A Very Happy Lockdown New Year To You!

 So, that's 2020 done and dusted. Let's just hope that 2021 is better. Well, it certainly can't be any worse than in 2020. Around nine months of being isolated, not being able to meet those we love and cherish. No theatre, going to Camphill and working on various things with the guys there. Can't say I'm sorry that 2020 is over and done with.

(Sunday) Another mild morning. I thought it was going to be frosty, but it wasn't. 

I've been watching too much television. From 'The Crown' on Netflix, to 'His Dark Materials' on BBC1 and on Talking Pictures' TV. I had never heard of this channel until they did an item about it on BBC Breakfast one morning. Their ratings had gone through the roof during the pandemic, so I found it on Freeview and had a look at their schedule. They show almost all programmes from the 1950s through to the 1980s, including things such as Catweazel, Upstairs and Downstairs, Rumpole of The Bailey, and much more. 'Rumpole' was one of my favourite drama series from the 1970s. It was written by John Mortimer. I have a connection to it. I worked as an A.S.M. at Greenwich Theatre in the early 1970s and we did a play written by John Mortimer called 'A Voyage Round My Father. It had started life I believe on Radio Four and then it was adapted for BBC Television and eventually as a stage play, which was directed by Claude Watham, who had directed the BBC television version. It was later remade by Thames Television with Laurence Oliver in the part of the Father. There are some similarities with 'Rumpole' in that it began as a Play For Today on BBC1 and later developed as a series by Thames Television.

A further connection I have, if somewhat vaguely, is when I was again working at Century Theatre in Keswick in, I think it would have been 1973, as D.S.M. There was a film crew working around the area, most notably the lake, Derwentwater. They were making a film of the Arthur Ransome book 'Swallows and Amazons.' When we were scouring the town for props (beg, steal or borrow) for the plays we were producing, we often got asked if we were connected with the unit, which of course we weren't. The director of that film was Claude Watham and the screenplay was written by David Wood who was the Son in 'A Voyage Round My Father.'

(Monday) It sounds as though we might be going back into a national lockdown. It would appear that the virus is spreading and with the new variant, a mutant version of the coronavirus, is more dangerous and likely to be a risk to younger people. All I can say is that I hope we don't go into another lockdown because being isolated as I have been since March, it's effecting my mental health and I imagine I won't be the only person to be so effected.

BBC Breakfast this morning reporting from the Churchill Hospital in Oxford, where the roll-out of the Astra-Zeneca vaccine has begun. I'm wondering when I will be given the vaccine. As I'm over 65, presumably I fall into the 'vulnerable' category.

I have ordered a professional-standard microphone from Amazon so I can do some recording, possibly voice-over work, record a podcast or whatever. It should work with my MacBook air and then I should be able to upload to Soundcloud and other sites. It was ordered on Saturday and should be delivered today before 8p.m.

Watching Film of 'Swallows and Amazons' on television

On Sunday on BBC1 we watched the newest film based on the Arthur Ransome book 'Swallows and Amazons.' I read all of these books when I was a child and loved them. There are about six more in the series, some of them featuring the original children from the first book. In 1973 I worked as D.S.M. (Deputy Stage Manager) at Century Theatre in Keswick and the original film with Virginia McKenna as the mother was being made at the same time. By coincidence, it was adapted for the screen by David Wood who was the son in 'A Voyage Round My Father' which I worked on as an A.S.M. when it was premiered at Greenwich in 1971 and had the same director, Claude Watham. I didn't see any of the filming, but when we went out looking for props for the plays in the Century Theatre season we were often asked if we were from the film unit. As always on any of the repertory productions I worked on, we had to 'beg, steal or borrow' items to be used as props in those plays. Looking back more than 40 years, it's a wonder that any of the local businesses lent us so much, from quite expensive tea sets to such things as samovars, which I had to find for a production when I started out in 1969 as a rather raw student A.S.M. at the Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham.

