Updated my gallery

I have spent some of today adding those photos and reviews to my Gallery (please click on that link to take you to my gallery) that I mentioned in my previous posting.
I have added a new album called Bench Productions of 2007. The Bench Productions of 2006 album has been re-organised so that it has three nested albums, one for His Dark Materials, one for Art and one for The Golden Pathway Annual.
His Dark Materials album now contains the News review, cast and crew lists, sponsors logo and some backstage photographs taken by Charlotte Self. These gave a taste of life in the Studio/Green Room/ Communal dressing for a cast of 35+ ( that is number of actors not their ages of course)
The morning was spent shopping at Waitrose with my best beloved as I try to get to grips with what looks like becoming my typical Friday morning for the foreseeable future. This is the weekly food shopping for ourselves and my mother-in-law. It will be delivered on Friday afternoons and Ingrid can then deliver her mother's shopping on her nightly visit.
Some time was also spent trying to get my head around the fact that I am not going back to work on Wednesday and that I will actually have time to complete some of the tasks I have itemised on Outlook.

Under the weather

I think I am going down with a cold. It has been an exciting end to my final term and at the same time I was appearing in the Bench Theatre's production of His Dark Materials. We did the whole thing, Parts One and Two, yesterday before spending an hour clearing up props and costumes, and beginning the dismantling of the set. I am hoping to have some photographs of the whole event, performances and rehearsals, for display on my Gallery. The after show party then took place with speeches, secret santa present distribution, eating, drinking and dancing in the Arts Centre bar and foyer. However I felt really out of it. The matinee performance which included the polar bear combat scene had taken it out of me and I felt so tired and drained as to be unsociable. At the earliest decent opportunity I left and went home for a hot chocolate and my bed.

This morning was putting the theatre to rights and I spent time with Kevin. Now Kevin is set designer and constructor for another non-professional theatre company called Dynamo who also operate out of the Havant Arts Centre. Dynamo works mainly with youngsters but certainly could teach the Bench one or two things about using the facilities at the Arts Centre to better advantage. They have also set up a rehearsal space for their next show Tommy in a church hall just across the road from the Arts Centre.

This has always been a dream of mine to win the lottery so the Bench can hire or build a space of their own with props cupboard and workshop, proper wardrobe space, a club room/studio and a rehearsal room of the same dimensions as the theatre so that the sets can be constructed as rehearsals progress. In true fantasy moments I dream of a whole new theatre based on the Electric Light Theatre at Guildford with a concert hall as well so we can bring the Havant Orchestras home.

My brother is flying down from Bradford today to join us for Christmas and Boxing Day. We have three days of festivities planned ahead with an invite to a meal on Thursday night. Then, of course, the weekend contains New Year's Eve. A week on Wednesday sees the arrival of the new Spring Term 2007 and I don't have to go back to school!
Let the holiday begin!

The future of musical theatre

I might be harping at too much length on the generation gap as witnessed by yours truly backstage on His Dark Materials. However I have been able to exercise my love of the musical theatre vicariously through Charley and Robyn.
Both young girls are training at Chichester College of Technology and already planning how to get on the first rung of a professional acting career by applying to drama schools.

Charley plays Lyra and justifiably got a glowing review from the newspaper critic. She is lovely to be with on stage as she possesses real charisma and you feel she is acting just with you - a really rare quality! Anyway she is also looking for possible material for a end of year musical to be mounted by Chichester College. I have suggested The Baker's Wife, Songs for a New World and Urinetown. The first because it is a musical I love and really want to do myself. I think it could be done by a young college cast although it is aimed at an older age range but has a great score by Stephen Schwarz. The second piece is not a musical but a music review by Jason Robert Brown whose musical The Last Five Years a group of us saw earlier this year at the Menier Chocolate Factory. Sondheim is top favourite but Schwarz and Brown are also high on the list. The last musical is an unknown off-Broadway piece (hence the jokey title - say it aloud and you'll see what I mean) that I am unlikely to see except under the circumstances of a plucky College crew mounting it. I have just been listening to a real oldie but it might work for a college as well as it deals with virile young men playing baseball - Damn Yankees. ( A previous blog quoted from one of the songs and I would like it included at my funeral please!) Poor Charley is going to get Damn Yankees foisted on her this evening. (While searching through my CDS in research for this blog I came across The Rink by Kander and Ebb - so I am afraid Charley will have to be lumbered with that as well. This is another of those musicals we could do well at the Bench and I would especially like to hear Ingrid and Alice in the mother and daughter roles.)

Robyn appeared in last academic year's performance of Company at Chichester College. She sang Amy the night I saw it. I have asked her to sign my copy of the programme so that I can sell it on ebay when she is famous - sorry, treasure it as a memento! She is auditioning for drama schools at the moment and so I have lent her some anthology pieces for mezzo sopranos that I bought from my favourite musical store, the Dress Circle in Monmouth Street. (Wonderful times to be had there and especially the notices advertising little known shows or chamber musicals which I will have more time now to indulge before the funds run out!) Two of the pieces are from The Last Five Years so I was able to loan the CD to Robyn.

I am getting quite a kick out of all this musical theatre.
Did I review Avenue Q?

Self perception

Being surrounded by youth during performances backstage has its ups and downs as you can imagine. I am constantly having to avert my gaze as I find myself staring open mouthed at glamourous young women. It is like being a small child in a sweetshop. Theis production has made a happy man very old.
I will now quote at some length from George Saunders who writes a column entitled "American Psyche" for the Guardian on Saturdays. I hope I am not breaking any copyright in so doing as I hope I have stressed these are his words but I am so grateful to Mr Saunders for his pithy and timely comments.
In his article Mr Saunders refers to middle aged men but I suppose at almost sixty (a month off) I might even come under the heading of "elderly".

Just because we are unpleasant to behold, does this mean people should not be forced to look upon us (balding middle aged men of all natuions)? I declare a kind of Internationale of the type of men people tend to glance at, then look away from; men not revolting, just bland. We are your uncles, your fathers, we are what young men are afraid of becoming. Our looks speak of solidity, decent investments, early bedtimes, sensible shoes. When we speak to the young girl at the checkout, she glances around alarmed, wondering where that voice is coming from. When her eyes fall upon us, she is neither excited or repelled. It's as if she is looking upon the very air. We say something witty, she rolls her eyes. mutters something to the virile stockboy, who sniggers and then runs his hand through his (thick) days.

His Dark Materials Both Parts in One Day

The day started at 1.45 p.m. with the call for Play One and finished at 10.45 or thereabouts after clearing the studio of costumes and props. There was a break of about an hour between performances for food and relaxation. It was a long day but at least as an actor you can move around backstage and you can chat in whispers with your friends. The audience on the other hand spend six hours in total following the story from a darkened auditorium unable to move from their seats.
With perhaps the exception of one or two of the cast, the actors never really know how something of this size and breadth is actually going - what effect it is having on an audience. If you're playing one of the great Shakesperian roles where you are on stage most of the time you have a pretty good feel as to how the audience is doing but not in a show like this.
My mother in law came to the first play and is returning on Wednesday for Play Two so she doesn't qualify as a six-hourer - someone who has sat through the six hours all in one go. On the other hand, my nephew, Mike, and his partner, Jenny T, did just that and stayed overnight at the Travelodge. Mike has worked with Questors in Ealing. Questors are among the elite of non-professional theatre. They have their own theatre and mount several productions per year ( I don't know the exact number but when I belonged to the Bradford Playhouse they did about 13 - 14 plays per year). The Questors have a studio theatre which is about the size of the Arts Centre but square rather than rectangular. The seating and staging is flexible but it can seat 80 - 100 people. The main Questor auditorium is a thrust on similar lines to Chichester Festival though not to the same scale. The Questor seats 375 which is a good size for non-professional theatre and must take some filling. If the Arts Centre had such a capacity, they could invite bigger touring companies. It has long been a dream of mine to win the lottery in order to build a new civic theatre in Havant with a studio and auditorium on the same lines as above but also a concert hall so that the Havant Orchestras could return home.
Mike and Jenny were both impressed by our production. Another member of the all day audience was Robin Hall. She directed "Art" the award winning production (Guide Awards 2006 as presented by the Portsmouth News). Her opinion can be read at one of the links to this blog - The Adventures of Archimedes - and makes me proud to be in this production. She also emailed me about my thoughts of only having walk ons in Play Two ( I am sorry but I am a theatrical tart!) and said words to the effect that it greatly added to her enjoyment when good actors kept popping up unexpectedly in small roles throughout the narrative. As I derive great enjoyment from Robin's enjoyment, "I will continue to give my all, dahlings" (said breathily with feeling).
The first night nerves were added to to for our leading lady, Charley, who plays Lyra, because she was feeling under the weather. So at the last three performances I have begun to perform one of those little theatrical superstitions that theatrefolk are rather prone to. After warm up and director's notes I enquire about Charley's health and will now after to continue to do so for each and every performance.
We sang "Happy Birthday" to Alice at yesterday's warm up for the matinee accompanied by a fanfare from the sound box. We will need to sing it again on Tuesday 19th for Charley as she reaches the grand old age of 19! (Steph, another cast member, is also celebrating her birthday the same day so how coincidental is that - not her 19th though, I think)
But as that fanfare sounds for Charley (and Steph) it will also sound for the end of my career as a teacher and the start of a new era!

