School Play
An Actor's remembrance: ‘THE PLAY’S THE THING…’ Geoff Hodgkins (1955)
Railway club as stage hands Neil Sinclair (1958/9)
Play
Title Year
Number
15. Macbeth 1955 David Frost played Banquo
16.
Alibi
1956 Magazine
Review
17. Twelfth Night
1958 Members of 1955 year mentioned
in the press cutting: Brian Wescott, Ian Prior.
18.
Stage Hands
19.
The Tempest 1962:
Cutting
Photograph
Programme
20.
Arsenic and Old Lace 1963
21.
Sweeping Reductions
1964 Plays written by H.A.Wrenn
1. Alibi 1956
Reading from left:, Jim Wilson - definitely, Geoffrey Martin -
definitely, D.Bolton (face at back)??, Roger Allen
- definitely, Barry Clarke (white jacket)
- definitely, B.H.Whitney (sitting at front),
D.O.Tall (but you already knew that!),
David Frost (bearded)-
definitely, B.R.Clayton (sitting at front), P.A.Tear
(looks like a bit of his head!),
Martin Spriggs (as a woman)-
definitely, D.Cooper – assuming this is Poirot,
Derek Roberts Names: Ivor W.Vincent
Audience of Alibi below click here.
Audience of Alibi
: 2 versions, first numbered, second plain.
5 = Bingham10 - R.E.Oberman, 15 - D.J.Payne, 31 - R.Craddock?, 32 - M.J.Newell, 33 - R.C.Manning, 34 - R.T.Needham, 35 - L.B.Steel, 42 - R.E.Smith - definitely, 45 - I.K.Reid - definitely, 46 - C.E.Garley - definitely, 47 - R.F.Adams - definitely, 48 - M.J.Walker, 58 - I.W.Vincent - very definitely!, 59 ie. next to 58 - R.D.Bland - definitely Names: Ivor W.Vincent
The School Dramatic Society, under the guidance of Dr. Jackson, this year performed Agatha Christie’s “ALIBI” on the four evenings from Nov. 20th to Nov. 23rd.
This is a thriller in which it is particularly necessary that the suspense should be established immediately and maintained to the end of the play. Consequently its demand upon the actors—and upon the producer, during rehearsals— are very searching, for it is by innuendo, by reaction to unexpected revelations, and by a series of dramatic crises that the tension is increased to the high drama of the final denonement. Dr. Jackson is to be congratulated on having trained his cast so thoroughly that the suspense was achieved naturally as the play progressed, without over-acting or artificiality.
“Alibi” depends for its movement upon the central character, Hercule Poirot. D. J. Cooper, who played this part, made no attempt to imitate the physical appearance of the fat little Belgian of the novels, but by voice, gesture and a fine sense of timing, conveyed the essential qualities of a Poirot who was no less the Poirot because he was tall and slim rather than short and fat. In the second act most noticeably, and also throughout the final act, he commanded the stage with that odd mixture of humility and conceit, earnestness and self-dramatisation which is peculiarly Poirot’s. B. H. Whitney’s Dr. Sheppard provided an admirable contrast. He was so worthy and respectable, and met the awkward situations which confronted him with such guileless composure that many people in the audience were genuinely surprised when Poirot’s stabbing “It was you, M. le Docteur!” eventually revealed him as the blackmailer and murderer.
D. P. Frost was convincing as the unfortunate Sir Roger Ackroyd and stoutly upheld the stage tradition he has by now well established of appearing in a beard and departing in a hearse. D. Roberts and B. R. Clayton dealt capably with the lengthy but relatively unrewarding parts of the Secretary and Major Blunt, patiently with-drawing themselves from undue attention but taking their chances as suspicion fell upon each of them in turn, while P. A. Tear’s dogged Police Inspector effectively underlined, by contrast, the intuitive brilliance of Poirot. B. A. Clarke, side-whiskered in the best butlering fashion, was accepted as Parker, without question.
