child was “Treasure. Island”. (Come to think of it, it still is!) I was breathless with enthusiasm.

There follows some thoughts which are autobiographical not strictly Oxford Playhouse at all. But I don’t think I’ve ever written them down before at least not as far as they touch upon the theatre. My mother was a professional mezzo-soprano – concert parties in summer, panto at Christmas, one West End lead in a musical I don’t know how successful it was. I have some photos of her as a principal boy. She gave it up when I was born, so I never saw her. She was appalled and quite hysterical when I answered that on demob I intended to go into the theatre. She had hoped I might go in for the foreign office and become an attaché to some embassy or other. As it happened, the job was at the Perth repertory Theatre and I was free from the Air Force in November just in time to join as a chorus boy and play as cast in “Dick Whittington”. I stayed in Perth for 18 months appearing as the king of Goose-land next year in “Mother Goose”. During this time I learnt perhaps the hard way one or two things about gags and low comedy. Perhaps a little more than some of the directors I worked under in the more subsidised rep.

It worked with Myers, girl dressed as a boy – she had practice in “Life with father “She hit exactly the right Tallyho-for-adventure notes. There were nice parts for Vernon Hancock and Laurence. Frank suggested Julian Summers for leading man. He was really very funny much more bark than bite as a cowardly pirate captain. For sometime it looked as though Richard Goolden would come to play the kindly doctor. He read the script but a week before rehearsal started, he rang me up saying he really couldn’t face the Hurley Burley of rehearsing a brand-new part in a brand-new play. Now Mole in “Wind in the Willows”, he had played so often that he was more or less bright-young-director proof. He was sorry to have had the script so long; he thought it charming and wished us well. He must’ve been well over 70 at the time. Chris Hancock had heard Goolden was coming and then he wasn’t and very hesitantly suggested that he knew his brother Stephen had no engagement this Christmas et cetera, et cetera. Stephen looked very like Chris and had some of the same mannerisms. Fortunately, they were on different sides in the play. Chris using a cockney accent and Stephen a posh intellectual tone. No problem when they were on stage but in the early rehearsals I sometimes found it difficult to tell, from the other.

The show was a considerable success. There were two blemishes. The cast list had been made out carelessly and Julian playing the star part had been left off it. I still blush for shame. I had made out the list. An actors name is the most important part of his persona. Of course after the first night the programs were prominently shipped but I still blush for shame.

The other blemish and it was a major one on the production was the music. One London critic in a quite enthusiastic notice described it as a disgrace. He was right, although things did improve after the first night, I mentioned with “Heartless Princess” that Frank always managed without a musical director. Beverly had written some saucy lyrics to some old sailor’s songs and sea shanties and had sprinkled them quite liberally through the text. He had hoped that one of the pirates should play the concertina. Well two of the Pirates Trio Vernon who regularly agreed to organise a couple of dances and Hancock were cast from company and were not instrumentalists. And I had engaged Edmund Bailey to play the Bosun and he was to supervise the swordplay. We tried to get Leon Rosselson and rather assumed that he would agree – who had been so splendid in the music for Hamlet of Stepney Green. We wasted a lot of time because he was difficult to find. He had somehow gone into orbit in the pop folk music business and wished us well but couldn’t help. We couldn’t, even with the help of the MU (and we hadn’t sufficient money to pay their professional rates) find an accordionist in Oxford and settled for one who was semi pro. She was a nice motherly lady who rehearsed with us from home and then discovered exactly what times we were putting on the play. We then found a nice man and quite a good musician but he had difficulty getting off work in the daytime. In particular he had been unable to attend our final afternoon dress rehearsal on the day we opened and the previous night’s technical had been the usual frantic shambles so that the musical numbers was somewhat skimped. And how we paid for this lack of rehearsal on opening night. Things improved steadily during the first week and by the Saturday night we were really swinging.

A word about Edmund Bailey. He had been a senior character actor and resident producer at Perth when I arrived, bright eyed bushy tailed and probably quite unbearable to begin my career. I am amazed at how patient he was with me then. I had had no drama school training and he in effect was my teacher, my guru. He was very much an actor-based director was not a great many revolutionary ideas on settings or interpretations. But he was solid efficient and got us to move around the stage pretty naturally. As an actor, he had great warmth of personality. It still gives me, a reciprocal warm feeling that now he had left Perth I could repay some of the care he had lavished on me and others of little experience by offering him work as a job actor. What is more he knew about stage fighting. Interestingly, he was the only fight director I ever worked with who rammed home to the cast basic rules of safety. He told everyone that he knew nothing about fencing and he asked us all to forget anything we might know about it. He told us to observe at all times the safe distance between the front feet of the two fighters. I think it was probably a sword length and a half and he taught us eight and some other magic number. I forget; it was probably sixes and he told us for God sake don’t do any acting until you’ve got it move perfect. But won’t it look like a ballet someone asked. And be somewhat tame? “No, when I let you act it, you will act the danger”. He told me that he had learned stage fighting as a young actor in a touring Shakespeare Company. I think his father had been with Benson. And all young actors had to learn stage fighting in those days. It was not uncommon for a company to pick up local middle and small part actors at a new theatre. In the morning before such a touring company opened in the evening and they would be expected to be competent stage swordsman. I had the strange feeling of being part of a tradition which went back at least to restoration theatre. Betterton, Garrick and Kean (not to mention Vincent Crummles) probably learnt this part of stage fighting. We had eight swords going full pelt when the pirates invaded the Singing Dolphin and quite exciting it was.

The play went pretty well and the rights were picked up for a London production with Wendy Troy directing. I believe Beverly put up a fight for me but well it hurt. Never again was I to do a play with music without a musical director. One nice thing though: Frank had never heard of Eddie Bailey and had been hesitant to cast him. After the first night he was bowled over by Eddie, his warmth and audience rapport and strong comedy sense and he offered him work for the rest of the season. I felt I had done just a little something towards repaying a debt.

Mikki Sekers was a millionaire fabric merchant with a factory in Cumberland. He was also a maniac for theatre and built his own theatre up there. How Frank knew him or knew of him I don’t know but for the next production “Prince Genji”, he gave us everything we wanted to make the mediaeval Japanese court costumes. Natasha Perry, Peter Brook’s wife, was cast as the lady Murasaki, biographer and wife of the 12th century Prince. She had been a Rank starlet type of actress, probably an actual one, when she’d married Brook and they felt she’d somehow missed out on developing as a serious artist. She was ravishingly beautiful, fragile as a piece of Oriental porcelain and she presided over the whole thing with unshakeable calm dignity. There was no need for histrionics. The piece was delicate charming and quite different from any other play I’d ever been involved in. The Japanese embassy were extremely helpful. A Japanese lady a medieval scholar who knew a bit about, Noh and Kabuki was in constant attendance. “All the actors from the first rehearsal will need knee pads.” The wardrobe eager to get stuck in making the wondrous costumes were not best pleased to be asked to make a dozen sets of knee pads as a priority. Richardson designed a series of semi transparent screens which were dropped in against a cyclorama. For interior scenes a table might be set against them with a vase a twig and a flower arrangement. Each of these formal arrangements had to Japanese eyes a symbolism for the particular scene. Scene changes were done in blackouts. One interval during the first week Michael came round backstage trembling with fury and speaking almost inaudibly: “Will you please tell your ASM that when the setting consists of a single twig of apple-blossom it is most important that the twig leans towards stage centre. That signifies hope. To lean off stage means disaster.

The costumes were designed by Desmond Healey who insisted that before they were brought down from the wardrobe, the stage, the wings, the passages and dressing rooms had not just to be merely swept but scrubbed. Well, the good old spring clean didn’t do any harm. The ladies’ costumes were so sumptuous and fell to the ground in deep folds. Movement was restricted and fast movement impossible. This so our embassy advisers told us was perfectly correct for the mediaeval court and what is more for classical theatre. This was brought home to me very much some years later when I was at Birmingham rep. As production manager, I got the playhouse wardrobe to lend us the Genji lady costumes for a production of Rashomon. The story of Travellers set upon by a bandit needed more energetic movement than Genji and we had to adapt the costumes considerably and make them less courtly.

Only Genji himself, dashingly played by Michael David, was allowed to stride about the place. And when he entered, of course everyone fell to their knees, Eddie, Julian, Chris Hancock and David Cameron who played the lead, treacherous naval Captain in “Dolphin” all grovelled suitably. Ruth had a couple of good scenes as Genji’s young mistress who somehow had to bear being discarded. This as everything else had to be done with dignity. Dull you may think. Well it wasn’t. It was wondrous new and strange and much liked.

The embassy supplied us with tapes of Koto music. And the pitch Rivers Museum lent us two absolutely priceless musical instruments which were set as props. The Koto is a multi-stringed plucked instrument oblong shaped and you kneel of course behind it to play it. Frank enjoyed picking his bits of music and I dutifully and carefully edited the tapes. Come the day we opened, two more Embassy officials turned up. I can’t remember where the lady was – probably instructing Michael as to the nuances of flower arrangement. They fell about with laughter because the piece of music Frank had chosen to use as his leitmotiv the sort of Murasaki theme tune, they told us was a piece of modern Japanese pop music. Sort of Frank Sinatra “My Way”. In those days we still started every show with a recording of the national anthem. As the ambassador was going to come to the first night I had managed to get a recording of the Japanese national anthem which we planned to play after “The Queen”. When the merry men heard of this, they laughed louder than ever. We have to warn the ambassador. He’ll never be able to keep a straight face otherwise. They never succeeded in explaining why the idea seems so funny but they persuaded us to cut it out. This was a relief to me. I always thought playing “The Queen” before the show rather put the mockers on it. And the Japanese musical obeisance was even more of a dirge than our own.

I ought to mention somewhere that George von Kuh had left us. Sometime during the autumn of 1957. And that by “Life with Father”, electrics were in the safe hands of Keith Davies. He was unobtrusively efficient. But more than that, he was very much a lighting advisor not quite so direct, not quite so grand as a lighting designer. That animal had not been thought of. At Oxford his lighting had done much to clarify this strange unusual and haunting production. He had done excellent work for me on the colourful “Dolphin”. After the Oxford run we took Genji to the theatre Royal Brighton. At 9 am on the Monday the male stage management and a crew from the theatre assembled at Brighton station to unload scenery, props and costumes. No scenery truck. British rail had misled it. I left Michael Simpson to see what he could find out at the Brighton end and I marched back to the theatre in a mood to ring the minister of transport if necessary and tell him in no uncertain terms to find our show or else! It was lunchtime before they found it at Hayward Heath and it was 4 o’clock before we got the van to the dock door. On previous visits to this theatre I had not been impressed with the stage staff. They had seemed old sweat labourers more interested in how much overtime they could squeeze out of us and the tip they were to receive at the week’s end much more than interested in getting the job done, crisply. But on this occasion they worked like Trojans. We had already plotted the lighting for half the show by the time the scenery arrived. And by 6 o’clock we lit properly the rest of the show. Extra women had got been got in to help our wardrobe mistress with the ironing of the precious costumes. And the show went up on time. Sure, we had to do a little tweaking with the lighting in the first part at the next day. But the show went well and was excellently received…

It must have been in the Spring part of the season that we did yet another French play. This one was called “The Green Years”. Frank had given it to me to read with a view to directing it. I had liked it but felt it should not be done in contemporary 50s costumes. The 60s burst of sexual liberation was still to come but even then 1959 there was the beginnings of a feminist revolt. The play was amusing enough but, it seems to me, it patronised the female sex. And I wanted to see if we could set it as a full period piece in the 30s. It concerned three young girls left alone in a well-to-do middle class mansion for a period in high summer and how they have the opportunity of entertaining a romantic young man who lands in an aeroplane. The resultant fluttering of fledgling feathers gave rise to a charming gentle, highly romantic comedy. The play was of course written by a man. The name Marcel Achard Asha swims into my clouded memory. But perhaps he wrote next season’s “Rollo”. Anyway, I never got the opportunity to discuss this with Frank because when I tried to raise the subject again, he said “Oh you didn’t seem very keen on the idea so I thought I’d better do it myself.”

Ruth had a juicy part in it and an attractive plumpish young actress called Joanna Dunham joined us. My excellent and hard-working ASM Dione Ewin got and took with both hands the chance to play the eldest and most mature of the three young women. John Turner played the airmen. He was the easiest actor for comedy I ever worked with, never ever assertive always entirely natural in whatever period the play was written. As witness to that I call in evidence his hat trick of splendid performances at Birmingham in the 1965 comedy of manners trio of plays: Lord Goring, Sir John Brute and one of the two young men in my very own “Design for Living”. If it had been played by any other actor, my faint worries might have surfaced in audience unease, but the feminists were not yet really on the march. And the play was liked. Amiable perhaps describes the whole exercise.

(I think I must’ve got this last play in the wrong position. I remember Erwin was in it. I have a “Dolphin” program and she is not listed as an ASM. I can’t remember any of the men if there were any other than Turner. Somers and Bailey were certainly in the following Moliere plays.)

Julian Somers was retained to take a major comedy part in “School for Wives”. This was directed by Geoffrey Edward a very accomplished actor who had plotted his copy book for West End work for a long time. He had been Cyril Cusack’s understudy. I can’t remember what play (could it have been “The Doctors Dilemma”?) and the pair of them turned up, late for a performance too far gone in drink for either of them to appear. I never saw Geoffrey take a drink in the time I knew him. He had been a successful director for some years at Dundee rep. And he had done a very stylish “Charlie’s Aunt” which I stage managed. It was an astonishing achievement with only one week’s rehearsal. We had no set designs there were reasonable stock of French windows doors and flats. Arrangement had been made with Sanderson who agreed in return for program acknowledgements to supply all the wallpaper needed. A professional local decorator would come in on Saturday nights and after a bit of scene shifting by me and a minion on Sunday mornings would have an acceptable set for the latest post West End comedy. This would of course hardly do for a period piece. Geoffrey worked off Friday and Saturday night painting away and produce something quite stylish and arrangement of arches which did duty (with the odd drape or two) for an interior and exterior, I mentioned this because I was quite looking forward to working with him again.

However at Frinton and again at Oxford Geoffrey revealed a certain weakness over time. He was basically a night bird. He was very laid-back for the first couple of hours of the working day. He was often a few minutes late and even preferred a cup of coffee and a chat to inspiring his actors with any sort of energy. What is more and this makes me feel that the Moliere followed Genji after all. Julian Somers was finding it difficult to find the time to learn, what was quite a demanding part, as the all-important soon-to-be cuckolded comedy husband. Geoffrey obligingly gave him several afternoons off for study. Even more unfortunately Moliere had written several quite long scenes of plot exposition between the husband and a friend played by Edmund Bailey. No, Eddie never complained but I knew from having prompted him through many long parts in Perth that he would much have preferred to have repeated goes at a scene on stage with the other actors rather than to be sent away to get his head down and learn it. The result was that the two senior actors arrived at dress rehearsal stage being more than a little shaky on the lines.

Frank had discovered a short Moliere high comedy about critics called “School for wives revisited”. It lasted perhaps 35 minutes and could be used as a prologue to the main piece which played for a little more than an hour and a quarter. He assembled a very glossy cast. Parry looking very stylish, Delena Kidd always at her best, an up-and-coming leading lady type, Pauline Yates played high society 17th century Parisians. Jane Greenwood lavished all her skills dressing these glamorous ladies. Ruth Meyers playing the uneducated and repressed wife in the main piece had of course to be more sober dressed. Frank needed little help from anybody. He directed his little piece concentrating on the rhythms and the nuances of speech and grouped the actors fairly statically in salon positions – sedentary. It has only just now occurred to me that his vast experience as a radio Director now paid dividends. Edward Hardwick, a solid young character actor, who looked and sounded exactly like his father, was one of the men. The Ken Tynan de ses jours was played by Willoughby Goddard, a vast actor, sharp-tongued and with a bottom so big we had difficulty finding a period chair simple enough for him to sit in. One imagines that Richard Griffiths today might present a similar problem. The curtain raiser went off like a firecracker. The main course for the first few performances at any rate was a little limp. “Better dressed, better directed,” Eddie summed it up for me “and better acted.”

(I have been thinking about what to say about “Dangerous Corner” on and off since I began writing about this third Oxford season. I finished writing about the Molliere one evening and the next day – Freudian omission. When I say to my wife on reading this over my goodness I’ve forgotten to put in anything about “Dangerous Corner”, she said, “Less said about that the better.”)

Frank had said during Genji that he was going to do “Miss Julie” with Natasha, that he’d like me to direct another one-acter to go with it. We discussed various plays. Truth to tell I didn’t. I still don’t many one-acters. I was drawn to AP Herbert’s “Two gentleman of Soho” but I was probably well out of that one. While we were rehearsing the Molliere, G. Edwards directing the main item, Frank went up to London for a couple of days. He rang me and asked me to direct “Dangerous Corner”, instead scrapping “Miss Julie”. A good part for Natasha and Delena. I said I knew the play quite well and set about casting it. I asked Monica to do what’s generally known as the Flora Robson part. All our sophisticated ladies from school for wives revisited hated the whole idea of the Priestly and let me know in great flutter of feathers. I never knew exactly why Frank changed his mind. I suspect but of course I have no evidence that P Brooke had been in touch again and thought his glamorous wife might make a fool of herself if she was to attempt Grand Guignol. The next strike against this enterprise was that Frank told me that Jane Greenwood was to design the set. She had had some training as a scene designer as well as a costume supremo and had exacted some sort of promise from Frank. But if we to do it as a period piece, who is going to make the costumes? “Can’t afford it! Do it modern.” The third thing was that “School” spent its third week not in Cambridge but in Blackpool. It was the devil’s own job to engage an actress on a Playhouse pittance who could undertake to rehearse the final week way up north. In Oxford or Cambridge a sweetener would sometimes be offered of a week season ticket by rail so that they could sleep in London. Three strikes they say and you’re out.

The play went reasonably well in Oxford. The notices were quite kind I think. I directed it (I still think correctly) as a domestic comedy of the suburban French-windows school which revealed more and more the sour nastiness of inner lives. It was during the latter path of the Cambridge week that certain sophisticates in the audience spotted something in the writing. (Over schematic perhaps?)  Chris Hancock was playing a sort of senior uncle figure and towards the end of act two and act three he had long speeches revealing the truth about the secret life of a much loved friend/relative. In act three the Cambridge audience spotted what was coming at his introductory phrase something like, well and here we go again from the audience. Strangely enough I believe the play would’ve gone well even in our production of it at Blackpool but we sure got the bird at Cambridge.

PS reading this over.

It did not occur to me at the time, but now I rather think that we made a mistake in casting Ted Hardwick for the lead. He was, an excellent character actor and was to give a fine performance as Cadmus in the Bachae as grandfather. The 50s saw the rise of more obvious plebeian leading men, Albert Finney and Tom Courtney to say nothing of the megastar Richard Burton. My vaguely pink socialist credentials thoroughly approved of this at the time and I still do. But perhaps this particular play required the clean cut pseudo public school elegant matinee idol or type rather than the stocky figure with non-descript, scrubby blonde hair and a perpetual expression of puzzled worriment that Ted presented. The audience might have responded better to the matinee Idol image. I shouldn’t really in this series of essays have half sneered at the likes of John Justin and Sebastian Shaw.

Minos Volonakis burst upon us again to direct the Bacchae”. He was to design his own set for this tragedy. Yvonne Mitchell was to play Agave. And special music was being composed by Elizabeth Lutyens. This was being scored for quite a full orchestra. Everyone was very excited about this including the head of the university music department Professor Westrop. (I hope I’ve got the name right I never met him). He was going to conduct the orchestra for a full scale BBC style tape recording of this music. Theatre projects, which is a London firm of theatre technicians who are a growing force and very expensive even in the 50s, were coming with splendid equipment to get this on tape for us. We were working with an ordinary domestic Grundig with a single highly amateur bakelite microphone. We still played a lot of our own music from disc. Malcolm Williamson, then a jobbing theatrical musical director as well as a budding composer (he later became master of the Queen‘s music), was engaged to rehearse the girls, all actresses not singers, to act and perform this very difficult music. No nonsense about Williamson an absolute man of the theatre. He had a reputation for temperament though he proved patience itself with us. Apparently he had been MD for a musical at Bristol Old Vic. Could it have been “No bed for Bacon? Carol Brahms, a witty woman, who evidently could be bitchy as well as a bit twee, was the author. She said something, in the on the tour which offended Malcolm, who with great ceremony poured near a full glass of beer over the lady’s head. We saw no hints of this sort of temperament during his Oxford stint but there was a certain awareness about Malcolm when he had a glass in his hand. He did an absolutely splendid job on our “Bacchae”. I don’t know what effect they had on the enemy but as the Duke of Wellington might have said my God they frightened me.

The full score from Miss Lutyens did not arrive until the last week of rehearsals. On the Thursday or Friday Professor Westrop informed Frank that the University Orchestra simply could not play the stuff. It was far too complicated. Theatre projects had a date to do this recording late in the week possibly Saturday afternoon or in the evening. What to do? I suggested Malcolm might accompany the girls on an off stage piano and I volunteered to provide some percussive effects if I could borrow a Timpani and tambourine. But Malcolm had other engagements and could not make himself available for the whole run. He did however say that it might sound reasonably effective played on an organ. It was quite a sweat finding a college willing to find have the chapel desecrated with music for what might be considered a barbaric pagan ritual. But eventually arrangements were made.

I went to the recording session because whatever happened I would finally have to edit the tape and prepare a sound plot for the running of the show. Theatre projects duly arrived and rigged microphones all over the place got Malcolm to play a few test bits, rigged up baffle boards, here and there to counteract the echoes about the tiled stone floor, et cetera et cetera… The last piece to be connected up was there splendid Ferrograph tape recorder. When they switched on there was a faint pip and no further sign of life could be elicited. I was sent back to the theatre by taxi to fetch our humble Grundig and even humbler microphone. There was a final glitch when it seemed understandably enough that Ms. Lutyens would not agree to her music being misused transposed from full Orchestra to organ. But Malcolm eventually persuaded her proto pro musician. And the girls managed to work quite well with the organ.

 The production was impressive. Minos was very anxious to protect Dyonisus as a God with Christ like similarities. Long preamble about his sort of virgin birth which probably wowed the classicists. Things livened up with the entrance of Pentheus, played by no less of figure than Sean Connery – a plebeian strong Glasgow accent and the most virile thing Oxford has seen in years. He was not a film star when he came to us. True, he had made one or two B sort of pictures on both side of the Atlantic; had given it up for a couple of years, and was now trying to learn the basics with a bit of stage work. A fresh start one might say. He was splendid as Pentheus, even though occasionally unintelligible. Ted Hardwick, always at his best in heavy character, played Cadmus, his grandfather who had abdicated his Theban throne in Pentheus’s favour. But the energy and spirit of the show came from the girls, ably led by Margot Cunningham, who was then, the lone exception as a trained singer and a sexy rather than jolly redhead. Michael David resurfaced to play Dyonisus not just a pretty face and a good enough physique to have been part of the Elgin marbles, strong enough to carry off the tricky scene when having been cast into prison in mortal disguise, he arose, on the third day (get it?) as a God and the king’s palace disintegrated.

We had the usual Minos traumas with the set. Eventually it’s sort of worked. But Richardson after the play had opened said he could’ve done a really good job of it if only Minos had been able to be more precise about what he wanted. I remembered doing a serious balance sheet for Elizabeth just before the play opened. The figures were accurate and quite serious enough. It was entitled “the price of indecision”.

I got to know Yvonne Mitchell quite well. She was a lovely friendly lady and an excellent company member. She had a very late entrance 20 minutes before the final curtain. During the run apart from the prompter and someone on sound, she and I were the only people backstage. Actors deal with extreme nervousness in different ways. She was always made up and ready to go ages before her entrance. And she liked to have a chat in the green room before going on. We talked about Jewishness and her play, “The same Sky”, which I stage managed at Coventry and about the kiss of death she had suffered when she became “Television actress of the year”.” I was out-of-work actress for 18 months,” she said.

Agave is probably the most difficult role in the entire dramatic canon. You have no personal build-up. You have to enter in orgasmic climax with the head of your son on top of a pole. The chorus have told the audience that you think it is a lion’s head. You do not look at it. Cross examination by Cadmus, an early psychiatrist according to Euripides/Minos, you gradually calm down and are persuaded to look upon the horrific act that you have committed. You then play the appalled and grief-wrecked mother.

I know quite a lot about the problem because I subsequently directed some drama students in John Bowen’s excellent 60s version of the tragedy “The disorderly women”. Yvonne was adequate, much more than adequate. But she didn’t quite shake the theatre to its foundations. Nor of course, although she was quite good did my drama student. I believe Yvonne was a little disappointed in herself. And when it was subsequently heard she was devoting herself to writing and cultivating her garden in the south of France with her journalist husband, one wondered if she felt she failed as an actress.

End of season coming up and it was Shakespeare time again. “Twelfth Night” this time. Scales had come back to play Olivia to Myers’ Viola. Both gave strong performances but the comedy was rather left to the below stairs people. George Selway was an excellent Toby and worked up a fine double act with Hancock’s Aguecheek. George always had a certain charm in any performance and one could see perhaps in the production more than most what Maria might have seen in him. Pat Haywood came for just one play. She was the best Maria I’ve ever seen. Her laughing entrance after the letter scene had the audience in stitches for fully five minutes before she was able to utter word of text. John Warner was an excellent Feste, ageing melancholy at times spiteful. Rodney Diak made Fabian quite a telling part, his star rising as Feste’s fell. There was nothing revolutionary about this production and it bowled cheeringly along enough. Harold Lang played Malvolio and was satisfactory.

In May we went to Lisbon where we played in a hollow in the city’s botanical garden. The days were already very hot but the nights surprised us by being bitterly cold. The audience turned up in fur coats and with thermos flasks of piping hot soup. There was a fair amount of short sleeve work and the actors came off shivering. Strange atmosphere in the city. Salazar was still in power and our hosts, the Shakespeare Society and the students of horticulture seemed very guarded about discussing anything at all. I was reminded in a way of wartime London. And of course Portugal was very much a wartime capital. Most people knew conscript soldiers who were in battles in Angola and Mozambique. Early one morning I walked right to the top of the hill to St George’s Fort. This took me through the ramshackle picturesque, rather dirty old town. It was a lovely early morning and the women was singing with that curious nasal Mediterranean tone that Minos had got our girls to do so well in Lysistrata. One woman would sing a phrase quite near me and, in echo counterpoint really, it would be picked up by another voice several streets away and so on until the whole district seem to be singing. Not always to the same sheet of music. But it was like nothing I had heard before or since Our final evening and our two principal English speaking student guides took us to a Fado nightclub where Elizabeth Sweeting and I ad-libbed a couple of verses in what can only be described as a musical parlour game.

No time at all it seemed we were off on tour again this time taking “The Dream” as well as “Twelfth Night” to Copenhagen Zürich and Verona. In Copenhagen we played in a great barn of a concert hall in the Tivoli Gardens. It was more suited to a pop concert than any sort of drama. Travelling our scenery with us by ship and rail, the receiving theatre would knock us up some neutral scenery and leafy drops. Michael Richardson went over a day or too early to slap some paint on what they had prepared. Alas, it looked cumbersome amateurish and no help to the action. For the back of the auditorium you seemed to be looking at the actors through the wrong end of a telescope. I believe we were there five days. One day to arrive and two shows each alternately for the two plays set ups and lighting done overnight. The stage management needed the long train journey to Zürich in order to get a little sleep.

The Schaspielhaus Zürich was like coming home. A repertory Theatre. Sure the Swiss subsidised their provincial Theatres on a much more generous scale than we did or do but they knew which side of the stage was which and the large staff were anxious to do everything they could to present us properly. The set for “Dream” looked a bit pantomime me. Much more lavish than Frank or Richardson for that matter would’ve wanted but it looked professional. I can’t remember what we did about a set for “Twelfth night”. Perhaps we didn’t play it again after Copenhagen. The Danish trip had been particularly disappointing because a much larger proportion of the audience understood English than in Italy or in Switzerland.

There have been some recasting in “The Dream”. Our first Helena had been a rather inexperienced girl, quite scatty of stage, but abysmally ignorant of some of the basic rules of theatrical comedy. Now the part was played by Patricia Green, a solid enough actress but again not with a great gift for comedy. Frank later confessed to me that he had been pressed into this bit of casting by George Selway. “At least George will be happy,” he said. George had taken over as Bottom. He was fine rather less of a cumbersome ludicrous great oaf than Joss had been. Charm again.

The interesting thing was George had a different ass’s head. For the previous year we had borrowed from the Vic if I remember correctly an elaborate head with mobile jaw ears and eyes which were operated by strings concealed by a cape hanging from the shoulders. Joss had at first been enchanted by this elaborate toy. The head arrived late of course in rehearsals but he was still trying out the effects when we opened. But he began to hate the head. Certainly, he got laughs rolling an eye here, slowly erecting an ear there, but with no hands to act with (they were pulling the strings) and his voice muffled and unnatural. He came to feel that the head was giving the performance instead of just the actor. So it was decided that George’s face should be showing. He looked cuddly – rather like the March Hare.

Scales was now Hermia. Walford had played her as a delicate sensitive creature bewitched and distracted. Touching yet quite funny. Scales presented us with a self-satisfied bossy little creature who got her comeuppance which only goes to show their infinite ways of playing comedy. The lovers were patrician Rodney Diak and John Fraser replacing the ordinary chaps sort of acting presented by Owen and Woodvine. Edmund Bailey was now Quince. He was quite plebeian enough but nevertheless managed to get a bit of his own back for years of misdirection by presenting Quince as an art conscious director fussing endlessly and unimportant details.

The second “Dream” did however have a very serious defect. Once on the road it could not it seemed be put right. Moth, Peaseblossom and Mustard Seed who had been such a musical asset the previous year simply could not sing in time. What had been magic now seemed a bad joke.

We finished our tour at the Teatro Romano by the river in Verona. I enjoyed Verona more than I had Venice the previous year. There was so much to see in Venice that one was left wishing there had been more time. And as everyone says you couldn’t move in Venice with any freedom. You shuffled along in a crowd. Verona was and probably still is a much steadier place. Still ruled by the church said one of the stage hands just like Medieval times. The remains of the Roman theatre made a perfect backdrop to Shakespeare. So it was slightly irritating to discover that we were preceeded by an Italian company doing “Julius Caesar” with a very elaborate set of pillars arches mounted on scaffolding masking the ivy clad Roman ruins. We needed those precious hours of darkness to get our lights correctly set. The Italians (we were able to see the last act) took the Shakespearean tragedy, heavily and mighty slowly. To be fair, they seem to be playing it strongly but their Caesar ran over 3 1/2 hours. And by the time they all had a drink and tipped the stage hands into doing the work striking and clearing the set, “the dawn in  russet mantle clad” et cetera et cetera et cetera – the night was gone and we had no time to rig our electrics.

The “Dream” was well received again everywhere we went. And yet and yet. Rehearsing a play has often been likened to a voyage of discovery. The director is the captain, but nobody is quite sure exactly where the ship will land. Exciting!  Remounting a show, particularly with some recasting is rather more humdrum sort of thing. It’s okay but where’s the excitement?