Alice is 27

I don't know whether I am being ungallant in naming a lady's age but I am proud to say my younger daughter was 27 on the 16th. It all adds to the fact that I am 60 in January but it still comes as a surprise that the baby of our little family unit of four has reached her late twenties. That sounds less of a compliment to Alice than I expected but a sparkier and fun person to be with you couldn't wish to find. She never thinks so which is probably the key to her success but she is such good company and the conversation covers such a wide variety of subjects.
Her passion is films and combined with a talent with words (possessed since an early age) everyone who knows her says she should try her hand at film criticism. I know she is thinking of a masters and/or drama school but she could also consider the film reviewer as yet another of her options. She is a lovely actress with the ability to add detail and nuances to her characterisation that remind me somewhat of her mother and a good friend, Sally. The latter adds subtext like it is going out of business and has a speaking voice of great clarity and tone. Ingrid, Alice's mother, comes from an acting family and there must be something in the genes because you never get anything less than a fully rounded performance. Ingrid has great technique but the inspiration comes from somewhere within. I think Alice shares this quality too and both share incredible singing voices. All three of my girls have beautiful singing voices but Alice is perhaps the one we have encouraged most because she has power, strength and tone. She can also animate a song rather than just deliver it.
What other virtues can I extol? I gave her a rather skimpy compliment in reviewing Dude, Where's My Script? in an earlier post by describing her as " a funny lady whose sense of humour is infectious". Alice is a Fanny Brice as played by Fanny Brice not Barbra Streisand (although Alice can certainly render those anthems from " Funny Girl" well enough to raise the hairs on the back of your neck). Alice is not very complimentary about herself and is prepared to play the lady wrestler who is now your waitress. She will adopt a physicality in her performance, that, added to her giggle and, on occasion, guffaw, make an audience roar with laughter. Her brain is sharp and her tongue witty enough to put in one liners during improvisational comedy that really sparkle and catch the ear. Mind you, that brain and that tongue can be used to devastating effect in real life if someone is unwise enough to think she is anyone's fall guy.
When I was young I was truly enamoured of the Viking books written by Henry Treece and one of the concepts I took with me into life was that of the shield ring. Men stood side by side in a circle. Your shield would protect the man on your left leaving your sword arm free, while the man on your right would be protecting you and the other side of the circle would protect your back. I have always chosen my friends with the shield ring in mind and I am pleased to say that we would make a compact and strong shield ring although some would be surprised to hear themselves described in the same category as a Viking warrior. I would definitely want my brother at my back though I would have to suffer dreadful ear bashing for getting us into such a ridiculous situation in the first place. I always thought of the shield ring as a masculine preserve but Alice is definitely a character you would want alongside you if you were in difficulty and she would strive mightily on your behalf. Like my brother, though, at the end of the problem or conflict, I think she would tell me off for being such a bloody fool and detail the reasons I qualify for such an epithet.
I love Alice but am a little awestruck. Being a father is not all it's cracked up to be and if you have feisty daughters it can be a lot tougher than you have a right to expect. But, as for being proud, well...don't get me started on that!

His Dark Materials First Two Nights

You will be pleased to know, O stout hearted reader, that the bear exit has been resolved by none other than Damon himself, the director of His Dark Materials. This was the part of Play One that particularly concerned me but that may have been of course because it was outside my direct control. I have to admit to being a control freak and therefore to be in a situation of relying upon others to engineer my graceful and obviously tear jerking removal from stage was exacting to say the least. Damon's compromise, or inspired piece of directorial thought, was to have me hoisted to my feet by just two bears and then escorted offstage by a pack of bears presumably to be devoured offstage. I am therefore much obliged to Damon for the idea and to Liam and Phil the two bears doing the hoisting. It is surprising how helpless one feels dressed in a full polar bear outfit and polystyrene breast plate, unable to use one hand because it is clutching a bear's head and the other is encased in a glove and gauntlet too small and designed for the wrong hand. I tried really hard to tell the wardrobe mistress and her fellow costumiers that I had rehearsed scenes and stage fight holding the bear's head in my left hand. However when my costume arrived it had to be changed because it had been made presuming the bear's head was in my right hand. Having had the costume changed I found on dress rehearsal day that I had been provided with a gauntlet and glove that fitted in size but was intended for my left hand! How I soldier on under these intolerable circumstances I know not!
I felt the whole play (or at least those parts in which I am concerned) lifted last night. One of the reasons was Charley was in good health and finding subtleties and sparkles of humour that were missing on the first night due to her illness. Another was that we sorted out one or two of the hiatuses that slowed things down a bit on the first night - an example being the entry of the Oxford pedestrians. We spent a considerable amount of time, energy and effort on Thursday working out in the wings (such as they are at the arts Centre) when we should actually go on. As this all had to be conducted in mime in semi darkness it wasn't as successful as it otherwise might have been and led to a pause that gave Damon collywobbles.
At the end of the performance last night (Friday) the cast was ushered back on stage to meet our sponsors. This is an unusual occurrence for our company and some of us were more bashful than others. I held back a little because the seat of my trousers was damp and I couldn't work out why. I found out later that a lump of wet wipes used to remove black face make up had been carelessly thrown on my chair where I sit at the end of the show. I obviously don't know who the culprit was but the delightful Megan may have darker aspects to her nature than I first suspected. Anyway the sponsors were delightful and the two ladies were enthusiastic fans of the Pullman trilogy and seemed to have enjoyed our performance.
The reviewer from the Portsmouth News is coming to see Play Two this evening (Saturday), having seen Play One on the first night, and will then put a review of the whole thing in Monday's edition of the paper.
My nephew, Michael, is bringing his partner, Jenny T, to see both plays today and is staying overnight at a bed and breakfast. This means we will celebrate Alice's 27th birthday at the Dipak after the show and again tomorrow lunchtime at the Castle in Rowlands.
For those following my career as a film extra (and I have been amazed by the number of references to my blog - it must run into as many fingers as are on one hand- and they are not all family!) I can only say that so far it has failed to launch. I say "so far" in a self protective way as I think the failure to hear anything at all would in normal circumstances be considered a resounding and complete no-no. However the small optimist in me is hoping that once I am free of other commitments (trusting of course that some one has actually read my application letter and what is laughingly referred to as my CV) in January, someone somewhere might want to exploit my availability. Mind you, we have one Saturday already planned for "The Seafarer" at the Cottesloe (one spare ticket available if anyone is interested), a weekend for my birthday celebrations including "Don Juan in Soho" at the Donmar, a couple of days babysitting my firstborn after her dental operation and a couple of Wednesdays earmarked for London matinees plus several cinema visits to catch up on films missed so far. And Ingrid expects her tea cooked and on the table!

His Dark Materials Part Two Dress Rehearsal

It is past 10.00 p.m. on Wednesday, the eve before His Dark Materials opens tomorrow with a full house it seems. I prefer to have a break on the Monday after the day long get in on the Sunday. There are two reasons for this: it enables the technical and backastage crew to complete their preparations before the actual dress rehearsals; and the dress rehearsals run straight into the performances. I find the Wednesday evening break intrusive usually but have enjoyed this evening though. I really felt out of it last night during the dress rehearsal for Part Two. This is mainly due to my contributions to Part Two being small and widely spaced. I appear as a cleric in the consistorial court in the first scene that opens Part Two. It is another hour before I appear for all of ten seconds as part of the Church Forces in a battle with Lord Asriel's troops. I quite enjoyed this as Neil and I had eventually got the hang of a punch that began our fight sequence. Well it did begin our fight sequence but was cut in a reworking of the scene after the Part One Dress rehearsal. Now I am reduced to coming on, grabbing Ingrid's elbows (she, naturally, is on the opposing side) before being chased off USR by Iorek the polar bear. This is more than a little anticlimactic after being dressed in uniform for an hour. After the interval for about another hour I have to wait to reappear as the Welsh Jeptha Jones (or at least I made him Welsh to keep my own interest up) and then I have a fairly quick change to become a ghost in the Land of the Dead sequence.
I don't want to overplay it but theatrically Part Two is not very absorbing for me and I quite envy the fact that Alice my younger daughter opted to be in the first play and not the second. Also I don't think Part Two is as good as Part One. I am much more interested in the characters of Lyra and Will (and Lyra's truly dysfunctional parents) than I am in the Republic of Heaven stuff (even though I am a republican rather than a royalist). Part Two reminds me of the swirling banners and alarums of a Shakesperian History Play as performed by the old RSC when I knew not and cared not on whose side Lord Whatever was fighting. Added to the fact that I was out of sorts yesterday and had work to do for school, the dress rehearsal was a very unsatisfying experience.
The out of sorts is because I was tired after the exertions of the Monday dress rehearsal - this is a very out of condition older man involved in strutting about the stage and doing quite elaborate stage fights - and because the manner of my departure at the end of the fight (to which I alluded in an earlier posting) was unsatisfactory. It is also tied up with the sense of dislocation from school and the catching up with paperwork as required by my Maths Manager was something of a final straw.
Megan was her usual delightful self and had brought camouflage cream for everyone to use for the Land of the Dead sequence. She also brought her lovely young daughter Sian who has the same striking eyes as her mother - very disconcerting. Sian has been a great help with Play Two during rehearsals and seems to have taken an interest in its performance as well. I kept stumbling over her - one scene operating the smoke machine under the set ( I think I heard her say "Shit!") and, on the exit from the Land of the Dead out of the back of the auditorium, I found her operating the spot and enquiring if I was the last one out.
During the Director's notes, I found I was being criticised by Sean who is the puppeteer for Lyra's daemon and the two "deaths" played by Megan and Charlotte. They couldn't get past me because I was filling too much space under the recess at the back of the set. This scene has a problem because if I stand in front of them to let them have space upstage of me (something I must admit I am reluctant to let any actor have at the best of times)I will be blocking them from downstage because I have nowhere else to go. But to hell with it I will get out of their way and I will also willing forego my chance to appear on top of the set as part of the protracted departure or exit scenes from the Land of the Dead.
I change back into my actor's black outfit for the curtain call because I don't feel I want to reappear as the ghost from the Land of the Dead having to hang around until the end and after the curtain call we have to empty the studio and move everything(props and costume) back into the theatre. For the Part One curtain call I also appear in actor's black because I don't want my contribution to Play One to be remembered for my American tourist. I like John Faa and I like playing the tyrant bear up until his dead body has to be removed.
Finally to round off this very rambling posting I would like to record my thanks to Sharman who insisted during the interval for Play Two on collecting together the bears involved in the fight sequence and the carrying off bit. She wouldn't let us go until we had worked out a more practicable way of removing me but it is quite scarey that we won't see if this really works until the first night.

