Unblocking Writing (and Other Matters)

Thursday. 2.15 p.m. I have just received an email from Camphill, informing me that I can return to working in the theatre workshop. Until my DBS goes through thoroughly, I can't work one-to-one with any group, but I can work 'under supervision.' I understand why this is, because they belong to a 'vulnerable group', under safeguarding. If I was to work there without them checking my DBS (Disclosure and Barring) and the CQC (Care Quality Commission) were to do an inspection and found I didn't have a disclosure certificate, Camphill would be in trouble, I can see why all this has taken so long.

Friday. 8.10 a.m. A bit of a rush to get Alfie out and then put my washing into the machine at around 7.45 a.m. I'm actually scheduled to load my laundry at 8 a.m., but I don't see why I have to wait ten minutes to do so. It's dark outside until at least 7.30, and it's quite difficult to see what you're doing, picking up after Alfie and then walking to the bin which is across Oldbrook Boulevard and on The Green. I don't know why they can't put a bin a bit closer but never mind.

Saturday. 8.05 a.m. I was under the impression that it was raining earlier. So, I was relieved to find, on taking Alfie out, that it wasn't raining. I think there was a distinct possibility that it had been raining overnight, as the leaves which are on the grass alongside Strudwick Drive were wet.

1.30 p.m. It's now bright sunshine outside (well, it's not inside) because if it was, there's probably be no roof over my flat. Oh, what an absurd thing to say! Never mind, it's the effect of being incarcerated in this place. 

Sunday. 7.15 a.m. The clocks have changed. I haven't had the fabled extra 'hour in bed' which is what we always get told everywhere, on television news, in papers and generally. Because it was relatively light (does that make sense? I don't know. What does it matter? I mean 'reasonably' light, enough to be able to see what I was doing.) I took Alfie out.

9.00 a.m. I suddenly got the urge to do some more writing. This often happens, I get a bout of creativity and manage to write several pages and then I get stuck (writer's block?) and then leave it for a while, and then I pick it up again and continue. This current sequence has been through several drafts, and this time I think I've got it how I want it. I have discovered if I write from a different angle, things are easier to write. Or else I have what they have 'reported speech', whereby some important event happens 'off-stage' and a character describes whatever it is. Shakespeare does this a lot, particularly when it's something like a battle, which is difficult to put on stage. It also means you can have 'off-stage' characters who don't actually appear 'centre stage' which rounds out the story without the need for extra characters. Alan Ayckbourn does this and quite often has characters 'off-stage.' This, in particular in one of his best plays 'Absurd Person Singular' is set in three kitchens over three successive Christmases, with parties going on 'off-stage' and never actually seen.

2.05 p.m. After church this afternoon, we had a church member's meeting. The budget for the year was approved and one or two other matters were raised. Just as the meeting was coming to a close, the heavens opened and it rained, quite a torrential downpour, which made driving back to Dexter House along Chaffron Way quite challenging, to say the least. Some drivers didn't have their lights on, which was somewhat foolhardy. I had Classic FM on the car radio as usual and Beethoven's 7th Symphony blaring out as I was driving and, with the torrential rain, the whole was made even more dramatic with such powerful orchestral music playing. I love Classic FM, but it has too many advertisements on it, probably because it has grown it's an audience and once that happens, then it's bound to attract more advertising.

6.05 p.m. Another creative spurt, although the sequence I'm writing isn't finished. I will transcribe it all into word processing. I'm more than happy with what I've written. That's not always the case. I write something and then leave it for a couple of weeks and then return to it and, on re-reading it, I find it's not working how I want it to go and end up completely rewriting it. In the end, it's the best way to write for me, because the various drafts can be altered as I go along.

St Swithin's Day

Thursday. 6.30 a.m. So, the wearing of face masking is no longer going to be compulsory! It will no longer be going to be a legal requirement in certain circumstances, for example, when you go shopping and in other enclosed spaces. I'm so glad about this! Wearing a confounded mask means that my glasses steam up and my face ends up like it's been in a sauna, breathing in my hot breath, and it can make me feel really sick and starts off my cough. You can't have a decent conversation with a piece of fabric across your face which makes communication very difficult. I think it's about being responsible for yourself and being able to make your own decisions. 