I didn't see the film unit for 'Swallows and Amazons', most likely because I was far too busy working on rehearsals and productions at Century, which was a theatre constructed of H.G.V. lorries that had originally toured around towns mostly in the north of England in the years after the Second World War and eventually ended up more or less permanently in Keswick, in a carpark near the bus station. I think the film unit would most likely have been down on Windermere, at the other end of the town, which would explain why I never saw it.

I'm digressing, but does it really matter? I think I might have mentioned some of this in an earlier blog post.

The new film is good and has all the elements of the original book, except that Captain Flint, who lives on a narrow boat on the lake, isn't linked in any way with Russian spies in the book as he is in the film, but no doubt this storyline was put in to give some more depth to the plot.

Propping For Plays

Continuing my blog posts on my time working in stage management. One of the jobs we were often assigned to would be propping (or, in other words, responsible for props, any item used within a play  by the actors, from a pair of glasses, a tea set or an umbrella.) If you were assigned to this particular job you would be first and foremost sitting in all the early stages of rehearsals, from the initial read -through and then the blocking, that is, when the director is giving the actors their moves in the rehearsal room, on a chalked out or duct taped floor, an actual scaled version of the set. You would have to take notes of any props that come up during the course of the rehearsal, although you would have a fairly good idea of what props would be required as you would have had a copy of the script before rehearsals started and you would make a list of props mentioned in the script as they appear as you read. But directors and sometimes actors can come up with a additional props as rehearsals progress, or at least have their own unique idea what sort of item them want as a prop. For example, if they have to have a wallet, the sort of wallet they would want, it's colour, whether it had a zip in it, the sort of material it was made of, cloth instead of leather and so on. You would need to make a note of exactly where the props were to be set, either on stage or off. An absolutely vital part of the job, knowing where the props are set, as this will be how you set them during the eventual performance of the play. As the rehearsals continue, you have to keep a list of all the positions of these props and amend this list as things develop, as they always have a habit of doing.

During rehearsals the actors would expect to have props to use. But we sometimes had to provide them with stand-ins before we could find the actual props. We would then go out and look for appropriate items, sometimes begging and borrowing from local shops and other businesses. Most shows were produced on extremely limited budgets, so this was probably the only way we could possibly provide appropriate items for props. If the play was set in a particular period, it would be necessary to find items which were from that period, so antique shops would be asked if they would mind lending items, usually furniture and in most cases we were pleased that they did. For more expensive items we would have to go to specialist prop hire companies. Usually things like firearms, swords and other military items would come from these prop hire companies.

Some shows required food which could present us with one or two problems, particularly if a meal was required to be eaten by the actors involved. Most theatres I worked in had not particularly good facilities off-stage for the provision of cooking, as you would imagine. We had to improvise in order to make a meal look convincing, without using 'real' food. For example, there is no way you could provide a complete roast dinner. We'd have to find a way to make a synthetic and thoroughly convincing roast beef joint, complete with gravy, roast potatoes and vegetables, but without in any way making it look fake. Because in most cases the audience wasn't close enough to the stage to get a good enough view you could get away with using artificial meat joints we constructed out of paper mâché or other material.

For a production of 'The Three Sisters' I once was involved in we had to mock up caviar, as we obviously couldn't use real caviar. We used blackcurrant jam, and then the actors had French toast to eat it off. Fortunately the meal this was part of was far enough up-stage on the set so that the audience couldn't see closely enough to see the caviar wasn't real. Well, to be honest, they should really be concentrating on the acting and not on the props!

On a production of Alan Ayckbourn's 'How The Other Half Loves' at Century Theatre in Keswick, we had to provide avocados for the central meal. We bought real avocados and then moulded them in paper mâché , or at least, pasted newspaper and brown paper. When dried, the outside was painted the colour to represent avocado and then lined with foil, and then filled with mashed banana to represent the edible part of the fruit. Certainly cheaper than using real avocado, which our budget would never run to, particularly if you consider you'd need several fruit for each performance of the play.