His Dark Materials Part One Dress Rehearsal

I left work at 4.30 p.m. while a staff meeting was still in progress. I must have done that before, after all, I have been at the school for 21 years now. However it felt strange - part of the growing sense of dislocation- that bit by bit I no longer belong- that the future and the Spring Term 2007 are no longer part of my horizon.
I was twitching in anticipation to be at the theatre and to get through the dress rehearsal of Part One. His Dark Materials is divided into two parts, each of about three hours duration if you count the interval. We were scheduled to be in the theatre at 6.45 p.m. and BBC South Today were scheduled to record a short piece for their entertainments in the area programme at 7.00 p.m. Most of us were there in time with the exception of two of the lads who co-incidentally had spent last week in New York. I have heard of jet lag but this struck me as exceptional and I suspect punctuality is just not a strong point. (However, later, I spoke to PD and he was a victim of the train service from Petersfield. This service is unreliable and will get worse as Christmas approaches and PD doesn't have his own transport). The TV recording went without a hitch because we started about 7.35 p.m. Movement around the theatre was restricted by the fact that Humdrum Voices were giving a concert performance in the gallery. They had to time their interval to coincide with two noisy battle scenes of ours. From what I heard of the choir, their voices providing a very strange soundtrack to the events unfolding on stage, their harmonies and arrangements of Christmas Carols was wonderful. In other circumstances I would like to have listened more carefully.
The rehearsal took place without David, who plays Lord Asriel. I had been with David (and Pete W) on the Saturday as the two of them brought a bland set alive. Part of this process involved David coating himself with paint and smacking a cloth soaked in blue and black paint against the walls of the set. The piece de resistance was David on his hands and knees having poured large dollops of blue and black paint on the floor swirling his cloth/rag to create a floor scape. If he wasn't ill before, that might have tipped him over the edge. He wasn't himself at Sunday's technical but then David always operates with great reserve during these events as he saves energy for the performances. However he is usually a source of keen if quiet humour - he wasn't on Sunday. Personally I think having a snogging scene with a leading lady who has just been ill might have been the cause. Still I would still have snogged Sally even if she had the plague so I can understand David's dilemma. Anyway, I have known David for about thirty years and these have been filled with many a theatrical endeavour so his absence through illness is a remarkable event - I have never known it happen before.
David's voice and presence on stage was provided by Jasper, our producer, who has obviously watched lots of rehearsals as the inflexions and emphases were uncannily accurate. Perhaps Jasper has been secretly understudying David all this time - and out of the chorus line to become the star overnight - perhaps the wine was poisoned - oh the feverish theatrical imagings on dress rehearsal night.
My bits went okay. I remembered the winding up of the spy fly and the delivery of the tin to Iorek. I was a bit put out to find the tin and spy fly being trampled during the escape from Bolvangor and felt it was necessary to do a bit of rescuing of my own. The bear fight which ends in my onstage death wasn't secure - Marcus and I hadn't rehearsed beforehand - and Marcus tends to lollop if unsure - and six foot four of large man lolloping can be hard to steer into the correct areas of the stage for subsequent parts of a fight. Anyway my death has always been one of those promised areas of action needed. All the bears are hampered by having a head in one hand and a gloved claw on the other. The stage seems full of effing bears when I am trying to fight Marcus but when my inert and supposedly dead body is being removed, with the exception of Liam, it is the three smallest bears who seem to be trying to remove me. Someone asked if I could die offstage! We need to rethink this as an emergency before first night. I have an idea regarding a blanket and the DSR corner for the death if I can remind Marcus to bring on said blanket during his appearance in the scene and if I can move him physically during the final grapple DSR while having my heart ripped out of my chest for subsequent triumphant devouring.
I mentioned the delightful Megan yesterday ( and dear Lord I must stop ogling - it is enough to make a happy man very old - these communal dressing rooms are not good for me - or rather they are too good for me - oh well I bet you know what I mean - and heartily disapprove of me) and said I would mention Sparkly Jo today. She has just wedded Mrs Coulter's monkey and a nicer wittier monkey you couldn't hope to meet. They make a lovely and loving couple. I am really impressed by Jo's Brummie accent as the Mayor of Trollesund and by her comic timing for "Put that beast in chains"! I do hope some of my readers get the chance to see His Dark Materials but as seven out of the ten performances are already sold out the chances are getting slimmer (although the chances of my having any readers at all are pretty slim as it is). Pretty and slim brings me back to Sparkly Jo. She took me by surprise as one of the Harpies as I didn't recognise her at all and spent much of the scene thinking, "Who the f*** is that?" I suppose it might be because in real life Jo is the extreme opposite of a Harpie - she is one of those people who bring a smile and a warmth of personality with her into a room or a conversation - and everyone feels a little better for her presence.
Ah well, back to the day job - a Lower Key Stage 2 class for my sixth remaining day- but my mind will be wandering back to the stage and the very small parts I have in Part Two and how am I going to fill the three hours back in the dressing room. There's always marking homework of course (for the very last time)!

His Dark Materials Technical

I love days like yesterday. We started at 1000 and worked through to about 2000. We managed to run with costumes and effects both plays of this mammoth adventure. I am impressed once again by the sheer scale of the endeavour and the quality being produced at this stage. Usually these days can become a litany of what might have been but instead theatrical moments are being created constantly and should become one seamless tapestry by first night. Play One sees my greatest involvement as John Faa, Lord of the Western Gyptians. I had been worried about my costume. I spent most of Saturday looking for hats. I now have a selection of five or six that could be usable. However I settled for a sleek grey furred Russian looking ear flapped number that works for me. My ensemble is completed by the essential pair of calf length boots provided by the Nuffield Theatre in Southampton. In between I have a black leather coat, black leather belt, a neck piece that turns my black tee- shirt into a polo neck, a bandolier to which I have attached my daemon and my hammer is tucked into my belt.
There was one minor disaster for me. Charley (who I admire greatly and plays Lyra) had entrusted me with a piece of backstage technicality involving the spy fly and a tin. This involved winding up said spy fly and delivering it and tin into the hands of Iorek. Unfortunately I had a CRAFT moment ("can't remember a f****** thing") and missed my chance. This was mainly due to being too concerned to watch the scene when Lyra meets Iorek for the first time instead of winding spy fly. I did help with directing this scene and so have a proprietorial interest - Charley is great and Marcus is growing steadily into the part of the bear! To compound matters I then stationed myself far too early at the back of the auditorium for my next appearance and forgot to give Marcus the tin (I even passed him backstage but my memory was unstirred). The backstage crew had to come to rescue the tin from my inept hands. Charley graciously forgave me in the interval but oh dear these senior moments!
In the second half of Part One I play the King Bear killed by Iorek, Lyra's companion and friend. THe scene seemed to go well until the disposal of my dead body at the end. We had talked about it on a number of occasions but had never tried it mechanically. Being bodily removed by three one handed bears (the other hand holds the bear's head) was undignified, largely ineffectual and hilarious. We will have to rethink this!
I wore my contact lenses but found my right eye was irritated and so was greatly relieved to be able to change back into my spectacles for the afternoon.
In Part Two I appear as a non speaking cleric in the first scene and then as a fighting soldier in the Church Forces just before the interval. I have then a long wait after the interval before I appear as the Welsh Jeptha Jones - quick change- before appearing for the last time as a ghost in Land of the Dead sequence. I have a long time doing nothing in Part Two, other than annoying my companion actors especially the delightful Megan.

Last Seven Days

I wished to record the fact that I have seven working days left as a teacher. On the 19th December I finish school for good. On January 24th I am 60 and therefore officially retired as a teacher.
A friend sent me the following quote about retirement.
Retirement is when you wake up in the morning with nothing to do, and when you go to bed at night you've only half done it!
I am seriously seeking a musical theatre director in the Portsmouth and West Sussex area interested in chamber musicals. I know a director and a theatre company with a small venue who would love to work with someone matching this description.
His Dark Materials has almost reached the performance stage. Today is the first of the technical and dress rehearsals.

Dude, Where's My Script?

The title describes a comedy format thought up by my talented son-in-law, Nathan Chapman. He dreamed up the idea of a comedy improvisation troupe performing classic theatre games for the entertainment of a paying audience. You will see such performances taking place twice weekly at the Comedy Stores in London and Manchester with such luminaries as Paul Merton and Josie Lawrence. The format will seem familiar from TV shows such as Whose Line Is It Anyway? However, in my personal opinion, the live stage versions far surpass even the admittedly very funny TV show. It must be that element of surprise and delight in watching the performers create a piece of comic theatre, a miniature gem of a comedy sketch, before your very eyes.

Improvisation is often perceived as threatening by some non-professional actors who prefer the comfort zone of a script and a controlled rehearsal space. Nathan has seen the benefits first hand of the improvisational approach as the theatre lecturer at a sixth form college. Added to his undoubted talent to think on his feet verbally, and his skill as a playwright, Nathan is a very persuasive person. About two years ago now, he had managed to get together a group of actors, a rehearsal space and a venue for performances. Rehearsal space always seems to instantly imply that the actors rehearse the scenes but this is definitely not the case. The space is needed so that the troupe can learn to work with each other and learn some of the hundreds of games that are available for this sphere of activity. There is no way you can prepare or rehearse what might happen on a particular evening because each evening is unique. The premise is that the performers will respond to suggestions from the audience and spontaneously create the required scene. Other factors, such as venue, the other performers on stage that night, the format of the evening itself, all have to be taken into consideration on the night and cannot be anticipated beforehand.