The women of the play deserve special praise. J. Wilson’s performance as the elderly Mrs. Ackroyd was pleasing in its quiet control and restrained suggestion of genteel dignity. As the young Flora Ackroyd, R. F. Allen achieved a remarkably high standard, both in acting and appearance and is to be commended on overcoming the considerable difficulty of this part. M. A. Spriggs and G. G. Martin also tackled their female roles with conviction.
In supporting parts, D. O. Tall, M. Wyman and D. Bolton performed capably.
The play was pleasantly staged by Mr. Goodman and Mr. Stratfold; both interior scenes providing the effect of realism so important in a modern thriller, and the carefully designed exits effectively disguised the smallness of the stage itself. The lighting effects, too, were produced with the efficiency we have come to expect from Mr. Huddart.
The Tempest
Cutting:
The Tempest
Newspaper Photograph
Geoff Hodgkins (1955)
In answer to Graham’s increasingly desperate pleas for memories of WGS, I suppose the thing that stands out for me was taking part in the annual school plays. These were always done in December, normally during the last week of term but one. The Monday afternoon was a dress rehearsal for the school, and then the play was performed on four evenings, Tuesday to Friday. Tradition has it that the Tuesday had its fair share of mistakes, the Wednesday was the best, as by Thursday we were getting a mite complacent and by Friday we were all knackered. That was certainly true for those of us who didn’t live in Wellingborough and so had to stay at school, and then face a long bus journey home afterwards. (It was actually a good laugh to be in the school for a couple of hours when there was hardly anyone around. I seem to recall that we never did anything too outrageous: legend has it that Bob Leslie once peed into Jakey’s rain gauge, but it was never proved).
The first play I was in was in 1957, my third-form year, a farce called The Party Spirit. I was chosen for one of the women’s parts, for although my voice had recently broken, I could still get away with it. The other “women” – Richard Oberman, Roy York and Martin Spriggs – and myself had to go to Nora to be fitted up with wigs and padded bras. The play was set in the House of Commons at a time when the government had a tiny majority, and a small party, the Free Whigs, had just won a by-election, increasing their strength to two MPs. This gave them clout and they were courted by both the main parties as an important vote was coming up. The new member was a bit of a wide boy, on the make, and elected with more than a hint of rigged ballot papers, etc - a total contrast to the other older man. This ‘new boy’ was played by David Tall (Graham’s brother) and I was his girl, Chloe (nature of relationship unspecified). I can see now that my lines were full of double meanings and other references, but in those far-off innocent days, most of them were lost on me: for instance, I was supposed to be a singer in a nightclub called ‘The Bag O’ Nuts’! I suppose the air of innocence helped in my portrayal of Chloe as an airhead (the school magazine described me as “a vapid blonde”, and I had to look the word up in the dictionary to see what it meant!).
David Tall was superb in the part: he was a total extrovert and completely confident. But acting with him certainly kept you on your toes. One night (one of the earlier ones as I remember) he skipped about a page of dialogue. For someone like me with a photographic memory, that was nightmarish: I had to ‘turn pages’ in my head till I caught up with him. Another night he made an extravagant gesture, and knocked a glass over which was on the bar. It smashed on the stage, and David adlibbed, telling the barmaid to come and clear up the mess. What he had forgotten (if he ever knew) was that Roy York had persuaded Spike to allow him to wear his trousers and plimsoles (you remember plimsoles, the ancestor of trainers?). This was because Act 1 was set in the bar of the Commons and Roy played Mabel the barmaid who stayed behind the bar all the time, which meant that she (he) could only be seen by the audience from the waist up. So the ad-lib went something like this:
David: Oh, how clumsy of me! Mabel, come and clear that up for me, would you?
Roy: Not likely.
David: What you mean, Mabel? It’s a terrible mess.
Roy: Oh, that’ll be OK. Leave it. I’ll clear it up later.