Last movement of the four seasons move over Vivaldi

From 1949 to 1960 when I moved to Birmingham rep I worked on seasonal contracts and there was a very sizable gap in the summer when I was unemployed. The knowledge that most of my friends, jobbing actors, spent even more of their working years than I did on the dole did nothing to allay the quite acute financial difficulty. So when I received a phone call shortly after the Oxford company returned from Verona from Paul Lee who had preceded Frank at Coventry, offering me stage and company manager, on a three week provincial tour after three weeks rehearsal on full salary, I jumped at the chance. Of course I had immediately to check with Frank. It turned out that I would have to miss two of the three weeks rehearsal he was planning for the new season. “I’m sure Michael can manage,” he said, so I had a chat with Simpson and signed up to work for Andrew Cruikshank.

Andrew was a heavyweight Scottish character actor. He had met Lee while performing. Lee was a competent actor too in “House by the lake” a long running West End mystery play. He had written several plays and no one seemed to want to do them. He had decided to risk the very shirt of his back to go on a provincial tour with one of them. The play was called “Thorn in the flesh” and no it wasn’t ultra sexy. It was quite an amusing family comedy. The sort of thing Ward Brown had been writing usually for West End consumption. But it was clear to me that it wasn’t going to set the Thames on fire. I told Andrew I would only sign up for the six weeks no more. And he accepted. I wondered then how much he believed in his own play.

He was married to a Welsh actress Carrie Gwen Lewis. She had been at Birmingham and a huge success in the mid 30s. She had done a fair amount of excellent radio work but had it seems devoted herself to bringing up her three children now well into their teams. It looked as though Andrew had approved of this sacrificial attitude to a promising career. His strict Scottish Presbyterian upbringing showed in every word he uttered and to be fair to him his play was about a firmly disciplinarian pater familias who finds his values strongly challenged by his young family. Father had to change his stance. Cary Gwen was to play mum. Hers was indeed quite a name to conjure with in Birmingham. Andrew managed to conjure up a set out of the reps management and workshops for nothing but the timber and the canvas used. We opened there immediately the season closed. We did excellent business. Aged to elderly audience filled the theatre. You remember how good she was in Jane Eyre was the buzz. Paul and mine and Frank‘s designer at Coventry designed and painted the set. The Rep staff made us all comfortable. And I met Nancy Burman, which led to a career shift for me a year later.

Paul and Andrew had assembled some good actors as supporting roles. Margarita de Burgh and Sonya Fraser and, most exciting, a new juvenile in Susanna York. Ryan Spink (Frank’s second Theseus Orsino) and Andrew himself with the only man coping with the onslaught of powerful women. Our second port of call was Aberdeen Andrew’s home city. The local press had done him proud and we did a pretty good week. Reception was cooler however for the next two weeks of our little tour. The audiences in Glasgow and Edinburgh were sparse and clearly were a bit underwhelmed by the play.

I rang Frank from Edinburgh. Where are you? He said I told him and reminded him that we talked about this. He had forgotten of course, but said Michael seem to know about it and was coping very well. “You’ll be back for the setup?” he said. “Well before that” I said

The opening was in fact reasonably simple from the stage management point of view. It was called “My friend Rollo” and guess what – a light comedy from the French. Four seasons opened and all from across the channel. This was a vehicle for Leo McKern. Apparently he had been badgering his agent to find him some comedy work. He was fed up with playing assorted heavies. And of course he was perfectly right. The true test of a good actor the really difficult thing is to play light comedy. In Hamlet or even Lear you need stamina and the power of the play if it is directed right will carry you through to success. But comedy really sorts the men from the boys. And of course McKern sailed with ease over all the hurdles. As everybody knows he became the nation’s favourite as Rumpole.

It is not surprising that of all the plays in my time at Oxford I remember least about “Rollo” as for some reason it came to be retitled for its moderate London run. I wasn’t in on the beginning of it.

Michael Denison and Dulcie Gray turned up next to do “Candida”. Morrell is a self satisfied parson full of good works socialist opinions – the plummy voiced Denison was excellent cast. Candida is a beautiful girl who had climbed by marriage out of the working or lower middle class, intelligent but unromantic. At bottom she is strong enough and determined enough to destroy her husband’s facade in front of her would be lover. “Gracie Dull” as some bitches in the profession mostly male called her was not equal to the task. She had a strong stage presence but could not bear the risk of the audience thinking her unsympathetic not for a single second. She set out to be charming from beginning to end. It must be said that for largest section probably a majority of the audience found this acceptable. In a notice for a West End comedy Ken Tynan had summed the couple up. “Perhaps actors should not marry.” After the play had opened at a notes session Michael said to Frank “There’s a point in the last act when I feel such despair I could cry!”  or words to that effect. Frank said not to force it but why not. A couple of performances later Dulcie, who had most of the speaking to do in the last part of the play, was in floods of tears too. I was amazed Frank did nothing to check this.

Chris Hancock gave a fine character reading of Burgess, Candida’s vulgar father. 20ish playing dad to someone well in his 40s. Tall order. Gilbert Vernon bounced about as an eager young curate, more than half in love with Morrell. Jeremy Brett was a violently exciting unpredictable Marchbanks and Monica Stewart took every comedy opportunity to make a splendid job of Prossie. Everything about the play was excellent except the title role. It was not that it was embarrassing. Dulcie had a great deal of rather winsome charm and could hold an audience rapt. It was just not the right character. Offstage Michael was just a little touchy overprotective of his wife perhaps. She was charm itself, but one felt one had to be careful.

Early in the season, Frank announced his intention to take two short one acters on a tour of India. The Dennisons were going to do “Village Wooing” directed by Harold Lang. And Frank was to direct “Man of Destiny”. I cannot remember who was to play Napoleon, but a nice actress I bumped into once or twice but never worked with was to play the lady. In his absence Meadows Players was to be temporarily on loan as it were to another up-and-coming youngish director with university credentials Toby Roberson. He was to kick off with “The Relapse” and also do a Christmas production of “Alice through the Looking Glass”. Frank had told me privately it was not to be announced. He had read a version of E.M. Forster’s “A Passage to India” by an Indian writer and it had been quite a struggle but Cambridge friends John Barton and Dadie Rylands had persuaded Morgan (the great writer’s second name) to agree to it being staged. All this was exciting stuff and as much to explain why I do not remember being disappointed that I personally did not figure as director for any of the fourth coming plays. Perhaps the technical challenges were enough – Relapse and Alice and for that matter Passage would have been pretty busy. or perhaps it was I knew very well that I had accumulated what directorial skills I had by sitting in on rehearsals under different directors. And Toby was clearly something of a rising star.

Before Robertson arrived however Frank lease/lent the theatre and stage management design and wardrobe teams to Martin Starkey. He was wondering why after some years as an actor nobody had made him into a star. He was determined to do the job for himself. I suspect without any real evidence that he was a protégé of Neville Coghill. I never felt that Coghill exactly welcomed Meadow Players’ success at the Playhouse. It’s somehow reduced his status as the theatrical guru of intellectual Oxford. To my mind he was a brilliant English scholar but an ineluctably amateur theatre practitioner. As distinct to John Barton who by association with Peter Hall turned himself into as professional an animal as any of us. Martin had a friend (in his way he seems to have almost as many friends as Frank) who had translated some stuff from Russian and between them they hammered out a play from a short novel of Turgenev, entitled “The Torrents of Spring”. A strong cast was engaged. I can only remember Gary Watson who got briskly about his business as a rival lover and Russell Thorndyke who had no difficulty doddering effectively enough in some sort of Butler part. I can remember three of the women but not their names who are all in different ways adequate or even good actresses. One of them was a film starlet with very little stage experience. She had a mass of sexy blonde hair and a husky voice. Strangely enough under a period hairstyle her features were revealed to be rather sharp not to say ratty there was a pretty slight dark head and you knew could it have been Stella Riley who had done good work for me at Nottingham and a solid mother figure good actress. Ellen Pollock, even then something of a veteran Shavian Leading Lady came to direct. She was very professional and crisp. But she did spend a lot of time directing the leading lady.  Martin was surrounded by a sort of court of admirers. They all came to Oxford with him. There was the translator also an expert on Russian poetry, an artist friend who helped with the design and two or three other admirers. They all reported to Martin so what they said to him before Notes was all were always more important than anything Ellen might say. I felt I was being spied on. Lord knows what Michael Richardson felt when every suggestion he made as the designer had as it were to go to committee. As an actor Martin offered self-pity instead of pathos hysteria instead of drama and simpering instead of charm. At the dress rehearsal Ellen said something mild enough I’m sure which made him burst into tears and rush from the stage. It must’ve been two precious hours before he was in a state to carry on. No apology. In fact, I believe he expected one from Ellen. To her credit, she hardly spoke to him again.

Odd thing. Martin’s problem was that he saw himself as the supremely sensitive artist and the rest of us as yahoos. He felt himself to be Turgenev’s soul brother and needed to protect Ivan from Philistine tastelessness on all sides. I wondered what happened to this super sensitivity for a year or so until I saw that he was responsible for the book of the musical “Canterbury Tales”. He had stripped, the text and used all the vulgar bits. I wonder how he could’ve brought himself to such a thing. But money talks

Martin‘s caravan departed and Toby’s arrived. His entourage was mercifully entirely professional largely drawn from OUDS and Marlow Society alumni. He was a studiously gentlemanly tyrant. I think he saw his career as a comet’s path and certainly the actors he brought with him seem to be hanging on to his tail.

When Peter Dews took over Birmingham rep there was the same phenomenon. Of course the two men were quite different. Peter enjoyed pretending to be an ignorant vulgarian man of the people. Toby was a patrician. He made an absolutely splendid job of “The Relapse” – he hardly cut any of it. When I asked him about this, in particular the long prologue which it seems required the audience to have seen the previous play he replied, “This is a great piece of English literature. They study such things at Oxford I believe. They deserve to see all of it.”

Delena Kidd and Edgar Wreford from the old guard came back and gave excellently sexy performances. Dinsdale Landen played an energetic no good boyo type. A delicate and very beautiful girl called Jennifer Daniel played perfectly the straight laced wife relapsed against. A very good well spoken young man Richard Kale was the Relapse. Freddie Jones was a great success playing a small part as a Yokel, down at Tunbury Clumsy’s. Rosalyn Knight grabbed Miss Hoydon with both hands.

And of course the performance as it has to be in Restoration or Queen Ann comedy came from Robert Edison in the fop part of Lord Foppington. He was a Dandy with a languidly witty delivery. But he never suggested in the faintest degree anything remotely homosexual. He was a male dandy full of self love but proud of having conquered a few women in his time. My Sparkish in “Country Wife” got a lot of laughs but the audience cottoned onto his gayness from the start and didn’t notice much else. Come to think my Captain Brayan in “Recruiting Officer” was pretty good and masculine but not so good as Eddington. Richardson had designed a basic Rococo set all gilt and plaster. Individual items flown in and out. There was for one scene an elaborate double door frame up centre, no door just the frame for one of Foppington’s entrances. He was in full, figure high wig, hat perched on top carried on in an open style sedan chair. The technical rehearsal ground to a halt when it was apparent that the central entrance could not be made. I asked for 10 minutes because I thought I could solve the problem. The company all joined for a cup of tea and I insisted Toby went with them.

I might well have mentioned Chris Cherry before this. He was a local lad with a round red polished face which exactly suited his name. Not university material at all. But he had a real feeling for theatre and loved it. In fact, he later made an excellent career for himself as a floor manager in TV. When I came to Oxford, he was the number one casual labour a wiz with counterweighted flies, a well-trained and efficient proficient professional stagehand. He and I unscrewed the sill of the door flat, checked the counterweight to make sure he had a good view of the stage and called the company back to try again. I had a word with the leading chair carrier and we three with the only people who knew what was going to happen as the chair approached the door Chris flew it gently 3 feet into the air and deposited it neatly a few seconds later the pantomime trick suited the production perfectly and got a laugh and around every night.

Until we got to Brighton. They had no counter weights there and no amount of pre-rehearsal could get it smooth enough. And the audience sometimes rather jeered instead of laughing. I should’ve explained that sometimes during my first season Chris was taken on as a sort of resident stage foreman by Miss Sweeting and the university,  not I think the perpetually stoney-broke Meadow players.

And Toby ploughed ahead straight into “Alice through the Looking Glass”. This piece had been written by Toby’s mother. It was very faithful indeed to the original and had some neat lyrics and tinkly music. It was not strictly speaking a new production. It had been done somewhere or other the year before. (Chelsea Palace comes into my mind with one of the Miller girls Mandy or Mary). I may have got this wrong perhaps that was one of the many versions of Wonderland. The designer, as designers will, had lovingly preserved his original model. Very toy theatre with masses of filigree ornamentation trad. pantomime wings cloths and borders. A lot of work but fairly straightforward. We had to build the set. Painting was not Michael’s strong point perhaps the designer Michael Baldwin came to Oxford to lend a hand. Quite a number of the original props had been carefully stored which meant we didn’t have to be making endless oysters. And a wonderful giant Crow appeared with wings the full width of the proscenium. I’ve no doubt some of the costumes have been preserved from the previous year. Still, there was quite a bit of work mounting it again. Toby attempted no shortcuts with the music after all he did not carry responsibility for the financial stability of Meadow players. Two grand pianos and a senior pianist was MD. I believe there were one or two people from the original cast but mostly it was cast from “The Relapse”. And an approximation to a sort of company feeling was in the air. The success of the show was undoubtedly the finding and casting of Jane Asher aged if I remember correctly 12 in the leading part. She was stunning. If ever a star is born, this was it. She played it way beyond deadpan, faintly cross, Governess-wise at these extraordinary people who hadn’t been taught how to behave properly. She being under legal employment age had to have a governess too. By law every minute she was in the theatre. And during the run she had to have a tutor so that her education wasn’t neglected. Both these had to be paid out of the Meadow payers budget. The tutor needn’t have bothered. Little madam could’ve sailed through A-level papers. Ross Knight and Jane Eccles were fine as the Queens. Toby with great show of being persuaded and willingly by the cast played the white knight for several performances. He was very good. I thought this unfair on that fine actor Chris Hancock who must’ve felt he was being used as a stand in for occasions when the great man had other things to do. The show was of course tailor made for North Oxford and went pretty well. It has to be said however, there was a certain campness about it, not to say tweeness. One of the things Toby was not doing when he wasn’t playing the White Knight was getting on with casting and planning for what Frank supposed he Toby was to do immediately post Christmas, the production of “Passage to India”. In fact when we’ve been in Brighton with “The Relapse” Toby had been speaking very freely and unguardedly to me and one or two stalwarts of the company about plans post Christmas. He was not going to do “Passage” immediately and was going to slip in two one acters, “Miss Julie” (now where had I heard this before?) and another one acter (possibly “Song of Songs by Giradoux or some other frog). I was to direct the latter. He also let slip that he was in negotiation to get Frederick Bartman back to play Doctor Aziz later in the spring.

Now I’d rather imagine that there was an enormous row about this. But perhaps it was settled as between two gentleman with never a cross word exchanged. But Frank came back from India. He himself was going to do passage and he had secured the services of a Pakistani actor Zia Mohyeddin to play Aziz.

After the Oxford run we took Alice to Cardiff. I think we were there for a couple of weeks certainly we didn’t open as most touring shows due on the Monday. Had somehow managed to persuade the Cardiff management to open late as late I think as Wednesday. It was a miserable week. The stage crew was slack. And the audience is rather reluctant to laugh, at this snooty Oxford piece of high camp. Well if it had been a version of the Mabinogion well that might have been something.

Back to base again and “the Passage to India” with a vast cast. Every Asiatic student in Oxford pressed into service as an extra for the trial scene. Not many professional Indian actors. “Chums” still blacking up shame on us. Particularly as regards the important part of Dr Godbole excellent played in fact by Wolf Morris. (Also played with the less success in David Lean’s not very good film version by Alek Guinness.) There are so many good Indian actors. Rashad Karapiet had a smallish part in the trial scene and there was another Indian actor too, not quite so striking. But as well as Morris, Chris Hancock darkened his face as the magistrate and Michael Poole recently turned pro played another Indian lawyer no one would dream of this sort of casting today.

Mohyeddin was electric. It was his performance which made everybody want to see the piece. It was well timed the Suez debacle was sufficiently recent to make people think that imperialism had had its day and something different was necessary. And Suez was sufficiently distant for some of the heat to have gone out of the discussion. I don’t think Zia ever realised how great a debt he owed to Norman Wooland. Norman was not perhaps the most exciting actor around. But a more selfish actor could’ve cut our new star down to size. Zia in the early rehearsals was very much the anxious new boy. Norman was a charming easy-going man. In an unguarded moment of self-revelation he told Monica and me that he could tell that he was not first choice even fourth or fifth by the fact the script which was sent to him with the offer was already dog eared. It was a great disappointment to him that the critics bowled over by the magnetism of Zia could spare only faint praise for the actor who so unselfishly yielded his colleague centre stage and perfectly delivered every feed after feed for Zia to hit the winner with punch lines. Dilys Hamlet (an old chum from Coventry days) was perhaps a little disappointing as Miss Quested but Enid Lorimer a veteran with many stalwart supporting roles behind her was near perfect as Mrs. Moore.

Everybody with half a critical nostril could see that the evening took a dip when the play took us into the heart of the Raj at the English club. There were very good actors in among us – yes I put in an appearance originally – John Nettleton Alistair Hunter, Margot Cunningham and Monica, Brian Hawkley, et cetera et cetera. I now think though I did not think so at the time that the adaptation was at fault. Not because Santa Rama Ran gave a biased Indian view of the ruling class. She did her best to give them a fair crack of the whip. It was just that the audience had been introduced to Fielding, Aziz, Quested, Moore and Godbole. Something has happened on the trip to the Malabar caves. But what? and instead of letting us know what happened next the Author-adapter chose to introduce us to a whole gallery of new people none of whom were nearly so interesting. If the scenes of Miss Quested’s arrival to marry that nice enough chap well played by Jeremy Burnham if these scenes had been crosscut with some of the excellent Fielding scenes at the beginning, well perhaps who knows it might have saved a lot of post-production rehearsal and re rehearsal to try to get the scene right. But of course there was the trial scene to pick the show off the floor night after night. Court rooms nearly always hit the button dramatically.

I felt more than a little lonely when “Passage” went off on tour. Michael Simpson went with it relieved of his part in the club scene spent the rest of the year touring passage and running it in the West End and then went into television as a floor manager. This was I’m sure a relief to the other Michael Simpson who was a TV director then Peter Dews’ assistant director and later ran Birmingham rep. Before this Michael, just down from Oxford, quite seriously asked my stage manager with some five years professional experience behind him, if he would he please change his name.  As undergrad director Simpson wanted to join equity. There was only Keith Davis, Chris Cherry tower of strength and me left behind when “Passage” took to the road.

The next play appears to have been “Hedda Gabbler” which I wrote about in drivel number three. I think the Shakespeare must have as usual ended the season. Hauser’s scheme: a Shakespearean comedy for May week and the ball. So as a guess, I think Anna Christie missing from the list must have come next. One great dramatic role for an actress after another. I had a new stage manager a smashing girl heart and soul into it supporting the actors and directors. Jill Gibson.( I headhunted her to join me at Birmingham the next year) and a crisp and yappy boy ASM lots of energy and efficient enough if you made sure he was in the right direction.

Great excitement. Play about Swedes in America great Swedish actress Mai Zetterling was coming back to play the lead. I could’ve been very disappointed at not being offered this play to direct had it not been that Douglas Seale had been engaged to do it. I had enormously admired Seale’s work at Birmingham. I think I have mentioned before, but when I was with the Coventry company, we used to be able to fit in a Saturday matinee at the rep while en route for Netherton. “Abraham Lincoln” no one who ever saw it can possibly have forgotten Paul Daneman’s heart stopping entrance as General Lee. “Point of Departure”, “Moon and the Yellow River” and above all the supposedly unstageable and actable three parts of Henry the sixth so I was quite excited going up to London for the first reading. The train was late so that instead of half an hour I arrived only 10 minutes before rehearsal was due to start and actors were already assembled. Sean Connery was back among us the viral hunk who helps the prostitute Anna towards reform. Irish American as the Glaswegian accent was halfway acceptable. But of course I was hell bent to renew my strictly professional theatrical love affair with Mai. She was deep in conversation with Seale whom I had not met. I broke into introduce myself. “Is there somewhere Miss Zetterling and I could go? We have things to discuss.” I can’t remember the venue for the rehearsal. It might well have been the British drama league. I found them a cubbyhole and went back to the main rehearsal room to introduce myself to the rest of the cast. Glenn Beck a fresh faced Canadian proved excellent as the act one barman. A middle-aged to elderly Irish actress who looked exactly like the part she was to play a downtrodden defeated old whore. And a Greek actor, stocky swarthy who was to play old Chris Christofferson. First rehearsals are always a nervous affair. I chatted to Sean largely about mutual friends who were in “Passage”. I had, as I said, not met Seale.  Richardson had had discussions with him about set and I’d seen the plans and a model had been produced. Three heavy sets but intervals to change them. Curious hush fell over the room as Seale entered. “Well,” he said. “I’ve done my very best to persuade her. But she’s not going to do it.” The problem was that Dougie was determined to do the piece in modern dress. He thought the theme of the play redemption was relevant still in our age and turn of the century costumes would prettify it. Mai evidently was adamant that it was of its period before aeroplanes made the world so much smaller and the period when seafaring was the, kind of life and the sea itself dangerous but absolutely necessary. I don’t know who was right but “Company dismissed!” said Dougie. David will ring you directly we find a replacement hopefully tomorrow morning. And hopefully he went to talk to Frank. I don’t think we missed a single day’s rehearsal over the switch of casting. Jill Bennett turned up for rehearsal next day. It was such a wonderful part that she would’ve played it in a space suit if so required,

At the end of the first week’s rehearsal we lost Steve Plytas too. I never knew if Minos had suggested him but he had no experience of English theatre at all. He announced that he would never be able to learn the part in the time. He always had six weeks rehearsal and so on and so on. I think we were saved from a monumentally bad performance. Broken English as spoken by a Greek is not at all the same thing as broken American as spoken by a Swede Dougie promised we’d have a new Chris Kristofferson on Monday morning.

Seale was a softly spoken gentle soul. I don’t think I heard him raise his voice once during the rehearsal period all the run. Quite a change from Frank’s general highly energised boisterousness or Toby’s magisterial command, so when he turned up on the Monday with his solution, he spoke to Jill quietly that I don’t really know how he sold it to her. Redmond Phillips was to play the part but he was working elsewhere all week and could not rehearse with the company until the following Monday when I believe we were all to go to Oxford. Redmond had said that if this wasn’t agreeable to Sean and Jill, he would withdraw. Dougie was adamant that nobody in the country would be better in the part. Jill had never heard of him. I think she would’ve walked out there and then except all too obviously she had rather fallen for the ragged charm of Sean Connery. It was back more or less to the pressures of weekly rep. I’ve volunteered to read in for Redmond until the middle week of rehearsals. New paragraph as a stage director and later production manager I was a tech man primarily. And I spent far more time than perhaps I should have sitting in on rehearsals watching how directors shaped actors performances. I enjoyed playing the old man of the sea, book in my hand opposite a wonderful leading lady. When he turned up almost word perfect already was fine in the part. But I always felt about his work at Birmingham and again here was that of an excellent detailed character actor rather than a big theatrical leading man. it is an appalling conceit for me to say so but I think I found rhythms in O’Neill‘s great prose poems on that old double C better than Phillips. Don’t get me wrong I was not and still I’m not conceited enough to have dreamt of actually playing the part.

The production was efficient and went well. I don’t think I learnt a lot from Seale but he was a pleasure to work for. I had the briefest of appearances towards the end of the play in a fog on the deck of a large tanker wonderfully suggested by Michael Richards, come to think of it. This was my last appearance as a programmed character in a play. Subsequently more times than I care to remember I have had to go on for ill or absent actors. No repertory company I’ve ever worked with could afford a paid understudy. Redmond Phillips was a stalwart member of Seale’s Birmingham company in the early 50s. Dews cast him to be in Galileo, his opening production as artistic director of the rep. He was a great fun as a company member a wonderful raconteur. He rather disappeared into the scrum of the Brecht however on stage.  So did some other good actors in that cast.

Frank came bouncing back. Passage was touring successfully and was booked for a London run at the comedy. “Shrew” is nobody‘s favourite Shakespeare comedy these days. The men in the audience care not to laugh too loud in case the girls hold it against them. But it does splendid box office always. a much safer bet and say to “Gentlemen” or “Loves labour” or “Comedy of errors”. Perhaps Frank was running out of comedies for May weeks. He was in cracking form however and encouraged the actors to enter at the double speed – speak at times distinctly and rhythmically and gallop off again. His production was the only one I’ve seen that successfully integrated Christopher Sly into the action and allowed him to disappear at half time. Never done the piece but I would probably cut the old Sly clean out of it. Frank played a cut down version of the induction on a bare stage, cleverly lit – full marks to Keith Davies – in tracks and pools of light. Sly was eventually seated almost in the prompt corner. A travelling company of actors entered from the opposite wings bringing with them, hampers of costumes, baskets of props et cetera et cetera and also a portable stage with a proscenium and running curtains. This was set on a diagonal so that the early part of the play proper was played directly at Sly. At half time the house tabs came in and the stage was swivelled round so that it faced straight onto the audience. The false proscenium continue to give the play within a play feel to the evening which did much to mitigate the violent male chauvinism.

It usually takes a night and a full morning to erect a new set during a normal rep changeover. Michael Richardson and I had to design and make something which would be set up neatly (almost balletically) in one and a half minutes. We decided on solid rostra two of them which were wheeled on casters on an edge face. The proscenium had a swagged curtain top and so long as it was folded carefully and accurately it opened out and slotted into the stage. The technical was unbelievable murder. Notes for directors. However much actors may seem to understand during rehearsal when it comes to the technical they hate being used as stagehands. Added to which Frank had decided they would sing while they did it. Shades of film either Oklahoma or seven brides where the chorus built a house, to music. Our portable stage was heavy but eventually they got it right. The music used at this point was some a cappella and was based arranged by Frank of course on Cole Porter’s “Kiss me Kate”. No other composer said Frank could’ve written a moving song for Kate at the end of the play with every line in true iambic pentameter and the words straight from Shakespeare’s text. It worked

Petruccio was played by Brewster Mason on leave as it were from Stratford and the Vic. A heavyweight not a young premier. Very deft with the verse as was to be expected. Immensely solid strong. And he knew how to twinkle at the audience. He had very gammy leg and much preferred standing still in the middle of the stage rather than limp or scuffle round it. He grabbed with both hands, the chance of playing a classic comedy part rather than giving sonorous support in one of the tragedies. To my surprise and great pleasure he was a plus

Sian Phillips was Catherine. She was as we had all expected smashing too. But infuriatingly she was one of those actresses who like to operate on about 40% of full power all through rehearsals only really giving 100% when the audience arrived on the first night. Brewster seemed perfectly able to cope with this major onslaught of power and could rise to the occasion. Not so the truly excellent Harold Goodwin who was playing Grumio. After the starvation scene he stumped off saying, “Why did we bother rehearsing for three weeks, it’s like acting with somebody I’ve never met before?” This was a phenomenon I wasn’t seriously to meet again until Wendy Hiller, charming lady, came to Birmingham and decided not to attend the final dress rehearsal. She sent a message a quarter of an hour before we were due to start to say that she thought she’d do better to have an afternoon rest before the first night. This left the rest of us with nothing to do except get more and more nervous. Jeremy Brett playing opposite to her was so furious that he was unable to give a decent performance until well into the second week. I feel (and I think Frank did too) that although there are probably one or two members of any cast who could happily rise from a dozy afternoon and sock it brief brilliantly to an audience at night for the company as a whole, it is best to get the adrenaline flowing and keep it going until the curtain rises.

Sian was charm itself as a company member. No side at all. She had one major defect. She had a husband Peter O’Toole was working at Stratford. Either he was in repertoire or more likely in a rehearsal situation. But he was able to come over to Oxford to see how his lady wife was getting on. How sweet one might think. Except that he was usually badly the worse for drink. The first time he came the front of house staff were happy to let him sneak into the back of the auditorium and watch the shrew finally tamed. But on subsequent occasions he would arrive at the stage door and demand to watch from the wings. This would’ve been unprofessional of course in any case but a point might have been stretched had he not been noisy and very aggressive and Sian feared that seeing him in this state between entrances might throw her absolutely. So I had to leave the prompts corner and with the help of Chris Cherry restrain him in the green room. The resulting rumpus Jill Gibson told me could be clearly heard on stage and probably in the auditorium.

It must have been during “Christie” that I had a letter from Nancy Berman saying the Michael Bullock was exhausted and could I take over from him as production manager at the Birmingham rep? I went over to see her and she said I think what I quote accurately. I’d be delighted to have someone on the strength who could direct occasional productions as a relief to Bernard Hepton. She offered a little bit more money and it was approaching long vac time. I was sold.

I had some mixed feelings about leaving. For one thing the final season has been very exciting and although Birmingham still had a certain cachet as a theatre its reputation at that time was far from vibrant. And my family particularly my 10-year-old son loved Oxford and had made some friends outside the theatre.

“Candida” was being revived to be remounted at Malvern. And then it would transpire to the West End. I was just a little surprised at the ease with which Frank accepted my resignation. I did wonder whether I had become one chum too many and having blown the chance over “Green Years” I wouldn’t set another crack of the whip over a transferable play. I was perhaps wise to go. I kept in friendly touch with Frank throughout my Birmingham years. The last time I met him was in Dallas in 1984. I was doing Henry the fifth in the Shakespeare season and he was doing Iolanthe. We were both close to production weekends. But he dropped in at my flat for a cup of tea. We picked up our jolly gossipy friendship exactly where it had commenced all those years ago in Coventry. It was like continuing a conversation which had no more than a few minutes break rather than over 20 years. I think I laughed more in that couple of hours with Frank at any time during my American adventures.

I finished my meanderings on the Molliere one evening and decided I’d leave “Dangerous corner” until the next day. Freudian slip, I went straight to “The Bacchae” and only noticed my own my omission when I came to read the whole season. I didn’t realise that I had left out “Too many ghosts” until your list of plays – many thank -s arrived. Not really as surprise. The play can’t be mentioned in Monica‘s presence without her saying, “Oh God, I was so bad in it.” And me replying lamely but very truthfully “indeed you were no worse than anybody else.”