Drinks on stage were a similar problem. Mixing water and food colouring, usually gravy browning and water to represent whiskey or in some cases, apple juice. I don't envy the actors having to drink some of these concoctions as it must have tasted really horrible. Attempting to carry on a conversation and drinking these mocked-up drinks must have been quite difficult. If a play required bottles of a particular brand of drink, such as Martini, we'd have to find empty bottle and then make up water with food colourings to match the real drink. Sometimes, if we did a period play, it could be difficult to find bottles of a particular brand to fit that period. All this meant we would have to go round bars and pubs and ask the barmen or landlords to keep empty bottles if they had them in stock for our use. Usually people could be helpful in this regard. But American brands, not available in the United Kingdom could sometimes cause problems, but then we could source them via American airbases or other places.

Working In Theatre- Stage Management Duties-Part 12

I've discussed my time working in stage management in earlier posts on here. I have mentioned running 'The Book', where a member of the stage management team was in charge of rehearsals and then the prompt corner when the show eventually reaches performance on stage. We would begin the whole process with a read-through of the play, when the cast will no doubt meet the entire company for the first time, although in 'rep' (repertory) there would be a core team of actors, around 10-12, who would remain with the company for the entire length of the season (around 6-8 months) although guest actors might be cast in specific productions and not for the entire season of plays. The read through of the play would be the first time the stage management team would get to meet the whole cast as well as the director who might also guest direct or in the case of a rep season, the theatre's artistic director would direct or one of a team of assistant directors might take the helm. The show's designer would have made a model of the play's set, a scaled reproduction which would be made of card and in the simplest representation show how any scene changes would be done. Not only helpful to the actors but the stage management who would have to do the scene changes, although in some shows the actors would also help with scene changes, move furniture or carry on props.

When rehearsals began in earnest (and if it was a two, or three-weekly 'rep' season.) there would obviously be a limited time to rehearse the play as there would be another play running in the evening. Stage management would have market out the play's set with chalk or coloured tape on the floor of the stage or if not there, in a separate rehearsal space elsewhere, either within the theatre or in a hall elsewhere in the town. Many theatres have their own rehearsal space, such as at Liverpool Playhouse where there was an excellent rehearsal studio which I believe has since been converted into a theatre space for actual performances.

Wherever I worked in stage management the jobs were given to staff for  1) The Book 2) Props
3) Sound operation and sometimes (depending on which theatre company) 3) Lighting Board operation. There were also other duties including working on the Flyfloor, working 'practical' things like 'live' sound off-stage i.e. doorslams, gunshots, glass crashes as well as dresser, paging such things as microphone leads and looking after animals that were used on stage (i.e. dogs, cats etc.)

I have discussed 'The Book' on an earlier post, whereby whoever does this is responsible for keeping the 'Prompt Copy' of the play's script up to date with the actor's moves given in the early stages of blocking the play in the rehearsal room, so that actors can refer to this if there is any sort of dispute with the director or other actors. Another member of the stage management team will sit in all the early rehearsals and note any props that will be needed. If a play has been produced before elsewhere there is a good chance that the printed script will have a props list at the back and a setting list, which shows in details where the props should be set on the stage and off stage, as well as personal props which the actors themselves will need, such as cigarettes, glasses, umbrellas etc. which they bring on and use themselves. Once the play is at the performance stage whoever is in charge of props (and, if it is a particularly prop-heavy show.) there may be more than one stage management member running props. During rehearsals stage management will probably have to provide 'stand-in' props for the actors to use, such as teasers, kettles, wine bottles, which may well need water in if they are to pour out drinks as well as some stand-in furniture. I say 'stand-in' because at the early stage of rehearsals all the actual props may not have been acquired by stage management. Some props would be very difficult to find and would need to be hired from a prop company. Such things that you would never manage to find in the average antique shop, such as a stuffed bear, which we needed for a show at Liverpool Playhouse called 'What Every Woman Knows.' There again, if it's something like period grocer items which we needed for another show at Liverpool Playhouse called 'June Evening' which had a corner shop on stage and needed grocer items for the period it was set, 1920's-30's we had to contact a company which specialised in period grocery items and gave us a whole shop-load of things from bars of soap to tea packets. It was in that show that we needed a bulls heart which had to be cooked and eaten! So a specific number were ordered from a local butcher and then we had to cook it and have it ready for the actors to use and eat on stage! Not actually as bad as it sounds as it tasted very much like roast beef! In another show at Ipswich Theatre when we did 'Roots' which is one of the Arnold Wesker trilogy plays, the show called for a cake to be made and then cooked on stag so we had to provide a working oven on stage. The cake was never seen to come out of the oven but for one performance the actress who made the cake actually cooked it and we ate it! It wasn't brilliant, but it proved that she had actually made the whole cake during the action of the play, which can't have been that easy, concentrating on her lines as well as getting all the ingredients of the cake and then baking it!