So that was quite a baptism, but really enjoyable. (For those interested, there is a cast photograph at www.nutt.me.uk/wgs1952/misc_pics.htm)
Unfortunately I did not appear in the 1958 play as I missed most of the latter part of the autumn term having a cartilage removed. Sid Brown directed Twelfth Night, and several of the 1955 intake made their debuts then – Bob Scott, Richard Bradshaw, Ian Prior, Brian Westcott, and others. Spike was back again for the 1959 play. This was called Lifeline, a “drama” about a merchant ship during the Battle of the Atlantic. I played Casey, the Irish cook. Brian Westcott (being small) was the cabin boy, and I was supposed to bully him something rotten. I remember that one of my lines referred to him as “a snotty-nosed little bastard”, but Shpike decided it was a little too much for the audience so it was changed (I think the illegitimacy was changed to “devil” as I recall). Much of the drama centred around the animosity between the captain (Bob Scott) and the chief engineer – Scottish, of course: all engineers in plays and films seem to Scottish, don’t they? – played by John ‘Moose’ Bayes.
The play opened with me laying the table for the officers and singing along to an Irish song. The late lamented Albert Fenner (whose family came from Northern Ireland) lent us a 78 (remember those?) of The All-Lammas Fair in Ballycastle. I had to sing along with this, and what with all the rehearsals became heartily sick of it before the end.
The stage crew were of course the ubiquitous Railway Club, led by the redoubtable Ivor Cheale, by now supported by ‘Cloddy’ Barker, who was chiefly responsible for the props. The first act took place in port, and Cloddy tried to add some authenticity by standing behind the scenery dropping chains and such like, and saying naval type things like “Lower away there: easy aft” in his impeccable Oxbridge accent. Sometimes I think our best acting was keeping a straight face at such times. The other two acts took place at sea, when we came under fire, and managed to sink a submarine (could a merchantman do that??). However, Cloddy by this time was carried away and while we were in the middle of the Atlantic during a dramatic argument between the officers and captain, came the familiar bleat of “Lower away there – easy aft”, which as you can imagine was most disconcerting and hugely funny (to us, anyway). More of Cheale and Barker later.
Another memory of Lifeline is of poor Phil Bratby. He played a seaman (unnamed) and had one line to say. He had to come on and report to the captain during the scene when the ship was on fire. The line was – we heard it so many times it is branded for ever on my memory – “Sir, the forward hatch covers have just caught and all the men are aft”, and then he would exit. Phil would walk up and down saying this wretched sentence to himself. The last run-through before the dress rehearsal Phil got so nervous he came on, said it at triple speed and ran off. Spike went ballistic. “No, no, no, Bratby. We never heard a thing. Much too fassht. Come back and sshay it again”.
More authenticity came in the shape of Malcolm Billing’s smoke machine (his family did beekeeping, apparently). This was to accompany the end of the second act, when the ship was on fire. Dear old Billing took to his task with such enthusiasm that the smoke drifted out into the audience, causing Harold to storm backstage at the interval: “What the hell’s going on? We’re all coughing in the first four rows!” You couldn’t make this stuff up, could you?
In 1960 we did a 1920s comedy by John Drinkwater called Bird in Hand. It was set in a country pub, and focused on the change and tension going on in attitudes to social class at the time. The landlord’s daughter (Chris ‘Babyface’ Norman) was loved by the hunky son of the local squire (the dashing Richard Bradshaw), but her father objected as he was out of her class. The guests at the ‘Bird in Hand’ decide to support the young lovers by pleading their case with her father. Why does he disapprove? Is she not “good enough” for him? My daughter is good enough for any man alive, he answers. So what’s the problem? they say. Ultimately he faces his own prejudices and they all live happily ever after. At one point when things come to a head, and the landlord (‘Moose’ again) realises she has gone to her boyfriend, he loses his temper and calls out in a loud voice, “Time, gentlemen, if you please!” This is followed by a long pause; but one night out of the tense silence came two voices we knew and loved:
“Eh? Er, that clock must be wrong, George!”
“Yeth, it theemth fatht to me, Welph”.
The thing was, we never knew this was going to happen: we had not rehearsed it, and again it was an absolute miracle that we managed to keep straight faces. It also totally ruined the dramatic silence. I wonder if the director knew!
