To the North: PIES, Unitarianism and a Palace Stand-In

Tags

Charles Dickens, Dickens and Staplehurst. A Biogrpahy of a Rail Crash, PIES, Preston Playhouse, Staplehurst Rail Crash, The Signalman, Wentworth Woodhouse

On Sunday morning I left my Oxfordshire home at 9am, to drive to the North West of England, specifically to the city of Preston in Lancashire where I was due to perform The Signalman at a matinee and evening show. My venue was to be The Playhouse, a lovely small theatre in the town, and the show was promoted by PIES, a charity which raises money to help feed and educate children in southern Africa, the acronym standing for Partners In Education Swaziland

This was the third appearance for the organisation, and I have gained a loyal following in Preston, having previously performed Mr Dickens is Coming with Doctor Marigold, and A Christmas Carol. My preparations for the trip were less smooth than they might have been for, as regular readers will remember, I had left an important prop for The Signalman in Leeds following my appearance there a few weeks ago, and somehow needed to get it back to appear on the stage in Lancashire. I had originally thought that I would drive to The Leeds Library on the morning of the show and pick the piece up, but understandably the Library does not open on a Sunday. However, Carl, the manager there, offered to meet me somewhere convenient so that we could make the exchange like some seedy contraband deal. This arrangement would mean a very early departure, as I would have to drive for three hours to get to Leeds, meet Carl, and then drive a further 90 minutes to Preston, perform two shows and then drive another 40 minutes to Manchester, the reason for which will become apparent later….

In the week prior to the trip I had an extremely apologetic message from Carol to say that when making our arrangement he had temporarily forgotten that Sunday was his daughter’s 18th birthday and an absence of an hour or so wouldn’t be terribly well thought of within the family circle. For a day or two we toyed with the idea of me going to his area of Leeds, but that would add another hour or so to the journey, and didn’t seem to be a terribly good idea for anyone involved.

The prop in question is a representation of a block signalling console, described in the story as a ‘telegraphic instrument with its dial, face and needle’ I had taken a photograph of a genuine unit at a local railway preservation centre and fixed it to an antique wooden display box. Using two large wooden rods this unit could be slotted into corresponding holes drilled into the top of a clerk’s desk. The unit was far too large for accuracy’s sake, but for a piece of theatrical furniture it has done the job just fine over the last few years. Alongside the signalling unit sits a small wooden box with a brass bell on top of it (again, referenced in the text), and on the Saturday before my show I suddenly had the brainwave of printing a much smaller photograph of the equipment and sticking it to the back of the little wooden box, and using that in lieu of the big wooden box. I contacted Carl and said that I wouldn’t interrupt the birthday celebrations and would instead retrieve the prop from the library itself on Monday morning.

So, without the pressure of driving to Leeds, I set off at 9am with the various pieces of furniture rattling away in the back of the car. It was a beautiful sunny day, and on a Sunday morning the traffic was light, which allowed me to arrive in Preston with plenty of time to spare, indeed enough to stop for a cup of coffee and a lemon drizzle muffin at a nearby motorway service station.

I pulled up outside The Playhouse Theatre at 12.45, having arranged to meet at 1, but the loading doors were already open as a gentleman was busy removing a set from the previous evening’s performance. I went in and was met by a manager at the theatre, and we briefly discussed certain technical requirements for my shows, before the team from PIES arrived. Joe and Karen Comerford first saw me perform in Liverpool a few years ago and got in touch to book me to perform on behalf of the charity. Having exchanged greetings and made suitable enquiries as to how we had all made it through two years of Covid, we all got on with our respective jobs – Joe and Karen setting up the raffle, while I placed all of my furniture on the set and tried to convince a slide projector that it might like to talk to my laptop, sadly in vain.

My show was to be in two acts, the first of which was my talk about the circumstances behind The Staplehurst Rail Crash, and the writing of my book on the subject. I have a short PowerPoint presentation to go with the talk, made up of a few photographs from the book, and it is nice to give the audience something else, other than me, to watch, but on this occasion they would have to put up with my features, as we couldn’t get the projector to co-operate.