The Government is considering bringing in a tax on sugary and salty food products, such as chocolate bars, breakfast cereals, crisps, and other products. It might sound like a good idea in an attempt to reduce dietary-related medical problems, such as obesity, diabetes, stroke, and other illnesses. But there again it's the nanny state controlling people's lives. Just educate people to understand nutrition and what it's better to eat, for example, five pieces of fruit and vegetables a day, a lower intake of salt and sugar, more fibre, eat less fast food. Learn where food comes from, for example, how milk is produced and processed, what goes into fast foods, and other matters. Just start by relating science and domestic science, less reliance on academic results and more on practical matters.

So, it surprises me how the British people have just rolled over and let authoritarianism take complete control of their lives since the covid-19 pandemic began back in March 2020. Nobody has commented on how our lives have been overturned by some totally draconian legislation that takes power away from the individual and puts it in the hands of our politicians and in some cases those who have really no political power and aren't democratically elected. We're not supposed to leave our homes unless it's for 'essential' shopping, such as for food or a medical emergency, we're not meant to meet up in other people's homes unless it's our immediate 'bubble.' Does nobody question any of this? I can't believe how easily British life has been controlled, no dissent of any sort, or if there has been, it's immediately stamped on, disallowed, no mention in media, television, or print. I worry because think about how easily the German public allowed the Nazi party to infiltrate their society and prevent any form of disagreement with their legislation, how they closed down any form of dissent, and, again, total CONTROL?! It just goes to show how far we've gone, in a very short space of time, and all for the sake of our 'safety because of this confounded virus. It's a question 'you must' all for the sake of protecting the NHS, this great monolithic construct, which may be a good force in one respect, but is overwhelmed with bureaucracy, over-manning, poor management and become some sort of beneficent aunty who hands out freebies left right and centre, a bit like great aunt Freda arrives and we expect to get 6d for being a good boy or girl. Or a packet of sweeties or other presents.

Today is St Swithin's Day, which means that if it rains (according to legend.) then it's supposed to rain for forty days, and if it's warm and sunny, then there will be forty days of warm and sunny weather. So, let's see what happens if it rains, or whether we get forty days of warm and sunny weather.

So, the weather is bright and sunny! Does it need to stay this way for twenty-four hours for it to remain fine for the next forty days? Let's wait and see!

Later. 4.35 p.m. I'm working on the plot of the next section of my novel (or whatever it is. Not sure it's officially a novel.) I'm using the internet, which is a valuable source for such research, particularly as you have videos on YouTube and news reports, data such as statistics, locations, etc. Just great. I am building up a fair amount of information before I can do the actual writing, which is the easy part. The playwright is supposed to write his plays in around three weeks, but I suspect he has done preparation before he puts pen to paper, such as the plot, characters, and incidents which happen in each act and scene, so he can then sit down and do the actual writing. Well, considering he's written around 70 plays, he must know what he's up to. I don't think I could write a play because I find dialogue difficult and it's not easy making it convincing. I find prose far easier. The fact is when we talk we don't speak in neat sentences, and we certainly don't always wait for the other person we're talking to, to start speaking. There are overlaps, incomplete sentences, and so on, making dialogue used in plays very false. Natural speech doesn't have 'cues,' where you wait for the other person to finish before you begin, although to a great extent, to be polite, you do wait, but not always.

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.

Snow. . . More (or less)

Well, perhaps the weather forecasters got things right. It is snowing this morning, as I let Alfie out into the garden at 6.45 this morning. It's not exactly the thick, fluffy feather-like snow we had a couple of weeks ago, but nevertheless, it is snow. We'll just have to wait and see whether it settles.

At the moment (11.45 a.m) it is snowing. It's looking a bit like lots of flying insects. I know that might sound odd, but if you can imagine mosquitoes or those insects you get in the summer, when it's hot. But I doubt this will settle. There's a sort of powdering over things outside, a sort of icing sugar layer. A sprinkling all over the car.