I think the Dude troupe has now done five or six of these evenings at the Havant Arts Centre and each evening has differed from the others to a minor or sometimes major degree. The reason for this is that the troupe has been trying to find a satisfying format for both the audience and for the performers. Sometimes, of course, the changes have been enforced by clashes with other commitments.

I was involved in the first two, I think, and then had a break from two events before rejoining the troupe last night. The first one and last night's were staged in the gallery space of the Arts Centre with a small raised platform and the audience seated at tables with easy access to the bar. The second one and the two I missed took place in the theatre.

The troupe has grown but the optimum number of performers per evening seems to be four and so the Dude troupe has the capacity to mount two teams but in reality it can sometimes be quite difficult to match date with availability.

On the three occasions I have been involved, the format has had a M.C. (me) and an assistant running the proceedings by introducing the performers and the games, and generally keeping a judicious eye on what is working and what is not, and keeping the timing tight. I ended up as M.C. because I wasn't fast enough on my feet to be a useful performer but have the bluster to stand out front as compere. Zoe, my firstborn, has been the assistant/adjudicator on all three occasions and has been the producer and/or stage manager element. It certainly takes pressure off the compere and the performers. She spends a great deal of time cajoling written suggestions out of the audience before the show starts and is fundamental in establishing a rapport and a welcoming atmosphere for the audience. Her contribution is a vital aspect of the success of the evening and she does it patiently with great forebearance and diligence.

The gallery space wins over the theatre space in terms of intimacy and a better contact and relationship with the audience. I found the theatre encouraged a heckling style of suggestions coming from the paying patrons and, even in the intimate space of the Havant Arts Centre auditorium, an almost gladitorial "them and us" feel about the whole event. It wasn't helped by drunken hecklers in the balcony and the baying of the audience made it difficult to hear and interpret suggestions. I felt very relieved when that evening was over and wasn't too sorry when other commitments meant I was unable to take part in events three and four. These were performed with Nathan as one of the four performers also acting as compere, which obviously put him under an enormous amount of pressure. The feedback was also that the suggestions were unhelpful in the least.

When last night's event was being planned, I volunteered again as compere if I could have an assistant (which as it turned out was once again Zoe). I also took on the responsibility for coming up with a format for handling suggestions. We prepared, as we had in the past, a suggestions sheet for the audience to complete beforehand but reshaped it. I have been doing some research into what seems a veritable industry of improvisational theatre and comedy circuits. I came across a website, www. fnipgh.com, (Friday Nite Improvs), which pointed out that the more normal suggestions usually resulted in a funny scene, whereas the "funny" suggestions got a cheap laugh and the performers spent ten minutes of mind numbing nonsense trying to work up a scene using the suggestion. Following this dictum, we impressed upon the audience the need to keep their suggestions normal. It worked but did seem to restrict the amount of calling out and perhaps I was a trifle heavy handed but I felt we were in control of the event rather than the audience (or the heckling element out for a cheap bit of fun) and that in the end both the performers and the audience were the winners. Both newcomers to our work and people who had seen all our shows to date were quick to express their appreciation of how well the evening worked and how much they enjoyed it.

The evening worked so well of course because of the inspired genius and teamwork of the four performers: Alice, Mark, Nathan and Robin. Alice is infectious and when on top form is just a very funny lady. Robin is the more serious of the two girls performing last night and tends to form the quiet still centre around which the inspired lunacy of the other three flows. She is however very good as the human prop (you do need to see the show to understand some of these references) and delights in maintaining the storytelling element of each scene. Mark and Nathan are just very witty, very quick, very clever and very inventive. To see Mark's morris dance ending in the immortal line "Now I am fertile" was to witness a moment that nearly brought the house down. It was matched by Nathan's Oscar Winning Moment when he "drowned" in an imaginary river while on a bridge building exercise. On stage together Mark and Nathan are comic dynamite and, throw in Alice and Robin on last night's form, you had a combination that produced a wonderful two hours of inspired comedy.

Piano Forte

If you have never seen a Terry Johnson play, you are depriving yourself of a theatrical treat. Michael Frayn, no slouch when it comes to playwriting himself, rates Terry Johnson as one of the finest around. Johnson tackles themes that might daunt lesser talented writers but always with a wicked sense of humour and some highly imaginative coup de theatre. Piano Forte at the Royal Court is the latest of his plays to appear in the West End and certainly is a great addition to his canon.

The play opens with a poetic monologue describing what seems to be a suicide. The monologue is delivered by the Australian uncle (beautifully played by Danny Webb). The opening is enigmatic, the uncle is enigmatic and, as the play proceeds on its way, enigmas abound.

The single set is an English country manor house with a sweeping staircase up to a landing ,which cuts across huge floor to ceiling windows. There is an entrance stage right to the garden (stage directions are always given from the viewpoint of the actor) and stage left leads to the rest of the house. The main door is located up stage centre, underneath the landing formed by the staircase. Between the main door and the foot of the stairs is a grand piano. It is important to grasp the solidity of the setting, because, as in virtually all his plays, Johnson is going to show you that nothing is as solid as it appears at first.

Seated at the piano, and playing quietly and expertly to herself, is Abigail (Alicia Witt), the mentally unstable daughter of a Tory MP, who is about to be married for the third time (the MP not the daughter). Abigail's mother, the first wife, apparently killed herself after suffering from acute depression most of her life. The mother was a concert pianist and obviously Abigail has inherited some of her traits, in more ways than one. The Australian uncle has remained to look after the house for his brother-in-law. even though there is a family waiting in Australia.

Into this tranquil but somewhat gloomy setting bursts Louise (Kelly Reilly), the gloriously rebellious, "drug-munching, self-analysing, libidinous" other daughter. Amongst Louise's first actions are to destroy a full length family portrait hanging on the staircase and then, topless, to greet her father and her new about- to -be - stepmother.

It is obvious that Louise blames her father for the death of her mother two decades earlier and she may even have witnessed the event.

This plot scenario makes the play sound more gloomy and more Ibsenesque than it is. Terry Johnson loves playing mind games and his script is very funny. The introduction of two acrobats into the wedding proceedings is a pure Johnson moment and yet is a perfectly logical development of the situations created.

A Terry Johnson play is always worth looking out for and Piano Forte is no exception.

Teatro Delusio

Teatro Delusio is a show by the German company, Family Floez. When we were up in Edinburgh a couple of years ago, we saw their Ristorante Immortale at St Stephen's. Their style is a wonderful mix of physical theatre, masks and puppetry. In Teatro Delusio we find ourselves backstage in a theatre. We are looking at the backs of flats in the area usually occupied by the backstage crew and the cast on their way to the stage, which in this case was out of sight upstage centre. We hear snatches of the invisible audience arriving and settling, the orchestra, the opera, the ballet and later a slapstick in the style of silent movie comedies, and even later the three Musketeers. We see none of the performances because the backstage area is a bustle with diverse characters and there is never a dull moment. What makes this remarkable is that we know there are only three actors who between them play something like 29 characters. The masks are incredible and characters are instantly recognisable. There is no dialogue because there is no talking backstage! Yet we know everything these characters think and feel because of the body language. As a director and an actor, I think we would learn a great deal from watching this company in action. We rely too heavily on the words to carry the message rather than look at the accompanying body language. The first character we are introduced to in Teatro Delusio is the theatre ghost, a puppet of a diminutive girl, handled with extraordinary care and delicacy by all three actors. It is through the ghost that we are drawn into the always absorbing, frequently hilarious and occasionally poignant backstage world. I could identify with the rotund stage manager in love with the leading opera singer until he gave birth to twins - you had to be there to understand. The ancient violinist, escaping the bustle of the parade of arriving musicians, sitting in the nearest available chair before being shooed onstage (out of our sight) by the imperious conductor. A gay ballet master, allowed to "preen" an endless procession of ballerinas (remember there are only three real actors in the whole cast), appealed to the old roue in me, before he came downstage and singled me out for propositioning. Everyone interested in the theatre either as a performer or as audience should see this show as like Michael Frayn's Noises Off or Ronald Harwood's The Dresser it throws an intriguing light on theatrical life backstage. As for the Family Floez, I see they are already at work on Hotel Paradiso. The only disappointment was a partially filled Nuffield Theatre. This company deserve so much better and please watch out for them, hopefully at a theatre near you soon.

U-turn on Pompey's Fratton Park plans

Fratton Park is the spiritual home of Pompey and I loved every minute of a recent behind the scenes tour, thrilled to savour the atmosphere and the history. I also reckon the footballing superstars on the visiting teams must also be more than a little put out by the conditions both on and off the pitch. The 12th man, the Pompey fans, can exert real influence in the current stadium. I had accepted that the changes proposed under the chairmanship of Mr Mandaric were a fait accompli and my support would not have wavered. My heart tells me that Fratton is where Pompey is but my head tells me that if we are to become a footballing super team amongst the elite, which is where Pompey belong, we need facilities to match. I looked at the vote in the Portsmouth News before writing and as expected 50% were for staying at Pompey, the other 50% were split between the other two sites. It still means we are divided equally between those who want to stay at Fratton and those who feel a move elsewhere would be a good one. My address in Havant will make others presume I would choose Farlington, which is almost a stroll down the road. I would have no objections despite Brent Geese and Green Space Campaign, the means by which a previous application bid was dismissed. A government inspector decided that the proposed stadium was too near the breeding ground of brent geese in a nearby nature reserve. This threat to local wildlife does not seem to have detered roadwaorks and access to a new industrial estate actually adjacent to the nature reserve. Howver, going back to options for a newly located Pompey football club, my personal choice would be Tipner. The club would still be on Portsea, the stadium would rescue a site within the city in dire need of uplift and communications could be tied in with the existing road network. The rail network might be a problem but might be resolved by specialised bus links on match days especially if we are talking about a 35000 or 36000 seater stadium. The new Pompey stadium would be as striking a feature as Portchester Castle on the other side of the harbour and the Spinnaker Tower at the entrance.