For all the other props we would need we had to beg, borrow and very nearly steal, whatever items were needed on stage. Looking back some forty or so years it seems amazing that we would go to the various shops around the towns where the theatres were and ask shopkeepers if they would lend certain items. I had to find a samovar for a show at the Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham, for a show called "The Farmer's Wife." I spent a good two weeks trekking around the antiques shops in the town and almost gave up but then found one in an antique centre and managed to persuade the owner of the shop to lend it. I can't imagine what would have happened if it had been stolen or lost and whether the theatre had all these items covered on some sort of insurance policy. In most cases the shows were produced on extremely tight budgets so I suppose the only way they could be staged was to borrow these items from the good people of the town. Some items which did cause problems were drinks bottles and in particular those for shows which were set in, for example, America, where you needed a specific brand of beer or some obscure bottle of spirit such as vodka or whiskey. We would have to traipse around all the bars, pubs and restaurants and ask the managers and bar personnel if they could keep any empty bottles of whatever drink it was and then we had to create the actual liquid part to go inside the bottle with food colouring, gravy browning or even cold tea! I sometimes wonder, looking back, how any actor could be expected to drink those awful mocked-up drinks, be it whiskey, gin and tonic or whatever, when the colouring in the water we used was so foul to taste! As for food on stage, well, that can cause some problems, particularly when you are on a very tight budget. I mentioned earlier the cake that was made and baked on stage, but when you have to create something that looks edible, and often is eaten by your actors, that can be a different matter. We did an Alan Aykbourne play when I worked at Century Theatre in Keswick in the early 1970's, "How The Other Half Loves". There is a dinner party scene where the hostess produces a fancy casserole. We couldn't use meat as it would be too expensive, and wouldn't be seen as such so the concoction was made using bread, gravy browning and water but it did look quit convincing when it was served up. At Watford Palace Theatre I worked on "The Three Sisters" and we had to produce something to look like caviar and we used blackberry jam which did convince and the dining table was set far enough up stage so the audience couldn't see precisely what the actors were spreading on their toast!

Working In Theatre- Stage Management Duties- Part 2

We had to find all manner of strange things for use as props in shows I worked on. Not only did me have to find, from whatever source, but sometimes we would have to make props. Particularly shows such as pantomimes, where you could let your imagination run riot and make things larger than life. Huge great clubs for hitting giants over the head with. Larger than life lollipops. Shopping trollies which had mocked-up petrol engines on them so that when the Dame appears on-stage it seems her shopping trolley is propelled by a lawnmower engine, complete with some  smoke coming out of the exhaust. You name it, we had to produce it.  I worked on a production of 'Macbeth' at Greenwich, and it was necessary to make a head of the actor who played Macbeth. If you know the play you must know that at the end he is killed by being beheaded and his head has to be brought on stage. We had to get the actor playing Macbeth, Alan Dobie, to agree to having his head cast in plaster. Not an easy thing, and not something that I would want as the thought of having my head covered in plaster of paris and straws put up my nose to allow me to breath wouldn't be pleasant. He did agree, and then, once the two halves of the mould were separated, the inside of the mould was filled with latex so a cast could be made. When it was finished the finished 'prop' head was very realistic, and it had stage blood applied, along with hair and it was extremely life-like.

