Not Taking Coats to Newcastle

After the adventures of Christmas I have had a relaxing few weeks at home, recovering from the rigours of daily travel and performance.  For a short while it is lovely to be so leisurely, but soon I began to feel as if I needed to get back on stage again, and my first opportunity of 2017 came last Friday.

I had been asked to perform in the North-East City of Newcastle upon Tyne, which is a city that I do not know well, so I greatly looked forward to my trip.   I set off on my 4 ½ hour drive, leaving early so as to leave me plenty of time for whatever the British road system should throw at me.

It is extraordinary how much longer a 4 ½ hour drive in England seems, compared to one of the same length in the USA.  On the whole our roads are narrower and twistier, so a great deal more concentration is required. 

I have commented before that the level of anger on the roads is much greater in Britain, where we are supposed to drive in the left-hand lane, unless we are overtaking another vehicle.  Good lane discipline is key to making our system work and that is something that we sorely lack: so many cars just sit in one of the middle lanes, dawdling along completely unaware of what is happening around them.  Faster cars get bottled up, and the delayed driver becomes angry, either swooping by on the wrong side (‘undertaking’), or flashing headlights, sounding the horn and gesticulating as he eventually passes.  In America, where you may overtake on either side, everyone just makes progress in their own lane at their own speed and the whole thing seems to work just fine.

My route took me up the spine of England on the M1, before branching off onto the A1, roughly following the route of the old Great North Road, which is the historic trunk route between London and Edinburgh.  The Great North Road has a legendary status in the UK, as Route 66 does in the US, although without the rhyme and lyrical quality of its America cousin (‘You may be slowed on the Great North Road’ doesn’t really compare with ‘Get your kicks on Route 66’).

I passed many cities that are familiar to me thanks to my travels and as I got further north so the scenery subtly became more rugged and wild.  I passed signs for Doncaster before crossing the river Don, which set me to wondering ‘what does caster mean?’  A little research after the event told me that the suffix comes from the Roman ‘castrum’ which means a military camp or fort, so Doncaster was the site of a fort protecting the River Don. 

Onwards.  I passed Sheffield, Huddersfield, Leeds, Harrogate and York, following the road as it ran between the two great Yorkshire National Parks, the Dales to the left of me and the North York Moors to the right, (‘….and here I am stuck in Middlesbrough with you…’  Americans, you have to trust me, but that is an incredibly clever geographical joke).

Finally I passed the signs to Durham and Gateshead before Newcastle, with it’s amazing bridges and football stadium, was laid out before me.  I drove across the Tyne and to my hotel in the very heart of the city.  The weather was cloudy and wet as I alighted from the car, and is it was dismay that I realised that I had forgotten to bring a warm or waterproof outer garment with me: perhaps I had misremembered the old adage and thought that it was bad form to take coats to Newcastle.

I had been invited to perform for the Newcastle Lit & Phil, which is Britain’s largest independent library outside London, and holds over 160,000 books on its shelves and in its archives.  Originally founded in 1793 as a conversation club, the membership was 1 Guinea and the volumes were either the ancient classics, or scientific tomes.  Literature was rather scorned and looked down upon within the hallowed portals, and works of fiction was not permitted for many years, and then only grudgingly.

Charles Dickens never visited the Lit and Phil itself, although he did travel to Newcastle on many occasions to perform both with his theatre company the Guild of Literature and Art, as well as on his own reading tours in the 1850s and 60s.  The city is a bustling one, and I am sure that Charles must have thoroughly enjoyed staying there.

I was greeted at the grand front door by Kay, who had booked me, and after taking a look at the room where I was to perform, she gave me a quick guided tour of the library itself, which is magnificent:  shelf-lined walls towering up to the glass-domed ceiling, with quirky iron spiral staircases linking the levels.

My dressing room was another library room, and somehow I felt very at home surrounded by so many wonderful volumes, whilst an old wall clock tick-tocked reassuringly in the silence.

 

My Dressing Room

 

The audience was a good one, numbering around 100 and which satisfyingly filled the room.  I was performing my double bill, which features two short stories from Dickens’ magazine ‘All The Year Round’, The Signalman and Doctor Marigold.  Of the two, people tend to know The Signalman better, and that is what I performed in the first half.  Actually the show felt rather at home in this venue, as I have always imaged that the narrator is telling his story to a gathering of fellows at a society of the paranormal.

During the interval I had a chance to chat to some of the audience members and it became apparent that there is a keen following of Dickens and his works in Newcastle.  There were some members of the Dickens Fellowship from nearby Durham, where I performed a few years ago, as well as a gentleman who deals with post-traumatic stress disorder in his work, and recognised the unmistakable signs of the condition in the history of Dickens and the Staplehurst rail disaster.  This is the second time that the same observation has been made to me, and apparently Dickens’ reaction to the crash is quoted in a textbook as being one of the first recorded accounts of the condition.

