As You Like It

We have reached 1977 in these personal reminiscences of the Bench Theatre history. I need to reiterate that these "Notes from the Green Room" are written entirely from personal memory and may include factual errors and highly subjective viewpoints.

By 1977 the Best Beloved and I had been married two years, I was giving up smoking and I was chairman of the Bench Theatre. These three facts may have contributed to the somewhat stressful three years I was chairman, but also the fact that our time at the Old Magistrates' Court and Police station was coming to an end. The Bench would need to find a new home.

In February 1977, the Best Beloved mounted only the second Shakespeare staged by the Bench, "As You Like It". The first Shakespeare play had been my production of "Richard III", which I described in detail in previous Notes from the Green Room (Ingrid and I were married off by the News in a publicity article and so we decided this was an indication from a higher authority and made it a fact). This was a major production and therefore as usual in these circumstances the Bench company had to expand in order to be able to mount the play. We do this at quite regular intervals, such as for "His dark Materials" in 2006, but always seem surprised by the need to so do. This expansion usually has great benefits for the company and it certainly was so in 1977.

I was cast in the contrasting roles of Charles the Wrestler (more believable now in my present bulky state but I was quite willowy in 1977) and Jacques. The latter is one of the great parts in Shakespeare, possessed of a hopelessly melancholy disposition, Jacques stands on the sidelines of life watching and judging the actions of others. He delivers the soliloquy, "The seven ages of Man". Later, after our performances at the Bench Theatre, we were invited to do a performance at the Nuffield Theatre as part of a Showcase of Hampshire Theatre (the Bench was considered one of the leading exponents in the county). I still have very strong and good memories standing on the Nuffield Stage delivering that speech (Much later, I was also dragged onstage by Granville Saxton for the Nuffield Panto based on Robin Hood but that is another story entirely!)

Rosalind was Jill Sawyer, a member of Tim Mahoney's Langstone Children's Theatre. Tim himself played Touchstone, the comedian, and Audrey, a simpleminded goatherd who agrees to marry Touchstone, despite the fact that she understands very little of what he says, was played by Janet Simpson (a Bench doyenne of beloved memory). Janet's performance was enhanced by her eating a raw onion onstage, by which the rest of us were mightily impressed in every sense.

Spokey Wheeler and Jenny Jones played Silvius and Phoebe, the shepherd and shepherdess. who are the love sub plot in "As You Like It". Again they were recruits found by Tim and who became stalwarts of the company; Spokey became chairman of both the Bench and later the Arts Centre.

The problem role was Orlando, the handsome young lord, the hero of the piece who proves himself a fitting mate for Rosalind. Charles the wrestler, my secondary role (see above) does not want to injure the young man and thereby lose favor among the nobles who support him. Charles's concern for Orlando proves unwarranted when Orlando beats him senseless. Please note that last bit! Orlando beats Charles senseless! How times have not changed - I was the Polar Bear King beaten in combat in "His Dark Materials" and had my heart eaten onstage by my victorious opponent!

In my previous piece I explained how Tim had laboured long and hard to get the Havant College drama lecturer on board in both the Langstone Children's Theatre and possibly with the Bench. His wish was about to be granted. Mike had been replaced as drama lecturer at Havant College by a sallow youth called David Penrose. Yes this was the Bench debut of David Penrose as Orlando! Later as Tim faded out as the unappointed Artistic Director of the Bench Theatre through age and ill health (and a wish for a slightly quieter life perhaps), it was David who became the unappointed Artistic Director of the Bench Theatre - Tim must have known something more than the rest of us.

Anyway "As You Like It" was a great success and occasioned an almost annual Shakespeare production in the early 1980s.

1977 also saw the debut of Jacquie Penrose in "Tonight at 8.30" in June of that year. Later that same year we saw the final Bench production in the Old Magistrates' Court, "A Day in the Death of Joe Egg" starring one David Penrose in October. And in November, having rehearsed simultaneously, we saw the Bench open the new Havant Arts Centre with "Habeas Corpus" directed by yours truly.

The next Notes from the Green Room will look at Autumn 1977, when the Bench left its old home and moved to its new. Yours truly was Chairman and director of the first production ever at the Arts Centre - there was no Jacques like standing on the side lines but I think I may have wished for a solitary and contemplative life in a monastery by Christmas 1977!