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.

More Politically In-Correct Books and Films

Continuing on the theme begun in my last blog post, what about all those other works of literature, usually aimed at children, as well as films? Just think of a series of books that I read avidly as a child, beginning with "Swallows and Amazons" which were written by Arthur Ransome. They were about a group of children who seem to spend their lives perpetually on holiday in either the Lake District, Norfolk or Essex. The children are John, Susan, Titty and Roger Walker. I don't think, in all honesty, you could have a character called Titty in a book nowadays. Sorry, but the name just causes (sorry for the pun) a titter. You would have to re-name the character for a modern audience. I think it's the fact that they sail their boats on one of the Lake District lakes (I think it must be Windermere, but I'm not sure.) and there's no attempt to them wearing life jackets of any sort. When I was growing up, my father was an avid sailor, and had several yachts, some of which were sailed on the River Ouse near where we lived, mostly at Cardington Mill. We were never allowed in these boats unless we either wore a life jacket (generally a very bright orange or yellow) or we could swim proficiently (about the only decent thing I ever got from going to Rushmoor School was the fact that I learnt to swim). The stories of the Walker children continue in several other books, Pigeon Post, Swallowdale, Peter Duck, Winter Holiday, We Didn't Mean To Go To See. I think he later books might have been set in and around the Essex coast. As we used to go on holiday each year to Frinton-On-Sea, and the inlets in and around Walton-On-Naze, which was a little bit further up the coast from Frinton, this gave the stories a good deal more interest to me because I could picture the places in the books. But I think it's the fact that there's no hint of 'Health and Safety' and neither the fact that they wander around the Lakes and surrounding countryside free from any sort of adult interference. When you consider things like 'Child Protection' today, and the unfortunate stories that have come out recently about child abuse, it makes these stories, although written in the 1930's, even more intriguing. It's sad that today's children don't get the freedom to roam about as the children do in those books. Even when I was growing up in the 1960's there was no such thing as 'Health and Safety' or 'Child Protection.' Infact, when I consider the fact that living on a farm alone had many dangers and perils that would make the place a possible death-trap. We built hideouts in amongst the hay and straw bales, never once thinking that they might collapse on us and suffocate us or even catch fire. I used to make tree-houses, fairly high up in some oaks trees in the garden at Malting Farm. Thinking about it now, I could have easily fallen out of the tree and broken a leg, arm or whatever. You didn't think things like that were in the least bit dangerous in those days, but I suppose children never see the dangers in anything.

Returning to Swallows and Amazons. In the mid-1970's they made a cinema film of the book. It was, by coincidence, at the time I was an A.S.M., working at Century Theatre in Keswick. We did a series of four plays, running in repertoire, and changing every two days. Hard work, to say the least. When they began filming (no doubt on Derwent Water, on which Keswick is near). When we were out looking for props in the town for the plays we were staging, we often got asked whether we were from the film unit. It was also a coincidence that this film had a screenplay written by David Wood    who was in a play that I worked on at Greenwich Theatre called "A Voyage Round My Father" by John Mortimer. The director of the film was Claude Watham who also directed the Mortimer play, as he had done when it was originally done as a 'Play For Today' on BBC Television.

Back on books and films. Just think of Harry Potter. Why didn't the Dursleys, who had young Harry as a lodger (where they actually related? Were they really Harry's aunt and uncle?) Nevertheless, they had Harry under their care, so why did the poor boy end up living under the stairs? Why were they never prosecuted for child abuse? Expecting the child to live in such confined conditions is surely abuse of some sort? Why didn't the authorities intervene?

Then think of Oliver Twist, in particular the musical version, on stage and screen. What are they teaching children if they watch Oliver! That crime seems to pay, perhaps? Teaching youngsters to PICK POCKETS! Really terrible.

I seem to have veered off course about unsuitable or politically un-correct films for children, but never mind. I'll get back on the them in another blog post. It was good to reminisce on various things. The whole point of these blog posts I suppose.

A Bit More Writing and Rep At The Seaside

I managed to get some writing done this morning. Not a great deal, but at least something. I think when you're a writer you spend more time on working out plots and characters, the actual mechanics of a piece, longer than the actual, physical, pen-to-paper (or in my case, pencil.) writing. I suppose it's a bit like the scaffolding on a building site, along with the foundations, the work that goes on before the actual building with bricks and mortar s very important, the undergound pipes, sewers, drains and so on. You need the scaffolding in order to make the process of building easier.

There was a programme on television last night, BBC East, one of the 'opt-out' slots on BBC1 last night, all about the Summer Theatre at Frinton-On-Sea in Essex. I mention this place in one of my earlier posts on here. This company has been going as a weekly 'rep' for something like 76 years, doing a season of around 6-7 plays which run for a week each, and have no more than a week's rehearsal and put in in what is little more than a village hall., what is known as the McGrigor Hall I remember going to see a production of Noel Coward's play "Hay Fever" with my grandmother there when we went on our annual summer holidays when I was quite young and I think it might have been that which sparked off my interest in theatre. The closest I got to that sort of set-up when I was working in theatre was doing a season of four plays at the Century Theatre in Keswick when we each play ran for two days and then changed so we had to 'strike' the set after the show at around 10 o'clock and bring in the set for the next play and then re-light it all, including  re-setting all the furniture and props. Quite a tiring process. I can't believe that they manage to produce a show on such a tiny stage. The careers of quite a few quite well-known actors started their careers there such as Sir Anthony Sher, Gary Oldman, Vanessa Redgrave, Timothy West, David Suchet and Linda Bellingham. This television programme was narrated by Richard Wilson who was in a play there last year called "The Dog." He's of course best known to television audiences for his portrayal of the character Victor Meldrew in the sitcom "One Foot In The Grave."

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.