In the second half I performed Doctor Marigold and really nailed the early fast sales patter.  As usually tends to be the case the majority of the audience were not familiar with Marigold and Charles Dickens pulled their emotions this way and that as the story unfolded.  The performance was not perfect, however, as I gave the crowd a perfect opportunity for an extra snigger, which they politely passed up, when I managed to spoonerise the phrase ‘Put the horse in the cart’, saying instead ‘Put the arse in the court’

All in all the evening was a very enjoyable and successful one and I would very much like to return to Newcastle soon.  Dickens spent quite a bit of time in the North East, with shows in Newcastle, Durham and Sunderland.  He visited Gateshead, as well as making his famous trip to the nearby town of Bowes to research Nicholas Nickleby.  Maybe a collection of events celebrating Dickens’ connection with this region is something that I will think about creating. 

Saturday morning dawned even mistier and wetter and the drive home would be made in horrible conditions, but before I headed south on the Great North Road, I wanted to pay a brief visit to The Angel of the North, the remarkable steel sculpture which towers over the road just outside Gateshead.  The figure, with its giant spread wings, was completed in 1998 and is the work of sculptor Antony Gormley; it is made of raw steel and the rusted colour gives the figure an industrial feel fully in keeping with the traditional industry of the area. 

On the morning of my visit the heavy rain was blown horizontally across the hillside, so I did not spend long in its shadow (not that it had one, of course), but the prevailing conditions seemed perfect to witness this magnificent structure.

 

The Angel of the North

 

As I drove away the 20 meter tall figure disappeared into the mist, but the 54 meter wingspan seemed to be saying ‘come back soon, you will be welcome’, and I certainly hope to.

 

 

 

2016 Wrap-Up

On November 4 last year I began my 2016 A Christmas Carol Tour in Cambridge, Ohio, and now 2 months later it seems like a good time to look back over the trip and reflect on what went on.

This blog post is an important one, for I will look back at it next November to remind myself of the changes I made to the show during my 7 weeks away, so that I don’t have to go through the whole process again!

 

The Show

So, let’s start with the performance itself:

As far as the script was concerned I didn’t make any major changes this year, although I have added the line ‘Am I the man who lay upon that bed? As Scrooge is confronted by his grave; and to support that addition I also added ‘I see, sprit, I see.  The case of this unhappy man, whoever he may be, might be my own.  My life tends that way now’, after Ebenezer had witnessed the bare bedroom with the neglected corpse.

There are a few scenes which I have started thinking about changing, which I may look at as the year goes on:  I would like to concentrate on the Cratchit’s Christmas dinner a little more, and show the ‘Mister Scrooge, the founder of the feast’ scene, although of course that means losing something else so as not to make the show any longer.   Likewise, I would like to show nephew Fred’s friends making fun of Scrooge during their party games, but that might mean deleting the flirtatious Topper from the tale, and I am not sure that I am ready to do that!

The biggest change to my performance came very late in the tour, and was thanks to a promotional photo shoot at Williamsburg.  Throughout the trip I was aware that something was not quite right this year.  The performance felt heavy and clumsy and didn’t skip along quite as effortlessly than before. I put this down to advancing years, and tried to concentrate on my movements around the stage, making it more balletic. To a certain extent I succeed, and concentrating on the ‘blocking’ made the show tighter and more impressive, but somehow I still couldn’t find the magic key for which I searched.

The answer came in a comfortable armchair in the East Lounge at the beautiful Williamsburg Inn as a photographic crew moved around me taking pictures, moving lights, shifting props.  It was suggested that I should just recite A Christmas Carol as they swarmed around the room, so I began at the beginning: ‘Marley was dead, to begin with’.  As I was in a small room, unable to move from my chair, the performance was not a full-blown theatrical affair, but more akin to a grandfather reading by the fireside.

And as I read I realised where the full show had gone wrong: on stage I had been trying to perform every line of narrative, giving every syllable strong emphasis, mostly accompanied by a gesture or movement:  my website declares that I am ‘A Gifted Storyteller’ but I had lost the art of storytelling.

My next performance was a few hours later and I made a conscious effort to take all theatricality out of the narrative.  Of course the dialogue remained unchanged, and the impact of the multiple characters was greater thanks to the more gentle narration.  Over the next few shows I concentrated on the new style and magically the show came right back to where I wanted it.  I had spent 4 weeks trying to change the movements, and all I had needed to do was concentrate on the text itself.

There were a few other practical changes too:  it is wonderful that Liz joins me late on in the trip and besides the joy of being reunited after so long apart, she is excellent at seeing changes in the show that I may have missed.  This year she observed that I was playing Scrooge in different ages – sometimes appearing very infirm and aged, whilst at other times much more sprightly.  I have tried therefore to make him recognisably the same age throughout the show.