I have been so moved that I have written my first email to the Portsmouth News expressing the above sentiments. Fire, riot, pestilence and diabolically stupid educational rulings from above have never moved me to print before but the future of Pompey football club has.

New Leaf Turning

Christmas approaches rapidly. Only another 60 working days, or twelve weeks, to go and I will retire from school teaching. This is a job I have been doing for 34 years ( I had six years in a previous life as a building society cashier before spending three years at a college of education as they were then known). It is strange, therefore, to be contemplating a new life. I am looking forward to it and not really enjoying the daily journey into school. I resent the amount of planning and preparation and the assessment that is needed just to stay afloat. Will I miss school? someone asked recently. No it will be good to stop and to get off the treadmill.

I haven't filled in application forms in years (was never very ambitious as a professional) and yet have just completed four over the last fortnight. I am trying to get on an agency's books as a film extra in January. There is no glitter of stardust in my eyes or vainglorious hope of being plucked to stardom from the crowd in the background of a scene. I would like to see how the film industry works and to gain some repayment for all those years spent in the darkened auditorium of cinemas. Cinema is one of my great passions and I am delighted to say one that is shared with my children. My younger daughter is even marrying a young man who is training to join the industry himself (she refers to him as Muleboy in her blog, from which I will refrain in mine, as I have no wish to offend).

I haven't heard anything back yet but most agencies close their books for 2007 at the end of September so there is still a chance. If no-one takes me up I will have to think again about what I am doing next year - but it won't be education in any form or fashion!

Play Up Pompey

Did I tell you in my profile or in previous blogs that I am a Pompey fan?

I have always been a Bradford City fan because that was where I grew up and in those days you supported your local team rather than a fashionable team seen on television. In fact I should have been a Bradford Park Avenue supporter because I came from a Catholic background and they were the Catholic team. However they went out of existence before I was into going to football matches. I didn't go to football matches until I was a teenager, having left school and earning a wage at the Provincial Building Society. My gran and mother, who were responsible for my upbringing (my parents having divorced when I was five), weren't into football and even though my Uncle Walter was a mandarin of the local football league, he was more interested in grass roots football than the stuff being played at Valley Parade.

My father was Irish Catholic and my mother was Yorkshire Methodist - which is a pretty lethal combination and, no pun intended but obviously one loitering with intent, led to a lot of soul-searching when I became of an age to wonder about religion. With reference to football, and I haven't researched this, I wonder how many of the teams can be divided on sectarian lines at least in their beginnings and origins. Liverpool, the Irish capital on the English mainland, has a red team (Catholic) and a blue team (Protestant). Manchester is another city with a large influx of Irish in times gone by and has a red and a blue team. North London, another Irish hotbed, has Arsenal and Spurs. I know the theory suffers here in that Arsenal is red and white and Spurs are not strictly blue. I feel the need for some research coming on me.

Anyway this blog was prompted by seeing Pompey in action yesterday. My son in law Nathan organised a couple of tickets in B row of the Milton End. These are seats where your nose is level with the surface of the pitch and you are between the goalposts and corner flag. Perhaps not the ideal position to be in if the action is at the other end (where Benjani scored yesterday) but enables you to vociferously (and I am nothing if not vociferous) encourage Pompey and abuse the other team. We paid £29 per seat for this privilege and the first half was dire. In the second half Benjani scored early on. I don't know what 'Arry Redknap said to them at half time but a different team emerged for the second half. We , that is, the crowd and especially those in the Milton End, helped preserve a clean sheet once again despite some close run moments. At one stage David James was haranguing his defence, loudly echoed by the MIlton End supporters, who could see everything from his point of view. He also won us over by his greeting as he he took up his position just after the interval. The Milton End is usually opposition territory but seats become available to Pompey fans if the other team don't take up their full allocation.

I loved the afternoon and Pompey are doing us proud at the moment. Glen Johnson is a rolls royce of a right back, Sol Campbell and Linvoy Primus (with David James behind them) are solid rocks in the centre of the defence, Davis is growing in strength from match to match, Benjani is tireless and rapidly becoming a class act, Kanu and LuaLua are players to torment any defence. We welcomed back Pedro Mendes and we still have Fernandes, Krajnac and Douala waiting in the wings, plus Andrew Cole recovering his fitness after injury and preparing some of that old goal touch magic. Play up Pompey!

"Frost/Nixon"

This new play by Peter Morgan opened at the Donmar on Monday and I was privileged to see it on the Thursday matinee. It was a privilege because the play was riveting and the two hours without an interval literally flew by.

I had gone to see the play for the most trivial reasons. It was showing at my favourite London theatre and it coincided with a family visit to London, where I was cast adrift for the afternoon. The idea of a docu-drama has never really appealed and yet I have seen some stunning examples of the genre, "Conspiracy" for example, but these have been usually TV or film vehicles. A stage play, concerned with a television event in which the over-rated David Frost (my own opinion) interviewed the fallen President, Richard Nixon, did not offer me the most appetising of theatrical fare.

The set was extremely sparse dominated by a huge bank of TV sets on the back wall. We meet Richard Nixon (Frank Langella) and his retinue led by Jack Brennan (an impressive performance by Corey Johnson). We are introduced to characters and events by the narration of Elliott Cowan, who plays Jim Reston, a liberal opponent of the Nixon legacy which severely mauled the American system of democracy. This is a clever touch by playwright, Peter Morgan, as the audience (or at least me, but I don't think I was alone) having lived through the Nixon era feel our sympathies totally on the side of Reston and thoroughly antagonistic towards the ex President.

Frank Langella has a tough job. Nixon is an iconic figure with his jowly features (and a permanant five o'clock shadow?) and sheen of perspiration. Langella doesn't go for impersonation and correctly. He succeeds in making us realise the complex nature of both Nixon himself and the reasons for his downfall. We are also given an insight into life for the dethroned President after Watergate.

Enter David Frost as embodied by Michael Sheen. This is an instantly recognisable portrayal at least to a British audience but the economy with which the characterisation is established is brilliant. The vainglorious Frost, a television superhero, had been affronted by the failure of his talk show to take off in America when it wasn't accepted for syndication. The rankling this caused in Frost made him pursue beyond reason and beyond his means the setting up of a series of interviews with the wily and unrepentant NIxon.

Jack Brennan, Nixon's chief of staff, likens the encounters to an ambitious contender working for months to get into the ring with the champion. Once in the ring, the contender realises he has bitten off more than he can chew, and why the champion is the champion.

This sense of a heavy weight contest is admirably caught by Peter Morgan's script and at the end of the play I found myself cheering - not only the play, the cast, but, dare I say it, democracy.

Sheen and Langella give two stunning performances and I would heartily recommend this piece of thought provoking theatrical fare.

Making contacts

Yesterday's post was intended to tell you about the villa where we stayed for a fortnight in Italy and how we got there. Hence the title of yesterday's post, which had nothing to do with the content. I was distracted when thinking about the flight into talking about my fear of heights. I will return to the subject of flying on another occasion.

Today is my wedding anniversary. I have been married to Ingrid, my best beloved, for 31 years. We exchanged cards, which, coincidentally and quite by chance, were illustrated by big cats. In my case because I spent yesterday afternoon at Marwell Zoological Park photographing a lovely female Snow Leopard. My class this term are called the Snow Leopards and we will spend the first week finding out about ourselves and the creature whose name we bear. I bought a stuffed version of the snow leopard to go on display in the classroom. I also bought a card showing two leopards in close up and in close contact entitled "love and affection". I thought it highly suitable and as usual did my own verbose message inside:

My old friend,
There's sometin' I must let you know
I haven't said it much
I guess I've lost my touch
But, my old girl, I love you so
No I know it hasn't all been rosy
We've had squabblin'days when tears were brought about
But in a moment or two we would bill and coo
And never even knew
What we fought about

(Damn Yankees: Goodbye, Old Girl)

This quote is from one of my favourite songs which I hope will form part of my funeral service. I don't think I am being doleful but Brian (my son - in - law's step grandad) passed away on Monday. He was a tall quiet gentleman who I really only got to know over the last few years as part of the new extended family you become part of when your child marries. He was very kind and generous to my daughter, which earned him a special part in my heart.

Besides the card, I bought an external hard drive for my wife's home computer. I know! I know! It doesn't sound very romantic but we had tears last term when work she had composed disappeared off into the ether, never to return. I vowed then that I would increase her memory capacity and get her to save her material more frequently.

As for the rest of the day, I have been researching and starting to write applications for my next big adventure. When I retire at Christmas, I hope to be able to get some film or TV extra work at least occasionally. However I like to do things properly so I have been reading as much material about the job and its outlooks as possible. I have selected four agencies to write to with my application and CV. They all want some photographs so I am working out how to do that with a photographer friend.