It must say something about the state of television at the moment if the programmes which are old repeats of 40-year-old stuff like 'Fawlty Towers' and 'The Good Life' and 'The Two Ronnies' (which we watched early this morning on GOLD), and are far better than what's on the main channels (BBC1, ITV etc.) They still stand up remarkably well, considering their ages. Not particularly affected by the prevailing P.C. brigade, either. I don't imagine a lot of that old stuff would be produced today because of the somewhat racist material that they have in their scripts, none of it really offensive, but I imagine by today's standards not suitable to be used. 20-year-old 'Dinnerladies' which is being shown as well as a three-part  behind-the-scenes documentary is as funny as I ever remember it being when I first saw it. Written by the brilliant Victoria Wood, who was one of my favourite comedians and now sadly missed. She died far too young. I worked with one of the actresses in it, Thelma Barlow, when I worked as a very young A.S.M. at Liverpool Playhouse in the early 1970's. She's probably best known as playing Mavis Wilton in 'Coronation Street.' A very talented actress who was Shelia in a production of 'Relatively Speaking,'  which I did the book for, alongside Ian McDiarmid, who went on to play the emperor in Star Wars and to running the Alameida Theatre in London. Another play in that season was 'What Every Woman Knows,' in which Thelma Barlow played the central role of Maggie, in a really lovely play written by J.M. Barrie. His plays are rarely performed nowadays, probably because they're not fashionable, and probably because he's best known for 'Peter Pan,' which is a shame because his stuff is so well written. Much in the same way that all the plays of A.A.Milne are never produced today, because he's best known as the author of the 'Winnie-the-Pooh' books. Though, saying that, probably because the plays he wrote just don't appeal to a 21st-century audience.

3.30 p.m. It's become quite windy. The trees beyond our garden fence, which runs along the Redway, are really swaying in the wind.

A little later there was quite a heavy fall of snow. Much larger flakes, but it didn't seem to settle.

I've noticed some strange little things running along the Redway close to Saxon Street when I've driven into Milton Keynes centre on a few occasions. They look a bit like those small fridges you can get to store your cans of beer, but on wheels, with a sort of radio ariel on the back with a little triangular flag on it. I now learn that they are robotic and are intended to help deliver food or other items which you might order on line. I'm not certain how they cope with crossing the road, whether they use the Redways around the town. Do they use G.P.S. or other navigation software to find the delivery address? How reliable are they? I know we're supposed to be getting driverless cars around MK, but hadn't heard a thing about these little things. Not sure Carol would think I was slightly nuts if I told her about them, but she has now seen one so that's O.K. Not been drinking or dreaming. Though, one never knows . . . would be interested to try one out and see how efficient it is at delivering parcels or take-away food. We buy quite a lot from Amazon, so I wonder if they will use them.

Television Comedy: Watching 'The Good Life'

I've just been watching the first episode of 'The Good Life.' One of the great advantages of having Sky for me is the fact that there is so much classic television available to watch on catch-up or download (will someone explain what the difference is? Surely they are one and the same.) This has to be one of the finest television sitcoms produced in this country. I know when polls are held to come up with a list of the top ten or even a hundred television comedies this one often comes close to the top of the list, alongside Blackadder, Fawlty Towers and Dad's Army. From my viewing today this particular one stands up particularly well. It has hardly dated, except perhaps for fashions in clothes and the car Gerry drives (a large yellow Volvo which must have been heavy on petrol consumption.)  I know very well how the show develops, I'm fully aware that Barbara and Tom Good set up their own smallholding in their garden in Surbiton, and all the problems they encounter, in least the fact that it's in suburbia and not in rural Sussex or somewhere else in the countryside. It's the fact that they're going against the grain that makes this comedy work so well. We can all identify with Tom, wanting to escape the rat race. He starts out at the beginning of the episode working as a draughtsman in a company which makes plastic toys which are put into breakfast cereal packets. When his boss tells him the next project is to design and create a giraffe Tom can hardly keep a straight face. And who can blame him. The style of production would be typical of the way sitcoms were made for television in the 1970's, with the bulk of the action recorded on multi-camera in a studio with a 'live' audience and the exteriors shot (in advance) on location with film cameras. One imagines if it was produced today (most unlikely) they would make it on video and all on location and the audience would watch a sort of 'playback' to give the laughter track. But, let's be honest, isn't television comedy of this sort best done when there isn't a studio audience? By comparison, I'm thinking of the Peter Kay's series 'Car Share' which has no studio audience. Also, it couldn't have been made 40 years ago, as 'The Good Life' was made, basically because there wouldn't have been the technical ability to shoot it within a moving car because there weren't the small-scale cameras available as there are today. My only complaint about that show is, why were so episodes made? Why only around 4 per series, and just two series? Again, it it because the commissioners didn't have the faith in this show to allow more episodes to be made? It surely can't be the cost because it can't have been particularly expensive to make as there are only two actors in it.