Frank had often been talking about the wonderful Neapolitan farces. “Of course they are far too local to translate and export satisfactorily”. But more recently he had changed his mind and was bubbling over, with enthusiasm for a new translation and was determined to give Da Filipo a whirl. Good cast. Excellent actor Hugh Burden was to lead the company. I refuse to say Hugh was an excellent farceur. The phrase was used of Donald Sinden in something I was reading the other day and it seems to diminish Sir Donald in a quite unforgivable way. Whatever he was it was very experienced. He played in Travers many times. He was easy and had a light touch with the comedy. Gwen Nelson (I should’ve mentioned her excellent work in “Dinner with the family”) returned. So did Gillian Neeson now I come to think of it.  I didn’t know what happened here. Gillian played one of the two children who seemed attached to Monica‘s skirts whenever she moved across the stage. There was a strikingly handsome juvenile man alone. We all thought the play was a hoot. Frank kept it all going at a tremendous pace. We might just as well have invited Queen Victoria to see it. The audience was not amused. And halfway through the first night as so often happens if a comedy isn’t going as well as it should the actors – even such an experienced cast as this – started over stressing and attempting to thump the jokes across. Perhaps the High drama of the rejected toupee contributed to this. Hugh gave the impression of a once handsome man in his early 40s and had lost some of his boyish good looks along with nearly all of his hair. For some curious reason, I suppose it was a matter of time, Hugh chose not to wear his toupee until the final dress rehearsal. After one act Frank came round and spoke to Hugh in his dressing room. When he had gone out in front again and anguish cry of “Monica Monica!” echoed round the backstage area she disappeared into Hugh’s dressing room. She found him in great distress. He wants me not to wear my toupee. Quite hysterical. Not the full Martin Starkey act he was far too professional not to do as the director told him and wouldn’t waste everybody’s time with a public display. But he was badly upset. Not the best way to go in for a first night. I think in fact I remember that he put it on again later in the run on one occasion when he knew Frank was not going to be in. The toupee did nothing for the comedy.

I don’t think the play was exactly a flop. People laughed occasionally and passed quite amusing evening. But we were disappointed in ourselves.

I had my own theory. Just like “Goat Island” (what is it with these Italian plays) the piece began with a long exposition of essential plot information delivered by a subsidiary character, in this case a postman I believe. This rather lost the audience before the fun started. Incredibly I believe it was the same actor who had bored the audience to death in “Goat Island”.

The scene over the toupee was replicated in Birmingham when Edward Chapman played Galileo in the opening production of Peter Dews’ reign at Birmingham. The play began with him in a hip Bath. And it seems it had occurred to Ted that naturalism requires him to be naked. This had to be resolved at the beginning of the first technical rehearsal in full or in this case non-existent costume. Ted insisted on wearing a pair of underpants Dews of course would have none of it but seemed singularly unhelpful in solving the problem. Ted retired to his dressing room and shouted for Monica. It all got resolved eventually so that nobody said anything except to his back but Monica said afterwards I don’t know what it is about me but actors in need of a mother always seem to send for me. I suppose all actors are really just little boys

PPS reading this over I realised I missed out an episode with Toby Robertson which might interest anyone with an interest in stage management. For the record I spent the last 25 years with no other responsibilities than those of a director. Previous to that 1947-49 I was an actor with an assistant (not very responsible) stage manager duties. From 49 -66 I was in charge of the technical crew. Call it stage manager stage director or production manager: same can to carry. I directed my first play professionally in 1954. So I feel in honour to my stage management colleagues to set down this story.

The set up for Alice through the Looking Glass began really quite well. Toby looked in about midday and I said I hoped to be ready to start lighting perhaps at seven-ish. He looked in at about 6.30. I said we’re rigging the number two lighting bar now and there’s gels to change in the, cage butten. Should be ready by 730. Allow Keith (who hasn’t broken) time for a cuppa. He said okay but just show me where the cloth for the seashore drops in. I had it dropped in. “I thought so,” he said “not nearly enough room”. Take it out again he then took two paces up stage and said, “this is where it needs to be”. “But Toby,” I said “we’ve set it exactly according to the ground plan and we always marked it accurately during rehearsals.” “Oh I never take any notice of marks on the ground. Get the cloth moved now it’ll save a lot of time at the technical”.  “But Toby I will have to move the crow as well.”  I think I mentioned this monstrosity before and it was 18 inches deep and free hanging held on a combination of piano wire and fishing line. And when it dropped fast as it had to for the full frightening affect the rush of air made it swing up and down stage like a pendulum … to say nothing of the number two light bar. I trailed off lamely. “Sorry about that,” he said cheerily. “See you at 7:30 then” and he was gone. It was of course 9:30-ish before we were ready to focus the first lantern.

Despite these moans about the switchback of ups and downs Toby was a cheerfully exuberant soul who was fun to work for, generous too in the pub to all the staff and the two shows he did for the meadow players were crackers,

PS note to anyone working at the Playhouse it’s a good idea to make friends with the stagehand. Next time you meet one in a year or so he’ll probably be running a theatre or holding down a high-level job in a London literary agency drama division.

The happiest days you must be joking.

Education was again becoming the urgent question of the moment by the time I was in negotiation with Birmingham about packing my bags and leaving Oxford. It was exacerbated by the fact that Monica was deeply involved in “Passage to India” and she had to decide whether since the play had been built by the Donmar for West End productions, she would pull out of it rather than endure several weeks of provincial touring prior to a London opening. The lure of the West End was strong but solutions for domestic problems were even more pressing. Christopher would be due to take the 11+ the next spring. We would have been quite happy for him to go to one of the several good state-run Grammar style schools in Oxford. But reports from Phil and Jim were not glowing. He enjoyed his time at Oxford and remembers it affectionately. But this I think was largely due to friends he made outside school. After early bullying he had settled down reasonably well at school but his head teacher did not regard him as any more than a possible outsider for passing the dread exams. It was obvious for us that this intelligent not to say bookish boy had inherited a little of my own innate clumsiness. He was not destined for any career where manual dexterity was a prime necessity. He would undoubtedly benefit from a good education based on the liberal arts. What to do?

Christopher had made a few friends at his school although I believe the early ragging not to say bullying abated somewhat after the first year in Oxford. Monica however had been introduced by Mrs Rattan. I believe quite a wheel in the social fabric to a divorcee with rather more children than she could manage. They lived in a Jericho then still very much a working class area of Oxford rather looked down by the middle ranking academics who lived on the grander houses to the right of Walton Street. There were four children one a girl about the same age as Christopher two younger boys spoilt by their mother and the eldest a striking beautiful girl just entering her teens. Monica and this Mrs Hibbert struck up quite a close friendship. The two women and the five children spent many happy out of school hours together on Port Meadow during the few years I was at Oxford. Mrs H made no secret of the fact that she thought of herself as a rather upper-class sort of person. Her father had been a judge in a very high ranking post in India and she had spent most of her girlhood in the subcontinent. That is when she wasn’t attending Cheltenham Ladies’ College. Monica was and still is not a gregarious creature. She enjoyed the company of her son. But sometimes yearned for a bit of adult conversation. Mrs H’s name was Gilberte. Her mother whom I never met was French so something of the grand Dame who disapproved, so we gathered, of everything Gigi did. Particularly her marriage and then even more vociferously  her divorce. She liked her friends to call her Gigi hard, not like Colette heroine in the musical. Gigi had charm, perfect manners and opinions mostly less than half baked about everything on earth. Her father the legal eminence had been an expert on Lely. Opportunities for studying the great restoration portraitist must have been rare in India. But dad had apparently written several books on his brush work. At that stage in my life hardly I knew my art for my elbow. But Monica‘s father had been an art dealer so the two girls were off! Much discussion of Beth Morrissot or Victorian women novelists.

To some extent this friendship may have driven because it was a based on the attractions of opposites. Monica cannot bear to live in an untidy home. Gigi, with plenty of servants in India felt at any such preoccupation was hopelessly lower middle class. The chaos in the Jericho house was total – toys dirty laundry newspapers were in heaps on the floor. Every drawer was bursting open, every bed unmade. Mrs Jellaby would’ve been at home chez Gigi. Of course she said to me when I first looked into the place this house is too small for us. We are thinking of buying a bigger house in Polstead Road with a decent garden for the children. Sure enough soon after we’ve moved in with Mr Faulkner, the Hibberts moved into a rather similar house two streets away. And equally surely after a month or two the characteristic Hibbert chaos had engulfed the new house.

Christopher and Sabrina Hibbert began a tempestuous affair at the age of six. Rather like the prepubescent adoring the superior Estella in Dickens a sado masochistic relationship. Somewhat to my surprise they still are in touch Christmas cars at any rate.. Christopher stayed with them a couple of times when Monica was working during Meadow Players’ Cambridge weeks. The first time he went happily enough but only confess what miserable time he’d had when we suggested staying with them again. Luke (family name Beau) was younger than Christopher, but he evidently found out that Christopher was a personality who could easily be bullied. He apparently chased C all round the house and garden with what seemed to Christopher to be a lethal weapon, a large stick. And it was a huge joke in which Mrs Hibbert joined to hide his shoes in the morning so he was late for school. Nevertheless, when the situation was explained to Christopher, how was far too late to make an alternative arrangements he gritted his teeth and went off for his second week of hell without further protest ever. Needless to say perhaps we made alternative arrangements for the further Cambridge weeks. None of this seems have made any difference to Christopher‘s relationship was Sabrina and Mrs H too for that matter.

Things progressed on a fairly even keel for all three of us during our Oxford years. Some sort of decision had to be made however about Christopher‘s education. Stealthy enquiries had revealed that the 11+ pass rate from Philip and James Christopher‘s primary school were abysmally low. I’d always felt that I had rather enjoyed my time at boarding school so Christopher seemed likely to benefit from a classical education rather than technical. I wrote to the old Bancroft association. The school had I knew moved in the immediate post-war years from scholarship free place to totally free paying. Could the association help me with the fees? I egged the pudding a little by quoting my annual income for tax purposes for the years since I had started the theatre. Actors in those days were treated quite kindly by the revenue. I received a charming and very friendly reply from the president. He’d been able to look up my academic record and the colour for rugby and the cup for cricket and thought something would be done.

Belatedly I remembered a promise I had made to the splendidly bumbling priest in Perth that any children of our marriage would be brought up in the Catholic faith. Monica made no very determined efforts to persuade me either way. But we abandoned the Bancroft idea and started thinking about Catholic schools. As it happened, we had to make up our minds quite quickly. Monica had a small but noticeable part in Frank’s runaway success a “A Passage to India”. West End management were taking over prior to London tours (extensive) and the West End opening as soon as there was a theatre available. Rise in salary for her too. Hibbert came up with trumps with a solution to part of the problem. This time when Monica went on tour, Christopher was to be boarded out with a north Oxford family called Wood. They had three or four children of their own. He was lecturer in further education, she a domesticated bluestocking. Middle-class intellectuals. Very Posey Simmons. Large garden springtime gang of children’s straddling Christopher in age. It was very easy for me to pop in several times a week to see how he was getting on. We started looking at prep schools. Michael Simpson, my stage manager had been at Beaumont. He was a Catholic much more devout than Monica. He rather proved it by fathering a very large family. Shades of Tony John. His first, Martina Mary Jane, was born in Oxford and Monica stood as a godparent. On his recommendation, I went up to Banbury to visit his old prep school. It seemed a bit shambolic to me. I looked again at several establishments at Oxford. But the best seem to be day schools and as I had found out before very expensive. I even went to see the Servites, very crisp clean and efficient and had to stand a very violent attack from Mrs Wood. “Your son deserves better than that!” Eventually we settled in Penryn school near Kidderminster. One of the best decisions we ever made. Christopher was very happy there.

We thought we saw how the fees could just about be paid out of the joint salaries. However, we had not bargained for the kitting out process. My old trunk was dug out of the Gloryhole in Chelsea. And Monica, established at the Comedy Theatre for the summer, was staying with my parents. She set out for Daniel Neale’s. They were, most obliging and opened an account and it seemed limitless credit. Both Monica and I had an absolute horror of being in the red. For that matter we still have and showing our inner lower and middle class we still take some pride in never being in debt to anyone. Much to my surprise and Monica too though of course she did not know my father as well as I did, Daddy stepped in and fed the bills for nearly all the young man’s tailoring and haberdashery. I believe I have mentioned how little he ever told me about his early life. As I understand it, he was a scholarship boy from his village school, Brundle to Norwich Royal Grammar school. During his time at the latter he was constantly mocked for not having the correct bits and pieces of school uniform. Christopher must not under any circumstances have to endure this sort of thing. So off Christopher went in September, seen off to his new place of his life on the Kidderminster train from Paddington.

Birmingham

I had been headhunted. Very flattering to the ego. Most of the staff in Birmingham already knew me from “Thorn in the Flesh”, so I was not an absolutely new face to them. Production manager was a very grandiose title for the same old can carrying job. And I now had hiring and firing jurisdiction over quite a large staff. There was perhaps a little too much tradition about the way things were done in one of the earliest foundation theatres in the repertory movement. Sir Barry Jackson the theatres formidable founder was in failing health by the time I arrived and Miss Burman was trying to run the place according to his wishes. As a result of his attitude of employing honourable ladies and gentlemen as actors and staff there was no room for slave driving. Everybody had clearly to understand that they must be on their honour to present a series of plays to a very higher artistic technical standard to a discerning audience. A slave driving Martinette was probably what the staff at this theatre needed. He or she more likely (remember Gracie Dodd) might have saved a considerable amount of subsidy devising ways of using and re-using stock scenery for instance. But this person would not have stayed in the job for more than six months. On the whole the shows were pretty well presented in my time. I lasted six years.

The shows ran for four weeks. Occasionally for a play that was interesting but unlikely to do good box office the turnaround was reduced to 3 weeks but this happened very rarely. The general plan was to rehearse and prepare a new show in the three weeks before it opened. As Jack Henderson the front of house and general manager explained this meant that actors and implicitly the staff would not be expected to do much during the first week of the run. They could do a bit of housework make an appointment to see the dentist pleasure their wives and the pace of work would increase and become frantic at the change-over weekend. Jack gave me the impression that he thought that I (not he, Nancy Burman or Barry) would be doing well to change the system. I made some attempt but I was not the man Jack hoped I was. And he left his job shortly after I arrived to be succeeded by Humphrey Stanbury and I never discussed the matter with him. Theatre manages do not often see eye to eye with their creative colleagues.

I knew something of the rep’s work. While I was working at the Coventry on Netherton Saturdays, arrangements could be made for those of the companies who wished to make their way at lunchtime to the rep to see the matinee have tea with the company and be picked up by the company coach at about 5.30 and arrive at Netherton Public library, just beyond Dudley, well in time for the half. Complementary seats sometimes for 20 or so bottoms were arranged into management by Elizabeth Mills the Midlands Theatre’s secretary. In my first year at Coventry she occasionally arranged for similar visits during the Stratford season on Redditch Saturdays. I may have been quite rude about Elizabeth earlier. And she certainly could be unpleasant if you’ve got on the wrong side of her. But she was good at her job and loved theatre and its practitioners, well most of them. Those Saturdays at the rep gave me much more satisfactory pleasure than anything I saw in the West End during the summer recesses and I saw quite a lot of glossy starry exhibitions.

I saw a little of Michael Lang‘s work – “Phoenix too frequent” with Lally Bowers, “The Constant Lover” with John Neville, “The Proposal (Tea again with my old panto colleague Donald Pleasance) And rather more of the company under Douglas Seale. The Netherton Saturdays did not always coincide happily. And I was only able to see two parts of his wonderful Henry the Sixth cycle. Paul Damon‘s work under Seale was superb. One of my huge spectatorial orgasms was his entrance as Robert E Lee in “Abraham Lincoln” to say nothing of the sexual excitement he engendered with Rosalind Boxall in “Point of Departure”. Eric Porter too gave some beautiful performances. And the less well-known plays too – “The moon and the Yellow River” a Victorian melodrama Hazel Hughes; “Tartuffe”, “Uncle Vania, “Iphrygenia in Aulis and Taurus” Alice and Taurus (my old chum Nancy Jackson). I must stress that although I mentioned some individual players it was evident that one was watching a company effort. A feeling totally absent from the star crazy West End. I still (then of course, as now) remembered what Kosta Spaic achieved at Nottingham. There is a mathematical axiom that the whole total cannot possibly exceed the sum of its parts. Theatre as so often gives the lie to mere science. French actors call the characters they impersonate their roles. So occasionally do English actors. But more usually they refer to their parts. Perhaps this is because of some feeling that they know that the sum of their parts can in certain circumstances produce something much greater than the play itself. Transcendental. A rather precious self-conscious word to describe really good performances of the lightest of comedies. “Boeing Boeing” perhaps as well as the heftiest tragedy.

So okay, I was excited to go to Birmingham. I bumped into Tony John in London shortly before I left Oxford. I told him I was moving to Brum. He looked quizzical. Well, he said I suppose it still has a certain cachet. My enthusiasm was not to be daunted. Nevertheless soon after I arrived, I was to discover that the old cynic had something of a point.

I arrived in Brum in time to see the last performance of “The Cherry Orchard”. It was dominated by Erica a very strong stage personality. Unfortunately she chose to play in grand mode missing all the character’s sensitivity and vulnerability. More fortunately there were good performances as Varya and Anna  (Hillary Liddel and Susan Jameson). The men, to quote “1066 and all that” did not succeed in being memorable. Fortunately, they all showed to better purpose in “One Man’s Meat”, a very grim, piece about Salford railwaymen in which I contributed occasional clouds of smoke from passing railway trains from behind the parapet of a bridge upstairs centre. The piece was well crafted and full of salty humour. It would’ve done nicely as a couple of episodes of Coronation Street. Tommy Muschamp a senior stage manager before taking on writing and changing his sex tried several endings to his dispirited tale. We finished up with a male voice imitating the voice of God reading a verse or two of Genesis. The smoke maker in chief shuddered as the curtain fell. The actors among whom was as an old crone, Nancy Jackson, my old friend, turned in a final performance and the audience deserved a more satisfactory play.  Arthur Pentelow almost succeeded in making the southern bastard of an antihero faintly sympathetic and Bernard Kilby too was excellent. Brian Blessed growled and harrumphed to good effect too. Something could be done with this lot I thought.

The good news was that Michael Bullock had a good stage management and crew under him and after knocking the very elaborate set together he had little to do himself and departed after an immaculate first night. The awful warning was that for some reason the author’s wife had been imported into the company to play the largest and most sympathetic part. She was probably a competent enough actress. But she was not able to show us, at least in this part, the warmth and attractiveness of personality required for the lead in this sort of caper. I recently saw the film of “Love on the Dole” and there in the persona of pre-Hollywood Deborah Kerr was exactly the personality required for a heroine, working class through and through, yet a sensitive creature. It could be done but not by the lady lead in “One Man’s Meat”. The warning be very careful how I cast Monica in the future.

“Lysistrata” followed. Erica getting all the laughs (well most of them) and dominating procedures with iron control (oh Constance oh my Cummings long ago). the set was charming, light and fanciful. (Georgardis’s had been strong and earthy). Paul Shelving who had been resident designer since 1919 showed he still could produce the goods with a deft uncluttered style.

For the next piece, a Swedish late Victorian comedy called “The Family First” typically culled by Sir Barry on a continental tour, a guest director was engaged. Jack Henderson sought me out and apologised, presumably on Nancy Burman’s behalf that it hadn’t been offered to me. I said that I hadn’t found my feet with the side of the job and therefore wouldn’t have been happy to attempt at any rate at short notice. In the event the director proved to be the least competent I ever worked with before or since. It was no wonder that Brian Blessed still in his early 20s was not quite convincing as a 50-year-old Pater Familas. There was good work from a charming willowy girl called Marigold Sharman, (Why in Zeus’s name had she not been cast as Lysistrata?) but she left in the summer break which followed this play. And married Mark Kingston who also left the company. I never heard of her doing any stage work again.

Under Barry and Nancy the staff were treated as any decent workforce should be. We were employed for 52 weeks of the year. The actors were treated however as all too replaceable casual labourers. Birmingham engaged actors strictly according to the Equity’s standard contract as indeed they were in all other companies I’ve ever worked with. In retirement I have reached the conclusion that where a theatre is in receipt of subsidy, government or local, a generous proportion of such money is should be spent on actors’ salaries. I was artistic director at Colchester from late 1966 until early 1984. Look said David Forder my amiable boss throughout the period, we’re coming to the end of the financial year. We haven’t money to do any large cast plays. Small cast and good box office please, we may be able to spread our wings a bit for the autumn season. No question at Colchester as indeed at Birmingham of laying off staff. It was always the actors who bore the brunt of the inevitable economies.

We opened this particular season with a clutch of new plays. Simpson’s “One way Pendulum” was sandwiched between “The Bastard Country”, a melodrama from the Australian outback and “Strange to Relate”, an absurdist peace from Canada. Of these only the Simpson did average business. I was delighted to be offered “Hobson’s Choice” as my first production at the rep. The company were relieved after much experimentation to slip into the comfort of a well tried classic. Erica, who had a deserved triumph as Mrs Groom Kirkby in Pendulum left no one in any doubt that she thought she ought to play Maggie Hobson. And undoubtedly at least she would’ve supplied an effective comedienne’s performance. But I wanted my Maggie to show a capacity for tenderness in the last scenes. Erica, I thought would have got all the laughs, ploughing like some indestructible battleship and miss the heart of Brighouse’s beautiful play. Maggie the strong business woman gains every bit as much from marriage to the talented but clueless Willy. Bernard saw exactly what I meant and we cast Hillary Liddell who was fine. She might well have been better still if she had not been affected as who would not have been by the elaborate display of sulks that Erica revealed every time we rehearsed her short scene as Mrs. Hepworth.

Fortunately for us all Bernard Kilby gave a masterly performance as Willie Mossop. What a loss he was to the profession. He left us soon after my first Christmas at Birmingham. His last Birmingham performance was as an ice cool Octavius in Anthony and Cleopatra (Erica enough said) he went down the road to the Belgrade Coventry and died absurdly young. We can’t afford to lose good actors who have no chance to reach their full potential. Anthony Steadman came across from the Alexandra Theatre Company presented us with a solid enough Anthony. One of the setting sins of the rep actors and my time at Birmingham was to look down at their colleagues at the fortnightly neighbouring theatre. And I’m convinced that Tony could’ve been better still if we at the rep had welcomed him wholeheartedly. If ever there was a play which depends on sexual chemistry between the two leads “Anthony and Cleopatra” is the prime example. Dryden called his piece, a rather better structured play, “All for love”. Our version could have been subtitled Much ado about nothing.

Sometime later when Hepton was leaving and we had to turn the dressing room, he used as his office back into its original purpose. I came across a couple of letters to him from Sir Barry. I am not proud of having read them and I only mentioned my shameful, Paul Pry performance because the contents were interesting. The first one was about the interval length break before the last act of “Cherry Orchard”. Barry made it clear that this was a large mistake in his opinion. He mentioned that Bernard must take care not to repeat this mistake in subsequent productions of which I hope there will be many. The other letter was sent during the rehearsal period for “Anthony and Cleopatra”. He suggested that Bernard should restrain all the lighting to about three-quarter power during the opening speeches and that on Cleo’s entrance that only on Cleo’s entrance the dimmers be slammed up to full. It was Sir Barry‘s habit even in these days of his failing health to see the current play at a matinee usually in the first week after the show opened. He sought me out before “Hobson” went into rehearsal and we talked over a cup of tea. “It’s been a favourite of mine,” he said. “Me too,” I replied. “Oh good!” he said with much warmth such humanity. We mentioned the casting.  “Entirely up to you,” he said. “You’ve had a chance to look at the company. Paul Shelving is doing the set I believe.” I said something about being honoured to be working with a designer whose work I’d often admired from the front.

“Please don’t take this as an instruction,” he said, “but in my opinion the play works best in two settings the shop and the basement. Brighouse suggests act three should be played in Hobsons parlour. I think it works better if we go back to the shop. We can then see how rundown it has become since Maggie left and we can see Willie, the successful businessman is planning changes which will, more than set it on its feet again.” Of course he was right.

In a different conversation at about the same time perhaps it was shortly after “Hobson” opened he said, “You and I, David, have always to remember that we are servants to an art.” The stress is important. “First comes to playwright then the actors they have the right to bask in any applause for the play in question. Managers, directors, (let alone I thought stage managers) should not seek to build a personality cult.” I mentioned this about Sir Barry to show that in my opinion he was a first rate man of the theatre. I found it irksome quite a short time after his death to hear actors and God help us directors rather denigrating his work. They were quite wrong to think of him as a dilettante with more money than common sense happy to squander several fortunes to satisfy his own creative whims.

Too busy (grindingly so, more than in Coventry or Oxford, trying to do a decent technical job now too close to the grindstone to realise that at the time I now see clearly that this great galleon of theatrical state with its load of splendid past achievements was adrift. There was plenty of talent and strength among the oarsmen. But in Sir Barry’s absence who was to steer it?

Rudderless

Nancy Burman on whose shoulders Sir Barry’s mantle had been falling for a year or so now felt the full weight of the responsibility. She was a warm hearted generous and honourable woman. She had spent her life as she was fond of saying doing the chores for the great man. A good definition of what a good stage manager does. Jack Henderson had told me that she did not want the responsibility of being the helmsman of a great ocean-going ship. She was looking forward longingly towards retirement. If not her then who?

She lost no time in making it clear that it should not be Bernard Hepton, the current director of productions who had succeeded Douglas Seale in 1958, a very hard act to follow. She was probably right about Bernard. He was a wonderful character actor. Plenty of stage presence. The audience would listen to Bernard whatever part he was playing. But he lacked the charisma to be a heroic leading man. I believe he moved into direction because as an actor he had quite frequently found himself at odds with his director. Why do directors always interfere? Just let the actors get on with it. He told me once he thought the director’s job was to start things off. Then he could relax and let the actors work away ploughing their respective furrows. And the director would come into his own at the end and smooth out any problems. During my time at Birmingham, to my mind, he always left it far too late to make a meaningful directorial effect. Particularly with major productions like the Shakespeare when technical problems had to have priority over performances. Not that he was in anyway an incompetent director – like the fellow who had made such a mess of the Swedish play. The plays were mounted adequately enough. They just lacked edge and sparkle.

I believe Nancy had decided to replace Bernard with John Harrison during if not even before John‘s first production at the rep directing “She stoops to conquer”. The decision which followed this may have been right. However, the way she handled the change was disastrous. If it were done when tis done, it were well it were done quickly. I believe Bernard sent something in the wind directly Sir Barry did. But Nancy did not give him notice until he was in rehearsal for “The love of four Colonels”, so that he embarked on his last program of plays with a definitive notice to quit hanging over his head. Not the best way perhaps to get good work out of your director of productions.

John Harrison was guest directing two further plays that autumn a short Anouilh trifle called “Traveller without baggage” and “The Way of the World”. I had finished the previous season by co-directing with Hepton “A Man of all Seasons”, taking full responsibility for Wesker’s “Roots”. Bernard had himself played Thomas Moore in the first of these and was excellent. Truly superb. It was however rather inhibiting for me to feel all through the design plans and the whole rehearsal period that he had an ultimate override on any of my ideas. In fact this was an anxiety entirely of my own making. He never made any suggestions at all but was a model leading man willing to try anything I suggested. In the event the show went well largely due to Bernard‘s beautiful performance. I have no hesitation in saying that when I directed to play again some 10 years later with a sound actor and excellent company support, the production gelled even more satisfactory. “Roots” was my baby from beginning to end. Two brilliant juveniles had joined the company the previous autumn. The boy was Derek Jacobi. Enough said. Except that in “Roots”, he revealed a remarkable talent as a character actor effortlessly and wonderfully accurately suggesting a 40-year-old agricultural worker. Any young actor will tell you 40 is the most difficult age to get right. There are plenty who can make a good job of old age. And quite a few who can be convincing with the weight pomposity of a man in his 50s but 40? Very few can be convincing. Derek could and did. He took the trouble to make up his hands, great hairy big hands with chunky bruised and stiff fingers. It is a comparatively small part but Derek took the trouble to get it exactly right. There was solid work from the rest of the company. I drew heavily on my Norfolk antecedents in particular the rhythms of speech that I remembered from my aunts, so different from the vaguely west country as favoured by most actors in rustic parts.

But coming into her own as a major actress was Rosemary Leach, as Beatie Bryant. The part had been played in London by Joan Plowright giving the most brilliant performance of the decade. I had had no opportunity to see it. Which was just as well in the long run. Memories of a brilliant performance can be a hindrance rather than a help. Every production even of well-worn classics needs to be a fresh voyage of discovery if it is to succeed. I think it likely that Rosie Leach had not seen Plowright. In any case she rose to great heights of drama in the big final scene when she finally harangued her family in her own voice instead of regurgitating “what Ronnie says”. Ronnie,l remember was her boyfriend, expected to meet her family at weekends. Ronnie like Godot never comes. “She rose to a great height”, I wrote just now. I have only very rarely felt the orgiastic tingle of great theatrical excitement when watching one of my own productions. But as Rosie climbed first onto a chair and then onto the table I certainly felt it then and I am fairly sure the audience did too.

In spite of these two successes I started that autumn season with no prospect of directing again for the rep. I consoled myself with the thought that I was not much drawn to the Anouilh anyway and I’d been terrified out of my life if anybody has suggested that I was the man to make a crisp accessible show out of “The way of the world”. Of course I could see this was the work of the wittiest playwright ever until perhaps Wilde but the plot? To put it crudely: who, before the curtain rises, had had whom? The audience at Birmingham were still trying to get it straight during the interval. I know because I heard all of them arguing about it in the coffee bar. School fees however, had to be paid and I was not unhappy to busy myself exclusively on production managing. Once again I was fortunate enough in having a first rate second in command John Waugh. I have no hesitation in saying he was a better stage engineer than I was. He gave me as director trouble-free technical changeovers for “Man for all seasons” – grid packed with flying elements and “Roots” – three hefty interior settings stuffed with props. He had a clear head for managing time and manpower. When I was not directing, he could sometimes be something of an irritant. Theatre directors and designers have a habit of demanding the impossible from their crews. John sometimes saved me from disaster by saying point blank:” impossible!” My raison d’etre was to get inside directors’ heads pick their brains. And it was my job if some hair brain scheme was in fact impossible to rack my brains to suggest alternatives. John had a little patience with such an approach. He left Birmingham to go to the Belgrade Coventry about halfway through my six years at Birmingham. He married Rosie Leach – lucky man. As with so many theatrical alliances their different career paths tore them asunder. But I hope that I believe they were happy if only for a short time.

After John had been at the Belgrade for a month or two, I had a phone call from him. He thought there might be a vacancy for a director of productions soon. Would I be interested in taking over? I was astonished and said so. I had always thought he lacked respect for me. He said. There are better theatre theatrical technicians but I have tremendous respect and faith even you in you as a director. He went on to explain that he and some other employees at the Belgrade were worried that the board of directors might offer the post without advertising it to the young university graduate who had been a trainee director with the company for a few months. John was scathing about his lack of experience. “Arse and elbow” figured in John’s description. I replied that of course I’d be interested if I thought the job would be advertised when it felt vacant through the usual arts council panels. I have no more of this palace revolution. I never heard from John again. The beardless boy who indeed took over as artistic director at the Belgrade was in fact Trevor Nunn.