In an earlier post on here I describe how, when I was working on a production of a play at the Century Theatre, Keswick, we had to create a dead chicken, which had to match exactly a live one which was on-stage and then is supposed to go off stage and be killed, and how we had to take some of the live chicken's tail feathers and put them into the 'prop' chicken (which, incidentally, has had its head chopped off, which made making the prop one easier!) Also, I mentioned in another post the production of a show called "Loot" by Joe Orton which I did at Colchester Rep where we had to build a set of coffins and caskets, one of which has to be built so that it can return to the stage burnt out and with a trap on the side which hinges down to reveal piles of burnt £5-notes inside, as well as the piles of Fivers as well as a convincing 'corpse' which is covered in a shroud and has to be articulated so when it is carried it appears as convincing as a del corpse, with articulated joints, limbs etc.

Food always caused a bit of a headache. Particularly when we were working with very little money. In a play we did at Liverpool Playhouse called "June Evening" (and which I did the book for, incidentally.) we had to produce an ox's heart. The play was by Bill Naughton, who wrote the plays "Alfie" which became the film starring Michael Caine as well as "Spring and Port Wine (which I was involved in at the Everyman at Cheltenham.) We did manage to find a butcher who could provide us with the real ox's heart, which we then had to cook before-hand and then put on stage. The set was a street, with two houses opposite one another, one being a home with kitchen and living room, and on a revolve, which turned round to show the interior at the correct time during the action of the play. The opposite house was a shop, rather like a corner shop, and probably a bit like one of the shops that are portrayed on "Coronation Street." As it was set during the 1930's we had to stock the shop with appropriate items and so had to contact various manufacturers who provided us with cans and packets, appropriate to the period of the play, in order to make the shop convincing. When this shop was fully stocked up and dressed, (again, on a revolved), it was quite heavy and to get it to revolve was quite an effort.

Alan Ayckbourne's plays nearly always have food in them somewhere. In "What The Other Half Love" at Keswick there was a meal at the end of one of the acts, we were supposed to produce avocados for the starter for one of the couples who are giving a dinner party. We couldn't afford to have avocados for every performance we did so we bought a real one and then cast it in a sort of papier mach material and then lined these halves with aluminium foil and then used mashed banana to fill these half 'shells' or 'skins' and it did simulate real avocado quite convincingly. In the same production the main part of that meal was supposed to be a casserole, but, again we were on a tight budget and had to use bread soaked in gravy to simulate the real thing. I don't think the actor's got to eat it, thankfully!

At Ipswich Theatre, the first show I worked on was 'Roots" (the second of the Wesker Trilogy of plays.) The whole play revolves around a character who doesn't actually appear. He is supposed to appear at the the end, and the mother produces an elaborate meal, which includes a trifle. As is wasn't eaten, we managed to construct it out out bread, cake and shaving foam. It was incredible to see how the glade cherries got bleached by the shaving foam, and made me wonder what on earth it was in shaving foam that could have that effect on glade cherries and what would it do to your skins if you used it to shave. We also had a large Victoria sponge on the stage, also never eaten, and it got so stale that it was like a piece of wood by the end of the play's run and it could almost have rolled across the floor like a wheel!

Working In Theatre- Part 11

In the Spring of 1973 I answered an advertisement for a stage management job in  "The Stage" newspaper, the entertainment industry journal  where most acting, stage management  and other theatre-related jobs were advertised. It was to work at Century Theatre in Keswick, Cumbria. It now seems quite incredible, in hindsight, from the distance in time of some 40 years, that I was not asked to go for an interview. Today you have to give all sorts of forms of identity before you can apply for even the most menial of jobs, such as several utility bills, bank statements, C.R.B. checks and so on.  I couldn't believe that a few weeks after I applied that I got a letter back in response to mine, informing me that I had got the job of D.S.M. with the company and that I would start that Easter.  It does seem incredible that I could have been any one on earth when I eventually turned up for work, what with so many stories now  coming to light such as child abuse  etc etc (just think of the Jimmy Saville Scandal).  I imagine they must have followed up with references for other places I'd worked, or at least I would hoped they did. So I packed up some of my things and put it into my little Triumph car and drove off up the M1 and M6 towards the Lake District. I recall that the driver's side door of the car caused a big problem as it wouldn't close properly so I had to tie a bit of string to the inside door handle and then the other to the steering wheel column. Before I had tied it up in this fashion, the door had swung open when I'd gone round a roundabout. Thinking about it, it seems really quite precarious and dangerous, but there seemed absolutely no other way of dealing with the problem. I could have easily fallen out of the car, but it actually didn't seem to bother me. It did cause problems when I came to stop at a service area on the M6 as I had to undo the bit of string to get out of the car and then re-tie it back on when I got back in to resume the journey! On the way I spent a night with friends in Liverpool and then continued on towards Keswick.