Bird in the Hand was directed by Ted Butcher. I liked him: he was a good sort, and I got my love of Shakespeare from him, when we read through The Merchant of Venice in class (the third form, I think it was). The intellectuals among you will recall that the story revolves around Shylock and “the pound of flesh”, but the key sub-plot concerns the choosing of the correct one of three caskets for the hand of the beautiful Portia. One of the suitors was the Prince of Arragon, and Ted asked me to read the part. He said the character was rather affected - I don’t think he would have used the word “effeminate”, but we all knew that a limp wrist or two would not be out of place. He suggested that every “r” should be pronounced as a “w” (a bit like Cloddy, in fact). This worked well until the line “And rank me with the barbarous multitudes”, which caused the extreme embarrassment of the reader, and the total collapse of the rest of the class. (I think Ted hid a smile as well).
Ted Butcher left WGS at that Christmas, after the play, to take up a Head of Department at a school in Nuneaton. On the final night Brian Westcott, who played a miserable old man who saw the down side of everything, changed one of his lines, which went something like: “My brother-in-law is one of the unluckiest blokes you could ever meet. He got knocked down by a car and broke his leg. He got over that, but then he had to go and live in Wolverhampton”. On the Friday Brian changed the name of the town to “Nuneaton”, to huge laughter and acclaim.
I made a bit of WGS history in this play. There was a scene where quite a lot of dialogue centred around the subject of cigarettes, and my character (a young “man-about-town” called Cyril Beverly) had to light up. I talked this over with Ted and he agreed that it would be difficult to play the scene without lighting up. He got permission from Tin Bum (this was the time when Harold had a breakdown of some kind and T.B was acting head) and actually bought me a packet of fags! So I became the first (and last?) to smoke in a WGS school play! It was said at the time that Harold would never have given permission.
In our final year, 1961, Sshpike’s protégé and former pupil, Sid Brown, directed us in The Caine Mutiny Court Martial. It was a dramatisation of Herman Wouk’s well-known novel of the Second World War, which was made into a successful film in the 1950s starring Humphrey Bogart, Fred MacMurray, and Jose Ferrer. Military plays were popular in boys’ schools as they did not call for female roles.
The Railway Club broke new ground during this play. The two long acts in the courtroom are followed by a short denouement in a bar somewhere as the acquitted sailors celebrate the verdict. In order to change the scene as quickly as possible, Ivor got the poor little beggars to sit in Room 6 with the lights out wearing dark glasses for about half an hour so they could rush on at the end of Act 2 and change the scenery in the dark!!! I kid you not!
It was a difficult play in many ways, all but the last ten minutes set in a court room, with a minimum of stage movement, except by the two briefs, and the various characters taking the witness stand. Many characters were on stage virtually the whole time (some saying absolutely nothing, like the members of the court martial panel). I played Maryk, the mutineer first mate, who had taken over command of the Caine from Captain Queeg (the inimitable ‘Moose’) during a storm, when the captain panicked. What made it difficult was that, even when you weren’t speaking (which may have been a long time), you still had to act by responding to all that was going on – especially in my case, as my future was on the line. Bob Scott was outstanding as Greenwald, the defence counsel, who has to destroy Queeg on the stand – much against his better judgment – in order to get his client off. Likewise Moose’s disintegration on the stand was brilliant. A great last play of my WGS career.
I never acted in plays again, although the first two schools I taught in in London in the late ‘60s both had amateur operatic societies and we did Gilbert & Sullivan, so that I could combine acting with my other great love, singing (I played the Major-General in The Pirates of Penzance and the Duke in Patience). I moved on from there via suburban choral societies to sing for ten years in the London Philharmonic Choir, under such great conductors as Sir Adrian Boult, Sir Georg Solti and Bernard Haitink. We did proms, recordings, and loads of concerts, mostly at the Festival Hall or the Albert Hall. I suppose these things are special to me because of a sense of achievement; preparing a work and performing it before a large and (hopefully!) appreciative audience; plus the camaraderie and working together in a common purpose.