Whatever Miss Burman thoughts of Bernard Hepton‘s directorial talents, she had the highest regard for him as an actor. And she encouraged him in his farewell season to show himself off. “Krap’s last tape” was done as a sort of curtain raiser to “Traveller without luggage”. The brilliance of the former quite eclipsed the latter. Bernard declared right from the start that he needed no help from anybody else. He would do the piece in a black surround, a simple kitchen table and a chair and a tape recorder. No set no dressing apart from a certain amount of clutter on the table which he would undertake to supply himself. He need a pop gun in the stage right wings with which he would make the required sound effect of a cork coming out of a bottle. He then shut himself up for three weeks in the dressing room he used as an office. I offered him an ASM full-time to act as prompter. I knew from bitter experience that he tended to be shaky when it came to learning the lines. He had dried stone dead in the trial scene in the first night of man for all seasons brilliantly rescued by Stephen McDonald as Cromwell. “No thanks,” said Bernard. “All I’ll need is the exclusive use of the company’s tape recorder”. Later during the rehearsal period I suggested we ought to make a standby tape in case he pressed fast forward instead of play or stop. “I won’t press the wrong button,” he said coolly. Such a mistake, he implied, might be made by stage or even production managers but not by a competent actor. In the event he gave a performance of such variation – clown to philosopher, knockabout comedy through Chekhovian melancholy to stark nihilistic tragedy – so masterly that I cannot believe that even the wonderful Jack McGowan could’ve bettered it. I remarked earlier that I did not think Bernard had much to teach me about direction. With this brilliant performance he rammed home the vital point. The actor if he is good enough has the power to deliver great theatre. Even the best directors can do no more than serve the actor.

Bernard also at Nancy’s instigation played Mirabel in Harrison‘s guest production of “The way of the world”. His performance was far from bad. It was precise and beautifully phrased and more importantly he timed a lot of the witty lines perfectly, getting his reward and laughs. But Bernard was basically a character actor, not a leading man, lacking the good looks, the sexual charisma the part demands. As a parenthesis, one might add that Nancy Jackson who was Bernard‘s wife and therefore also, it was presumed, giving her last performance in Birmingham gave a scintillating performance as Millmont.

Bernard‘s last two productions at the rep were lamentable. He wrote a musical called Mr. Universe. It was a sendup of the ancient Greek gods and goddesses a strain which had been worked to death by the French. It was shallow and hastily written. It had promising music and lyrics by a member of the company, Norman Bennett who as John Benedetti was senior tutor later for many years at the Rose Bruford school. For Christmas somebody, possibly Nancy, decided it would be a good idea to revive “Beauty and the Beast”,  a delicately camp working of the fairytale by Nicholas Stewart Gray. Finley Jim had kept his designs from 10 years previously and we technicians lovingly created them. They looked strangely tired. And I felt the audience had moved on. They were no longer quite so tolerant of short scenes with the house tabs dropping in for two minutes of irrelevant music between them. The especially engaged young actress who had to try to hold the whole thing together as Beauty was not up to the job.

Anecdote: The night of the three beasts

John Carlin, a leading actor in Bernard‘s company, was popular with audiences in comedy roles, particularly where he spoke directly to the audience. He had been fine for instance as the common man in “Man for all seasons” and he had provided a glimmer or two of fun in as Homer in the Bennet/Hepton musical. There was no part for him in “Beauty” so the company kept him on throughout the long Christmas run. He undertook to learn the Beast and Beauty‘s dad and standby as understudy. He had played Tony Lumpkin in John Harrison‘s guest production of “She stoops”. Plenty of laughs perhaps a bit out-front and unsubtle. In any case, he had been in the company for three years and it was clear to him that Harrison would not have much to offer him when he took over after the long Christmas run. I checked with the management and made an arrangement with John that he was to look in at the half to check that both Stephen McDonald and Derek Jacobi were fit and well. He may not be confined to dressing room for the whole of every of every matinee and evening performance. This is the only time in my experience in any Rep theatre that I had to deal with an understudy at all.

That winter there was a flu scare in Birmingham. Shortly after “Beauty” opened Nancy arranged for a doctor to call and the whole company and stage management were vaccinated. A couple of days later John nodded in at the half and was allowed to vanish again. Jacobi played one scene of the Beast, exited as usual to stage right prop-room and collapsed in a dead faint. Pandemonium! Carlin had vanished into the night. Could anyone read it? There was no other male on the staff with any acting experience at all. I said I would read the part as long as an announcement was made to the audience; for it was a choice: me or money back. I don’t think anybody asked for the cash.

I squeezed into Derek‘s costume and secreted scripts at various parts of the set as well as one I was carrying in my hand. Up went the curtain and I was on. I soon discovered that the beast mask, more of a false head, really had holes out of which could only see straight ahead. I simply could not see to the side or upwards or downwards. I could find nowhere to hold my script I would have to wing it – panic! I imitated as far as I could the splendid beast voice Derek had developed fluctuating between a sultry purr and a full blooded roar. Fortunately, most of the scene was a duologue with the Beast’s little dragon whom he kept as a pet. This was played by the brilliant Rosemary Leach. I turned my back to the audience growled a bit and beckoned her to me. “Can’t read the script,” I whispered and made my way to the table and sat down stage centre where another script was planted leaning against a wine flagon and Rosie somehow got me through the scene. A 10 minute interval followed. Mercifully the first face I saw in the wings was John Carlin. He was looking tight lipped and white around the gills. I never before or since have been more pleased to see anyone so much. John climbed into the costume and the mask and away we went again no further announcement was made.

John, the complete professional, was word perfect and raffled through the rest of the play at a decent pace. Of course he only had the haziest idea of the moves which badly threw some of the rest of the cast who gave very fluffy performances. All sailed along quite happily until the last scene when the beast lying on a sofa and temporarily masked by the other actors ditched the mask and sat up as the handsome prince. Probably there had been sufficient differences in the voices for the audiences to have realised what had happened. Where Derek could without difficulty suggest classic male good looks, John, though by no means ugly had a chubby good humoured cherubic features, a comedian’s face and John was a local favourite. A huge laugh was followed by a round of applause and further laughter, every time he opened his mouth until curtain down. Stuart Gray’s delicate romantic ending disappeared into outrageous farce. Derek of course was fighting fit the next day and was able to complete the run.

A new broom?

After the Christmas show, the rep had fallen into the habit of doing a Shakespeare. John Harrison decided to begin his reign as director of productions with “The Tempest”. As a young actor John had been a great friend of Paul Schofield and he had kept in close touch ever since. The rumour spread around the company that Schofield who had been a star at the rep under Peter Brook’s direction in the years immediately following the war was going to return to play Prospero. In the event John gave the part to Ralph Nossek, an excellent character actor, who had worked with John and television. Ralph did stalwart work in supporting parts in the couple of years he spent with the company. Perhaps he had done too much small screen work and found it difficult to rediscover his stage legs. But he did not generate that tingly excitement needed for one of the great theatrical parts. Hamlet is another such part so is Macbeth. If the leading player hasn’t got the elusive quality, the audience are in for a rather dull evening. Whatever the brilliance of the director’s coups de theatre.

John had it seemed done a fairly successful “Tempest” at Nottingham a few years back and could not understand why it seemed so difficult to repeat it. There was of course another factor. He elected to play the whole thing in a sandpit. This slowed down the actors’ movements. They could not move quickly. Like the ploughman they ploughed their wary ways. Freshly raked as it had to be at each interval the ton and a half of sound looked very handsome as it had to. The steep rake of the auditorium at the rep made the stage flooring a most important part of the decor. The fine sand somehow got everywhere. We were finding pockets of the cursed stuff in odd corners for many months afterwards.

John Whiting‘s play “Saints Day” followed. Once again, Schofield had been rumoured as the leading man but Godot-like he did not materialise. The leading part went to Arthur Pentelow. There was clearly much very fine writing in the piece. There was much talk in those days of theatre of the absurd to say nothing of theatre of cruelty. Years later John Harrison told me he had offered the lead female part to Coral Brown. She returned the script with a succinct message. “Can’t understand a bloody word”. I fear that her opinion was repeated by the larger part of the audience. Theatre of the obscure, perhaps?

So John‘s reign as director of productions did not begin auspiciously. Only now looking back on my life t I realise that first impressions of play can prove to be right. I have seen the Tempest several times including a great production at Stratford in the 1950s, a very elaborate London decor and a marvellous Ariel from Alan Badiel, trapped at one stage in several gauze drop curtains. But my first acquaintance with the play was when I tried to read it at the age of seven or eight. My conclusions are set down in the opening page of these memoirs.

John Harrison was actually a much better craftsman than his first two artistically directorial efforts might suggest. He had a great feel for the English language of every period his best work at the rep spanned from Marlow – “Edward the Second” to Pinter’s “The lover”. Sometimes there was more of that elusive quality style; than there was of sheer raw theatrical excitement. But when (as with “Troilus and Cressida” and “Edward the second” he got the playwright, it could be very exciting indeed. After my unhappy year under him at Nottingham, I was initially alarmed and depressed at his appointment. And sure enough he made it clear to me that he could not offer me any main house productions in his projected program of plays. However, he did suggest that I might care to get some lunchtime theatre going. As it happened, there were only a few major parts in “Saints Day” and the bulk of the company were only used as a bolshie bunch of villages invading the citadel in the last act. So I could immediately call on three top actors, Prospero, Ariel and Juno to rehearse Ionesco’s “The Lesson”. As it happened, I had suffered a minor injury on my leg during the changeover from “Beauty” to “Tempest”. I was not able to stand for about three weeks which meant “The lesson” was largely rehearsed in our Handsworth flat. Monica was Juno. This was very reminiscent of what happened at Oxford with the same play. The play was a happy choice; the actors were well cast and took to it like ducks to water. It was a success. Most of all with John Harrison. He recognise some signs of directorial talent and from that moment on he stood by me through thick and thin. We had an excellent working relationship, trusting one another as true professional colleagues with mutual respect for each other’s work. In general I did the gritty plays and John did the pretty ones. I did 14 major house productions in my six years at the rep and at least four lunchtimes. Where they were successful, I was of course happy to bask in any kudos which was going but directors should always remember how much they depend on their actors, the ones whose is very trade means those who do it. I have to pay a heartfelt tribute to Ralph Nossek, Leslie Nunnelly and Monica for doing such terrific work for Ionesco and me in “The lesson”.  They did us both proud.

Arthur Pentelow was a solid reliable actor who gave many fine performances. He was however, a very bad first-nighter. All good actors are as terror struck at the initial performance as indeed actors of any sort. But some of them respond well to the adrenaline of fear some even need it to function at all. Arthur tended on a first night to play for safety to retreat into himself and to lose rhythm and pace. He had been shaky as Hobson. But only on the first night his first performance as Willie and Henry the eighth was dull, though in rehearsal and in all subsequent performances he cut a truly great tragic figure. He played Wolsey, the butcher’s boy who rose the great political heights, was hated by the landed ruling class and fell dizzyingly from power when the king lost faith in him. In “The Keep” my first main house production under Harrison‘s regime, Arthur played a blinder from the moment the curtain went up on the first night Gwyn Thomas’s exuberant post-depression South Wales comedy went like a bomb from start to finish. The cast knit together beautifully with Arthur setting the pace as Conn the most successful of the five sons who still live in their fathers house with their widower father and their 35-Ish sister as a housekeeper William Ingram whose debut this was at the rep. Oscar scored a lot of laughs as the rueful youngest son Oz.

John’s first season of plays was “Tempest”, “Saints Day”,  “The Rivals”, guest directed by Toby Robertson (nice to work again with an old chum) “Duel of Angels” Giradoux/Fry Fry and “Walker London” a trifle by Barrie turned into a mild musical. It is possible that this was an attempt by John and Nancy to follow Sir Barry’s principle of keeping alive the classic comedies of English literature. But the new was the new English writing spearheaded by the Royal court and was completely ignored. I was to some extent the beneficiary of an attempt to rectify this mistake. An audience far younger than usual was waiting for plays such as “The Keep” and “Look back in anger”. “The Keep” was an instant success. John followed it with a stylish production of Shaw’s “Getting Married” good fun if not exactly uproarious. He had plans to follow it with “Luther”, John Osborne‘s massive period piece in which Albert Finney a past Birmingham alumni had achieved great success in London. Unfortunately the provincial rights were were unavailable (a number one tour perhaps or maybe a film). So I was offered “Look back in Anger”. The cast was magnificent. Jacobi relished the beautifully cadenced tirade of Jimmy Porter. Jennifer Hillary was ideal as his punch-bag wife. The pair were beginning to play together by now like long established theatrical team. Bill Ingram never put a foot wrong as Jimmy‘s essential male companion and Leslie Nunnelly was crisp, cool and efficient as the well-meaning girl who tries to straighten Jimmy out. It would be childish of me not to mention how well Ralph Nossek played the contrasting character Alison‘s upper-crust father Says much for such an iconic classically savage writer as Osborne that he is able to summon sympathy for a character who one would suppose he regards as the enemy. This is also shown in a play of his I thought seriously about inflicting on Colchester “West of Suez”.

John did a very pretty production of an 18th century rarity “The Double Deceit” very much the sort of thing Sir Barry would have approved of. A veteran actress Eileen Belden who had as a guest performer added style and zest to various period pieces (“Way of the world”, “The rivals” gave a stunning performance. The Guardian critic: “a mixture of Mrs Malaprop and Lady Catherine de Berg”. My “Look back” quartet of juveniles did good work and so did a newcomer to the company Sheila Gash/Gish (I cannot remember when she changed her name). She played a maid servant with energy and aplomb and was one of a couple of girls who played all sorts of other odds and ends of small parts for about a year. Both were good fun and excellent company members. I regret now that Sheila never had a decent part in one of my productions. In a later career she developed great power Particularly in Tennessee Williams. I did try to persuade Ronald who was to guest-direct James Saunders’ “Next time I’ll sing to you”, to use her as the only female voice in the play. To no avail. Ron cast the other bit player who turned out to be very good indeed.

The other bits player was in fact no less actress than Julie Christie. She had several films under her belt, including the fabulous “Billy Liar” before she decided she needed a year’s stage work in a good rep to develop her technique. She began with two straight juvenile roles Alithea in “The Country Wife” and the farceur’s fiancee in “Thark”. In neither of them did she do anything remarkable. She moved well and generally stood around looking statically beautiful which is all one has the right to expect from a young premiere. She disappeared into the scrum of minor characters in “Good woman of Szechwan” and in Colombe she had I think two short lines, (yes madam and no madam) in attendance on the great French actress (Eileen Beldon in fine form again). In the Saunders although still playing a younger woman under Ron astute direction, she had the part of a character actress, acquiring (much helped by Gish who was a Warwickshire girl) an excellent Birmingham accent. She also did excellent work in a lightweight review “Between These Walls” written by David Lodge Malcolm Bradbury and Jim Duckett, all of whom at the time had a connection with the literature department at Birmingham University. Julie a star of the greatest magnitude was an ideal company member always one of the gang which is more than could be said of some of the stage actors I had the privilege of working with at Oxford.

Ronald was the best English director I ever worked for. I say English remembering my enthusiasm for the work of Kosta Spaic but it is possible that Kosta’s lack of fluency in the English language made the actors in compensation doubly receptive to his ideas. Eyre had been a school teacher so had Harrison and had directed a dozen TV shows “Shakespeare for schools”. Harrison has seen one of these and was very impressed indeed. He had also had a crazy idea. The rep had mounted every Shakespeare play (some several times) except “Henry the eighth”, Troilus and Cressida” and “Titus Andronicus”. We would present all three of these in repertoire for an extended Shakespeare’s season. He offered me “Henry the eighth” engaged Ron to direct Titus and planned to do Troilus himself.

If I had not been keen to direct a Shakespeare, any Shakespeare, even the least exciting of his historical plays, I think I would’ve resigned rather than tackle the technical difficulties. There was hardly any wing space at all on the stage and only a few feet on stage right. For some Christmas extravaganza and Anthony and Cleo we had borrowed a revolving stage from the Belgrade. But three heavy shows in one tiny stage at once? But Harrison had the ear of Nancy Burman. I warned her that the staff overtime bill would be loaded and that the rep designers were firmly told that they would have to bear all those shows in mind before they set pen to paper. Unfortunately for this rather minimalist approach, Harrison announced that he was engaging Voytek his designer from Nottingham to do costumes and sets for “Troilus”. Of course I remembered Voytek all too vividly – brilliant original totally unpredictable and obstinate once he had an idea firmly fixed in his head. We three directors did not often hold meetings to discuss the triple dose of Shakespeare we were to inflict on the Birmingham audience. I remember Ron saying once however when we were discussing casting. Troilus is such a wonderful play but even a mediocre production could be dramatically interesting; a poor production of Henry the eighth could be monotonous and dull. But I warn you a bad presentation of Titus would be ludicrous. An absurd hoot from beginning to end. In the event Henry was quite a success once Arthur Pentelow as Wolsey got over his first night nerves. Derek Jacobi built on his work in “Man for all seasons” when he had played the young king. He aged convincingly throughout the performance and brought an edge of danger into every one of his scenes. Georgine Anderson was fine as the tragic Spanish queen who lost the love of her husband when she could not give him a son. The notices had not been too bad the day after the first night. But we all got a huge boost when Bernard Levin attended a matinee performance early in the run and gave us a rave in the next day’s Daily Express. “Amongst the finest productions of any Shakespeare’s histories I have ever seen.”

John Harrison was like the girl with the curl when he was good. He was very very good and had a hugely deserved success as well. Voytek produced some brutalist expressionist designs and wartime costumes from pretty well every period in history. Stars for Harrison. Jan Kott’s book, “Shakespeare our Contemporary” was just coming out. He would’ve thoroughly approved. John made old William totally acceptable to the 60s generation.

Ron’s production of Titus Andronicus was strongly dramatic, never funny – although “enter messenger with two heads of a hand” did cause a slight titter. But only on the first night. An adjustment to the timing and the lighting put that right till the end of the run. Under direction the company knit together into more of a unified organism than it had yet seen in Birmingham. Desmond Gill who done a year solid work in supporting parts got his big chance here. As Titus he was believable noble varied, all good qualities but this is a part for a truly great actor.

For my next assignment John Mortimer’s “Two stars for Comfort”. I was able to persuade the management that we needed to import a leading man. Have anyone you like, said John Harrison. I’ll make sure it’s okay by the management. He named a salary. For the first time in my life, I felt like a real director with the power to hire and fire actors. It was a terrifying responsibility. I began of course by aiming ludicrously high, but then I remembered Sebastian Shaw who had graced the Oxford company in the Meadow players. He was ideally cast, still good looking although a bit worn at the seams. He’d been a highly successful juvenile leading man in the West End and Gainsborough films before the war and he still had a touch of the matinee Idol about him. He was smashing. Desmond Gill and Arthur Pentelow contributed a couple of neat character studies and Georgine Anderson was very touching as the wife of a serial philander. I think we did it quite well but the play had little to offer except a sort of nostalgia. “Voyage around my father” worked the same way but had a stronger plot.

John Harrison followed this with a very decent production of “The Country Wife” with the beautifully judged performance by Linda Gardiner in the title role. She was a very talented actress indeed as a comedienne, immaculate timing and great juvenile freshness. John had cast her as Alice in the previous Christmas show. Linda had a rich mezzo voice and was ballet school trained and she had sustained the very heavy leading part very well. Unfortunately this meant passing over the claims of Jennifer Hillary who had long blonde hair of the Tenniel illustrations and could easily look even younger than Linda and was ravishingly beautiful. Linda‘s personality of course more than made up for this lack of classical good looks. Of course John had Cressida up his sleeve and Jenny was very touching indeed in the Shakespeare. But she had set her heart on playing Alice and left immediately after the Shakespeare which was a pity. I could’ve done with her stunning good looks as one of the girls Sebastian was to try to seduce into “Stars”. “Country Wife” ended the season in Birmingham and off we went on a short continental tour to Antwerp and Zürich. Full marks to Diana Dewes, sometimes a rather heavy hand at the drawing board. She produced to cut down, stylised cartoon like setting to be placed against a black surround augmented by bits and pieces dropped in from the flies. It worked a treat at Birmingham and the Schauspielhaus but it got rather lost in the fast expanses of the Royal Opera house Antwerp. The Belgian staff spoke excellent English and patronised us rotten. We were made to feel like a third rate fit-up tour. This would not have mattered except that they were inefficient. John’s production began with a blackout and there were seven straight lighting queues on the first pages of text, special spots stabbing through the darkness to pick up an individual. The Antwerp staff were particularly proud of their ultra modern switchboard. They claimed to be able to do absolutely everything with it. The last seven cues in quick succession absolutely floored them. We began our Belgian run in chaos and darkness and things only improved slightly on the second night. It was the third night before we had an approximation of the desired effect. The fly men were equally incompetent. Diana‘s cartoon style cut outs were dropped into the full view and always got a reaction from the audience sometimes even a laugh. One such moment was at the beginning of the first act in Pinchwife’s marital home. In half-light the couple were pushed on by shadowy figures, snuggly tucked up in the marital bed, nightcaps, bed socks, the lot. At the same time two chubby cut out cherubs were flown in to hover above the bed. It had taken some time to get the timing right at the tech rehearsal in Birmingham but every night we got a laugh and a round of applause. Smooth work by the flymen and electricians. We had no counterweights in Birmingham. In Antwerp every set of lines was fully counterweighted. Not once in Antwerp did they manage to repeat Birmingham’s smoothness. Indeed halfway through the run they completely lost their lead. The Cupids descended quite fast, then instead of stopping about 7 feet above the stage they continue to descend until the unlucky Cupids landed with a crash on the stage floor. I would not have minded so much if these an impacts upset the Opera house staff. But nothing in our entire week disturbed their ghastly unflappable froideur.

It was a different story in Zürich. I’d been there before with Frank Hauser’s “Dream”. Nobody spoke very much English but the welcome was warm and tangible – two subsidised provincial theatre companies we might be foreign but we were their brothers and sisters. The theatre was lavishly staffed. Wardrobe staff unpacked the costumes and ironed them thoroughly. Colours and cuffs were washed and dried. Wigs were re-dressed. Before the run through on the afternoon we opened, the electricians asked to see the prompt script of the tricky first page and handled the difficulties splendidly first time. The flymen understood immediately the importance of their timing. We had a happy week – technically at any rate we had a very happy week in Zürich.

A happy week performance-wise perhaps and certainly technically. Morale in the company however was at a lowish level. Linda Gardner was a brilliant comedienne raise a sharp timing in the appearances and enough personality to fill any theatre. It was no wonder that John Harrison fell in love with her. They made valiant efforts to keep the affair a secret but of course every working member of the company knew what was going on. Unfortunately, John over favoured her occasionally when it came to casting. I’m sure that Jennifer Hillary knew of the affair when she was passed over as Alice. The playlist for the next season was now fairly common knowledge and Georgina Anderson asked John during the tour who was to play the good woman of Szechuan. She was not altogether surprised to learn that the part was going to go to Linda and promptly handed in her notice. Television was by this time in the 60s offering much better pay to good actors than a season in provincial rep.

To lose one major actress in the course of a season was bad enough to lose two was perhaps criminal. In the event Linda gave the only performance in all the time she was at the rep which was below the standard of excellence. She managed a degree of winsome pathos as the prostitute with the heart of gold but could not find the hard edge necessary for the other half of the character, the hard supposed brother who ran the factories that paid starvation wages.

Actors were engaged at Birmingham on “play-as-cast contracts. On the Friday before a new play opened just as actors and staff were working their most feverishly towards the first night. The cast list would go up on the company noticeboard for the play that was to go into rehearsal the following week. And every month (we were basically paid weekly remember) on that Friday several hearts among  the permanent company were broken sometimes quite seriously to the detriment of performances in the last couple of days of their run of a play. All the thrusting young actors were desperate for a leading part in which to shine. For this reason when I was lucky enough to be running the artistic side of the theatre. I always offered actors named parts never “run of the play” contracts. This did not of course solve the problem but at least it got the inevitable disappointment over early.

Perhaps the last person in Birmingham to know of the John/Linda romance was none other than Nancy Burman. It has been suggested to me that Sir Barry had been a bit of a prude and this was reflected in his choice of plays. This was grotesquely unfair. Sir Barry was an Edwardian gentleman and so long as it was wittily done, he had no objection to sexual matters being an aspect of comedy. For instance I remember him rocking with laughter at Dudley Fitt’s outrageous giant in Lysistrata. Nancy, however, was true blue prude through and through. When “The Country Wife” tour was being planned and I was approached by two of the younger members of the company, one of each sex. They were shacked up on a sort of run-of-the-contract arrangement. Could they arrange to have a double room while on tour? I was glad to be able to say that it was quite beyond my remit to make any such arrangement; that I would speak to Nancy. I imagine she might find it a little difficult to deal with. Far from it! “Out of the question!” When I temporised, pointing up to the 60s shift in general manners she exploded. “I was brought up to believe that people should exercise more self-control.” When John and Linda came out into the open whilst we were on tour, I believe this speeded Nancy’s resignation and retirement. The other couple forced back into celibacy by Nancy’s diktat did not survive “the Country Wife” tour. The lady (sigh no more) after two and a half years in the company was not returning for the autumn season. the gentleman, a deceiver if ever, transferred his wayward affections to another accommodating lady thus ensuring his home comfort for the following season. The last act of this farce was played out at a hotel in Wimereux, midway between Boulogne and Calais. The company were very tired after the long journey from Zürich and some of us dined and wined too well before an early morning boat from Calais. The result was a great deal of shouting and screaming. Everybody seemed to be involved in the row and blows was struck. An end of term romp perhaps. The children now played musical beds. I had to apologise to the hotelier in the morning. She was decidedly unamused.

Nancy duly retired shortly after Christmas. John followed my Christmas production of “Toad of Toad Hall” (some critics would’ve preferred a panto – less wordy) with a “Midsummer Night’s Dream”. He was at pains to emphasise malignity among the immortals and cast one of our strongest actors as Oberon. There was a dark quality always in Bob Robinson‘s work and he revelled in the opportunity to expose the dark side of his personality. He did some splendid work for me not only in Birmingham but also in Colchester. I do not think he would object to my remarking that bonhomie was not exactly the main strand to his persona. Jordie who had started work for Barry as an usherette in 1914 was deeply offended and harked back to an earlier production designed by Paul Shelving where the first fairy had emerged from behind a huge toadstool. Jordie used to sell tea and buns in the stalls foyer in between matinees and evening performances. We were all very fond of her. This was the only time I ever heard her make any adverse criticism of our work.

She was not alone. Nancy Burman, the boss herself, shared Jordie’s Margaret Tarrant view of fairies. She could be heard stomping about the place uttering “Midsomer Nightmare”. John Harrison had been her blue eyed boy from just after the war when he been a young actor under Peter Brook’s direction. He had let her down both morally and artistically. She felt herself to be out of date and resigned. John now had the field to himself.

Two stars – a director and an actress

Ron Eyre was the last of the directors I sat at the feet of studying and learning. I suppose I probably learnt a few things from John Harrison too, but if so it was by a sort of osmosis learning by absorbing not study. With Ron I consciously listened and watched. He had a gift a knack one might almost say in getting actors to find the truth in a character from within themselves. As opposed to have directorial ideas imposed upon them. Under Ron company morale always took a turn for the better. Unisex plays always give rise to bitchery, particularly among men. The girls are generally more supportive of one another. I can offhand only recall doing two plays with all women casts: “Killing of Sister George” and “Top Girls”. On both occasions the atmosphere was quite sweet. Not so with Hepton’s “Naked Island” or my “Bent” at Nottingham. I have mentioned Ron‘s excellent production of Titus and the casting of Julie Christie in “Next time I’ll sing to you”. A semi absurd piece in Ron’s hands emerged strangely poetic and fascinating as well as being very funny. But Ron rose magnificently to the challenge of Brendan Behan’s “The Hostage”. Huge cast all male. Great critical and audience approval and company morale was very high. The piece was followed by John‘s abysmal “Seagull” and my very own flopperoo  of “The Beggars Opera”. Company morale can withstand one failure but two in a row?

Ron‘s last production at the rep was his chef d’ouevre, Shaw’s “Heartbreak House’. The company were going on a further continental tour with this play and Harrison‘s production of “Candida”. Shaw was already going somewhat out of fashion in the 60s. Young people then were far too intent on turning society upside down in reality to pay much attention to Shaw’s jokey pokery at the expense of rock solid Edwardian upper class society. Indeed when I some 10 years later did a fairly decent production of “Man and Superman”(just The comedy, not the infernal debate) with excellent work by David Horovitch and Gillian McCutcheon in the leads, there was no mistaking the restiveness of the younger members of the audience in the expose of the plot in act one. A few years later still my production of “Bent” at Nottingham was proceeded by Richard Digby Day’s of a Somerset Maugham. He was wrestling with much the same problem – longeurs in the opening act. Was it “Constant Wife” or “The Circle”? I cannot remember. But I do remember that Richard no slouch when it came to sparking up period comedy. He said that he’d tried every trick he could think of to keep the audience awake during act one

Not so with Ron‘s “Heartbreak House”.  Each part seemed of equal importance sparkling in solo riffs yet blending harmoniously into a whole of the two sections. Regular members of the company Derek Smith John Humphries (retained after a very decent Leontes in “Winters Tale”), John Shrapnell and Brian Tully were joined by guests David Mead and two stunning Leading Ladies, Gillian Raine and Ethne Dunne. And presiding over everything a magnificent study of senile grandeur by Edgar Wreford as Captain Shotover. I had worked with this fine actor in several plays at Oxford and he was never better than under Ron’s direction.

It was largely on the strength of this production that six months later when John Harrison gave in his notice (was he pushed? Who knows? Certainly not me) he offered the job to Ronald Eyre. He turned it down. His career was taking off. West End productions followed at a return to television. Or had he glanced at the designs for the new theatre which the new artistic director would be expected to see fairly launched? Who knows? If Ron had taken the job, I might well have considered staying on at Birmingham myself.

This paean of praise for Ron should not minimise the achievements of John Harrison. In addition to the superb “Troilus and Cressida”, I have already mentioned he did a number of period comedies. You’ve either got it or you haven’t got it: style as the Yankee songwriters put it. And John certainly had that quality. John has had some point in his early life being a teacher. Perhaps there was in some of his productions and educative schoolmasterly element. Make no mistake though. John period comedies jogged along fairly briskly. He owed much in several of them to his leading lady whose enormous raw comic energy filled the theatre every time she came on stage.

Eileen Belden had first appeared in Station Street in 1923 two years before I was born. She played big roles in Shaw’s “Back to Methuselah” and Priestley. She played Catherine in a ground-breaking modern dress production of “The Shrew”. For John, she was magnificent as a lady Wishfort, the self styled “old peeled wall” in “Way of the World”. Even if the audience never quite grasped who had been who before the play began, Eileen‘s scenes provoked enough laughter to make the evening very worthwhile. “The Double Deceit” was a very funny play in the Marivaux style by an 18th century English actor called Popple. Eileen kept it lively as the widow Letwill. The Guardian critic, rarely kind of Harrison, described her as sailing like a monstrous Golgotha through the part which contained elements of Mrs Malaprop and Lady Catherine DeBurgh. She also carried off with huge aplomb, the role of the great French actress in Anouilh’s “Colombe”. her dames could be grand enough if needed. Linda Gardiner was fine too as the sweetly ingenue  “Dove” of the main part. But for English audience is there is always the chance that Anouilh’s sour undertones will mark the comedy even in the Pieces Roses. Peter Brook notably got the balance dead right in “Irma la Douce” although he himself has confessed much later to using too much sugar. Frank too did splendidly with “Dinner with the Family” buoyed up by Jill Bennett’s gloriously fresh quality in the lead. But when Dirk Bogarde came to lead the company in “Jezebel”, there was no ingenue in the cast of characters and although admirably acted it seemed to leave a sour taste. Birmingham was a bit half hearted about “Colombe”.