I had a vague idea what to expect with Century. It had a reputation for being quite innovative, in that it was a mobile theatre and had been set up after the Second World War with the intention of taking professional theatre to towns and cities across the North of England which at the time didn't have their own, permanent theatres. It was quite an amazing construction, being made up of a series of large pantechnicons or I suppose H.G.Vs or in modern terms container trucks, which could be transported in convoy and then assembled to form the theatre with the stage being formed out of one such trailer and the auditorium from another, which had all the seats in it and another which housed the front-of-house with a bar and box-office as well as the lighting control box. There were a couple of other trailers which served as dressing rooms and another for wardrobe as well as a furniture van which contained all the scenery, props and other equipment. When it had originally been set up in the late 1940's all the actors, stage management  and auxiliary staff had toured and lived in caravans, and everyone mucked in and helped construct the theatre as well as set up and strike the theatre whenever it moved around from town to town and everyone lived in these caravans. During the summer of 1973 several of the actors in the company did live in caravans on the Keswick site, which was a car park, but also several company members, including myself,  lived in flats and houses around Keswick. I do not have very good experiences of caravans, mostly due to the fact that I'm over 6 foot tall and having to  live in accommodation which is cramped and usually has headroom of less than six feet high doesn't suit me, so I found a room nearby in  a house in the centre of the town.

The season consisted of four plays, which were "The Patrick Pearce Motel" by Hugh Leonard, "How The Other Half Loves" by Alan Ayckbourn, "The Man With A Load of Mischief" by Ashley Dukes  and "Romeo and Jeannette" by Jean Anouilh. Each play ran in repertoire for the season, from April to October and each would run for two days at a time and  then we would change over to another play in the repertoire, the idea being that most people who visited the area came for a week so in any week they would be able to see at least two plays in the season. The first play to be rehearsed was the Hugh Leonard and once that was running, the next was rehearsed during the day whilst the evening show was running, then that was opened and then the next was rehearsed and then brought into the repertoire until all the plays were running and then cycled round every two days. Extremely hard works as you can imagine. We had to set up and strike after each play's two-day run which meant working late into the night and as the show would finish at gone 10 p.m. we might not complete the strike and then set-up for the next show until well into the early hours of the following day. We had to re-light the new play once the set was in as well as put in all the necessary props and furniture.

As I've already mentioned, there was a furniture van on the site which was parked near the get-in doors of the theatre where all the scenery was stored. Bear in mind that this was chocker-block full of flats for up to four shows, although at any one time there would be three stored in this van. It was no easy task to drag out each flat and lift it into the theatre through the doors, and then, once the sets had been dismantled, to then lift them into the furniture van. It was quite a task to stack the flats carefully so as to not damage them but to make sure they were stacked in such a way as to take up as little space as possible. Also, after several months of this, setting and striking, the scenery began to show signs of real wear and tear.

If you know the Lake District well you will be aware of the weather in that part of England. It can change very rapidly. In one day you can have fog and mist and the next minute the fog will clear and it will be bright and sunny and the next minute it will be pouring with rain. I mention this because the theatre was, as I've said already, constructed of several large container or H.G.V. lorries and they were made of metal. When it was sunny it could get quite hot inside the theatre, as the metal of their construction retained heat. When it rained when a show was on the sound could be quite loud and the actors had to raise their voices to be heard. Another problem was that where two of the lorries met, just over the centre of the stage (I think, looking back, the roof of the stage was made of a side section of a lorry which was hinged up and it joined another similar section from the other up-stage section to make the rest of the roof.) Where they met it used to be not particularly water-proof and as a result there could be drips falling on the stage whenever it rained (which was quite frequently.)  The actors learnt quite early on in the season where any drips would fall and managed to find ways of avoiding these drips, which was quite amusing, watching them from the wings, trying to judge where the next drip was going to fall, and stepping carefully out of the way! As a way of solving this dripping it was decided to fix a sort of gutter along the  ceiling. But, unfortunately, it meant that as a result, the sets were some four or five inches too high. I must tell you that the entire height of the ceiling from the stage floor can have been no more than about nine or ten feet, in fact the height of a standard Leyland lorry (which was what the whole theatre was constructed from.) As a result of having this gutter fitted all the flats for all four plays had to be cut down so that they would fit under the gutter! So you can imagine the amount of work and effort this caused!