 

The Tour

After a few near-misses in recent years due to delayed flights and lost luggage, Bob and Pam Byers made a real effort to construct the 2016 tour with as few flights as possible, and this meant a much gentler progression around the USA.  I started in Ohio, before flying to Tennessee where I was able to use a rental car to get from Pigeon Forge to Nashville, from where I flew to California.  After a few days in the west coast I was able to return to the Mid-West for an entire week, using another car to drive between Omaha and Liberty, Missouri.  On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving I flew to Boston and picked up another car that I would keep until the very last week of the trip.  Each flight was on a day when I didn’t have a performance, so a delay would not be a disaster (of course, Sod’s law had it that there were no delays this year).  Being able to drive around New England, before heading into Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Virginia was a real treat, and much more relaxing than the constant packing and early mornings that flying demands.  My costumes could hang in the car, and therefore were less creased as I arrived at each performance.

The only negative side at this time was the week when I was staying in a different hotel every night, which became very tiring and it was during this period that I caught a cold (I think from signing without changing costume at Marlborough), which would affect me for quite a while, most especially at Burlington and Langhorne.

There was only one new venue this year, and almost all of the others have become firm regulars for me.  It was wonderful to meet with so many old friends, and to know what I was doing.  The best feeling is driving to a venue and not needing to use the SatNav device!  Driving from Joseph Ambler Inn to Byers’ Choice is a familiar journey for me now, as is the drive from Worcester to the Vaillancourts in Sutton, Mass.

 

The Souvenir Programme

The greatest innovation this year was the introduction of our Souvenir Programme.  It was such fun to work with my brother Ian on this project and I am sure that anyone who bought a copy will agree that we created a most impressive and comprehensive volume.  We are so proud of it.

The sales of the programme varied widely, depending on how it was sold.  At some venues it just was left on a display table among other merchandise, with nobody mentioning it – at such times sales were very disappointing, but other venues embraced the theatrical nature of the product and actively sold it to audiences as they arrived and again at the show’s end, and then the figures were much more impressive.

Our biggest challenge for next year’s brochure will be to ensure that every venue knows exactly what the product is, and the most effective way to market it to a larger percentage of the audience.  One thing I noticed that whilst the majority of people waiting in a signing line had copies of the programmes, we were missing those that didn’t want to wait afterwards, so maybe stocks of pre-signed programmes is another way to go.

We certainly learned a great deal during the trip and all of this information will be used when we get together to discuss next year’s edition, not to mention other merchandising ideas.  So many audience members return year after year to my shows, and it is great for them to have a souvenir specifically linked to the performance itself.

Ideas for the 2017 programme are already forming in my mind, indeed as the tour progressed I found myself in the middle of a show thinking ‘this will be a good pose for a photo next year!’  I will be meeting with Ian very soon to start planning for November.

 

Thank You

Finally, in signing off, may I say a huge thank you to everyone who makes my tours so successful and so enjoyable:  to everyone who invests in me and publicises my shows so well, and gets such enthusiastic audiences to attend; to every hotel clerk and restaurant waiter; to every rental car and airline employee; to those people who I meet who have no idea that they have touched my life, but leave a lasting impression on me (I am specifically thinking of the little girl that Liz and I met on the steps of the Hotel Bethlehem who had just been told that she was going to have a carriage ride.  Her face was so excited and, as I put in the blog for that day, ‘truly aglow’: every wonderful thing about Christmas was encapsulated in that moment.)

Thank you of course to my audiences, and especially those loyal friends who come back year after year and make a point of talking to me after the show.  You are all unbelievably generous not only in the time you spend, but also in the gifts you give me along the way.

Thank you to Bob and Pam Byers for creating this tour and for your friendship over the many years during which we have worked together.  You do the most remarkable job in finding all of the venues and making sure that everything is in place: I can’t imagine the logistical nightmares that you must encounter, but every year things run so smoothly.  And the show you put on in Chalfont is always one of the high points of the year, with three such huge audiences cheering and standing.

Thank you to Ian, who has always been so incredibly supportive of what I do, and this year has become such a central part of my travels.  It has been great to work closely with you, and to witness your professionalism and artistic flair at first hand: ‘next year Rodney…..’

And finally, of course, to Liz.  None of this would be possible without the love and support of Mrs Dickens!  For almost two months each year I am away from home, on the road, doing what I love to do.  I write home about wonderful audiences and lavish hotels, and all of the time Liz is alone, going to work, paying bills, feeding the cat, living a lonely life and yet she is behind me 100%  Liz, you are a remarkable person and I owe you everything.

And now 2017 begins, and it will bring new adventures.  In March I will be returning to Minneapolis to revive To Begin With, which was premiered two years ago, and as the year goes on I will be visiting many venues, old and new to me, performing the works of the world’s greatest scriptwriter, Charles John Huffam Dickens.  I look forward to writing about my various adventures and to sharing my ‘Life on the Road’ with you again.

 

 

Copies of the first edition programme are still available and can be purchased either from Byers Choice, or in the UK directly from me.  Don’t miss this opportunity to begin your collection!