Toby Robertson (nice to meet an old friend again) came to do a guest production of “The Rivals” and Eileen played Mrs Malaprop. For some curious reason Toby decided he wanted his comedian to hide her light under a bushel. He conceived Mrs. Malaprop as a dowdy downtrodden subdued spinster creature and with his designer Disney Jones costume suitably frumpishly. Eileen dutifully tried to follow her director’s instruction for the first couple of weeks of the run. And then threw off her shackles and gave full rein to her flamboyant style with the comedy. Partial eclipse of Eileen‘s comic genius was not the only thing wrong in this lacklustre production. It had been decided that the scenery -largely black and white carefully pen sketch pen sketches of Bath – would not be painted but be back projected. The whole caboodle of the projections and the lighting was handed over at enormous expense to Theatre Projects. My staff and I hugely enjoyed working under the direction of Bob Ombo. There was not enough room on stage to accommodate or direct throw from the projectors to the two diagonal screens. This did not faze Bob at all. He hired two enormously heavily plate glass mirrors and mounted them on the fly gallery each side of the stage. This was fine except when any necessary crew members walked even gently on either side of the galleries the projected pictures wobbled quite amusingly. This did not faze the TP team one iota. They set about flying these extremely heavy mirrors which entailed laboriously drilling through the main beams 2 feet in depth so that there was no contact at all with any floor on which stage hands might tread in the course of duty. It took hours. But it worked. Alas, these troubles were only just beginning. There was no way the actors could be adequately lit if they were within 2 yards of the screens which meant everyone’s positional sense was destroyed. And even with the most careful focusing the full comedy lighting had to be subdued or the projected pictures seemed drearily dim. Derek Jacobi who is our jeune premier as well as a wonderful character actor was cast as Bob Acres. He was fine. Unfortunately, this left a blank space, who was to carry the main thrust of the comedy as Captain Absolute. Desmond Gill had many excellent qualities as an actor. But sparkle was not exactly in his repertoire. I do not doubt that Eileen bought these things in mind when she got the bit between her teeth halfway through the run and played the comedy for all it was worth.

John Harrison was in charge of artistic policy at the rep for four and a half years. The half season explains by his arrival after Christmas the theatre always went dark for a few weeks in summer. It is a curious fact that he entrusted three of the four opening shows of the autumn season to me. I was too busy with my dual responsibilities to notice this at the time. Of course it was gratifying that he had faith in me. But now it seemed odd that an artistic director should not want to personally shove the boat out for a fresh start with a new season of plays. I always did it Colchester. I have mentioned “The Keep”. John himself directed the first play of the next season with “Thark”. The Walls/Lynn rapport was quite established between Colin Pinney and Bill Ingram both good comic actors and the audience rather tired of their antics in the last act. It fell for me to open his other two seasons with “All in good time” and “On approval”. The foursome in the latter played wonderfully together Anthony John, Donald Douglas (more about him later) Brian Tully and a new friend I had never I had seen in an excellent performance of the Coward play at Leicester, Paula Charles. Eileen had hesitated before accepting my offer of the bride’s mother in “All in good time”. She was Yorkshire bred and born and was not sure that she could manage the Lancashire accent. Bill Naughton, the author was a Bolton man and based his place on his hometown. My week argument that the Birmingham audiences wouldn’t know the differences although probably accurately did little to persuade her. In these days of television sitcom regional accents some Geordie Bristolian even Birmingham itself had now become familiar to every household in the land. After she had had a chance to read the play, however she was full of enthusiasm for the venture. The play was well received not a smash hit as “The Keep” had so surprisingly been but very satisfactory. It was to my mind almost entirely due to Eileen – she gave a firm rich and very performance full of subtlety.

The party she threw on the evening before rehearsal began with anything but subtle. She had married outside the theatre and her husband had now retired and they lived comfortably in the Chilterns. They spent some of the summers in a long boat they had acquired which was more on a canal near her home. She had hit on the bright idea of solving the eternal problem by bringing the long boat up to Birmingham and living for the run of the play at the Gas Street basin. She wrote to me inviting the company on this particular Sunday evening in question. She mentioned that the barge had been recently painted and was looking quite splendid but that she could not match Cleopatra burnished throne burning the water. I rang her before putting her invitation on the board. Was she prepared for a general input invitation she had counted on the cast list. She replied all the staff are welcome to. Of course I have attended many theatrical parties. They usually begin with a swing but unless there is a leit-motif they gradually go downhill and in the end the stage management always have to do the clearing up afterwards on a somewhat sour note. In Perth there was Highland dancing and when the music stopped people went home. Happily Eileen‘s barge tea party was a huge success. The barge was the theme. I remember Sheila Gish slipping off her shoes and running barefoot about the deck as though she was auditioning for Jim Hawkins, the cabin boy in the next Christmas show, but one.

A brush with a mega star.

For some reason John did not send for Eileen when he mounted Massinger’s 1640-ish comedy “The City Madam”. It may well be that she had another engagement. She was after all a guest performer not a regular member of the company. Whatever. He gave the part of the nouveau-riche merchant’s wife with more money than taste to Rosamond Greenwood. Ros was an excellent actress. She had guested and done stalwart work in the scrum of “Good Woman of Szechwan”. Perhaps John thought she deserved a crack with a bigger whip. She had an excellent West End reputation. Wringing much laughter from spinsterish 40 year-olds undercutting subtly bravura performances from leading actors. Undercutting is a term I prefer to “scene stealing” which critics often use in praise of an actor in a small to medium part. To my mind scene stealing occurs when a minor character draws attention to himself in a general scene when everybody’s attention on stage as well as off the stage should properly be focused stage centre. Ros was far too good and actress ever to be accused of that. She gave a well thought through suddenly varied performance in “The City Madam”. But the role called for the sort of splendid absurdity that was Eileen‘s speciality.

The changeover from “Midsummer’s Night Dream” to “City Madam” was perhaps the heaviest in all my time at Birmingham. It is worth noting the detail for the benefit of those of a technical frame of mind.

The setting for “The Dream” consisted of a perspex false stage some 9 inches high. Attached to it were six stout ropes painted glossy white which Finley James rather naïvely hoped might suggest a classical structure. The effect was decidedly unusual perhaps nautical. The rostrum consisted of five irregular shaped polygons and when a full fly crew of eight men pulled their guts out three of these sections could be lifted to form a vertical tree like shapes. Craftily situated strip lighting could give an eerie sub aqueous feel to the palace as Theseus and Hippolyta were in an aquarium. But erect these massive structures looked most impressive against a sky cloth – eerie and menacing. The remaining of two sections were stuck floor bound a serious impediment to any actor who wished to make a clean entrance from the wings to stage centre. A couple of years earlier John had set the Tempest on a sandpit which similarly made the actors movements heavy slow and laborious. Some directors are not actor friendly.

For “The City Madam” we again created a false stage. We used to borrow a portable revolving stage from our neighbours at the Belgrade Coventry. This consisted of eight triangular sections made of heavy-angle iron and a central pivot. Two circles of flat sheet steel an inch and a half wide had to be accurately laid on the stage floor then a stout cable was slipped into a housing on the circumference and attached to a winch. You had to get the tension just right or either the cable would slip and the revolve would remain immobile or else if it was too tight the winch would jam and no amount of muscle could shift it. Then a sectionalised wooden floor could be fitted onto the revolve and the rest of the acting area would be filled in.

It must’ve been well gone midnight before “The Dream” was struck and moved into the workshop and we had assembled the iron work of the revolve. I remember that Keith Davies was doing some intricate wiring at the pivot and that his head would appear occasionally through the trap door we had left open for inspection purposes. The winch man was very keen to try out the mechanics and I was worried he might decapitate Keith. We had done very well to get this far and I was thinking about standing down the crew for a quarter of an hour tea break before fitting the false floor and heavily restroom super structure of the City Madame state set.

I had my back to the prompt corner when I noticed that a couple of crew members were taking notice of what I was saying, but were looking at something behind me. I turned and spied strangers. Two dark suited gentlemen, one of whom (I cannot remember which) was wearing a bowler hat. I thought absurdly they might be health and safety inspectors. I was at my most crisp and authoritative. I told them we had a full night’s work ahead of us I did not welcome spectators. I turned back to resume what I had been saying to the crew but something in their faces, an expression midway between astonishment and laughter, made me turn yet again for another look at the visitors. Then of course I recognised him. One of the strangers was Sir Laurence soon to be Lord Olivier I fell to my knees and babbled a stream of apologies. The great man stared at me coldly then with complete indifference turned to his companion who I afterwards ascertained was John Dexter the director. “Look at this,” said Sir Laurence, “just what we needed at the National for Hamlet”. And he turned away from me and spoke in friendly terms to the winch man who was delighted to demonstrate the mechanics of the device.

An anecdote within an anecdote. Sir Laurence began his second regime at the old Vic now called The National with a production of “Hamlet”. On the opening night the first battlement scene went perfectly according to plan. Dim lighting. To a fanfare of trumpets the forbidding exterior wall of Elsinore castle pivoted and the full court scene was swung round into place with Claudius and Gertrude sitting at the banquet table. Alas a caster under the overloaded truck jammed. To make matters worse the music finished and a spot with full flood of warm golden light washed over the stage. The male actors including the king and prince were trying to assist assorted members of the crew to push the great boat truck into place. The queen and two attendant ladies had sensibly stood clear of the truck and brilliantly lit were awaiting events in the downstage corner. There was a second of two of complete silence and led by the king, the actors made as dignified and exit as they could in the circumstances. Embarrassed by the silence the Queen turned her back to the audience and appeared to be talking to her ladies in a group of three. Nothing the Queen appeared to be saying was audible. But with the very best of drama school elocution the waiting lady’s reply was clearly heard. “I thought the prince looked rather peaky at the funeral.”

Laurence passed a friendly words to the winch man and saying to his companion: “Let me show you where I used to dress”, exited neatly stage right. I saw Laurence once more during that week. The National production of “Uncle Vania” was on a provincial tour and was playing that week at the Alexandra Theatre. It was typical of Derek Salberg‘s generosity that as manager of the Alex he found 20 or so complementary seat seats for members of the rep company. The show was doing capacity business. It was without but doubt the best Chekov production I have ever seen. Monica had been lucky enough to see the Moscow Arts company in their Saddlers-Wells season a year or so before and she was still inclined to give their “Three sisters” the ultimate palm. I hadn’t seen the Russians. Olivier‘s super production was quite enough for me. Michael Redgrave in the title role and Joan Plowright as his torn but ever brave niece was sheer perfection. Rosemary Harris was stunningly beautiful gracious and charming as Eleanor her stepmother. Olivier himself played Astrov, the country doctor, subsiding in early-ish middle age into dull mediocrity. As a younger man he had been a fanatical conservationist, passionate about replacing the forests which had been devastated late 19th century agricultural expansion in Russia. Chekov had written an earlier play about the character, “The Wood Demon. Astrov is by no means the central character in Uncle Vania which is of course the title role beautifully played in this instance by Michael Redgrave. Eight or nine years before Astrov  had a passionate relationship with Elena and the scene in the middle act when they meet again was tense with excitement I had that tingling sensation in the base of my spine which I only felt in the presence of great theatre. This was of course the 60s. “Oh Calcutta!” would’ve been playing in London. I would wager that there was 10 times the sheer sexual excitement to be had that week in Birmingham than anywhere in London.

After the performance Monica went round for a brief word with her old colleague, Enid Lorrimer, who had played Mrs Moore in “Passage to India”. Enid had played impeccably the smallest part of Vanya‘s mother. I hesitated a bit and decided to go round and see Joan. I need not have hesitated. Joan seemed genuinely delighted to see me and we were soon deep in reminiscences and chatting away very happily when the great man came in. He repeated the chilling stare I had encountered the previous Saturday night. I stammered a word or two about how Joan had graced a couple of productions of mine a few years back and congratulated him on a superlative performance, not forgetting that he had directed the whole thing as well. He held a pause for a moment or two then a brief acknowledgement and came away from the door to stand behind Joan’s chair with his back to me. There was nothing more to be said so I went out.

Writing this 40 years later, I am conscious of a great contrast between Laurence‘s off stage persona and that of Sir John Gielgud for whom I had the pleasure of stage managing for when he came to Oxford Playhouse to give a matinee performance of his “Seven ages of Man” lecture. He must’ve already done this all over the English speaking world many hundreds of times. I was alone with him backstage except for the electrician up on his perch. He seemed to want to chat. We talked about the Playhouse program and some old colleagues of his who had recently appeared in Oxford. “And how had I found Peggy in “Good woman of Szechwan?” So we chatted on until the moment before he was due to enter. “I don’t know why I should be as nervous as I’ve done this show, I don’t know how many times but there are probably a couple of Dons in the audience and they know more about Shakespeare than I do or think they do.” I faded the intro music, took out the house lights, brought on the lighting to full and the great man was away. Nerves affect actors even great ones but in a different warp.

Meanwhile back at the ranch

With my Birmingham contract in the pipeline a general move was very much in the offing. Monica was considering whether to go to the West End with passage to India and Christopher‘s 11+ was coming up in the autumn. His headmaster said he had quite a reasonable chance, but Christopher was by no means a cert. Indeed, nobody was. And of course we had no knowledge whatsoever as to how the Birmingham education authority would react to a good pass obtained Oxford. We thought long and hard about it and boarding school seem the best option. Fees would have to be found for seven years assuming he decided to plan for university. It meant as it were mortgaging our careers and taking no risks whatsoever.

Poor Christopher aged 10 had very little say in the matter. He saw clearly that we would have to leave Oxford. He had memories of leaving Coventry for Nottingham and arriving friendless in a strange town. He was going to lose touch he thought with his Oxford friends in any case. And he accepted the decision with stoic aplomb.

I wrote to the president of the old Bancroft‘s association to see if there might be any financial help with the fees for the son of a distinguished pupil. I made much of the fact that my birthday came very early in the scholastic year that I was proud of my Colours for rugby and cap for cricket that I would certainly have been head boy in September 1943 if my birthday had not been in October rather than July 1926 as some key classmates had been. I mentioned my financial position and perhaps slightly exaggerated my plight by quoting my final figures on my tax return rather than my gross weekly salary. In those days actors were allowed quite liberal expenses for costume, make up and travelling. Rather to my surprise, I received a very positive reply. Yes, there were funds and in the circumstances he would sure we could come to some agreement. Of course the headmaster would have to be approached and it would be his ultimate decision. Monica and Christopher seemed happy enough to go along with the stream. But….

When we married in 1949 Monica had been a firmly believing catholic and before she could be married in a catholic church any Protestant bridegroom had to take instruction and promise to bring up all the children as Catholics. This weighed very heavily with me – more so perhaps than with Monica. It was also because Bancrofts was in my day and I doubted whether it had changed much. had been a firmly Protestant foundation. Daily prayers first thing every day. For borders two services every Sunday and a short Bible reading and prayer before every bedtime. There was no discrimination whatsoever against the few Catholic borders, but they had the right to exclude themselves from all the religious ceremony which made some of them rather lonely figures – oddballs – which made to my mind the principal positive argument for boarding school for only children was that they had to learn how to live cheek by Jowl with a group of other peers. Being a catholic at Bancrofts would be a huge problem for a devout boy.

So we began looking at Catholic prep and public schools. We made what proved to be an excellent choice with the former Penryn school at Chaddesly Corbett just outside Kidderminster, easily reached from Birmingham. The fees comparable with other schools.  Christopher was as happy there as he ever was in his early life. Monica departed in the spring on a prior to London provincial tour and Christopher went to stay with some friends of the Hibberts in North Oxford as a paying guest. This was also a success. Mr. And Mrs Wood had I think Christopher would agree two children of their own. They were glad of the money and they had a large enough house and garden to accommodate two or three more. I fought this idea for a time but eventually I was forced to see that a stage manager’s responsibilities and hectic hours of work simply did not allow for looking after a child. Wood was a teacher in one of the further education colleges that proliferate in North Oxford. I got the impression he did not earn very much. Certainly not what a junior lecturer at the university might pull down. Mrs Wood also I think had a degree but her main vision was that she understood children and loved them and all the children in the Wood family were literate and middle class. Christopher was already a book lover and these two children were also into Arthur Ransom in with CS Lewis and Tolkien. The woods were liberal minded liberal voting conservationists. Green we would say now. I often thought of them when some years later Posey Simmons a cartoonist for the Guardian mercilessly exposed the pretensions of an intellectual relatively impoverished middle class. So we were lucky in our solutions of two of the problems the prep school and the lodgings.

The remaining problem that of the public school was not so easy. We got sheets of prospectuses from Gabbitas and Thring. In fact Monica visited them officially of their offices when her play went finally to the Comedy Theatre in London. She reported it had changed a little since Evelyn Waugh described it in “Decline and Fall”. Downside with Abbott (soon to be Cardinal) Hume as the headmaster was very tempting but somewhat outside our financial possibilities. Even further into the exclusion zone on financial grounds were Ampleforth and Stoneyhurst. We considered Radley (Toni John had managed to educate his four sons there), but this was near Nottingham and very difficult for us both to access for a visit of inspection. Beaumont was also a possibility. This was Michael Simpson‘s old school. He had excellent manners and a gift for getting on with everybody, but the school academic reputation was not at all good. We settled on Saint Edmund’s Ware. There were three reasons for this. It was by no means the cheapest catholic boarding school but at a pinch we thought that with a bit of luck, we might just manage the fees. In my last year at Bancrofts I had played rugby against the school on their home ground and it seemed a decently run sort of place and turning out much the same sort of boy as I was. An even worse reason again connected with the muddy game was that two colleagues of mine in the Christ’s College fifteen in the spring of 44 were in fact ordained Catholic priests who were doing a short university course at the church’s expense to equip them better for the future missions. They drank much beer and swore rather more than the rest of us and in my book were generally okay. This last argument in favour of Saint Edmunds I realised even at the time should’ve carried very little weight indeed.

But the other two points were clinchers. We met and quite briefly were entertained in Oxford for a cup of tea by an undergraduate who just completed his first year. On the surface he was very well mannered, articulate and seem to know in what direction he wanted to head in his life. If the school could turn out such a good example of middle class decent young Englishman, such a good example, perhaps Christopher might also do well there. The main reason was that shortly after Monica had settled in to her London run we were able to visit the school and our reaction was very positive. We were shown around by one of the masters a priest as were nearly all the staff. He was warm, worldly and generous. He invited us into his study and plied us with generous glasses of much better sherry than we drank at home. He was very knowledgeable about the theatre and had seen a number of new wave plays “Look back in Anger” and “Roots” for example which although I did not know it at the time I was destined to direct with success at the Rep. He even told us that in his opinion Beckett was a very fine playwright and the fact that he was banned by the catholic powers was a great pity. He had of course not seen a Becket play but he confessed to having read several with great enjoyment. He showed us around the dorms and common rooms. Everything seemed well organised. We had a less cordial welcome from the headmaster a cool pernickity type who made it clear that he was the inquisitor and we were the interviewees. Nevertheless, Father Garvey (there were two brothers teaching at the school). I think one was Austin. Garvey had made a favourable impression so we were happy to sign Christopher up for autumn entry.

After a term or two it became clear, we had sentenced Christopher to 4 years hard labour in what he called Saint Edmunds prison. The masters, Father Austin Garvey among them and prefects were disciplinarians of the stern kind. Anyone straying from the path of rigid orthodoxy was savagely stamped on. It was all quite different from the easy-going Penryn. It might’ve been possible to pull Christopher out from this torture chamber, but how could we guarantee that he’d be better off elsewhere? But he himself pointed out that he was beginning to make some friendships among his fellow sufferers and he did not want to abandon them and start again.

We had enjoyed frequent visits every three weeks or so to Penryn. I used to hire a self-drive car from a Birmingham garage and we would pick Christopher up and also a friend or two and drive off towards the Clee Hills, unfenced roads and resentful looking sheep. Ludlow was a favourite place for tea or sometimes we ventured into more snobbish spa restaurants at Malvern. Richard‘s Castle was also a favourite port of call. A wonderful sense of relief to spend an afternoon and early evening away from Birmingham. Visiting Christopher at Ware was a rather more difficult thing to plan, especially after “Passage to India” closed after a nine month run. I had to wangle a Saturday evening off not always easy except when I had directed to the play. Then I would borrow my father‘s car for the Sunday and we would pick the boy or boys up before lunch on Sunday. The Hertfordshire countryside was pleasant enough but in the spring and summer. The home county roads and restaurants were crowded. Saffron Walden was at hand though and had its attractions. On one occasion we lunched well at a crowded restaurant in Thaxted, one of the east Anglian villages with picturesque cross beamed thatched houses and a church out of all proportion grander than the place warranted.

Christopher seemed to enjoy his last year at Saint Edmunds rather more than the previous ones. His A-level results were good and he could’ve gone back for a further year in the sixth form and tried seriously for a Cambridge scholarship. But even so his overriding thought was to get out of the place as soon as he could and he was very pleased to be accepted by the University of Kent at Canterbury reading history. He switched to English after his first year. He taught English as a foreign language for several years after he went down. And we took very happy summer holidays with him in Bulgaria and Norway.

And how is it you live?

The answer trickled through my head like water through a sieve. Monica had taken up residence with my parents for the duration of the London run. Christopher was staying with the Woods and I rattled around for a few weekends in our accommodation in Leckford Road. I managed to drop in for a cup of tea with Christopher and the Woods after an afternoon’s rehearsals. Several times a week this is during the runs of the last two Oxford shows “Anna Christie” and “Shrew”. I had the responsibility of packing up all our bits and pieces and putting them into storage. When I took up the Birmingham position Monica and I homed in on Oxford from different directions to see how Christopher was settling in with the Woods. We spent that night happily enough but rather uncomfortably in a small hotel in the Banbury Road.

The regular company at the rep were mostly established in do it yourself bedsitters or flatlets. These were mostly in Edgbaston and therefore expensive. In my case there was no immediate vacancy. The Alexandra Theatre however had a very efficient digs-list they kindly suggested a Mrs Glenn top of their list and very reasonable – an Edgbaston address too!

Mrs. Glenn a homely body in her 60s excellent cook nothing fancy – bed breakfast and supper. Lunch which she was very disappointed I declined to invest in was extra. She dealt mainly with variety people and was very proud and had tales to tell of the big names who had stayed with her during the 30s. The address was indeed in Edgbaston. But it was right on the edge of the enormous ward of the city. Balsall Heath is a better description. Mrs. Glenn complained loud and often about how the district had gone downhill since the war. I truly believe that Mrs Glenn was the only house in her road which if it was not a regular brothel had at least one prostitute working on the premises. As I came home from the theatre every summer night the ladies would stand in the porch way with a pink or red shaded light behind them and make soft cooling noises at everyone passing by. There were two reasons that kept me from succumbing to the nightly gauntlet of temptation. Neither was anything to do with my strictly moral upbringing. The ladies were very ill favoured indeed and the second reason was the show rehearsing immediately after I arrived was “Lysistrata” which meant that there was a superfluity of available female pulchritude in my workplace every day from 10 am until curtain down in the evening. And if I could by the skin of my teeth resist that temptation then the Balsall Heath brigade stood at no chance whatsoever.

In late September it became clear that the leading actors in “Passage to India” were not sparkling as they had originally done and the smaller parts were itching to be free to find more rewarding television work. Recasting from top to bottom was out of the question. Houses were not quite so full or fulsome as they had been. Zia Mohyeddin was due to Stratford in the spring. The play had had a good run but would come off before Christmas. I had to start looking in earnest for somewhere for us to live. Christopher will be coming home from prep school at Christmas Birmingham was a big city three or four times the size of Coventry or Nottingham let alone compact Oxford. Elizabeth Sweeting in a casual conversation before I left Oxford said Edgbaston is of course the best district. It has the university and the Barber Institute. But rental is likely to be expensive. Handsworth is nice or used to be and the last mentioned was the district in which I finally found a flat in the nick of time a week or so before Christmas and Monica joined me in Birmingham.

The accommodation was reminiscent of Nottingham. An even larger crumbling detached Victorian mansion converted somewhat crudely into five self-contained units. It had a spacious tiled hall which was grubby since none of the existing tenants felt able to shoulder responsibility for keeping it clean. All the flats had their own front door. It had a very large parquet floor in the hall for which we never really found a use. There were six doors in it – kitchen bathroom two bedrooms a breakfast room and sitting room. Between the two bedroom doors was in elaborately built home-made but glitzy finished bar with a carved front and multiple shelves. Strip lit mirrors behind – it was certainly impressive but perhaps it gave the wrong impression to any visitors particularly if one or other set of parents chose to visit so we dismantled it and ever afterwards the large hole with its parquet floor stood empty except for some coat pegs I erected.

There was no furniture at all in the other rooms. Luckily 1960 was a buyer’s market for second-hand furniture. We already had from Oxford and Nottingham a double bed a little two seater reproduction Chippendale sofa pretty but far from comfortable and an upright ladder back rush-seated chair a folded screen which needed recovering it still does and a small upright bookcase with a fold up writing surface which we used to store essential papers. We amused ourselves arranging these items in the hall which still looked under furnished. Indomitably Monica set off for the sales room. She did us proud. In 1966 the second-hand furniture business was in something of a trough. We still have and use the pieces she bought in those three weeks before Christmas. The carpets were more expensive and did not last so well. We purchased various paraffin heaters and a gas stove. Hot water was only spasmodically available from the old Ascot situated on the wall between kitchen and bathroom. This needed frequent servicing which of course the letting agency made us pay for.

I was earning £15 a week at the time and that is all we seemed likely to have for a bit. With Erica in full spate, Hilary Lidell in the company and the excellent Nancy Jackson on guest list tap as it were there was clearly no immediate prospect of infiltrating Monica into the company as I had managed so successfully to do at Coventry and Oxford. But we found the money somehow to repaint the whole flat, curtained and furnished cosily. We were fairly snug in our bolt hole for our Birmingham years. Just like Nottingham and Oxford we made valiant efforts to tame the wilderness garden with no with no more than partial success. There was a little municipal part just up the road mostly Evergreen and not much floral embellishments but it was decently kept and a couple of tennis courts we would play in the summer when we had an afternoon free usually the first week of any of my own productions.

Handsworth was crumbling but a couple of hundred of yards back towards the city centre was quite a good shopping place. The period was of course before the age of the supermarket which is put such shops out of business. In particular there was a truly excellent grocers, an old established firm, which dealt at the turn of the century with well to do carriage trade there was a pretty good ironmongers too.

Hamstead Road where we lived was at I suspect still is one of the Spur roads leading outwards from the city centre heading pretty well due north. Slightly to the west of it was the Soho Road leading to West Bromwich and the Black Country. All was fairly quiet in our immediate district and we had a nodding acquaintance with one or two Jamaican neighbours, pleasant enough, but by the time we were leaving in 1966 there had been a heavy loss of jobs in the manufacturing sector which bore very heavily indeed on the black community. We used to say by then to any friends who were to pay us a visit: “Go straight at the crossroads if you bear left you might get caught in a race riot”.

One day Monica (and Christopher) was witness to something she read about in Victorian literature but never expected to experience close to. The top floor of the house was let to a young couple. We did not know where the man worked but he left early in the morning and did not return until well in the evening. A nod and a fleeting smile was all we ever exchanged. One day when Monica was in our kitchen, she had a crash from the direction of the garden. As she appeared nervously out of our French windows. A second tea-chest to full of breakable objects crashed onto our garden followed by an armchair. She rather bravely went upstairs to investigate. Sitting on the stairs in floods of tears with our top floor neighbour. The only coherent words she could utter were, ‘What am I going to tell him when he gets home? Monica was witnessing an eviction for non-payment of rent done every bit as cruelly as anything in an early Victorian melodrama.

We got out just in time. The ground floor was divided into two flats, each with its French windows opening onto the garden. Mrs. Matthew is a pleasant busy bee of a woman with a hint of a Welsh accent was evidently always complaining to the landlords about the damp. The last straw for her came when she had decided to stand on a chair to clean the transom of her French windows. Suddenly there was a crack and she found herself still precariously perched on her chair but with no more than 6 inches above floor level. The legs of the chair had penetrated the floorboards and a whole section of the floor had broken away. The Matthews left soon after and although nothing quite so disastrous happened to us it was not long before we followed.

Going west

It would be wrong to suggest that the superlative “Edward the Second” was the only really good presentation under the auspices of John Harrison.

“The City Madam” as I have already suggested was an enjoyable romp but not a smasheroo. But shortly after this, he achieved an ambition but most repertory directors aspire to passionately – a West End transfer. The play was American written by Euan Hunter. This was one of several pen names used by the prolific Author we know him best as Ed McBain with a string of tough see New York Romans-policiers to his name. He made it clear that he did not much care for the British style of classic acting. His theatre heroes were all Theatre-Guild method actors. His attitude seemed to be: “I’m hugely and eternally grateful that you lot want to do my play. Nobody else does; good luck to you” and he let us get on with it. Of course I was not privy to discussions he had in private with John Harrison. The urbane exterior must have masked a certain in a toughness.

I loved the play. It concerned two couples of teenagers who got hold of the key (quite legally) of an attic cold water totally unfurnished flat. They took possession of this stark accommodation for an Easter weekend of illicit sex. For multiple amusing reasons none in fact took place. They were literate and educated to what we would describe as grammar school standard. It crossed my mind that after my successes with “The Keep”, “Look back in anger” and “Roots”, this was the sort of play I might do quite well. But there was a whiff of interest from London based management. So naturally John decided to do it himself. It was a very big success for him.

He employed an assistant director specially engaged for this one production. John told me this chap’s brief was to advise on American accents, intonation and phrasing. William Davis was in fact a Canadian and even I, let alone Euan Hunter could tell that it was several hundred miles away from true Bronx. John handed all the detailed work over to this gentleman, hardly attending any rehearsals in the afternoons. Bill Davis‘s language notes were brief and to the point. His strength was in detailed breaking down of scenes. There was painstaking research into motivations for a myriad of short scenes. John blocked the play solidly enough and, it seemed to me, let Bill do all the grinding work concentrating on the rhythm and flow when an act was presented to him at the run through stage. The thing that still astonishes me (I could never have worked harmoniously) was that it worked.

