To Be, Or Not To Be?

 Friday. 7.55 a.m. If it's Friday . . . it must be, washing day (not Crackerjack, if you remember the BBC children's show which ran from 1956s until 1984 and amongst compères were Eamonn Andrews, Leslie Crowther and Stu Francis.  They used to start off the show with 'It's Friday, and five to five, and it's Crackerjack!' It was the mainstay of children's television and was 'live' and in front of an audience of mainly children. Not much of modern television is done live, so it must have been quite nerve-wracking for the performers, and no doubt the technical crew.)

Saturday. 7.25 a.m. It's a bright and sunny morning. It's not a typical spring day. (Not entirely sure whether we are officially spring or not, but never mind.) It's certainly milder than it's usually at this time of year. We would usually have had snow and ice and very low temperatures by now in other years. There are daffodils out along the roads around Milton Keynes, which always cheer things up.

10.40 a.m. I've been to Asda. I haven't shopped in there for quite some time. It is some distance from Dexter House and I usually shop in Sainsbury's, which is very close. I think you get used to one store and when the layout is changed, which it has in Sainsbury's, it can be somewhat frustrating. The Bletchley Asda is huge, and you can walk miles if you're not careful. Bought an apple pie, peanut butter and chocolate spread. 

Sunday. 7.10 a.m. It appears to be raining, as I look out of my window. I don't think it is particularly thick, but foggy nevertheless.

My FitBit has been displaying the time incorrectly. I think it was about 30 minutes slow, and I have managed to reset it by going into the app on my phone. The app had to be downloaded again, and the time is now correct. I don't like having any watch or gadget with the wrong time set. There's nothing worse than not having the correct time and then being late for appointments.

Monday. 6.15 a.m. I was washing up at the kitchen sink and as I looked out of the window, I could see that it was quite foggy over Oldbrook. Not particularly thick, but still foggy.

10.15 a.m. I've just been to Lidl in Oldbrook Boulevard. This is where the Tesco Express used to be, but the entire block, which also had Barnardo's charity shop and Domino's Pizza within it, has totally gone, demolished and the space where the block used to be has been boarded up. I believe that a brand-new Lidl store is going to be built somewhere in that area, but I'm not sure if it will be in the boarded-up area or elsewhere. I presume, when it's built, the old store will either be demolished or become another business.

Why did I use Hamlet's famous speech as the title of this blog post? I had no real reason.

Family Summer Holidays- Part 4

Frinton holds more memories from when we went there for our summer holidays during the '60's. We stayed almost exclusively within Frinton, but there were one or two forays into the outside world and I do remember going to Walton-on- the-Naze, which is further up the coast, although we may have walked there along the sea-front. It can't be more than a couple of miles. There is a pier there, which Frinton has never had.  You can see this pier from Frinton. I have to admit that Frinton does have a sort of snobbish air about it. It has none of the, what I would call 'classic' seaside attractions such as a pier, which would have made Walton and even Clacton, which is further down the coast, so attractive to us children. The entertainments on these piers would have been a draw for us children and I seem to remember my mother taking us to Clacton one evening to go on the pier but I have an idea that she might not have approved of it, the sort of 'kiss-me-quick', candyfloss, bright neon lights and cheap entertainment not probably being to her taste. These resorts had summer shows on, with stars of stage and the world of pop music headlining. I recall that Leslie Crowther spent his holiday at Frinton, presumably he was in summer season at Walton or Clacton and chose Frinton to relax as it wasn't going to be quite so popular as either of the other resorts. I think he was starring in a popular children's television show on BBC television called "Crackerjack", at the time, as well as compering some sort of Saturday evening show or other.

Although Frinton doesn't have the classic 'summer season' style theatre entertainment, it does have the famous Frinton Summer Theatre. I think it may have been this which started me off on my interest in theatre. It remains, quite remarkably, the last remaining Equity standard company producing weekly repertory theatre in this country. They do seven plays, of a week each, over seven weeks. I worked in rep as first a Student A.SM. , then a fully-fledged A.S.M.(see earlier posts.) and worked my way up to D.S.M. I did three-weekly rep with some theatres I worked for, but never weekly. These theatres were subsidised with Arts Council and Local Authority money, but, unfortunately, these forms of theatre are virtually dead. Due, mostly, to Government cuts. Most theatres that are left and were your traditional 'rep' now have programmes made up of touring productions, although some companies do attempt to put on homegrown productions in short seasons that are similar to the traditional idea of 'rep.' One such company is the Royal Theatre, in Northampton. Some companies do co-produce plays, so that costs are spread further. 

The Summer Theatre in Frinton is in what is little more than a village hall, or, at least, that is what it looks like from the outside. It is apparently celebrating it's 75th anniversary in 2014. It has been the training-ground for some well-known names within the acting profession, such as Vanessa Redgrave, Gary Oldman, David Suchet and Lynda Bellingham. During the 70's, the period I was working in 'rep' you had to have an Equity card, Equity being the union for those working in professional theatre. You started off with a Provisional membership (a red card) and only got your Full Membership (blue) after you had worked 42 weeks on Equity contracts, and you could only work in professional theatre with a full Equity card. These 'rep' companies were where actors could learn their craft, playing a range of different parts in a fairly wide range of plays over a season which could run for 6 months to a year. One week you could be a lead in a Shakespeare play and the next you could be the butler, or maid or a minor part. You'd be performing one play whilst rehearsing the next one. The stage of the Summer Theatre is 17 feet by 13, which seems a remarkably small space. I can't imagine how they manage to perform on such a tiny stage, what with having a set, wings 'off-stage' and all the back-stage equipment that would be necessary to put on a show. And to produce something of a really amazingly high standard is even more remarkable.