What I want to know is, why were there so many excellent sitcoms produced when this was first transmitted, in 1975? Dad's Army had been running since around 1967 and by the time this came out we also had Fawlty Towers. Perhaps it was the fact that there were only three television channels in the mid 1970's. Channel 4 didn't open until 1982 and multi-channel television didn't make an appearance until at least the mid 1980's or early '90's. Television companies were presumably more likely to take a risk on a new show such as this. A series would only have been around 6-8, so if it didn't succeed in the ratings it wasn't such a disaster. It starred to consummate professionals, Richard Briers and Felicity Kendal. I think I saw Richard Briars in one of Alan Ayckbourn's plays, possibly 'The Norman Conquests' or 'Absurd Person Singular.' 'The Good Life' does rather have the feel of an Ayckbourn play. It has similar middle class characters, it pokes a finger at life in a suburban setting and has a deeper message under the comedy exterior. Even the fact that there's a sitting room with French windows and a sofa makes it similar. I think today's television commissioners are far too concerned with ratings. Also, they don't allow a show enough time to build an audience. It takes at least two seasons (series in Britain) to allow the actors a chance to develop their characters and allow the writers time to develop not just the situations but their characters. ITV had a wealth of sitcoms of it's on. They've never quite had the success with this form of television as the BBC. Perhaps because with a commercial broadcaster you have to factor in the commercial break. For a thirty-minute slot you'll have to have a running time of no more than 23-25 minutes, to allow for the commercial break and then have a sort of 'act break' in the middle to take the commercials, so your writers will have to build up the situation to then have a sort of 'curtain' as you'd have in a stage play and the, after the break, keep the situation going and just hope the audience had remained and not changed channels. Although, it has to be said, having a commercial break can have it's advantages, for example, allowing viewers to go to the toilet or go for a snack or make a cup of tea. Of course, with modern technology you can always skip the adverts when you record the programme. ITV had such shows as 'Rising Damp' which starred Leonard Rossiter and ran for a couple of series. Based on a stage play called 'The Banana Box' and originally produced at the Phoenix Theatre in Leicester and starring Wilfred Brambell in the Rigsby role as played by Rossiter in the television sitcom. (this character was originally called Rooksby in the play. I have no idea why they changed his name to Rigsby for the television sitcom.) Rossiter was to go on to play the central character in another sitcom of this period 'The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin' written by David Hobbs and adapted from his novels. It was revived more recently with Martin Clunes in the title role, but for me it didn't quite have the same impact as the original. Not always a good idea to revive old sitcoms, although when ITV revived 'Birds of A Feather' it was a ratings success and has gone on to have several more series.

How many comedies have neighbours who add to the 'mix' of comedy situations? I remember 'Sykes' which starred the amazing Eric Sykes along with Hatty Jacques (as unlikely twins. How did they get away with it?) They had a neighbour, played by Richard Watts, who kept popping in and out and he represented the sort of interfering busy-body type, voice of the minority. Then, in 'The Good Life' we have Margo Leadbetter, middle-class, classic snob, married to Gerry, long-suffering husband who brings in enough money from his executive post to be able to allow Margo to have the sort of life she dreams of, plenty of gadgetry in the kitchen, decent car every couple of years and so on. This counter-points the life the Goods have created for themselves, digging up their garden to grow fruit and veg, even importing a goat and some pigs, much to Margo and Gerry's disgust. 