One of the items I read was about the wearing of spectacles. Apparently this can be quite limiting on a film set as audiences tend to spot them more clearly than the unadorned human face of an extra. Impulsively (I have been thinking about it for some considerable time now however) I made an appointment and went off to see the optician about contact lenses this very afternoon. To my utter amazement, after the customary check up, I was presented with a pair of practice lenses to try out there and then. The technique for putting the lenses in took me a little while to master but I did succeed without too much fuss or difficulty. I enjoyed the fact that I could see. I had discussed my requirements with the optician, i.e. that I needed to see distance as that is where the assistant director will be operating from behind the camera but that reading could be done by using reading glasses. The optician did describe a situation where you could have a distance lens in your dominant eye and a reading lens in the weaker one. Appparently the brain will sort it out as and when needed, but it sounded too odd to me so I went for the simpler option. When I was then told that I could keep the lenses in and drive home I was flabbergasted. It all just seemed too easy! In the end, I took them out (which seems the more difficult manouevre of the two) while I was in the consulting room. I now have a practice pair until my new ones arrive through the post. The speed of the whole transaction fair took my breath away! (I was going to say "eye-opener" but I thought that would occasion a groan!)

Tomorrow I am off to London with daughters and wife to look at wedding dresses for younger daughter who is getting married in summer 2007. I will travel up with them but will go and see "Frost/Nixon" at my favourite theatre, the Donmar. After the matinee we will meet up for an anniversary meal before catching the train back.

Le Gughe

I am afraid of heights.

Once I had no fear of heights. I walked the parapets of Salisbury Cathedral, I strode across mountainsides like the proverbial goat and I shinned up lighting towers with nary a thought of what disasters could and might befall me (the emphasis being on the "fall" part there).

This all changed one day when I decided I would drive through the Pyrennees to Spain. We were on one of those camping holidays I may have mentioned in previous posts. Wife, two daughters and myself were camped in the western Pyrennees. Opposite our tent were camped a number of Spanish families and the idea crept into my head that we were so near Spain that we could easily cross the frontier from where we were. Even now, the stupidity of what I did next still scares me.

I decided to drive over the mountains and didn't even consider the use of the coastal approach. I looked at the map and the road was certainly serpentine but there wasn't much chance of taking the wrong turning. In those far off days, I didn't really go in for altitude readings or contours. We set off early in the morning in our family saloon, which may have been a Nissan in those days. A great deal of detail has been removed by the terror which was to overcome me later in the day.

I did the driving as I was wont to do at the time, Ingrid was relieved of her usual navigation duties in the front passenger seat and the two girls hunkered down in the back seats. I loved the early stages and the ascent was exciting. The mountain sides soared above us on the left and going up we had to drive on the right of course and the driver's position is on the right of the car. (I had to stop while writing there to lay down on the floor and take deep steadying breaths) I got wonderful views of the valleys below unobscured by the tiny stone walls built along the edge of the roads. Occasionally we would pass through tunnels or stone arches. There was one point at which I delightedly pointed out to the girls a shepherd perched on the stone wall with his goats on the other side away from the road. They were remarkably unimpressed as children often are in the back of the car which seems to have been going nowhere for hours.

It may have been at this point, though I can no longer be sure, that the icicles of doubt began entering my mind. I was beginning to tire of the strain of keeping the car on the road. Too many of the bends to the left had nothing but blue sky in front of them and I began to slow down more and more as I approached them. The sections with right bends showed the road ahead clinging to the mountain. (I have just had to wipe the palms of my hands as they have become very sweaty). There were occasional panoramic viewpoints with minimal parking space but I slowly realised that I couldn't stop but had to keep going until I got to the top of the mountain or at least the pass or col before going down the other side. What if the other side was an exact copy of this side? The car was now unhappy at the low gears continually being selected and I began to wonder if I had spent enough time and attention on its mechanical upkeep - especially the tyres, the brakes, the gear box.....

How long this continued I don't know but it seemed like the proverbial lifetime! My wife became aware of my distress but there was nothing she could do. The drivers behind became impatient as you can imagine. Finally the col was in sight and there was just one stretch of road to complete before we could reach the buildings whose roofs we could see. There was now no mountain side on our left but a small alpine rise and a small steeply inclined alpine meadow to our right before you came to the precipitous drop down to France many, many metres below. Imagine the desperation as I neared the sanctuary.... only to see a herd of long horned cattle wander off the alpine rise to the left on to and into the road where they stopped. Despite the parping of car horns the creatures with their own horns refused to budge. At one stage I actually got out of my car to scream at them in anger, frustration and fear. This seemed to amuse the drivers coming down the mountain from the other side and the ones now lined up behind me. They gestured that I should get back in my car and drive slowly at the cows. I did and had to edge my car around a large steer as a car from the other side edged towards my side of the road. I do not know how I managed to get past the cow as my wheels touched the very edge of the meadow to our right and even now my mind refuses to return the memory from the unconscious to the conscious. I only know that we succeeded in reaching the car park outside the chalet, which offered refreshments, in the col. The col was about the size of a football pitch with building, car park and alpine meadow complete with cows and horses. The road we had just come up was now out of sight around bend to our right if we looked back and the road ahead was round another bend to our right. The view was stunning! I parked the car, stepped outside and literally threw myself to the ground. I lay on the ground because I knew that if I stood up I would make it easier for the overwhelming urge to throw myself over the nearest edge, that was pulsating through me, to take over. That urge to jump has remained with me in high places ever since.

Ingrid had to drive down the other side of the mountain and that is when we discovered her ears have problems with high altitudes. She is subjected to lots of pain. But she drove down the mountain - on the more alpine side admittedly. I have since learned that mountains are like that - a sheer drop side and an alpine side. Meanwhile I cowered and whimpered in the passenger seat. Going down the mountain the right hand drive car has the driver next to the rocks on the mountain side and the passenger has the other side of the road before the drop. I think that is what probably kept me sane enough to descend - otherwise I may still have been up that mountain. Eventually as we descended we came to a junction where we would have to ascend some more if we were to make Spain or descend to the Valleys of France and return at almost sea level if by a more circuitous route back to our campsite. My fear and Ingrid's eardrums and the unpleasantness of the experience at the top of the mountain made the decision easy to make. We returned to the tent but I was a changed man.

Ever since I have had this fear of high places.

Recreation

So, loyal and patient reader, I am returned from my foreign sojourn refreshed, relaxed and recreated.
I spent two weeks in a villa in Italy with nine other people. It was a refreshing experience and I did relax, which is something I don't find easy. I also recreated in that I knew a great deal more about myself when I came back than when I went away.
The villa was Le Gughe, a few kilometres away from Palombara Sabina in the Sabine Mountains. This is only a half hour commuter train ride to the east of Rome itself. The villa was set in gorgeous grounds with gazebo and pool and depp shady terraces. Three bedrooms were part of the main house and Ingrid and I had one of those and the other two were occupied by our friends, the Penroses and the Woodwards. We were the "grown ups"! The "children", our two daughters and their partners, were our neighbours in the gatehouse, a short walk away across a lawn and the driveway. Most luncheons and evening meals, if people were on site, were spent on the enormous terrace of the gatehouse as they also had the kitchen. There was a small kitchenette available to the grown ups but was only really suitable for those early morning cups of tea followed by the breakfast coffee. Breakfast was usually the three "grown up" couples sitting on the small terrace accessed directly from our three bedrooms.
The holiday idea was inititated by Jacquie, who is a remarkably bright and energetic person, who not only comes up with bright ideas but carries them through as well. She is also half Italian and is a fluent speaker of the language. Her passion and enthusiasm made the holiday happen and made it so successful. The idea had come as a result of one of our trips up to London to see a show and the children had come to see the show with us. (Probably the show had been a musical and the girls ahd seen the show with us while the two "boys" went off to see another show before rejoining us). As is quite usual with us, all ten of us took ourselves off for an evening meal at Da Mario's, an Italian restaurant discovered by David and Jacquie, before catching a late train out of Waterloo. During the meal we discussed the possibility of the Corrigans, Penroses and Woodwards hiring a villa together and it was Jacquie who then said why don't we ask everybody sat around the table if they wanted to come as well. I expected there would be lots of reasons put forward as to why it wouldn't be possible. We are a very close knit family and our daughters were subjected to family camping holidays in France perhaps a little longer after their sell by date (the holidays not the daughter), i.e. their mid teens (that is the daughters though might also apply to the number of holidays. Help! I am lost in my own rhetoric!) than was comfortable for all concerned. We were delighted therefore when the idea was unanimously agreed to and the summer of 2006 was the anointed time. It has been a long time coming and the anticipation has mounted steadily ever since the idea was broached over the pasta course in Da Mario's.

Vacation Time

I was really worried that I had forgotten how to gain access to my blog as it is so long since I published a post.

It took me a while to remember my password but finally here I am back in print.

I had a lovely time acting in "Art". The cast was great and the director sublime. The support backstage was excellent and Ruth was a marvellous dresser.

Audience figures weren't great but that could be accounted for by the heatwave. In a couple of the performances I truly felt I was going to expire in a flood of my own perspiration.

I remembered all my lines during most of the performances with one or two minor glitches and that felt like a real achievement, especially as the play coincided with the end of term.

Term has been finished for about two weeks now but I have been in school for seven of the working days preparing my classroom and planning for my final term as a teacher before retiring at Christmas. Today is day ten but I am not going into school as I am preparing to fly off to Itally for a fortnight and boy am I looking forward to it! So, arrivederci, for now, most patient and loyal of readers and bene venuto Roma.