Ian McShane already a talented actor and comedien joined the company as well as a good looking straight man Robin Horton. Karin Fernald had been honing her talent as a comedian from Helena in “The Dream” through an uppish daughter in “City Madam”. She had an extraordinary gift for parodic comedy. She was a slender brunette by no means unattractive. Some of us managed to have a glance at the script sometime in advance. Among us was Linda Gardiner John Harrison‘s cohabitee soon to be married to him. I have mentioned before the devastating effect disappointment in casting can have. I always tried later in Colchester to soften such body blows by making casting decisions among well tried members of the company well ahead. As usual on the last Friday of every play’s run the cast list for the next production was pinned to the backstage noticeboard during an interval. As usual, the backstage corridors were full of babble. We all thought that so-and-so would play such and such was on everybody’s lips. On this occasion, I think Ralph Nossek knew unusually that he was to have a play out. Bob Robinson, Bill Ingram and Pamela Veyzey were leaving anyway. Linda‘s name was missing from the cast list. At the time Monica had quite a close professional relationship with Linda. They were both in “The Dream”. And played a cheerful whore and procuress double act in “City Madam”. They were currently playing mother and daughter in Emlyn Williams‘s “Spring 1600” a sort of pre-write of “Shakespeare in love”. Linda got through the remainder of that Friday performance somehow other and then collapsed in floods of seemingly inconsolable tears. John had kept the casting secret even from his lover. He was importing a little glamour puss of a starlet to play the fourth juvenile. I believe now that this was the correct casting. The eccentric comedy could be left in Karin‘s hands and though Linda was a first rate comedienne, the requirement was for an attractive straight-as-die juvenile. There were two other parts not huge but important. The inhabitants of the flat downstairs were a professional saxophone player and his girlfriend splendidly taken by Angela Pleasance. The sax provided the music for the orgiastic scene in the middle of the play. I can’t remember whether it was two or three acts. Derek Smith was an excellent if somewhat egocentric character actor. He worked enormously hard at any character he undertook. A professional musician was employed to pay jazzy music from the wings. Derek mimed on stage on a saxophone with no reed in it. It worked. I never thought it would but it did. The play was a smash hit. Jock Minster bought it and it transferred directly to the West End rather handily a timed to come during the Rep’s summer recess.

The play was reasonably well received in London. But it was clear that it was not going to provoke ticket riots at the box office. Jock Minster who had rarely said a friendly word to me while he was directing Bob Bolt’s play in Oxford, greeted me for this changeover weekend like an old buddy. Shortly after the final curtain fell and the cast were trying to persuade one another that it hadn’t gone too badly, sipping glasses of rather warm white wine, Jock turned to me and said wanly, “Well that’s that I suppose” and he stamped stonily off to reckon up the thousands he must’ve lost. The play in fact ran for a fortnight.

A huge disappointment for all concerned. I think I know some of the reasons for it. Ian McShane who had been a rock solid tower of strength in Birmingham had an appalling attack of first night nerves hanging onto his lines somehow other by the skin of his teeth and mistiming sure fire gags. His personality appeared to disappear. Karin however, had a magnificent evening and reaped her reward with universal acclaim the next morning in the papers. But I believe the principal reason was that Angela and Derek had probably for different reasons decided not to go in. Derek wanted to continue longer at the Rep where he was getting the pick of the character parts and was trying to develop into a true leading man. He was of small stature but then so were Ian Holm, Anthony Hopkins and Alec McCowen. Angela didn’t want her West End debut to be a bit part. Their replacements had a bare week of rehearsals. They arrived knowing the lines, but lacked any time to develop in-depth understanding of how they fitted in. Roy Patrick had done good work at Birmingham in the Shakespeare trilogy and the rather inexperienced juvenile girl did just not have the time to integrate. It is essential particularly in small cast plays to develop that interplay between the actors which make the audience feel they are seeing a team rather than a collection of individuals.

The West End staff were as I expected faintly patronising to their hick provincial cousins. But the changeover was quite smooth. There was a scare when a member of staff made a determined effort to set fire to some of the scenery. Diana Dewes had used unproofed paper to produce a grimly peeled wall effect. It had to be re-fireproofed. We were fortunate in that a scenic fire inspection was a very rare thing. There was a sloping roof on the attic act and part of it was flayed. I learned from Toni John in Coventry how to make rain. You had to make a series of pin holes in the length of copper tubing and suspended it over the glass. You then pumped water into it. The difficulty was to get the pump far enough away so that the audience could not hear it, and, more tricky still, devise some way of circulating the water so that it would not seep out and get into the electrics. The staff asked me to supervise the installation which was more terrifying than flattering. I believe they rather hoped the effect would have to be cut. It has to be said however that when it came to lighting the West End electricians were not able to make the rain visible on the glass when there was adequate comedy light on stage. Our electrician, no longer the truly excellent Keith Davies, but his erstwhile assistant Paul had done a splendid job on this effect at the Rep. This was during the big transition period in stage lighting. The pattern 23 mirror spot were coming in. Each one only used 500 W of power as opposed to the 1000 W pattern 43s which still inhabited are number one spot in the sticks. Great economic savings of course. But one could focus the old war horses with knife edge accuracy and the pattern 23s could only be focused by masks which drastically reduce the power of the beam. To their credit the West End staff spent hours trying to get this effect right but at best less than half the house could see it.

The company was in high spirits immediately after the curtain fell – perhaps a little forced? The next morning’s notices were on the whole favourable. They spent much of their space raving about Karin and she thoroughly deserved the acclaim. Jack Minster however, had spent a lifetime reading the signs. He knew more about the commercial theatre than the rest of us put together. He was not the only glum face on stage after the curtain down. Bill Davis had quite a prominent billing in Birmingham. I think his name was as prominent as John’s. The play directed by John Harrison and William Davis. In London however his credits read “assistant to the director”, but he was miffed because this was pointed in very small type indeed. He felt perhaps rightly that he had in fact done all the donkey work on the production. Of course it is possible that John had nothing to do with this and that the program had been produced by the London management without consulting him. I don’t believe that Bill bought into this theory.

My last great actress.

No, not hanging on the wall like Browning’s Duchess though there were times I felt that hanging might be too good for her.

I had seen Wendy Hiller nearly 20 years earlier opposite Cyril Cusack in Playboy of the Western world. Cusack has been superb, marvellous out of this world, western or wherever. His voice, dropping on occasion during the act two love scene, to the barest whisper winged like a feather on the breeze to all quarters of the house. The 18th century architects knew one or two things about acoustics which for all the advances of science escape the practitioners of today. Wendy responded well enough in this great scene. But I had found her somewhat carefully enunciated Irish accent rather too carefully enunciated in the play’s opening sequences.

She came to Birmingham to be in a play called “Measure of Cruelty”. This was a French play written pre-or just after the war, translated by Yvonne Mitchell, who knew a thing or two about creating characters, good actresses could get their teeth into. This was one of John‘s very best productions at Birmingham. I cannot remember a great deal of the plot but Wendy was undoubtedly superb. And Jeremy Brett was also very good indeed as the secretary and putative last lover.

She made sure however that everybody knew how great an actress she was. She demanded, as soon as she arrived, to know who was going to be her dresser. Anyone who is set for backstage in a provincial repertory theatre will know they’re just ain’t any such animal. At that time there was only one salaried person working in the wardrobe. Stitches and sewers to make costumes were employed as casual labourers. And if there were quick changes for our actresses, we employed casual labour some of it highly skilled as extra stage staff. For a costume play an extra girl might be employed to do up the hooks and eyes at the back of the girls’ costumes. John and I to my shame acceded to this request and passed Jenny, one of our best casuals, to be at Wendy’s disposal. Jenny did not care for the idea. Not quite understanding what was expecting of her. She was quite right to be suspicious. Wendy treated her as an Edwardian grand dame might treat a junior domestic servant. Jenny was expecting to have a coffee or tea standing by for breaks in rehearsals. Wendy was far too grand to queue up with the rest of us at Jodie T’s or Ray the doorman’s Mobile coffee. Wendy also used Jenny to do bits and pieces of domestic shopping.

It was a one set play and the production weekend went reasonably smoothly – a fairly gruelling technical rehearsal followed by a first dress rehearsal, starting about eight or so in the evening. After that John gave notes and dismissed the company calling them for the second dress rehearsal on the morrow. The actors could sleep late. They were called for 2 o’clock in the in the afternoon. The show would of course open on the Tuesday night

Finley James had designed a very strange set which admirably suited the slightly overheated not to say melodramatic dialogue. He produced a slightly raised platform of polished wood and surrounded it with skeletal flats. These flats had 6“3“ lathes tucked onto them from the rear. There were three squared openings double door sized dead centre and a single each on each side they were approached by tunnels similarly erected. The effect was to close the highly socialised dialogue and action in a zoo like cage. This would have been comparatively easy except that John and insisted that the proportion of the slats were mounted not straight but slightly skew-whiff. It had taken us several hours to get this vertigo inducing effect just right overnight and when we came to light it, it all had to be done again – more hours work but it did look splendid and rather eerie. After the dress rehearsal Wendy said that every time she took a step or two down stage, the polished floor induced uncertainty and she had the feeling that she did not know where the edge of the stage was and she never did look at the side walls for fear of vertigo. She felt she was in danger of falling off the stage. Having made her position entirely clear she marched off to her digs. She evidently imagined some sort of rail would be put up between her and the audience. It took a couple of hours for John to persuade Jim that he and Wendy was serious about this. Eventually, the carpenters who had thought their work was finished were summoned and the following morning a flimsy rail about 18 inches high complete with carefully cockeyed slatting was erected at the edge of the false polished floor stage. Jim said, “that’s the best I can do. If she really feels she’s going to fall off the stage, this won’t stop her. But it might work as a psychological barrier”. Hey Ho, another sleepless night sorting out all this.

The next day at the half for the second dress rehearsal Jenny reported that Wendy had just rung her and decided she would do better to rest so that she would be sure of her best for the first night. This was not good news for the rest of the company some of whom were already making up. Some who lived nearby returned to their digs and snatched another couple of hours’ sleep. But most just hung around the theatre doing nothing in particular except getting increasingly nervous. Jeremy, an old Oxford chum (Marchbanks in “Candida”), was furious. He spluttered that John had given him some notes the previous night – details he was anxious to try out in rehearsal conditions not on the opening performance. Wendy came in well before the half spreading gracious charm in all directions. She was good at that it must be confessed. Jenny was dispatched post-haste for sandwiches and a beverage. The star ran her eye over the new flimsy little four stage railing and pronounced herself satisfied. Finley Jim was still fiddling with it muttering into his beard that it looked rather silly and spoiled the general effect. Wendy’s performance was five star perfection

I mentioned to Jeremy later in the run that in my opinion this production was West End transfer material. “Not with me in it,” he said. “I couldn’t possibly work with that woman again.”

Towards the freedom of my lance,

I carried the can for “The Beggar’s (disastrous attempt at) Opera”. This was fair enough I suppose. John told me that the board had been very disappointed. I doubt he mentioned to them that the original plan had been for it to be a tripartite co-production with himself, his newly engaged student from Birmingham University, Jim Duckett and myself. The board might’ve been interested too to hear that John asked me to prepare a scene by scene synopsis of my production plans which he, as senior figure of the triumvirate, rejected out of hand. Jim and I did the best we could with my Plan B. I have never been happy with assistant directors. (Mea Maxima Culpa I know). But I always find myself wondering what he or she is thinking about it instead of concentrating 100% on what the actors are trying to do. However, after the two Shaw plays were safely launched away on the continent, John included me in his plans for three comedies of manners to run in repertoire I was delighted to be offered the chance to do Coward’s “Design for Living”.

It meant engaging and almost entirely new company. Linda Gardner had been kept out of the Shaws and she did excellent work in “The Provoked Wife” and was superb as Mabel Chilton in “An Ideal Husband”. There was no part for her in “Design for Living”. John produced his ace in the hole in the persona of John Turner. He was the leading comedien (I used the French because our neighbours recognise that comedy is a noble art and the English think of comedians as clowns). In all three players – Lord Goring, Sir John Brute and Leo in “Design” – he was terrific. Gareth Lloyd Evans the Guardian critic who was rarely anything more than lukewarm about John‘s work or mine pointed out that Turner (and Linda too) were brilliantly natural. “They do not mistake posture for gesture or eccentric elocution for necessary affection of speech.” Yes Gareth we all noticed that too. But as the song says you’ve either got it or you haven’t – style. John showed he’d retained confidence in me by sending me to Coventry to vet another youngish actor to play some of the leading parts. His name was Donald Douglas and he was playing Petruccio at the Belgrade. I liked him very much indeed. He was to become a regular guest if that is not a contradiction in terms for the next couple of years in Birmingham. I could not help odiously comparing him to the two Petruccios I had worked with – Pat McGowan and Brewster Mason. Donald could not match McGowan for raw masculinity and devastating power. Brewster had been dogged and wry. Donald, quite masculine enough at a well proportioned 6 foot two had more charm and surprisingly for Petruccio a self deprecating humour. “He who knows better how to tame a shrew now let him speak”. McGowan’s sheer power of personality defied the audience into silence not that he spoke particularly loudly. Mason amusingly enough suggested a desperate man who will really try anything because he was in love. Douglas charmed with sweet reason. I reported enthusiastically and Donald joined the company. He did well as Lord Chilton making Wilde’s self satisfied prig almost bearable. He was good too in a straight role in the Vanbrugh but he worked up a beautifully subtle double act with John Turner as the artist lover in “Design for Living”. Donald did me proud in the marathon part in Osborne’s “Inadmissible Evidence”, finding much self-deprecating humour to temper what might have become a 2 1/2 hour solo rant. He also played witty but self satisfied Duke of Bristol in “On Approval” chiming beautifully off Ethne Dunn’s Mrs Wislack. He was also in John Harrison super production of “Edward the second”. He was a fine leading actor who was also a very good company member.

John’s disastrous casting of Dulcie Gray as Arkadina in “The Seagull” did not deter him from further experimentation with an ex-Ealing studio star of some maturity. This time it was a huge success. Renée Asherson joined us to play Viola in “Twelfth Night”. She was charming and full of fun, capable of a bit of well judged melancholy which most Violas these days overdo. I was able to persuade her to stay on and do a very difficult treble in my production of “Inadmissible Evidence”. The idea was that to a solicitor, heartily sick of his chosen profession, all his female clients seeking divorces begin to look and sound the same. Renee, had to make a false Exit turning her back to the audience, wait five seconds for a lightning change and a touch of music, then turn round and present a totally different woman. No make-up change possible let alone difference in costume. And as if that was difficult enough after a 10 minute scene she had to repeat the trick and present lady number three. A rather thankless task, but it lifted the strain of Donald Douglas in his marathon role as the lawyer for half an hour. “It’ll be an interesting experiment,” said René and so it was. That’s why troopers were born.

I thought I would have less difficulty persuading her to play Amanda in “Private Lives”. But she hesitated a bit when she found she was wrong in assuming that Donald was not to play Elliot. I simply thought after the Osborne marathon Birmingham audiences needed a break from Donald’s faintly Scottish burr. As it happened, the company was quite rich in men who could turn witty phrases. There was Ben Whitrow for a start but John was already casting him in the lead in “Boston Story” an adaptation from Henry James. And also in “The simpleton of the Unexpected Isles” one of Shaw’s most whimsical fantasies, such a light and inconsiderable trifle that it’s never mentioned in Shaw’s complete works. There was also in the company the saturnine but riveting Patrick Mower. In the event I offered the parts to Gary Watson an actor I had worked with before, albeit as the stage manager. He had been in Oxford among those professionals who struggled valiantly to glean some grains of dramatic excitement out of the “Torrents of Spring” at Oxford. Gary had done very well in Harrison’s super production of “Edward the Second” – but then who had not? I believe what tipped Renee into accepting it was that Eric Wooffe who had been her Orsino was also going to be in “Lives” as the fiancé number two. Renée was out of this world superb. For one thing she taught us all to Charleston. Gary faffed around a bit before finding a style to match hers, but he too was pretty good so too was the ravishing Gabrielle Drake as Sybil. I have done the old warhorse play twice justice. It always works better if Amanda has some serious competition and when it is all too plain why Elliot found Sybil attractive enough to propose marriage. I was a little worried that Renée might appear 20 years older than anyone else in the cast which I believe she was. I was never so ungallant as to enquire. So I persuaded Eric to play the fiancé number two as a man in his early 40s. He was an excellent character actor. This is a difficult age for a young actor to be convincing in, but Eric carried it off splendidly. During the run of the play it was decided that Peter Dews would be would be succeeding John Harrison‘s for the autumn season.. When Peter saw “Private Lives”, he congratulated me on the production and asked why Eric was playing this as a character part? I had gallantry enough towards Renée not to divulge my main reasons.

Peter affected a Jack Blunt ordinary no nonsense Yorkshire facade which masked a great deal of artistic sensitivity. In diametric contrast to John who wore his sensitivity as an artist as it were on his sleeve and was very tough not to say ruthless at the core. “Look here David!” said Peter.  “I’ll be needing a production manager when I take over and I’d be very pleased if you’d stay on BUT (heavily underlined). I do not need an associate director”. There’d be no more production opportunities. “Have a think about it.” I had no need for time to think. I declined his offer. “Right,” he said “I’m planning to do Virginia Wolf in my new season. Will you direct it?” Of course I said yes. He agreed that I should stay on as production manager until rehearsals for Virginia Wolff started. I hinted that John Baylis, my assistant, the best I’ve had since John Waugh and a less abrasive character to boot should be considered for the post and so it fell out. Peter must’ve been impressed with Eric‘s character work and she kept Eric on for the new season and offered him George in the Albee. This was in the Rep’s best tradition of bringing on young actors as leading players for characters of every age group. I had seen something of Eric Porter’s work for Michael Langham and Paul Damon’s for Douglas Seal. I’d rather missed out on Albert Finney. But I was proud of being personally involved in several productions which proved that Derek Jacobi was not only a splendid juvenile lead but also a consummate character actor. Eric approached me and said Peter had suggested this bit of casting to him. I have rarely known an actor more terrified. I thought if he can’t see himself in the part there’s no way I can give him that confidence. I went back to Peter and he readily agreed that Eric had better play the juvenile Junior lecturer in which ultimately he was very good indeed.

I always suspected Humphrey Stanbury of dropping a word into Peter‘s ear about the need for a production manager who was a technician first, foremost and only. I would not have minded except that he had at one stage, when I had several patent successes in a row, tried with some board members to build me up into a figure capable of taking over from John.

Breaking free or just breaking

Was I at a turning point? I was certainly not at any sorts of crossroads. Peter, a professional Yorkshireman had shoved me into becoming a full-time freelance director. Fortunately, “Who’s afraid” was quite a success at the box office. I had been writing to several management and Pitlochry actually came to see the show. They met me afterwards and offered me a contract to direct one play for them in the next summer season. Of course I accepted with alacrity. It was after all the only positive response I had had from a couple of score of letters.

The arts Council in the person of the immensely hard-working as approachable Dick Linklater had advanced my name as a strong candidate for a fortnightly rep to be established in Bournemouth. I was called for interview and I believe I did quite well. Dick was there and did his very best to help me present my case.

It did however become clear that they wanted somebody who would start almost immediately. If I were to go to Bournemouth, I would have to give up “Virginia Woolf”. I said with not much conviction that it might be possible to use a guest director for the opening production thinking of Ron Eyre. They asked me to go out of the room for a minute or two. Outside I discovered a young man who looked a little like Billy Bunter. He had outgrown his clothes and bulged in most directions and had a rather too rigorous short-back-and-sides. He seemed more nervous than I was. Not much opposition there I thought. They called me back briefly said quite a few complementary things about me and told me they would let me know in due course. An usher, I suppose an ASM from the current season of weekly rep, opened the door for me. He said to the waiting young man, “They’ll see you now Mr. Digby Day. This was my first meeting with Richard double D whom I was to collaborate closely with later in my career. Some good directors are also excellent impresarios. Frank Hauser was one such; so was Tony Richardson (no not the Royal Court Tony, Belgrade Tony;  so although less successful was Tony John. They thought in terms of seasons of plays. I was never any such animal. Richard however was and of course he got the job.

It was something of a rude shock although not entirely unexpected to find that the freedom of my lance was a romantic obstruction. The fact was that I was joining the ranks – quite thick in the middle 60s – of the long-term unemployed. Peter Dews had seen some of Monica‘s work at Oxford and he cast her as Galileo‘s landlady in the opening sequences of the Brecht play with which he had chosen to open the season. Peter had retained several of Harrison‘s brilliantly cast Edward the second – Wolff, Whitrow, Morey, Knowles at al. But as it happened, Monica had not worked with any of them. In any case, they were swept along in a great tide of new people, most of whom had worked with Peter before. Peter liked to work in an atmosphere of making jollity. He revelled in leading from the front. Harrison has been cool, reserved and authoritative. Monica, who quite unjustifiably thought she was not good in the part, felt friendless and lonely swept along in a great tide, leading in no direction of her own choosing. This was a miserable time for her. Christopher was quite snuggly in school after a sticky start. I was away wagging my lance around hoping someone would notice and she was marooned in Birmingham.

Charles Tingwell, an excellent Australian actor, had been a great success as George in “VW”. His agent also doubled in low-cost small cast tours and the idea was that I should redirect the play with Charles again in the lead. To that end this agent-manager bought the set of a touring light comedy which he thought would do very nicely for the Albee. He paid me minimal expenses to have a look at the set and I managed to secure a ground plan from the touring stage manager. Half a glance showed me that the notion was absurd. But to my shame I played along with it insisting we only needed elements of it against a black surround. And those elements would have to be repainted. While we were arguing the toss about this, he sent me to see Phyllis Calvert who we hoped to persuade into playing Martha. “What’s wrong with Kate Michael who is having a well-deserved ball playing it in Birmingham?” No he said we must get a name. Miss Calvert was charm itself and gave me tea. We chatted and I was rather surprised at how many of my friends she knew in spite of being a film and West End personality. She was understandably reluctant to commit herself. She liked the part she said, but she regarded provincial tours as something you had to endure, on tedious route to Shaftesbury Avenue. “I think David we might be flogging a dead horse,” she said. Maybe I contributed to the failure of the interview. Martha’s language in “VW” is witty and acerbic but requires a certain gutsiness in its delivery. I have seen Constance Cummings in the part and she’d been very fine but no one would describe Connie as gutsy. She got a long way by finding somewhere in her army, a splendidly acerbic tongue to go with her immaculate timing. So who knows? Perhaps Miss Calvert and I missed an opportunity to do a really great play together. There was probably toughness beneath the genteel exterior.

In the late autumn David Forder, whom I’d met when he was at the Belgrade, invited me to Colchester where he was now supremo. To direct “A Severed Head”, Iris Murdoch‘s adaptation of her own novel strongly influenced in its play form by JB Priestley. I grabbed the chance and dashed off eastbound from Liverpool Street to see the company. They were doing “You Never can Tell”. The company was brimful of talent. Joanna von Gysegham, Ralph Bates and Jeffrey Hutchings were in leading roles. And if the production itself by the T.I.E. associate director was a little lacklustre there was a barnstorming performance in the last act by Philip Voss as Bohun QC. “You think you will but you won’t” – I went back to London very happily mentally assigning parts all round, only need to be rung the next day by DF who told me that Voss was due a play out but Joanna and Ralph were leaving the company and various who had sparkled were also unavailable. This was worrying but perhaps turned out for the best. DF produced an excellent leading woman in Irene Innescort and I was able to complete the cast by calling on old chums from Birmingham. The male lead suited Stephen McDonald like a well cut suit. Monica had at last finished her ordeal in “Galileo” and was well cast as Honor Klein. Peter Wyatt a stallwart from Hepton‘s time at Birmingham had been employed successfully by DF. Nancy Jackson too was delighted to come and added a touch of class to a somewhat subsidiary role. The success of this production was the biggest turning point of my professional life.

Michael Ashton, who has been DF’s director of productions, directed the pantomime at Colchester. And asked for a leave of absence immediately it opened. David immediately offered me two further productions to follow the Christmas show. These were “Boeing Boeing” and, you’ve guessed it, “Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf”. At about this time, I was interviewed by Bill Gaskell at the Court. I told him that I had been successful at Birmingham with productions of Royal Court-ish sort of gritty plays. I mentioned “Roots”, “Look back”, “The Keep” and “All in good time”. I told him I had a contract to do two plays. He said “VW” was a wonderful play and he’d seen it several times during its London run but didn’t feel he could face it yet again. “And you can hardly expect me to come down to Colchester (his lip curled) for Boeing Boeing!” Oh how I regret that I failed to point out that this adaptation from the French – very like Feydeau – and a dialogue by my old chum Beverly Cross was sparklingly witty, that it was the best farce I had seen since the war. I hadn’t yet directed “Black Comedy”, which to my mind ran it close. But that was a one acter. Three acts are more difficult. I also wish I had told him that I thought the heavy hand of Brian Rix had given a bad name to the whole genre. But I didn’t to my shame. Instead Bill asked how I would react to doing an experimental new play at the theatre upstairs the Court’s studio. Of course I said very favourably. But it became clear that promising young directors were queueing up to take on such work and they were paid no proper salary. I made it clear that I could not possibly work for less than equity rate for actors. And the friendliness rather faded from Bill‘s eyes.

For reasons I never fully understood Michael Ashton stayed away for quite a long time and David F did not seem to know when he would return. My guest tenure was extended to doing four more guest productions including the Rep’s annual Shakespeare – set book this year “Merchant of Venice”. Michael actually did put in an appearance during my production of “Killing of Sister George”, but by that time David F has sounded me out as to whether I would like to take over Michael’s job. Of course I jumped at the idea and went off to Pitlochry with a caseload of smallish cast plays to consider for my first season as a director of productions. It was a demanding and satisfying job from that spring of 1967 until early 1984.

New theatres new problems.

There had been in Colchester at least three Edwardian theatres. In the early 1930s Robert Digby and Beatrice Radley had founded a weekly rep at Colchester. This was about the time when Marjorie Deuce‘s family bought the Perth theatre. But whereas Perth was a particularly beautiful red plush and felt Edwardian theatre, Bob Digby did some sort of peppercorn deal with Colchester Council and set up shop in the Albert Hall and art gallery.

It would be hard for me to decide which of the two theatres had the most hellish conditions backstage Nottingham or Colchester. Dick Linklater’s favourite adjective in speaking of either was “grotesque”. Nottingham had no running water in its under stage dressing rooms. No raised voices were allowed and tall men like me and Bernard Horsefall could not stand up without scraping our heads on the sagging hardboard ceilings. There were no windows in the dressing rooms in either of the two theatres. During large cast plays the air became rich, thick and fetid well before curtain down. No self-respecting zoo would’ve kept animals in such conditions. Nottingham had a couple of hand basins and one WC for all shapes and sexes across a narrow passageway into an adjacent building, which housed the wardrobe. In winter, the passageway became a wind tunnel for an icy blast. No wonder that our sweaty bodies caught cold. A sort of perpetual flu bug was a hazard. Colchester’s dressing rooms were even more cramped but did have running water. No windows no fresh air and no sanitation. The Albert Hall had an impressive Roman style portico – audiences went up a couple of steps through double doors. Either side of the box office, stone steps lead down to two rather dank airless and cheerless facilities one for each sex. Secondary doors led to 2 passages which ran under the side aisles of the auditorium. The actors could not use these facilities after the half or during the interval. This caused agonising difficulties for anyone who happened to be a beginner in each of the three acts – difficulties multiplied a dozen fold at panto time when a full chorus of a dozen began each half. On one occasion during a pantomime the audience had reassembled and were perhaps wondering why the interval had overrun by a couple of minutes. As the house lights were eventually lowered, two members of the audience came in at the back. They were a little girl of about six and her mother. They were arguing vociferously. “But I did mummy I did I saw a fairy in the loo”. A rumble of laughter rippled through the audience as these exchanges were relayed to the front and at last we were all set off into the second half in high spirits.

It says much for the actors’ enthusiasm for the work they do that in the four years I offered out contracts, nobody but nobody turned down work on grounds of unhealthy conditions in the workplace. Shortly after the new Nottingham Playhouse opened (a safe design nothing revolutionary) Monica and I went across from Birmingham to see a show. I cannot remember what the play was but our old Oxford charm Chris Hancock was in it. Do you know he told us but when the theatre was being designed, they forgot to include dressing rooms? He himself was using quite a well-appointed windowless room which he believed had been by design a property room. Fortunately there had been plans for offices just adjacent to the stage. Nevertheless, when I went back in 1980 to do a guest production for Richard Double D the actors complained that they seem to be a very long way from the stage and did not like to return to the dressing room during the run of an act. There was also the fact the Colchester town Centre was at this time woefully short of public conveniences. There was a bus stop immediately outside the theatre, a starting point and termination for several roots. The drivers and conductors were encouraged to use the theatre premises. After all they were council employees and the council was the theatre company’s ground landlords. It is fair to say that some of the crew were more careless of the facilities than the theatre patrons and companies.

There was a further powerful argument in favour of a new theatre. The Albert Hall has a back wall which from about 8 feet above stage level was curved and a perfect quarter of a sphere. Any cloths and in musicals and panto there was many painted scenery had to be tumbled. It was amazing what my designers Hans van Langeveld and for an even longer period Sheila Godbolt achieved in such cramped conditions. The overriding problem in designing a new theatre for Colchester was finance. I did not attend Colchester board meetings in these early days at Colchester. David F was already deep into Ways and Means by the time I arrived. The Arts Council were keen on the idea and thought they would be able to make a capital grant of about one third of the cost of the building. The remaining 2/3 would be divided-and half between the local council and a subscription from the public raised by direct appeal to the pocket of the local theatregoers. This last was dependent on my presenting a lively program of popular plays in the creaky old building. An architect, a local architect, had been appointed and a plot of land allocated shortly after I arrived. David F had appointed his old designer from his Belgrade days, Christopher Morley, to be a consultant to the architect. Chris was there up to his eyes as chief designer for Trevor Nunn at Stratford. By the time I went to Stratford to see him he and David F were already well ahead with plans for a flexible theatre based on a hexagon. There would be a wide procedure open stage with an element of thrust which in the twinkling of an eye could be transformed into a near conventional proscenium theatre by obliterating the side aisle seating with the loss of about 120 seats. David F had been thinking on similar lines to me that the growing power of television might well be the death knell of the well-made small cast plays with interior settings. The future we both thought might be in colourful. Stage spectaculars. Play for today and armchair theatre had not yet solved the problem of reducing “The Boyfriend” or “Oh what a lovely war” to the small screen. I was well aware by this time that my true strength as a director lay in the claustrophobic small cast play and by arguing for this sort of flexible theatre I might be ringing my own death knell. In the event of course our guess about audience sizes were quite wrong. We used open stage for our opening production, “The Recruiting Officer” – about up to 100 extra could be accommodated and we closed it for “Present Laughter” which followed it. Audiences were not too bad but nowhere near capacity for the Farquhar and we were turning away people for Coward. Worse still was that we were clearly not maximising and such sure-fire pieces of box-office candy such as “Girl in my Soup” and “How the other half loves”. Added to this the auditorium walls proved not easy to move particularly the two which housed the bulk of the front of house stage lighting. The production manager pointed out that moving the tower took up far too much of the change-over weekend. Added to which one of the top heavy monsters collapsed in transit and an ASM was hurt in this major transformation.  More careful and slowish and by the second and subsequent Mercury seasons we were hardly using the towers at all.