In 'Birds of A Feather' we also come across a neighbour who pops in and out in the shape of Dorien, played with absolute conviction by Lesley Josephs.

Working In Theatre- Stage Management Duties-Part 14

During my time working in stage management I had to do a wide range of jobs, doing 'The Book' as I've described elsewhere on here, doing 'props', operating various bits of machinery such as working on the fly floor, but also operating the sound for some shows. Generally you would be given the sound effects ready made up on tape and then merely play them back on cue during the performance, but on some shows I had to actually make up the tapes, using gramophone records and transferring the sound effects onto tape. I had to splice in pieces of coloured tape between the cues so that I could run the tape machines and have the next cue lined up so the tape stopped exactly on the head of the machine so when the cue was given the sound effect would start immediately. Also, you had to make sure the sound came out of the correct speaker on the stage, as some of these speakers were set up around the back of the set so that the sound would seem to be coming from a particular place on the stage. There was house music for when the audience was coming into the theatre for the beginning of the play and was played in the auditorium. There would usually be 'curtain up' music, for the opening of the play and usually, if there were scene changes, music to cover these. The plays I worked on had sort of 'theme music' rather like you get at the beginning of a television play or series. Generally the house lights go down and the lights fade on the  house tabs (stage curtains) and this is when the opening music is faded in and as the curtain rises this music plays out and fades so the play can begin. As I said, most of the sound effects would come from gramophone records. The BBC released some excellent sound effect LP's (this was long before digital recording techniques, CD's, computers and so on.) but sometimes we had to record special sound effects which couldn't be found on an LP or from other sources. We did an Alan Ayckbourn play called "Time and Time Again" which required the sound of a cricket match being played off-stage, so we had to record the sound of a ball hitting a bat, people cheering, clapping and so on, and this was done with some of the actors on stage and recorded directly onto tape. For a Shakespeare production of "King Lear" at Ipswich a specially composed electronic score was composed (this before electronic music was more widely used in theatre or television productions) and my own Akai tape recorder was used in the sound department for this production.
I'm not sure whether I mentioned the one blunder I made when I was sound operator on "Roots" at Ipswich Theatre. I had not set up the tape properly for one cue, and I think I wound the tape on to the wrong cue at one point and instead of  music coming out of a record player which the actress Jenny  Quayle is supposed to put on. She got the sound of rain instead of Bizet's L'Arlesienne Suite. I was totally embarrassed by the mistake I had made and had to rush down to the stage and apologise profusely. Unfortunately if you don't concentrate hard on what you're doing on something like that it's easy to made that sort of mistake, particularly on a show when there are so many cues coming thick and fast and not keeping an eye on which cue is lined up on which tape machine (there were two on the sound-deck at Ipswich Theatre.)
On rare occasions members of Stage Management had to appear on stage. I was what was called a Technical A.S.M. which meant I was supposed to be wholly a stage management member, but you could be called upon to fill up the stage in some productions.  Acting A.S.M's were so-called because they did stage management duties but could also be expected to take on minor speaking parts. One of the ways someone who wanted to become an actor could get into the business. I hadn't been at the Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham for very many months before I was called upon to be a walk-on in A Winter's Tale (no doubt one of the many 'Gentleman' or 'Courtiers' that there are in Shakespeare's plays.) During this I had to be costumed in doublet and hose, including very uncomfortable shoes and at one point during he show myself and another A.S.M. had to kneel on really uncomfortable sort of duck boards on stage, which really hurt my knees, I think in such a position that I had one knee in contact with the floor and the other bent ( a one-knee bend? Is that the right term?) and it was very difficult to keep still without moving so as to 'upstage' the other actors. No speaking or noise came from us during this scene, but I think I got a permanent impression on one or other of the knees which came into contact with the floor! Later in the season they did a production of 'Romeo and Juliet' and myself and this other A.S.M. were on stage during the opening scene which had a fight going on between the Montages and the Capulets and we were fighting with staves, which meant actually having to use what were in all intents and purposes sort off broom handles and we were supposed to fight with these staves.