Auntie Annie

I attended the funeral of my Auntie Annie on Thursday.
There once were three sisters, Annie, Doris and Nellie. They lived in Barnsley, the daughters of Robert Frost, a miner, and of Florence Frost. Florence was my grandmother and, because of my parents' divorce when I was five, was mainly instrumental in the upbringing of my brother and me. My mother, Nellie Frost, had to be the breadwinner in the absence of a husband. My teaching style is bedecked with sayings, philosophy and thought patterns implanted long ago by my maternal grandmother. I will return in future blogs to my parents and my grandmother but today's blog is about my Auntie Annie.
Auntie Annie lived at Wyke with her husband and family. Of course, she had lived in lots of places around that area but these are my personal memories and for me the Kelsalls always lived at Wyke. Harry Kelsall married my Auntie Annie. Uncle Harry was a Dane! I could never detect anything Viking about him - you have to remember I was an avid Henry Treese and Rosemary Sutcliffe fan as a boy. I knew the tales of Valhalla and the Viking derring do that took them as far as Byzantium. I believed in the strength of the shield ring. Therefore, to me, Uncle Harry was always an object of admiration. It might also be the fact that he was the father figure missing from my own family circumstances. However I must point out that my Uncle Walter (married to Doris Frost) was more paternal in my eyes and in practice. It was Uncle Walter who carried me on his shoulders several miles to St Luke's hospital when I fell upon a broken bottle and cut open my left elbow. Uncle Harry was a more distant figure and, as a man, rather imposing. I found out at the funeral that my Uncle Harry was in fact born Heinrich but had changed his name because the English can't distinguish between a Danish Heinrich and a German Heinrich.
This reminiscence of my Auntie Annie seems to be overshadowed by my Uncle but in my memory I suppose she was. Our visits to Wyke and the Kelsall family were regular and I was envious of the model railways and the sophisticated ways of my cousins, Robert and Sandra (who is only two days my senior). When Robert was 17, the Kelsall family visited Austria by train. This was a tremendous achievement in those days and marked the Kelsalls out as a European family! Cousin George was then, and is now, an enigma.
Uncle Harry died quite some time ago and for a while I lost contact with my Aunties. But the fact that my brother still lives in Bradford and I visit him annually meant that I came to know my Auntie Annie a little better. Admittedly this was when she was in her 80's but her character was clearly there for all to see.
Auntie Annie had the brightest and clearest blue eyes. They could and did see everything. The brain behind those eyes was quick, agile and keen. Her legs were racked by arthritis and caused her great pain in recent years. This did not cloud her judgement or her ability to state her opinion firmly and audibly if the need arose. She also had lovely skin and her face shone with a luminescence, a light. It was a pleasure to spend time in her company and my brother instigated an annual Easter meal where he and I would take our two Aunts out and encourage them to indulge us with their memories. Auntie Doris was always Auntie but invariably I referred to Auntie Annie as Gran. I suppose - I know- this slip of the tongue was prompted by her likeness to my grandmother. Not physically, you understand, although there was an obvious family resemblance, but in the fierce, independent spirit that blazed out of her. Her certainties, her viewpoint, her opinion were built upon bedrocks that were laid down in the generations that preceded her and that I can only admire and envy. I realise their worth and I am grateful to my grandmother for making me aware of their presence. I am eternally grateful to my Auntie Annie for reminding me of being true to oneself.
With the departure of Auntie Annie, the threads that hold me and mine to the roots laid down in Yorkshire soil wear even thinner. I have cousins but aunties are precious and a dwindling commodity, especially as they help to keep alive the memory of a dear departed mother. She died thirty years ago but still enters my thoughts at times of joy and despair.
I didn't cry at my Auntie Annie's funeral but I did today.

SATs Week

I think I said I was a primary school teacher! Well, in fact, I am the deputy head of a small primary school, and have been for the last 21 years in September. Retirement is on the cards for Christmas 2006.

I don't know how it is that I have spent 21 years at the school. I arrived as the unwanted external candidate, but the chair of governors at the time, and the Hampshire inspector involved in my interview, over-ruled the wishes of the headteacher, who had wanted an internal candidate appointed. You can imagine how welcome he made me feel! It was an unpleasant time, but I had a family to support, and one of the most supportive wives you could ever wish for, plus plenty of interests outside of school (especially the theatre and acting).
The staff were also either antagonistic towards me - one threatened to report me to the governors because I had dared to use staples in my Hall display on the "sacred" wooden partition doors- or neutral. Gradually I won them round by dogged persistence or rather my inability to be hurt by the slings and arrows of outrageous (outraged) fortune. Someone once said I must be thick-skinned, I replied, "No, just thick!" My response to insulting behaviour or veiled aggression is disbelief - did I really hear someone have a go at me? - and by the time I have worked out that may be the case, the moment for flattening them has come and gone. Whether that is to their benefit or to mine, I don't know (so that's why I say I'm "thick")

Once I got my feet under the table as deputy head, I began to look at moving to a headship but, I realise now if not then, with insufficient conviction. The story I tell, as much to myself as to others, is that when asked any variation of "what would I lie down in the road for?" I was stumped. I'd protect my wife and kids against hell and high water but I fail to be excited about visions and principles to die for. One of the reasons comes from the "if" poem - Success and failure are both imposters" (paraphrased of course). So I don't get too excited if things are going well but nor down if they 're not.
Last year at school I was responsible for the Y6, their SATs and their results ( as I have on a number of occasions over the 21 years). Reading was okay at 75% but the writing task was very difficult and the children struggled, pulling the overall English mark back to 52% (just over half). Science was okay at 68%, but maths was dreadful at 40%. The total for all three subjects was nearly 100 points down on the previous year, which admittedly had been a peak year with a star cohort. I felt wretched and, if I was that way inclined, suicidal, at least professionally.

This year I have not had a full class responsibility. I have job shared a Y4 class on Fridays. I have had a deputy head day out of the classroom on Thursdays. On Mondays I have provided cover for teachers with responsibilities and on Tuesdays I have provided PPA (Planning, Preparation and Assessment Time) for colleagues. Wednesdays have alternated between providing PPA for Y6 and school initiatives (usually English).

I have, therefore, watched from the sidelines, as another teacher has worked hard through the year, coaxing the Y6 towards the SATs week. SATs have now been and gone. The results are awaited and hopefully the signs are that we should have recovered from the 2005 annus horribalis. How much we have recovered is now the question.

The teacher is exhausted and wondering where she will find the energy and motivation to keep the Y6 together for another 9 weeks. She feels unloved and unappreciated by children and staff. Looking in from the outside, I know how inaccurate that perception is ,but also know, from lots of personal experience, how that feels looking out.

I'm looking forward to getting off the treadmill in January 2007.

The Learning of Lines

This week has been an interesting one. It began with Ingrid's birthday. Ingrid is my best beloved, to whom I will have been married 31 years this summer. Her natal day is actually May 2nd but since the government has kindly provided a bank holiday on the first Monday in May her birthday celebrations get extended using that day off work.

On Sunday, Enid, Ingrid's mother, treated us to a meal at the Chinese restaurant nearby. It was just the three of us and a very pleasant time we had of it too. We had spent some of the weekend erecting a gazebo in our back garden (the gazebo was Enid's present to Ingrid) along with the new patio table, chairs, heater and chiminee. All of this preparation was in readiness for the Bank holiday, which has, by tradition now, become open house from noon onwards. We have had many glorious May afternoons in the past (Ingrid is older than she looks!)

Imagine our dismay when we woke up Monday morning and it was raining. However Ingrid must have been a particularly good girl during the year because she was rewarded with glorious sunshine which started just before the first guests arrived and continued for the rest of the day.

Tuesday, the actual birthday day, was back to work but with a warm satisfied glow that we had right royally celebrated Ingrid's birthday.

On Wednesday, I attended the first readthrough of "Art", the July production of the Bench Theatre (www.benchtheatre.org.uk). I arrived at the director's house at 7.30 p.m., congratulating myself on just making it on time. I don't mean to be unpunctual but if I start a task beforehand I invariably overrun and then find myself running late for an appointment. However I just hate hanging around waiting for an event to occur. Anyway, there I stood on the doorstep at 7.30 p.m., mentally hugging myself, only to discover that the readthrough was scheduled for 8.00 p.m. I was a bit quieter than normal in the readthrough because unbeknowst to even myself I was beginning to catch the summer cold which always begins with a tickly sore throat. I was also beginning to appreciate how many lines I will have to learn over the 8 weeks of rehearsal. "Art" is a three hander and none of the trio are offstage for any real length of time.

When I was young I would learn lines almost instantaneously and mainly through the rehearsal process. These days however the learning of lines needs more laborious application and method if I am to succeed. In a masterclass with a professional director from the Chichester Festival Theatre, he showed techniques used by his actors which contrasted sharply with the non-professional experience. He commented then that amateurs tend to learn their lines in isolation rather than together. This can lead to a delivery that is parallel in performance as well, as interaction is overwhelmed by the physical act of remembrance. It is to the credit of top class non-professional companies like the Bench that some amateur actors give their characterisations a depth and a wealth of subtextual detail that goes way beyond any simple recitation of lines.

I have set myself the task of learning so many pages of script per week. I have learned the hard way that I need to start from the beginning and gradually work towards the end so that the lines are laid down in a continuous and unbroken progression. This works for me but can annoy some directors as the scenes at the end of the play are invariably rehearsed with the book even at late stages of the rehearsal period.

My son in law, Nathan (referred to as Beanie by some people in the family), is a lecturer in theatre studies and he came across a rehearsal technique which I am keen to try one day. The actors record their lines and the tape is then played back while the play is blocked so the actors can concentrate on physical moves and are released from carrying the script around. I think this might help in the process of physical and muscle memory, which in turn might aid the learning of lines.

Still, that's another time and for now it's.....My friend Serge has bought a painting..........

Sondheim's "Company"

I went to see "Company" at the Chichester College last night.

It was a student production and turned out to be excellent. I enjoyed the acting although they were all too young to have had any of the real life experiences being depicted in the show. The singing was good and in places very good. The keyboard work by the musical director (and head of Musical Theatre), Daf Hughes, was outstanding, and in itself was well worth the visit.

I love "Company" and wonder at those people who say Sondheim can't write tunes as there are several stonking numbers in this one show alone.