Chris‘s idea was that the principle of mobile towers should be continued behind the proscenium. The hexagon shape was completed. It was easy easily seen that the left-hand diagram gave a far more satisfactory space in which to work. Chris wanted the side walls of the apparent stage to be painted the same warm brown as the auditorium and suggested that the side walls of the acting area could easily be subdivided into three periactoi. There are triangular prisms which it is reported that the Greeks used as stylised scenery easily revolved to suggest countryside, a palace or a craggy mountain peak. At the time I bought very heavily into this idea. I could see that although admirably suited to something like Prince Genji, it could hardly help create the claustrophobic atmosphere needed for an Ibsen or even (God save us) “Girl in my Soup”. My involvement in the planning of the new theatre rather lay fallow for a year or so. Then a chance meeting with the architect made it clear that Chris’s moving periactoi, stage walls had had to be scrapped. The auditorium moving to walls had been bad enough for him to accommodate. For good measure, he told me that he had to fit in the carpenters workplace and the paint shop in the space where I had imagine the OP wings would be. I would be working in yet another theatre like Nottingham Birmingham Oxford to say nothing of the various venues fed by the Coventry company. The new theatre would have adequate wings space only on one side of the stage. Shortly after this chat with Norman Downey the architect, David F informed me that Norman and Chris were no longer on speaking terms and that after a period of being an intermediary between the warring parties Chris has now said flatly that he did not wish his name to be mentioned as a consultant in the pre-opening publicity for the new building.

At my next meeting with Norman, he bought excellent news. He had found room for a little studio theatre adjacent to the main auditorium. He recognised the need for a strong ceiling and suggested a gallery could be built to accommodate lighting. This was the best news I had ever heard. David F blanched at the idea he had to find sufficient budget to accommodate perhaps half a dozen more actors. But he soon became thoroughly supportive of the idea. Brenton, I thought, Hare, Edgar Lowe, Pinter one acters some of my better productions in the old theatre – “Daughter-in-law”, “Delicate balance”, two Giles Cooper plays had not been well attended. Lord Allport a powerful local figure who had been the town’s MP for many years before his elevation was fond of saying “Colchester is a conservative town with a small ‘c’. And our main house fare had to find our bulk audience. But there was an audience for more adventurous fare and our second tiny theatre was set to prove it. So much so the before we had been open for six months I was able to employ a second director whose brief was to present a series of exciting small cast plays in the studio. Michael Attenborough, one of nature’s impresarios, was an ideal choice and did a superb job. The regular company members seized the opportunity with enthusiasm if as often happened a small cast play in the main house sandwiched between two larger cast offerings then it cost us no more to keep on a few of the actors to do a play in the studio.

I thought it reasonable to be personally responsible in Colchester for roughly 2/3 of the main house productions. This was never actually contractual, but I did mention this at board meetings. A director needs a bit of time to breathe between plays. But when the Mercury studio was up and running, I used to find time changes as good as a rest to do some studio work myself – “Slag”, “The Maids” and two plays on local themes by Roger Howard spring to mind. Good for me; good for the actors.

Norman Downey is owed a great deal by the citizens of Colchester for producing workable and attractive theatre for the citizens of Colchester. Correction, two theatres.  Even more so since it came in spot on budget. Reggie Salberg, Salisbury’s wily old bird of a theatre manager was in the process of negotiation with his council for funding for a proper theatre to house his company. He came to the first night of our opening show and was so impressed with the place that shortly afterwards he negotiated with Norman and almost exactly similar Building was commissioned for Salisbury he was quite complimentary about my production of recruiting officer.

I never really expected to get the job in the new theatre. John Harrison has been at least partly responsible for the design of the new repertory theatre. As a matter of justice, perhaps he should’ve been given the chance to work in his Varsity wide proscenium stage. Frank Dunlop has been the last resident director at the old Nottingham Playhouse. But when the new Playhouse opened, he was squeezed into a Triumvirate of management between two Giants Peter Ustinov and John Neville. He did not last long. I remembered how Toni John has spent his blood sweat and tears in his efforts before the bold Belgrade Coventry turned from his dream into a reality. I’m not quite sure of the chapter verse in the case of the Crucible theatre Sheffield. It may well be that Jeffrey Ost who had kept the repertory flame alive in Yorkshire for so long had voluntarily retired. But the actual map of Britain was becoming dotted with theatres, the policy of whose board of management seemed to be: new theatre new broom. But here I was. I felt my long apprenticeship was at an end. I had at last arrived. Of course I did not stop learning. My whole career had been a learning curve. I only know one truth about the theatrical profession. The actors do it. Of course every grammar school Latinist knows the word means someone who does something. I know in my heart of hearts that in my best work the process has been very much a two way affair. I may have inspired the cast with a certain energy to begin with but the real creative work, the most telling details I must admit come from the actors themselves. This skill in creating an atmosphere in which the actors themselves can be creative has nothing whatsoever to do with improvisation. This works wonders for some directors (Mike Leigh is of course is a prime example) but for me the text was sacred. We wouldn’t be doing the play at all if we did not have this particular play with this particular playwright if we had no respect for the playwright. I have mentioned previously Sir Barry’s remark about us all being servants to the art. I would go further and say that a director or designer or stage manager has as a principal duty – that of setting the actor free to exercises his art, relaxed in front of an audience.

I have now reached the point in these memoirs where my long apprenticeship as a director was at an end. I remember my earlier productions with greater objectivity than those at Colchester. I do not wish to boast of my successes, still less to indulge myself in self-exculpation for the failures. The latter are still painful to me and I only dimly see where I went wrong. Instead to all the actors I ever directed: thanks you did it. I hope I helped.

Me and Bill

A bit of a cheek really referring to the greatest man of the theatre who ever lived by a mighty diminutive of his Christian name. But nothing is achieved by wandering as it were round a huge imaginary statue of the great man gazing up at him. In all it is better by far without ever losing sight of the magnitude of his genius to regard him as a fellow worker in Sir Barry’s vineyard serving the same art as your humble self.

John Harrison wanted to do “The Bells” Irving‘s great success and had discovered that it would run only just over an hour. A second play was required as a curtain raiser. I had had a success with the opening play of the season “The Keep” and while I was rehearsing “Look Back” he asked me to look at the W. Jacobs play, “The Monkey’s Paw.  I already knew the piece from my battered Penguin of “Seven famous one act plays” purchased while I was still at school. Price sixpence. I had to report that in view of my production management duties I felt I could not do it. It would be for a guest director. The play was fun, packed with domestic detail, set in a Victorian urban cottage in Fulham. The stage directions (Jacobs’ own) prescribes a massive claustrophobic detail. It is a true ghost story. Therefore, the setting had to be absolutely box set realistic. “The Bells” – which I had imagined had something to do with Poe’s tintinnabulation that so musically spells “the bells bells bells”. Lewis’s shocker is a psychological drama – no magic at all. Tiny tinkling sleigh bells always bells in the head of a conscience struck murderer. No ghosts no magic. A psychological study in fact. Just the thing for a stylised lightweight setting. John and Finlay Jim were already at work on it. I simply could not face directing a play with such heavy materialistic demands as “Paw”. The suggested double bill needed the attention of a full-time production manager. In the event John who I believe had a copy of the penguin book elected to direct the first one in the volume a witty Edwardian joke by Alfred Sutro, the first play in the volume. It was an ideal curtain raiser admirably suited to being played as a front cloth. John made an excellent job of it. But of course I would have been delighted to do it myself if the suggestion had been made.

My hesitation on this occasion did nothing to dent John‘s faith in my potential and he asked me to undertake “Henry the Eighth”, which was to open the post-Christmas season as the first of a trilogy of Shakespeare plays. “Henry”, Titus Andronicus” and “Troilus and Cressida”. Naturally, I grabbed the opportunity with both hands and felt more nervous about it that I’d ever been in my earlier attempts to become an actor. I dashed out and bought an Arden edition of the play. The notes would be useful. I have been told. All the distinguished literary critics who had contributed to the book were of the opinion that this was a substandard work and not much of it was actually by Shakespeare at all. Fletcher who wrote “The Knight of the Burning Pestle” with a fellow scribe called Beaumont was genuinely thought to be the guilty party. Some of the most obvious dramatic scenes like the Catherine of Aragon trial and Wolsey reflecting on the catastrophic fall from power were assigned to the lesser dramatist. And the only ones that were assigned to Shakespeare came early in the play and concerned a collection of indistinguishable Lords giving a history lesson. Since it seemed especially devised to suit pompous actors who had known how to do Shakespeare. Six beats to every line. Keeping the noise going however these scenes coordinated in a wonderful series of speeches made to the citizens of London by the Duke of Buckingham on his way to execution.

However, I did know a little of the history of the period of fact which stood in good stead when doing “A Man for all Seasons”, the previous year. Arthur Pentelow came to see me begging not to be cast as the traditional Bluff King Hall. Oh no, I said you’ll be fine as Wolsey, Irving‘s part you know. Derek will be playing the king. Jacobi had made a wonderful job of the young king in the Bolt play and he brought a master craftsman’s art to the more mature monster of a Shakespearean play. I remembered what Sir Barry had said about holding back the full power of lighting until Cleopatra’s entrance. There was no need to play any such tricks with Derek. At every entrance he lit up the stage, not afraid to be larger than life. Exuding personal magnetism a likable ogre. Arthur, give or take his usual appalling first night nerves, was fine, a ruddy faced butcher’s boy of a Wolsey, and Georgina Anderson was most moving as Catherine. I was grateful for imaginative work too by Bill Ingram as prologue epilogue and first citizen. Philip Voss as the rising star Thomas Cromwell, and Bob Robinson as the ultra Catholic Bishop Gardiner. The actors did it.

I cannot resist transcribing the notice Bernard Levin gave us in the Daily Express in the second week of the play run. It has however to be said that the main burden of the article was to compare the meanness of the town council of Stratford on Avon as opposed to that of Birmingham. It has to be mentioned however that Levy did not point out in his article that Birmingham had about 20 times the number of rate payers when compared to the population of Stratford. “At the Birmingham rep,” wrote Levy “the matinee’s ladies in their matinee hats look much as their London counterparts.. But they were watching a matinee of “Henry the eighth” and there’s the difference. What is more they were watching a production of “Henry the eighth” that is among the finest productions of any of Shakespeare’s histories I have ever seen.”

Among the greatest productions was the Stratford one in the 50s. If my memory is accurate, it was nearly all it was, as nearly all good Shakespeare was in those days, diected by Tyrone Guthrie. Anthony Quayle was more than adequate as Bluff King Hall and if Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies was rather too sorry for herself as Catherine, Barbara Jefford in her first season at Stratford won everybody’s hearts as a bright sexy Anne Boleyn. Mercifully then as now I cannot remember much detail about the Guthrie production but he did show me that a bold hand could turn pageantry into comedy and back again in the twinkling of an eye. He was helped by a brilliant performance by Alan Badel as the Lord Chamberlain worried nearly out of his wits with organising the necessary pageant for a royal wedding and a royal birth (then of Queen Elizabeth) there was a hilarious sequence involving a set of choir boys who only just got into place in time for the major events. Guthrie inspired me but fortunately I did not fall into the trap of trying to copy him.

My next Shakespeare attempt was the last of my productions at Colchester as a guest before I went on to the Pitlochry summer festival. It was “Merchant of Venice.” I was very keen to do it all Dickensian. Lancelot Gobbo as a sort of Bob Cratchit figure perched on a high stool, atmosphere city gents and playboy friends, Belmont a country retreat well away from the hustle and bustle and grime of the city. However David Forder had already done a deal with someone he knew in the Stratford wardrobe so the costumes had to be straightforward Renaissance – so cheerio Charlie Dickens. Hans Van , the designer and I decided to go heavily for the carnival atmosphere and he designed and made some extravagant head pieces – it would be wrong to call them masks. Poor Michael Tudor Barnes of Birmingham alumni had to get used to working in a headpiece (a busty woman) which made him something like 8 feet tall. The music was “Carmina Burana” what else? Michael gave a quietly telling performance as Tubal – a very funny scene but it must be too funny:  otherwise the balance of sympathy sways too violently away from Shylock.

Shylock was a solid “noble” actor. I never quite persuaded him to be loathsome enough in the earlier scenes. Sympathy for him will come flooding in when the rich layabouts abscond with his daughter. It should be fairly balanced during the trial scene where the loudmouth Graziano behaves so badly. And there should be a wave of sympathy for him at the Duke’s cruel sentence. Shakespeare wrote quite a long comedy scene to close the play to ensure the audience was not left with a bitter taste in their mouths. I was well served by Eric Woofe who was splendid as Bassanio. So were all three major women – Helen Bourne (Jessica) Irene Inescort (Portia) and Tracy Lloyd (Nerissa).

There was an incident during the run of this play which had a profound effect on me. There was a passageway at the back of the stalls in Colchester and at some point in the middle of the performance I popped in to see how things were going. I was feeling rather smug about it all. There was a curtain above the back row of the stools and I noticed a noise immediately below me. It was more of a gurgle than a giggle, but it was loud enough to amuse the people in adjacent seats. A boy and a girl had raised their tip up seats and were lying on the floor. Their heads were below the seats in front they were engaged in amorous exploration. This wiped the smile off my face. I think I was more shocked than I have ever been in my entire life. To have disturbed them would’ve caused a major upheaval and I tiptoed away.

I took no further action. Shortly after this, I read Jan Kott’s book “Shakespeare our Contemporary”. I resolved I would make all my subsequent Shakespeare’s relevant to modern literate teenagers.

I had no difficulty with the next Shakespeare I tackled. It was “Henry the fourth Part one”. In vain I begged to be allowed to run the two parts in repertoire. Even somehow staging them as it were with no more than the usual three weeks rehearsal. I had no difficulty over relevance with this piece. Hans clouded all the highly stylised scenery with a metallic finish which I believe, with bolt heads protruding, he hoped would remind people of armour. In effect the carefully graded metallic paint made it look as though we were somehow encased in a battleship – Potemkin perhaps, no matter. It looked very impressive. The lowlife tavern scenes worked a treat. I was rather pleased with the ultimate battle of Shrewsbury where I lined up the Royalists, wearing prominent blue favours, against the rebels who ported red. They look like two football teams Chelsea and Arsenal perhaps and a cannon shot provided a starting whistle for general mayhem.

 Falstaff walked out on me after one weeks rehearsal – a blessing in disguise because Roger Heathcott, an entirely new face to me, came to our rescue and was splendid. This began a relationship which lasted throughout my career in Colchester. Thank you Roger for shining so brightly in such roles as Tobias (no not with the angel)  but in Albee‘s “Delicate Balance” Lopahkin, Toby Belch, Dad in “All my sons” the first voice in “Milkwood” and many others. Stephen Moore was a brilliant Hotspur it was all, Elliot again, you may say satisfactory.

Which is more than can be said for my next two Shakespeare productions I decided to set “Romeo and Juliet” in somewhere like post colonial Cyprus – two distinct races, darker skin mountain people the Montagues and lighter skin the Capulets. The music was strongly Greek. In rehearsal it became apparent that would be no logical explanation at least in theory for why Romeo is such a chum of Benvolio and Mercutio so I had to abandon the pigmentation idea. Even before rehearsals started I knew in my heart of hearts the actors would not buy into this scheme. They would’ve been right. Eileen Belden came down to Colchester and gave us a splendid aged nurse. I’m sure there were lots of women in the audience who carefully added up the years in her first speech and said “hey wait a minute she’s too old”. Nevertheless, by several lengths she undoubtedly raced away with any honours that were going. When the pie was cooked as it were, it did occur to me that there might be something wrong with a production of the play where the nurse’s performance was magnificently better than anyone else’s.

Eric Woofe returned to play Romeo. He was an excellent strong flexible juvenile lead and he might still have a look and being 30. He accepted the contract and some weeks later came down to see me. He brought with him an actress/girlfriend with whom he had been on holiday in Cyprus as it happened. Marilyn Taylor Assen was an actress I had heard of. She was a willowy blonde with an expressive face, and huge sorrowful tragic eyes. I had to tell Eric that I had already cast Juliet – a neat little brunette who proved herself in several comedy parts. It had long being an axiom of mine that an actor who is really skilled in comedy can take to tragedy as the proverbial duck to water. Jodie Andrews had been a great success as a Babe in the wood in the Christmas pantomime. She had what my wife described as a Renaissance face. She deserved her chance. Unfortunately though (neither of their faults) she and Eric failed to click. They were excellent in the scenes away from each other, but there was no real magic when they were together.

Years later, I was interviewed by lengthy telephone call to go to California to have another go at the play. Off the top of my head when they asked what would be the theme of the production I said like a Gothic horror movie – people scurrying about in arched passageways, sinister friars in cowls ending up in the lowest place of all a tomb. They were impressed and I needed the work. In the event it worked where my first production had failed. The college had a thriving drama department And the younger parts would be played by the students in their last year. Otherwise we simply held a big open audition. I was amazed at the quality of the actors on offer. There were several people with experience willing to commute from Southern California. They being American equity members had to be paid what was referred to as the LORT commission. Local amateurs (Capulet for example, a pretty solid performance) were paid Peanuts. Fortunately it was not my business to sort the finances out. Apparently the state California would fund such ventures so this community theatre by paying the college according to the size of the cast list. Amateur members of the cast signed a piece of paper which enrolled them into the educational course – in this case having the dubious privilege of being directed by me. During rehearsal, I was constantly being asked if I could cope with yet more people to play non speaking parts. There was no difficulty in costumes. There were temporary courses in costumes and prop making too. I finished with the cast of 35. A professional fight director was engaged and he revelled in the members available and thanks to him  I made quite an impressive job of the fracas in the first scene. But the main reason there was a much more successful production of the play was that the young people were played by teenagers who had set their hearts about becoming professional actors. The love scenes trembled with passion. As it happened I was able to present without stressing the fact a degree of interracial tension Romeo and Benvolio were white Anglo-Saxon stock while my Juliet (devastatingly good) was Hispanic. Tybalt who looked as though he was born with a sword in his hand was small, very nimble, deadly and clearly oriental extraction probably Vietnamese. The success of this production “way out west”, rather rubbed in the shortcomings of the Colchester production, not that it had been a disaster.

Julius Caesar was though. This is my next Shakespeare after Romeo. And Kott’s ideas of relevance to a modern society were uppermost in my mind. We did it more or less in modern dress. There was nothing wrong with some of the ideas. The first half worked quite well. Anthony’s entrance as a triumphant Formula One driver with garlands, gold medals and a couple of adoring popsies worked a treat. I had a strong Brutus (Heathcott) and the scene of the assassination by, as it were, his own bodyguards using a submachine guns was certainly sensational. Well in a small theatre quite literally deafening.

Colchester is a Garrison town and the army top brass was very well disposed to its little professional theatre. The middle ranks too. The success of “Oh what a lovely war” and the national service farce “Reluctant heroes”, both at the Mercury sometime later, owed a great deal to 2 retired Sergeant majors who came and drilled the company for the first 20 minutes of every rehearsal. One of them said to me as the company approached the run through stage, “Do you know they look just like soldiers”. He broke off to bellow, “Heads up, chests out, swing your arms for fuck‘s sake”. “Oh what a lovely war” owed even more to the very clear memory of Joan Littlewood‘s wonderful original production to which I paid tribute in the program – or at least I hope I did.

The threat of a dreadful bomb outrage in the marriage quarters adjacent to the barracks is always present in town such as ours. Then it was the IRA. Now it is Al Qaeda inspired terrorists. The army let us have the weapons but would not allow us to store them. Instead a detachment in an armoured car delivered them for every performance, including Matinees at a varying arranged time as an hour or so before each performance. And the same vehicle with troops in combat collected them immediately after curtain down. This worked like clockwork and caused more amusement than alarm to the good citizens in our High Street. The technical dress rehearsal was patiently endured by an armourer from the regiment that was being so helpful. “You must be bored with all this,” I said to him (Latin grammar Nonne – a question expecting the answer no). “You should try guard duty,” he said.

 I’d expected that the guns would fire short bursts for the assassination and single sniper shots for the battle scenes in the second part of the play. No said the armourer the guns had been set for short bursts. They could be set for single shots. But I can’t possibly show you how to strip the guns down and reset them. And I can’t be here every day to do the job in the interval.

Battle scenes in Shakespeare always pose something of a difficulty. In Bernard Hepton’s Anthony and Cleopatra they had been rather a drag. I would not at this late stage re-organise the whole second half. My only weapons with these submachine guns. Properly perhaps they were automatic rifles. Even the slightest pressure released at least five shots. I knew the second half of Julius Caesar was doomed. The audience was quite simply deafened by sound.

That is what I like to think and of course there is still a truth in it. Over the years “Julius Caesar” has rumbled like a perpetual stomach ache. It took me a long time to realise that I had paid too much attention to giving a modern interpretation. Elizabethan Englishmen and Elizabeth herself lived under constant threat of calamitous assassination. But being Shakespeare he is ambivalent as he always is. There are very few out and out villains in his plays. He is more interested in the decay of noble aspirations, in petty squabbles, in the bond between the two buddies. As in the very best western, the bond between Brutus and Cassius is a deep and entirely suppressed homosexual one. Shakespeare explores it with his usual thoroughness. But I have to confess that the director of this piece in the early 70s was overly interested in the superficialities of battle. Tired unshaved men haggard from marching all day to say nothing of walkie-talkies cleaning and oiling of guns bathing some feet et cetera et cetera I realise something was wrong, when we did not thoroughly get the audience until after the quarrel in Brutus’s tent. But the quiet scene between Brutus and his page Lucius who sings to him just before Caesar’s ghost appears before in fact Philippi. It was beautifully played not only by Heathcott but by a new actor, Barry McCarthy as Lucius – the boy batman servant. He couldn’t sing at least not very well he could not play the guitar although he had assured me he could and that he would do these things. Ambitious young actors are desperately keen to work particularly in Shakespeare. Somebody taught him some very basic guitar chords and he developed a highly effective crooning sound. And how well he acted. Worried sick about his Lord and master’s mental stability he was doing his best to ease him into slumber. All in vain Shakespeare had another surprise up his sleeve with the ghost of Caesar.

There is clearly something wrong with a production of a play when the most striking performance is given by the actor in the smallest part. It would be wrong to say that I threw the Kott book out of the window and never looked at it again. But in all my post Caesar efforts I regarded him as a useful source for dress but after all he was an academic not an actual toiler in the theatrical vineyard as Shakespeare had been and so in my humble way was I. A servant one might say to his art.

Mr. William Shakespeare and a greatly humble servant of his art.

So the next year (Shakespeare came round regularly as clockwork in the old rep theatre) it was time (school syllabus again) for “Midsummer Night’s Dream”. I saw this one coming and quite deliberately avoided seeing Peter Brook’s version which sounded out of this world, wonderful. Everybody was talking about it and I am sure, if I had seen it, that my own production would have been strongly influenced. In any case, I was resolved to play it straight with the loyal Colchester audience and bearing Caesar in mind not to get that worried about relevance. We did it very briskly in Elizabethan costumes. Hippolyta was played as Queen Elizabeth and Theseus, less recognisably as the Earl of Leicester. The sextet of lovers was very strongly played Brian Walton, Angela Ellis, Gillian McCutcheon, Jeremy Child and Mary Gillingham and Giles Block, (Theseus). I believe the last name was relieved not to be burdened with Oberon as well as with Brook. Theseus is already by some 10 times the longest male part in the play and there is a risk that the audience will tire of the same male voice going on and on. I thought this was the case when a year or two later I saw Robin Bailey an actor I much admired, playing this double role I could not fail to be influenced by the two decent productions I had stage managed on two continental tours for Frank Hauser. John Harrison’s Birmingham production too had had memorable moments even though the determination to show the fairies as malign creatures cast a sinister note and a sour mantle over the evening.

I miscast Bottom in Colchester. John Harwood who done splendid work over several seasons (Frank Midway, one of the pair of middle-aged lovers in “Staircase”, Dad in “Loot”) for some quite uncountable reason made it clear that he did not want to play Bottom. His replacement, not a weak actor by any measure, simply could not do swaggering self-assurance. So my mechanicals were amusing enough but not quite the riot of hilarity that Hauser’s clowns provoked. Still perhaps our Theseus was stronger than either of his or Harrison’s and was able to deliver a hushed audience “on the iron stroke of midnight”. Our Oberon and Puck had the required pin drop silence to deliver the closing speeches.

The move into the new theatre presented a whole range of new problems. Particularly with acoustics. In the old hell hole the audience tended to swelter during the last act of every play, but the actors were able to impose that pin drop hush I have just exemplified. In the Mercury we had air conditioning. The motors and pumps were always audible. Some improvement was made during the first six months. But unless we lost 100 or so side seats and used the proscenium format, the actors found it more difficult to get the audience to concentrate in the quiet passages. This was very difficult for me. I knew the text so well by the run through stage. How could I judge whether an actor would be or could be heard or not? Complaints of inaudibility only filtered back after the play had opened through the front of house staff? One is, in fact, never too old to learn new tricks.

After I left the Mercury I worked for several London drama schools. For one of them I directed an open demonstration production at the George Inn, Southwark. The school had the services of a superb fight director and we chose to do a chunk of “Romeo and Juliet”, starting with the Capulet‘s ball and ending when Romeo legs it from Verona having killed his fiancée’s kinsman Tybalt. The pub was an ancient building and had a gallery running round a courtyard – ideal for Juliette‘s balcony. The street brawls were very exciting and easily held the audience’s attention. Not so the quieter love scenes. Local business people dropping in for a quick pint and a bite shouted loudly asking what was going on and, when they cottoned on, much ribald chatter ensued. “Get in there mate” one remarked loudly, not overly interested in “the pale suns or envious moons”. Afterwards I was somewhat at a loss as to what to say to the pair of distraught young actors. I was fairly distraught myself. Fortunately, the voice teacher was on hand. More volume probably won’t help she said. Better diction certainly will. Shouting out vowel sounds simply makes more noise. Put your energy into the consonants. If only, I thought, we had had a professional voice teacher on hand in the early days of the Mercury.

I followed up the no clever tricks policy with productions of “The Winter’s Tale” and “Twelfth Night”. Derek Newark who had brilliantly played the other chap in “Staircase” (in the stew pot of a theatre: pin drop acoustics for the asking) had written to me shortly after the Mercury opened. He was then at the National and was dissatisfied with his casting and thought he could claim to have been offered some meaty parts in the provinces perhaps. I wrote back immediately offering him Autolycus. He kept me waiting for a bit then rang me to say “Leontes or nothing”. I had to tell him that Leontes was already cast Peter Laird from the resident company. I did not point out to him that his stage persona did not easily take on the mantle of clean cut aristocracy, let alone the cool arrogance of royalty. The tragedy was that as a result of this I cast Autolycus the biggest hinge part in dramatic history, swinging the audience from impending tragedy into comedy. I cast it horribly. The actor who played it was by no means weak and an amusing enough rogue but stopping well short of lovable.

Michael Poole did stalwart work as Polixenes. He was the tallest man in the cast and, wonderful company member that he was, cheerfully shouldered the task of doubling the Pursuant Bear. I had hit upon the cunning wheeze of dotting the stage which suggested the coastline of Bohemia with dark shaped mounds which in the dimmed lighting might be mistaken for rocks. Michael was a comfortable looking Mound for Antigonus to sit on. When he arose to his full height, teeth showing claws flailing and roaring, he was a terrifying sight. And something in his lumbering gate switch the audience immediately to being receptive to comedy. At the technical dress, poor Michael had difficulty aligning the eye holes in the bear mask with the required vision. The Mercury stage has a thrust apron and he could not locate the narrow exit into the OP wings. The poor fellow fell off the stage and damaged his ribs quite severely fortunately no more than bad bruising. We took care during the rest of my tenure to do the exits with blue tape and ultraviolet tape. This is still a problem apparently. A recent equity letter told me that Tony Britton had suffered a similar fall quite recently. And he had sued the theatre for compensation. Mr Britton has most unfortunately never quite recovered full mobility of his arms.

“Twelfth night” is everybody’s favourite – me included. I’m so glad that I had got over the worst of my contemporary relevance period by the time I came to direct it. We did it fast and light, if the strength of the production was below stairs who cared? Certainly not the audience. Courtly love was still very much alive as a concept in Shakespeare’s time but it is not an idea that springs readily to the minds of a modern audience. Better to treat the piece as a fairy tale, almost a pantomime, dare I say? I have no time for butch leggy Violas but I did rather wish that mine, a very good actress Pamela Ruddock,  had more principal boyish legs. We had an inexperienced Olivia which made life difficult for Pam. We used mediaeval hour book illustrations as the source for the costumes and sets. If we were stronger below stage than in the satirical romantic take on courtly love the audience seemed thoroughly to enjoy it.

With “Much ado”, I ventured away from medievalism and set it firmly in Mexico in 1860 with the Prince as the emperor Maximilian. Helen Bourne was a lovely Beatrice. I checked with Chris Emmett who had already been contracted to play Dogberry. He was enchanted by the whole Mexican idea and so it proved. He was the least laboured and therefore the funniest Dogberry I’ve ever seen. There was perhaps a little glitch when the rest of the watch turned up with their very English names – Hugh Oatcake, George Seacole et cetera, but Shakespeare set the play in Sicily and if very English names did not worry him I’m sure his ghost lost no sleep on my insisting that in their first few lines they picked up Chris’s Mexican accent. I saddled poor Ian Granville Bell who played Verges with a much greater problem. I thought it would be rather fun if Verges was played as a sort of deadbeat worse for drink character, so frequently played in movies by Walter Brennan, not quite all there but with a certain charm. It was a poor idea. Ian stuck to it and did the best he could. Usually he steals most of Dogbury’s scenes. I remember seeing Ken Connor do just that in a Bristol Old Vic production while I was stage handling there in 1946. Ian fed Chris pretty well but I owe him a huge apology for an obstinate piece of direction.

Nobody liked my “Macbeth” except some of the cast members. In the late 80s Monica did a couple of plays for Ian Granville Bell at Milford Haven. I drove to see them. Both productions were absolutely first rate – “Gigi” and “Something’s Afoot”. The company was largely drawn from stalwarts from the Mercury days. Having a drink with them in the bar afterwards they were all gratifyingly full of praise for my ideas and work on the Scottish play. No skin off their noses. By that time I was not running a theatre and was no longer in a position to hire or fire actors.

Nevertheless, I have pondered on this running sore in my memory ever since. I now believe I know where I went wrong. Geoff Hinsliff had done excellent work for me in mammoth parts: “Inadmissible  Evidence”, “Equus”, “Butley” and still to come, the mature Laurie Lee narrator in ”Cider with Rosie”. He spoke the verse well and brought a dogged indestructible quality to the leading Scotsman. No reason why he could’ve pulled off the success. No, Maxima Culpa I now think over years later that I was guilty of being schematic trying to impose an interpretation on a play instead of allowing room to develop in the hands of the actors. This is a difficult equation to balance. Actors like to feel that they are part of a crew that someone knows where they are headed. This is why I greatly prefer the word director to producer. Conjurors produce things. Certainly a touch of magic would have been needed to save this particular enterprise.