I seem to remember that there was a complaint from somebody who lived near the theatre. It seemed that we made far too much noise during the get-in/get-out nights. I think it may have had something to do with the floor of the stage. As with most stages, or at least those I had worked on, the floor was covered by what is called a stage cloth. It is in simple terms a large piece of canvas that fits the floor of the stage exactly and is stretched and held taut with staples tacks or nails. It can then be painted to suit the set design obviously depending on what play is being staged. After time this cloth becomes very wrinkled due to the number of feet walking on it and scenery being moved around over it. So, in order to remove any wrinkles and irregularities it had to be re-tacked. We used to 'tread' it so as to get rid of these wrinkles. This was always done as soon as the stage was completely empty. As a result of this 'treading' with everyone involved, it produced quite a lot of noise. I think it was this that caused the complaints from the neighbouring houses. As a result we had to keep any noise to an absolute minimum and we had to finish any work in the theatre at midnight or even earlier.

This stage cloth comes into the next bit I'm about to relate. During the scene changes for one of the plays, "The Patrick Pearce Motel" stage management would stand in the wings ready to go on stage immediately this particular scene ended and did the scene change, which if I recall was quite complicated. There was quite a draught which blew across the stage under  the afore-mentioned get-in doors. This caused the stage cloth to ride up somewhat. One of the stage crew had to remove stage weights off a lighting stand ready to move it away for whatever reason, perhaps to allow flats to be moved on or off. As a result the stage cloth under the lighting stand on this particular day was toppled over and the light and stand fell on my head. I was not seriously injured but I could have been. This was long before the claims culture of today when everyone and anyone seems to demand compensation for work-related injuries, but I just carried on as if nothing had happened. But, thinking about it now it was just another accident and one of the things you come to take in your stride in that particular sort of working environment.
Something else which is worth mentioning is connected to another of the plays in the repetoire, "Romeo and Jeannette" by Jean Anouilh. This is set in France and the director, John Ridley, came up with an idea for it that took stage management by surprise, not to say, shock. During the action of the play a chicken is killed and appears carried by one of the characters, having been killed off-stage, head chopped off complete with the rest of it's feathers, tail and so on. Easy enough to make a stuffed prop, which is what we did, but he wanted a real chicken to be on stage when the curtain went up, but not only on stage but sitting on the table in the middle of the stage. We all thought he was having a joke, no way on earth was a real, live cockerel going to stay sitting or at least, perching, on the table and remain there when the curtain went up as the play opened.  There was a real danger that the stupid bird would take fright and either fly into the audience or at least fly into the wings and perch on a lighting bar or something. But he was proved completely right. The real chicken we managed to acquire from goodness knows where, behaved perfectly during every single performance of the play and sat still on the table as the curtain went up on each  and every performance.  Remarkable. He lived in a cage somewhere on the theatre site, and was named Leon (I'm not sure whether it was the name in the play's script.) We had to make the 'dead' prop version of Leon and managed to retrieve some of his spare feathers (no doubt plucked from his wings and tail!) and we made the body rather in the manner of a stuffed toy, complete with wings, but minus a head, and used the feathers to complete the prop! It did look very convincing, but I'm not entirely sure what the real Leon thought of it! I don't know what happened to him once the season finished and all the company dispersed to various parts of the country. No doubt someone gave him a good home. He should have joined Equity and made appearances in things like 'Emmerdale' and make commercials for eggs or something. I never did know.