If I was ever fortunate enough to meet Mr Sondheim, I would like to thank him for enriching my life with his music. My pal David is so right, as he usually is in such matters and much else besides, when he says Sondheim is at his ease here writing and composing about a city and a scene he knows so well and inside out. The story of the 35 year old bachelor Bobby who is desperate to get married to somebody/ anybody comparing upon his own state with that of his married friends allows Sondheim to mix a heady cocktail of humour, wicked insight, poignancy and marvellous music. I was trying to isolate which tune was my favourite but the trouble is as each song arrives it replaces the one I thought was my favourite up until then. (Just one grumble about last night's performance at Chichester college. There was a programme which gave those cast biographies but no list of songs or any background information about the composer. All the people sat in the audience can't be afficiniados so an educational opportunity was missed, it seems to me, by an educational establishment.)

The best production so far of "Company" must be the 1995 Sam Mendes' show at the Donmar with Adrian Lester mesmerising in the lead role surrounded by a fantastic cast among whom Clive Rowe(Harry), Teddy Kempner(David), Sheila Gish(Joanne) and the incomparable Amy of Sophie Thompson. To my chagrin, I never saw the stage production but had to be satisfied by viewing a video recording of the actual show.

Sondheim quotes Chekhov: "If you're afraid of loneliness, don't marry". I think this is the motif that Sam Mendes adopted for his production and is a better explanation for Robert than emotional indifference or complacency with which the part could be played.

The show is choc a bloc with showstoppers.

"Sorry Grateful" is when Robert the bachelor asks his married friend Harry if he was sorry that he got married. The reply is wonderfully ambiguous: "You're always sorry, you're always grateful"; "You are what you were, which has nothing to do with - all to do with- her" The tune is heart string tuggingly beautiful and wistful. The other two married friends, Peter and David (I always get a buzz at that combination of names), join in.

"Someone is Waiting" is the song where Robert runs through the qualities of the wives of his three friends, and crazy Amy who is marrying his Jewish friend Paul, and his three girlfriends (who all fancy him) trying to pinpoint the person for himself. He seems unsure whether the person is out there waiting for him," Wait for me now, I'll find you if I can", or whether he should go out and do the searching. He ends up as usual unresolved:" Hurry - Wait for me".

"Another Hundred People" is an anthem to the city of New York sung by Marta, the hippy amongst his girlfriends. A" city of strangers" is reinforced every day by hundreds pouring of the buses, trains and planes.

"Getting Married Today" is sung by crazy Amy on her wedding day. It is an extraordinary recitative song delivered at astonishing speed ("all bridal babble and radiantly curdling hymn" Michael Ratcliffe), which is incredibly difficult to do, makes the audience roar with laughter and is a show stopper in the hands of a Sophie Thompson. Amy refuses to marry Paul on the actual day of the wedding.

"Marry Me a Little" is Robert's request to Amy on learning that she is not marrying Paul: "Marry me and everyone will leave us alone"; "Marry me a little, love me just enough"; "Make a few demands that I will be able to fulfil"; "We'll stay who we are"; "Passionate as hell but always in control";"But first and foremost keep me company"; "I'm ready" is the oft repeated reprise before the song ends on "I'm...I'm...I'm..."

God, Sondheim is brilliant!

The Golden Pathway Annual

I saw The Golden Pathway Annual last night at the Havant Arts Centre. The John Harding and John Burrows play is being presented by the Bench Theatre this week and next. As a Bench member I was doing my front of house usher bit in my Bench Theatre sweatshirt accompanied by Ingrid - she was House Manager for this production.

I knew nothing of the play but had voted for it at the play selection sometime last year. The Bench Theatre, a non-professional theatre (whose link can be found opposite/some photographs can be found on my website at www.frostymarsh.co.uk/gallery/) has an unusual form of play selection. Prospective directors have to bring a proposal for the play they want to do before the gathered membership and "pitch" their idea so it wins sufficient support and votes to be considered for production. It sounds haphazard but has thrown up some interesting seasons and sometimes ones with strong thematic links - unintentional at the time but still there all the same!

This play won my vote because of the director, Sally Hartley. Sally hadn't put forward a play before but is a very experienced and talented actress. Her work off the text in providing a subtextual quality and depth to her performances is wonderful to behold and exemplary for other actors. I looked forward to seeing the final product.
Some bias must now be made clear. During casting Sally chose my son in law, Nathan, as the leading character, Michael Peters, my firstborn, Zoe, as the only woman in the cast of four(and Nathan's wife), and Mark Wakeman, their best man. The fourth member of the cast was Darryl Wakelin who I have had the privilege to work with on "The Weir" and as part of the improvisation workshop team that produces "Dude, Where is my script?" (led by the multi talented Nathan).

I approached last night's performance then with anticipation and was rewarded with an evening of enormous humour and fun. I roared with laughter and yet identified with the characters on stage. Only rarely was I reminded by a mannerism or a hiccup that makes live theatre the unique spectacle that it is that I actually knew the actors behind the people being portrayed. There is an excellent review of the show in the Portsmouth News by James George which I think captures the show very well. (The review is somewhat marred by one of those headlines probably stuck on by a sub-editor which bears little resemblance to the content of the review.)
James George is impressed by Sally's decision to work with only four actors but questions the use of only one actress (the overworked but always effective Zoe Chapman). He was impressed by the simplicity of the staging and set. I love the minimalist approach which allows and requires the actors to act!

I also take a little proprietorial interest and pride in the production photos by young photographer, Katie Anderson. I had suggested Katie to the production team because of her experience working as a photographer on rock band gigs and concerts. Her collection of production stills taken during a dress rehearsal capture the essence of a theatrical endeavour and some of the photographs are just stunning. Katie took on the assignment because she wants to widen her portfolio. If this debut collection is any indication, Katie has real talent ( Some of her work can be seen on www.rock-shots.co.uk/index.php and I hope she will soon upload some of her photos from this production)

If you live in the Havant area, I would heartily recommend this show for a lively, thoroughly entertaining night out. It appeals to the baby boomers like me but the youngsters in last night's audience laughed just as loudly as us oldtimers!

St George's Day 2006

With the Bank Holiday Monday, this has been a four day week at work. I like four day weeks! I enjoyed a singaround at the Chichester Folk Song Club on Tuesday night. For the last couple of Tuesdays I have been accompanied by Ingrid and Alice. Both of them are blessed with lovely singing voices and Alice is looking for a new band to join having recently parted with a trio she formed with two friends. She has a beautiful voice, even excelling her mother's. On the other hand, I have no singing voice especially if singing solo and unaccompanied. I can't hold a tune in my head and can just about manage to sing along with other voices (preferably in the same range as me).

Anyway on this Tuesday night I went alone to the Club and as usual was knocked out by the range and exuberance of the music. Folk music tells the history of our country and people in a magical way. One song told of the nineteen year wait for promotion of a football club but the song makes no reference to football and will stand the test of time as a beautiful creation in its own right.

As my contribution to the evening I read two speeches from Shakespeare: Henry V's speech before the battle of Agincourt and John of Gaunt's speech from Richard II. The readings had a dual purpose because the folk club was also a way of preparing for St George's Day itself. On Sunday the local pub, the Gold Lion, is holding a day of celebration in honour of the patron saint and I have been asked to come up with a fifteen minute slot for a midday and an evening performance.

It took me half a day to come up with a rough running order which includes ruminations (humourous I hope) on England and its patron saint and bringing in Shakespeare as the great playwright was born on the day itself (and rather amazingly died on St George's Day). I chose two speeches from Henry V (rousing ones) and one from Richard II which can be perceived as a commentary on the less noble state our country currently finds itself in. An unknown audience in an unknown venue and with my own untried material makes this an ususual venture for me!

"Blackbird" at the Albery

The play opens in one of those sparse rooms in a factory where the staff eat their packed lunches and take breaks drinking from styrofoam cups. There is litter and detritus everywhere. Into this room burst a man and a young woman. He is dressed conservatively in shirt and tie - she provocatively. For the next two enthralling hours (without interval) the two circle each other physically and metaphorically sorting through the litter of the room and the litter in their lives. We learn that he had sex with her when she was only twelve. The accusations and recriminations fly backwards and forwards at an emotional intensity that draw the audience in despite any reservations that may be held. At first we are like the other workers in the factory who peer in through the window lined corridor that forms the back wall of the set. Occasionally a worker will enter the room to use the locker emanating silent disapproval but not wishing to be involved personally. The audience finds itself doing the same but the play, the production and the performances do not allow such luxury. Your loyalty, sympathy and antipathy swing between the two characters as the play progresses and we are shown what a tangled web is woven from a simple act such as attending a neighbour's barbecue. Peter Stein is an acknowledged director and the naturalistic treatment of a taboo subject is tempered with an expert knowledge of theatricality. Not once during the performance are you aware of the director's hand - you are only interested in the characters- but at the curtain call and afterwards you begin to appreciate the artistry that brought the play to such vibrant life. The casting of Roger Allam and Jodhi May is inspired and a union made in heaven; although their characters occupy a hell of their own making. Roger Allam is undoubtedly one of the great English classical actors with a marvellous voice. Here he creates an utterly believable man whose speech patterns, demeanour and thinking reveal and conceal a complex character. We want to loathe this man but the journey of discovery is much rougher than that both for the character, actor and audience. This is a magnificent performance by Mr Allam! Jodhi May's character began theatrically with deep thrilling notes generated from a slim and shapely frame. I was distracted both by the voice, the costume and the figure. I thought the theatricality was that of the actress but as the evening progressed learned that it came from the character. What a complex and disturbing performance Miss May provides that turns our perceptions upside down and inside out. David Harrower has created an insight into two people and their lives that defies the mob's unthinking reaction, the pulpit bashing and the moral tut-tutting. "Blackbird" reminds us of the dangers of judging people from a distance and there but for the grace of God...