The failure was not almost entirely my fault. I do not believe in occult powers come to that, although I describe myself as an agnostic, I have no belief in God. Shortly before Macbeth went to the drawing board as it were, I saw a TV documentary about the witches of Pendle. The sisters that were a sort of commune of women living rough in the Pennine moorlands. To my shame I cannot remember whether it was after the Wars of the Roses or in the 17th century Civil War but they were war widows with nobody to support them. The countryside was ravaged, there were virtually no men to till the fields. They were joined by desperate young women. There was a death of marriageable men in the villages. Their camp was primitive but situated not far from the main traveller route. They waylaid male travellers. The income was from direct prostitution and also the older women would for a price tell fortunes. They became adept in necromancy, specialising in telling doubled edged prophecies which could seem to have some truth which ever future events fell out. The business in Pendle thrived. People would travel considerable distances to get their future foretold. Or simply as our American friend say get laid. I bought into this idea 100%. I opened to play with every available actor playing a corpse on a battlefield and my witches were engaged in corpse robbing. Everything followed from this. The result was that nobody in the theatre except maybe Geoff Hinsliff in  character as the Thane believed in the sheer power of evil as a supernatural force – least of all the director.

“Hamlet” came with something of a surprise to me. I was somewhat late with the autumn list that year and had eventually submitted it with a space saying Shakespeare and went away to wonder whether I could do a decent job on “Measure for Measure”. When I approached David Forder about this, he said we’re doing Hamlet. I’ve already mentioned it to the English department of several schools. The grammar school is very interested. So there were my marching orders. Hamlet is a piece for an actor not basically a director. I asked Barry McCarthy saying in effect to hell with mathematics that makes him 33 when he died. I’m convinced these we added later to make Burbage credible in the lead. “Play him as 23/24 not long out of university. I’m going to cut it and emphasise the family aspect with an eye to the politics. I aim to come in on under three hours.” I believe Shakespeare so dearly loved this play that he never stopped writing it and Hemmings and Condell, his fellow actors somehow got hold of his full beloved text when they published what we know as the First Folio. We also know from the prologue to “Romeo and Juliet” that an average Elizabethan performance lasted an average of a couple of hours. The Quarto version if you played it at break next speed probably comes in about this amount. You could have a very strong melodramatic revenge tragedy the sort of thing a decade or so later Marston was turning out by the yard. You could leave out a lot of the great soliloquies which to be fair are popular with the audience as well as the actors – soliloquies that show the greatest wordsmith of all time in top form wrestling with the problems of mankind and his destiny. Shakespeare certainly knew his Montagne which I dipped into during rehearsals. Likewise, the Anatomy of Melancholy, a psychology textbook for the Elizabethans. They were astonishingly modern in their approach to this branch of medicine. I’d always thought that there was no psychology before Freud and Jung. Their approach to the subject was certainly revolutionary. But there are some astonishing things in “the Anatomy”.

Barry was really very good – which is all that matters in this particular play. I was slightly disappointed in his mother. She was so busy being queenly that she came over rather spinsterish. Sheila Godbolt had designed a very decollate costume and the actress who it is true had no great reason to be proud of her breast line insisted on having a fill in front put in. This was particularly maddening because “Hamlet” was proceeded by “Cabaret” in which the lady had given a beautiful performance as a broken down street walker. Still she was by no means week and she and Barry worked up a fine old lather in the bedroom scene. I decided not to cut Fortinbras. There needed to be a dispassionate voice for the final summing up. I could’ve done with a stronger actor to close the play, but he was far short of being a disaster. Otherwise there was excellent work from the usual suspects – Ted Brayshaw Brian Walton, John Webb and Crispin Gilbard and Sarah Thomas – when mad she was sexy enough, kneeling before Claudius and diving mouth foremost for his crotch. We played no tricks and I believe gave a fairly decent account of most of the great and deservingly popular play. A note to subsequent directors have your tallest actor play the ghost or else make sure he is on a rostrum. The text demands considerable mobility too. In my version, he was invisible to Gertrude and the audience in the bedroom scene.

Somewhat to my relief at the Mercury, we abandoned the ritual of schools Shakespeare coming around each spring regular as clockwork. We ventured in our classic work into works by Goldsmith, Farquhar, Wycherley, Aphra Behn.  I was particularly proud of that one. A coven of feminist literati descended on Colchester for this one. They were a little nonplussed that Aphra, a lovely witty woman that she was, had no particular feminine axe to grind, creating not only in the Rover but in her other plays a sort of  ultra-virile, devil (and all women) may care superhero. She was part of a quartet of interchangeable partners with the libertine Earl of Rochester an actor manager and an intimate friend of Elizabeth Barry. Her plays are fun and ought to be done more often.

The next Shakespeare I tackled was in fact “Measure for Measure” – thank you David for giving me the chance. It has a reputation for being a sour bitter piece and not attractive to provincial theatre goers. In fact we did quite well with it at the box office. What is more I am convinced it was my best Shakespeare venture. Richard Baker had succeeded Sheila Godbolt as head of design. He lacked her apparently infinite capacity to give us a stylish look for all sorts of different places and periods. Richard exceled in a style best described as brutalist. He reminded me of Voytek. He did me proud in both “Measure for Measure” and my last professional Shakespeare in England “King Lear”.

I set “Measure” well to the east of Vienna. I had made British Council funded visits to both Bulgaria and Romania and had observed at first hand what happened when a totalitarian regime tries to control every aspect of the life of its people, including its sexual Mores. I was also struck by the fact that the priest in the orthodox persuasion wore a somewhat strange costume and all were obliged to have beards. I had now directed a dozen or more pantomimes and saw immediately the comic fun that the Duke might have with a false beard. I was also deeply concerned that the audience should see the parallel in Shakespeare fable with the Puritan backlash which convulsed all after the swinging 60s. After cheering loudly at the abolishment of censorship I was among many who were appalled at the violence of the attack on “The Romans in Britain” and Kirkup’s poem in Gay News. We therefore did it in modern dress. I was particularly pleased with the moment when every available male in the company donned a black coat and hardhat picked up a riot shield and club and under the direction of the Provost (one of Shakespeare’s most sympathetic characters), Proceeded with great brutality to cleanse the red light district of Vienna of its whores, pimps and brothel keepers. Mariana the deserted fiancee of Angelo, the jealous Puritan politician, was first seen sipping a gin and tonic alone in a bar. A sign declared it to be the Grange motel. A bored waiter at her request switched on the jukebox. Graham Ripley, musical director composer, had set “Take, oh take those lips away” to a Lennon McCartney beat.

I was told that Brett Usher who played the Duke had once studied for the priesthood before he found his true vocation as an actor. I never asked Brett whether this was true but he certainly turned up at early rehearsals with something that looked very like a breviary and seemed eager to discuss the philosophy behind Shakespeare’s great problem play. I discouraged him from deep philosophical discussions and set him on course to playing the Duke as a young inexperienced ruler on a steep learning curve. He decides to see how his people live by going underground and disguised as a humble priest. We decided to play the great “absolute for death” speech as a peace of scholastic absurd philosophy almost Pythonesque claptrap. Claudio focused it. All found it all hysterically funny. So, not so hysterically, did the audience.

I had Isabella dressed into style as befitted a novice not full blown. In grey dress designed by Baker she looked like awful little orphan Annie. This made Angelo‘s sudden obsessive sexual passion far more human less surely perverse and therefore the Dukes final forgiveness less odd.

I cast relatively young men as Angelo and the Duke. I had seen an excellent production in the 50s at Stratford by Peter Brook no less John Gielgud as Angelo and Harry Andrews as the Duke. Brook gambled everything on building up a magnificent entrance for the Duke in the last act – the devastating power of justice. Andrew is carried it off marvellously. Gielgud was fine too except in the last scene when he punctuated the Dukes judgemental speeches with loud repentance agonised groans not in the text. What is more they interrupted the meter? Peter Hall (whose book on the subject I have read and tend to disagree with) would not have approved. It is easier to forgive a younger man trapped by his sexual desire when it’s striking particularly astonishing fearlessness if the Duke is himself played as a comparatively young man. Barry McCarthy was an actor who won a sympathetic response from the audience in every part he played for me. He even made the audience see things his way when he played the Loathsome Barnet, the male nurse in Nichols’ “National health”. He did me proud as Angelo too. Brett was a very subtle actor and he was able to play “be absolute to death” as a bit of high comedy piling one piece of nihilistic anti-human philosophy on top of another. So that Claudio the young man under death sentence was reduced to fits of laughter, half hysterical of course. But the audience got the joke too.

I cannot resist mentioning another idea of mine that seemed to work well. Bill Thomas, richly talented actor particularly in comedy parts, made a fine thing of Abhorson, the executioner. He entered bowler hat pinstripes and attaché – case everybody’s idea of a civil servant – and the last a beautifully made prop by Adrian Hudson who after a year or two as a very good fly man  was promoted to being number two in stage management. He now enjoys a rewarding if not lucrative career as a Punch and Judy man. When opened this prop sprang into place as a demonstration executioner’s block and in the lid was frighteningly a real executioner’s axe in several pieces ready to be screwed together as he instructed Pompey, (Brian Walton) in the tricks of trade. Both these actors had been in Mercury pantomimes and it showed. Nervo and Knox would not have been funnier no apologies for remembering the Crazy Gang.

But I do beg for forgiveness for dwelling so long on “Measure”. It was after all my most successful Shakespearean attempt. Thus fortified I felt bold enough to tackle “King Lear” albeit somewhat nervously. In an edition of “David Copperfield”, no longer in my possession, there was an introduction by GK Chesterton. He said if Mr Micawber that he felt as though he was at the base of a great statue representing a figure of colossal genius. He was wandering around the base of it, wondering what to say. This is how I felt about Lear. Still the mountain was there it had to be climbed.

Sometime before, I had travelled to Ipswich which then had a theatre as small and cramped as Colchester’s Albert hall. John Southworth whom I knew from his time at the Birmingham company was the artistic director. I believe he had already been told he would not be considered for the job in the new theatre. The Woolsey was now in its planning stage (now where have I heard similar things before?) He had acted very rarely indeed during his 10 year at Ipswich but here he was playing George in Stoppard’s “Jumpers”, directed by my ex associate director Giles Block. Splendidly directed too. Peter Hall who was Suffolk born came to see it and shortly afterwards offered Giles a contract at the National. He owed a great deal to his leading actor. Southworth chose to play George as a man full of self-knowledge, recognising in himself the seeds of senile decay. I thought if ever I directed King Lear, this would be the actor for me and so it proved. He was splendid. He was also excellent as Croker Harris in “The Browning Version” in my last season at the Mercury.

It is hard to say what is terrifying about Lear, but the play certainly goes deeper than any other piece of imaginative literature into mankind’s predicament. Lear, alone in a desolate landscape in a thunderstorm, is perhaps the most striking theatrical Image ever. But of course he is not alone. Crouching at the foot of this statuesque figure as though trying to gain shelter from a tree is his inseparable alter ego, the fool.

There is a footnote tucked away in the Arden addition of Lear written by Edith Sitwell. She thought it likely that in the original production of “Lear”, the fool and Cordelia had been played by the same actor. This would be a mundane down to earth explanation for the fool’s disappearance from the action well before the end of the play. I decided to give it a whirl. Theresa Watson who never gave a bad performance in 10 years intermittent work in Colchester agreed to have a go. To my mind it worked a treat. But I would say that wouldn’t I?  Southworth’s Lear knew in his heart of hearts that he had treated Cordelia with undeserved cruelty. The fool was his conscience always with him always pricking until he relapsed into helpless senility and there was his youngest daughter restored to him again nursing him back to health.

To balance this, I cut the suitors for Cordelia’s hand in scene one. Otherwise I played the text as straight as I possibly could. I was uncertain as to period. I believe Shakespeare had Arthurian legend in mind hence the heraldry in the final duel between goody Edgar and baddy Edmund. But for me “Camelot” had made the period somewhat hackneyed. Baker came once again handily to my rescue. The play gains by being costumed in no particular period. Some of the costumes, but not all, suggested space age. Universality after all was the name of the game.

Post script

A very long previous chapter but who deserves more space in a theatrical memoir than the greatest literary figure ever? Apart from the Shakespeare’s I have chosen not to write about my 12 year tenure of artistic matters of the Mercury. This is mainly because it is still difficult to get success and failure in proportion. Self justification in the case of failure can be treacherous and tiresome. In any case there were undoubtedly rather more that were decent enough rather than the opposite.

There was an occasion a year or two into my tenure at the Mercury when a guest director took charge of the main house production while I did some work in the studio. The play was “Habeas Corpus”, beautifully staged by Chris Dunham. I was having a drink in the bar during the first week. Came the interval and I was joined by the audience still flushed with pleasurable laughter. “You know,” said a gentleman near me (I believe one of the party from the Garrison”. “I saw this play in London Alec Guinness and all. I didn’t enjoy it so much as I’m enjoying this one.” I snuck away feeling intensely proud of my company. The whole can be more than the sum of the parts. Thank you for actors for doing me and Chris so proud.

End piece.

If I chose not to write in detail about my 12 year tenure at the Mercury it is not because I lack pride in it – far from it.  I however feel I might give too much self-justifying weight to my defence of the occasional failure rather than swanking about the successes. In my heart of hearts I knew that in those happily rare instances when the company failed to please I was to blame. The actors had followed one of my hare-brain schemes all too faithfully. I decided to list a sort of role of honour to applaud in this last chapter. I have no complete set of programs to use as a reference. Consequently, I may have missed out on one or two through sheer loss of memory. I also (apologies for meanness of spirit) have left out one or two who gave glittering performances in my productions but would not qualify by anybody’s definition as good company members. In particular I owe a debt of gratitude to all those you unsung heroes who slogged and sweated their hearts out in the musicals I directed. After the show has opened, you could always tell whether it is a success by the state of morale in the chorus dressing room.

If I had chosen to list by chronology the date they first played at the Mercury instead of alphabetically at least one interesting fact would’ve emerged. Melvyn Hastings was the 1st to be listed in a Mercury theatre program. He played the drummer, a non-speaking part, in our first production “The Recruiting Officer”. Over my 12 seasons in charge he became more and more indispensable to my casting. He gave Colchester a first rate Dame in “Sleeping Beauty”. He was in each play of my final season in Colchester. He rose splendidly to the occasion as John Proctor in Crispin Thomas‘s production of “The Crucible” and shortly afterwards did very stalwart work as the Tin Man in my final production.

Three other names provoke rather sad thoughts in the in the memory. Rather than self-satisfied pride. They are a constant reminder to me that stage acting is a grindingly exhausting profession. Mohan Singh had a small part in “Conduct Unbecoming”, a very good piece of theatre set in Victorian Raj India.  He fulfilled the role admirably until he dropped dead one afternoon halfway through the run in Colchester High Street. Heart attack. He was, it transpired, not an Equity member and the agency who had suggested him knew very little about him indeed. We simply could not trace any living relative nor any address to which we could send the little brown pay packet which was his due on the Friday after his death. As far as I know that little brown envelope was still tucked away in a drawer in the theatre office at the time I left eleven and a half years later.

Richard Fraser was, as was Melvin, an absolutely indispensable actor. He had a strong stage presence and could it seemed play everyone at anything between the ages of 35 and 80. He played Lord Peter Wimsey and Jack Worthing to show he could do Toffs. He played two dames in exemplary style and the Demon King just to show that where necessary he did not lack the common touch. My last production at the Mercury was “Wizard of Oz”, not a pantomime but a fairy-tale as I was anxious to point out to everyone. The lion suited Richard‘s talents absolutely. He was terrific and as the script demanded hilariously terrified too. He did not spare himself. But two shows a day in a very energetic role took more out of Richard that was humanly advisable. He had by this time been diagnosed as having cancer of the lymph-gland. It has been settled that I should draw my last salary check from the Mercury the weekend that “Wizard” closed. That last performance went like a dream and I left in high spirits with an American contract settled. I had already planned the spring season, appointed guest directors and handed over unceremoniously to my successor Michael Winter. Richard was to be heavily involved. He was already coughing interminably but always off stage during the last week of Oz. I never saw John Adams reportedly excellent production of “Inspector Calls”, but I gathered Richard had done pretty well as Mr. Birling. He was in serious trouble though by the time the next play “94 Charing Cross Road” opened. I was actually packing my bags for Dallas when Michael Winter phoned me. And I heard about Richard. He was coughing rackingly interminably not just in the wings, but on stage too. He mentioned he had employed an extra actor whose name escapes me (shame on me this actor never worked for me but I had seen him and he was undoubtedly a good choice). Mr X was learning the part and would standby if Richard simply could not continue. Nothing stimulates an actor more than the feeling he gets when somebody else is preparing to take over part in which he feels he is good. By the time I was on the aeroplane Richard was coughing less and improving. Jill Graham, lovely girl splendid actress, was playing opposite him in “Charing Cross Road”, seeing the situation apparently improving told Richard “Cancer of the gland – not to worry,” she said. “It’s reversible, I know, I’ve had it and I’m cured.” Of course she succumbed a year or two later but by that time she was working not for me but for Ian Granville Bell in Milford Haven. She and Monica played the parts in a nationwide tour of “Gigi”. Well, Wales is a nation isn’t it? It was the first rate production too.

Richard went into hospital shortly after “Charing Cross” closed. He did not actually die until the August. I had a break between my two Dallas assignments. I was living in a flat on the university campus and the Shakespeare festival company, my next employers, did not want to pay the university rent. “Henry the fifth” was cast, the designs approved and I was sent home for a fortnight break, I was just in time for Richard’s funeral.

Richard had been a Quaker and I was very impressed by the informality in general friendly warmth generated at his committal service. I live in the first floor flat in central Colchester. We are still quite happy here. One of the things that have made us stay so long in one place is the view from our sitting room window. It is of trees. The ground falls away as we look eastwards. We can see a piece of the Roman wall and scarcely any houses. The patch of greenery is carefully kept and there is a pair of heavy iron gates guarding the entrance. It is of course the Quaker graveyard. And there is my friend and colleague Richard Fraser. I do not dwell much on the matter but I cannot escape the uneasy feeling as I sit at my desk that in casting a sick man in a series of strenuous roles, I am partly responsible for his death.

I do not have nearly such a load of guilt when I think of Peter Ducrow. But perhaps I should. Peter became seriously ill during the run of “Macbeth”. I was shocked to discover halfway through the run that he had equipped himself with an oxygen cylinder and mask in his dressing room. He apparently (so his colleagues told me) spent every moment he could taking in artificial self-administered respiration. It did not affect his very good performance (doubling Duncan and the porter). I often saw that particular show from the front doing my best to cheer the company up. This particular evening the show was going rather well. The company had at last found a flexible rhythm and a thriller pace unlike the pandemonium of the first night. We got as far as the thunderous knocking on the castle gate. Upstage centre who should enter? Not Peter’s grumbling Porter with his fruity language but Christopher Snow, our stage manager in costume as a battlefield extra. I don’t know what alarmed me more: the thought that Peter had collapsed or that Chris, totally unrehearsed, was proposing to play the Porter. Poor David Gwillym (Macduff) and Matt Zimmerman (Lennox) having to make the first entrance on stage inhabited by somebody who would only have the vaguest idea of what the lines were or who spoke them.

But no: Chris moved down stage quite smoothly as the lights changed from thriller gloom to full up, blazing sunlight; even the house lights came on to full.  “Ladies and gentlemen,” said Chris with commendably clear diction. I have to inform you that there has been a telephone call suggesting there might be a bomb in the theatre. The police says it is probably a hoax but we insist that they insist that we evacuate the theatre. I must ask you to leave the theatre quickly and quietly. We have in fact rehearsed this and hopefully you will be back in your seats in about 20 minutes time.” The audience carried out these instructions with admirable calmness and speed. The IRA had only a year before burnt down Woolworths in the town High Street.

There is a handy and excellent pub, “The hole in the wall” and at first I wondered how the actors had managed to get to the bar before the audience arrived. But I suppose they had a head start. They had presumably started off as Chris entered the stage. At first there was an uneasy but not unpleasant silence between actors and patrons.  Jeoff Hinsliff (Macbeth) took the bull by the horns and said to the world in general “well how do you think it’s going?” There was a pin drop silence in the crowded bar for a second or two but after a second or two embarrassed silence an animated discussion apparently took place. This I don’t doubt centred on Alistair Burman‘s highly impressive set which loured grimly over the whole thing. “This castle has a pleasant seat,” Peter remarked as Duncan arrived at the castle. “He’s a smooth talking liar for a start,” the audience probably thought. I left in the early stages of this to see how the search was proceeding. I have no doubt Jeffrey would mention how difficult it was in the dagger speech to find a moment to turn his back on the audience and mount the awkward steps to the balcony upstage centre the steps were particularly steep and awkward.

Peter had a play out before starting rehearsals for Cinderella in which he would have been splendid as a Father with too many daughters. I went up to see him in hospital twice the first time he was too ill to be coherent, but it was clear that my presence upset him rather more than it comforted him. The second time Monica accompanied me. He was still very ill. Uppermost in his mind it seemed was the feeling he had let me down. I had to tell him that I was replacing him in the pantomime. What are you doing after Christmas? He inquired. “A little bit of Fluff”, I replied. I made something of a speciality of reviving popular box office comedies of the past – “The Rover”, Henry Arthur Jones’s “The liars” Sir John Hawkins’ “The Cassilis Engagement” a play called “The Mollusc” to my shame I can’t immediately remember the author’s name. The most successful of these was “Fluff”, a piece of sheer escapism from the casualty list of 1916. “Worms Eye View” which I also revived did something similar for us all in the latter part of the Second World War.

Anything in it for me said Peter raising one eyelid. “Well,” I said hesitantly. “As a matter of fact there is but we’re going to rehearsal in a fortnight’s time. I’ll need to know if you are fit well before that.” Peter brightened visibly. “I’ll be there,” he said firmly. Sure enough just over a week later I had a telephone call from Peter. He’d left hospital, pronouncing himself fit and had gone home.

 Peter lived in Landermere surely one of the remotest spots in the vast spaces of the wasteland that constitutes the Essex marshes. They have a sort of desolate beauty that only those of us who have lived here for some time can appreciate. To others they have no charm at all. Landermere is still mentioned in small print on the large scale maps. Peter‘s cottage is in the middle of the word on the letter R if I remember correctly. Any village that was ever there has long since disappeared into marsh. There is no other habitation within half a mile of Peter‘s abode. Peter threw a company party one Sunday for anybody in the company who could find their way. A surprising number of us did. ‘Bring your own booze and I’ll sort out some sausages’. In fact, he entertained us quite royally. It was clear that Peter did not live a hermit‘s life in his remote cottage. Several local ladies (they must’ve come from Thorpe-Le-Soken or Beaumont-cum-Maze were on hands to act as hostesses. It was clear Peter did not exactly live like a hermit. The party was a great success. There was a beach dinghy in the nearby creek and Peter was talking about buying it if he could find two other chaps to be part owners. Three men in a boat I thought. Peter told us once he had only ever been late for rehearsal once in his career. He was working at Southwold for his sister Jane Shaw, who ran a summer rep there. He had chosen to live in Walberswick  across the estuary, renting a cottage which he shared with another actor. His excuse for being an hour late for rehearsal on a morning was, “Sorry I’m late our boat sunk.” Landermere cannot be more than 15 miles from Colchester. Perhaps we should’ve been glad that he did not try to commute by boat. However, he used a light motorbike, not perhaps the best mode of track transport for someone having breathing difficulties.

Peter rang me well before my deadline to say he was fighting fit and raring to go. I have no doubt that he discharged himself from hospital. I sent him a script and he professed himself very pleased with the casting. On the Sunday night before the first reading of “Fluff”, I was rung at home by Peter Yap. Who was not in “Cinderella” or “Fluff’. He told me that at the behest of a local lady, the police had broken into Peter‘s cottage and found him dead on the floor. We heard that the autopsy report mentioned as did the police report, “no suspicious circumstances and an unusually enlarged heart”. This phrase describes Peter stage persona perfectly. He always acted with his heart as well as his brain with his heart as well as his brain and he exuded enough warmth to envelop an entire full house. Peter Yap and Peter D were friends but not close in any sense of the word. They’re both been very good in Nichols’ “National Health” as the patient who on widely spaced entrances had three of his for limbs amputated and remained indomitably cheerful throughout. Ducrow had the difficult task, arriving on the ward at death’s door and gradually improving as the play progressed leaving in act three walking briskly back into the world. The only one of Nichols patients to do so. He was impressive. Yap, could offer no explanation for the fact that his was the only telephone number the police could find in the cottage except that of the Mercury, which it being Sunday was not answering.

They must’ve found a relative somewhere because three or four of them came to the funeral. So did the entire personnel of the Mercury payroll except one member of the box office staff to answer the phone. There must’ve been 50 of us and all of us except maybe a couple of Cinders’ chorus had known and loved Peter well and the group of the family rather stood apart from the rabble as we waited for the hearse in the cold. The curate conducting the committal services that day was running late and a joke or two was made sotto voce, which provoked a bit of unseemly giggling.

It was very cold in the chapel and there was none of the warmth we were to experience some years later at Richard’s do in the Friends’ Meeting House. The unease continued when the parson intoned nervously something like this, “Friends and family are gathered here in the sight of God to pay our last respect to and pray for the soul of (here he referred to his notes), Peter Bailey.” I was so shocked. I don’t think I heard anything else. My God, I thought the undertakers have made a mistake we’re here to dispose of the wrong body but of course a glance across at the family group who were showing no consternation suggested another explanation Ducrow had been a stage name

Academics pontificating about the theatre sometimes talk about the suspension of disbelief. The following scene demands total surrender of the imagination.

A shabby Street. A portico with a massively heavy double doors. An atmosphere of crumbling grandeur. Outside the doors stands a bouncer. Played perhaps by Bernard Bresslaw. Anyway, a massive fellow. He paces in front of the doors. Ducrow enters uncertainly downstage as he approaches the doors.

Bouncer: What do you want?

Ducrow: I’m not quite sure I was told to come here.

Bouncer: Name?

Ducrow: (after a second’s hesitation) Peter Bailey

Bouncer:  (produces a large notebook, has difficulty reading, mutters as he turns the pages).

No such name here mate.

DuCrow: But where do I go now?

Bouncer: don’t know mate you better just bugger off where you came from.

 (Ducrow does not move)  

From where you came.

(Peter starts to exit but pauses).

Ducrow: I might just have been better known as Peter Ducrow.

Bouncer: Oh yes here you are

(still fierce)

Why didn’t you say so before?

(reads laboriously) It says here you gave a lot of pleasure to a lot of people.

Transformation scene, the double doors vanish and are replaced by gates to a beautiful garden with a path leading to a fabulous palace. The gates are golden inset with pearls. As the gate swing open music sounds faintly. The bouncer’s face creases into the warmest smile imaginable. And he continues. He sprouts little wings and the club becomes a sword.

Bouncer: Peter come on in.

(Hand around Ducrow’s shoulder they walk up stage together.)

The party has started already, you know his nibs is not averse to a glass of wine. I can’t go in myself. I’m in limbo. It’s all because I can’t repent cutting the ear off that bastard Roman soldier.

There follows a list of the actors I worked with at Colchester:

Taiwo Ajai

Sybil Allen

Edward Arthur

Harvey Ashbee

Barbara Atkinson

Michael Attenborough

Steve Ayliffe

Anthony Barnett

Ian Bartholomew

Ian Granville Bell

Miranda Bell

Nicola Blackman 

Madeleine Blakeny

Richard Borthwick

Michael Bott

Helen Bourne

Nigel Bowden

Edward Brayshaw

Angela Bruce

Patrick Carter

Bob Cartland

Jan Cary

Elizabeth Charles

Pamela Charles

Jeremy Child

Jeremy Clyne

Martin Clunes

Sarah Coward

Ronald Cunliffe

Claudette Critchland

Lucinda Curtis

Lee Davies

Rodney Diak

Margaret Diamond

V Dorning

Helen Dorwood

Peter Ducrow

Donald Eccles

Robert Eddison

Michael Egan

Brian Ellis

Chris Emmett

Judith Fellowes

Bernard Finch

Roger Forbes

Laurel Ford

Joanna Foster

Jane Freeman

Helen Fraser

Richard Fraser

Richard Frost

Teresa Gallaher

Colum Gallivan

Michael Gaunt

Helen Gemmel

Crispin Gillbard

Gabrielle Glaister

Patrick Godfrey

Jill Graham

John Grillo

David Gwillym

Gabrielle Hamilton

Christopher Hancock

John Harwood

Melvyn Hastings

Lois Hauty

Roger Heathcott

Graeme Henderson

Norman Henry

Peter Hill

Geoffrey Hinsliff

Barbara Hicks

David Horrowitz

John Hudson

Vigel Hughes

Caroline Hunt

Celia Imrie

Irene Inescourt

Sheila Irwin

Jonathan Izzard

Susie Jenkinson

Nicholas Jensen

Mandie Joel

Jill Johnson

Lloyd Johnson

John Keenan

Simon Kelly

Eijy Kusuhara

Peter Laird

Jennifer Lee

Philip Lewis

Rhoda Lewis

Kenneth Lodge

Matthew Long

Lorelei Lynn

Susie MacKenna

Joanne Mackie

Elizabeth Mansfield

Sally Mates

Mikki Magorian

William Maxwell

Colin Mayes

Tim Meats

Hugh Manning

Art Malik

Tom Mannion

Helene  McCarthy

Barry McCarthy

Eliza McClelland

Gillian McCutcheon

Maria McLoughlin

Michael Menaugh

Michael Menick

Peter Messaline

Jonathan Milton

Kathleen Moffat

Stephen Moore

Wanda Moore

Vivienne Moore

Ursula Mohan

David Monico

Miriam Newhouse

Philip Newman

Audrey Noble

Gary Oldman

Brian Orerel

Kendric Owen

George Parsons

Catherine Pickering

Edward Phillips

Michael Poole

Celestine Randall

Stephen Rayne

Allyson Rees

Dudley Rogers

John Rolfe

Hugh Ross

Pamela Ruddock

Rosamond Shelly

Barry Shore

Mohan Singh

David Slater

John Southworth

Peter Sowerbutts

Tony Stephens

Monica Stewart

Rowan Suart

Julian Summers

Derek Tansley

Gerry Tebbut

Bill Thomas

Crispin Thomas

Ruth Tronice

Brian Tully

Loraine Turner

Mariann Turner

Robert Tunstall

Joanna van Gyseghem

Philippa Vaizey

Pamela Vesey

Philip Voss

Joanna Wake

Brian Walton

Hugh Walters

Marcia Warren

Nicky Watling

Theresa Watson

Eileen Waugh

Anthony Webb

John Webb

Stephen Webster

Willam Whymper

Bronwen Williams

Martin Wimbush

Susan Wooldridge

Terry Wright

Elian Wyn

Peter Yapp

Matthew Zimmerman