The show was due to start at 2 o’clock and a goodly sized audience were already crowding into the bar. The front of house manager asked if we could open the doors, and I retreated down to the dressing rooms in the basement to change into the casually formal combination of trousers, open-necked shirt and jacket, that I wore for my first publicity shot as a writer.

I looked over my notes for the first act talk and panicked as to whether it was actually long enough. I had said to the front of house team that the first act would be around 40 – 45 minutes, but I wasn’t confident. Despite having given this speech on a few previous occasions I am still not comfortable in delivering it, which once again shows my insecurities of speaking as myself, rather than in the fantasy world of one man theatre.

Just before 2 Joe came to find me and together we waited in the wings of the stage until it was time for him to walk onto the stage and introduce me. I walked into the light to generous and welcoming applause, and began to speak. The talk concentrates on the circumstances of the terrible crash itself, as well as some of the personalities involved, and is lifted directly from the book which, I pointed out on a number of occasions, would be on sale during the interval and after the show. When I got to the end of the talk, I spoke briefly about the second half and then left the stage with the sound of applause in my ears. I checked my watch: 45 minutes, I needn’t have worried about a thing!

Back in the dressing room I changed into the all-black costume that I favour for The Signalman and waited while the folk upstairs drank, ate and hopefully purchased books!

I was on much firmer ground when I returned to the stage, although of course was unable to deliver my usual introduction to The Signalman, which is a brief description of Staplehurst, having given a long description in the first act, so launched into the story itself quickly. The simple black stage with the few pieces of furniture arranged on it (including the little telegraph unit, making its debut), provided a suitably sparse atmosphere, and my red light shone dimly as a portent of the doom that was to follow.

When the the three distinct acts of the story had played out I took my bows and then returned to the stage to take questions, as I did all of the way through last year’s American tour. I chatted for around twenty minutes and it was great fun, gently batting away the constant requests to make a dramatisation of Hard Times, in which Preston was the model for Coketown. They will grind me down in the end and I will relent, but the thought of trying to achieve an accurate Lancashire accent under such local scrutiny is a nerve-wracking one!

After the show had finished I made my way to the foyer, to chat and sign books, which were selling well. Gradually the audience drifted away and the foyer was quiet once more. Joe and Karen said that they were popping home for a bite to eat and I retreated to my dressing room where I ate a salad am some fruit that I had brought with me, and passed the time by reading a magazine, playing some backgammon on my phone and running through the lines again.

After a while in my subterranean lair I became aware of voices upstairs and went to see who was about, and was surprised to discover that there was quite a gathering of PIES volunteers, including Norman and Lynne who have kindly provided hospitality to me in previous years. They were surprised to see me, for they assumed that I had walked into town, taking advantage of the sunny afternoon. ‘Gerald! We have some food for you’ and a plate loaded with pieces of pork pie, crisps, salad and a hunk of cheese was produced. It would have been rude not to accept the offering, and my salad had been a small one, so I sat down and tucked in to all but the cheese (dairy products effect the throat, and I avoid them on performance days). Soon the second audience began to arrive and it was time to repeat the earlier process.

The first act went well, and prior to the second commencing Norman went onto stage and said a few words about PIES. The fundraising work that the group undertake helps children in Swaziland, and he pointed out that the money raised from the day’s events would feed 40 children for an entire year, which is quite a thought. Norman then went on to announce the winning raffle tickets: ‘the first is a blue ticket, 34, then another blue ticket, 107, yet another blue, 63. A yellow ticket, 73, and another yellow 137, blue 89 and another blue 43….’ and so it went on. From the wings it dawned on me that all of the winning tickets that had been drawn were in the colours of the Ukranian flag, as if somehow we were able to show our support for the extraordinary spirit that the citizens of that nation are displaying in such terrible times.

When Norman had finished I returned to the stage and performed The Signalman once more, and I was particularly pleased with how it went – the piece is in a good place at the moment.

After I had bowed I once again opened the floor for questions and one was about Dickens’s spirituality and by extension his attitude to religion. I told the audience that Charles had a strong faith and followed the teachings of the New Testament, but as far as aligning himself with any particular religion was concerned he had a distrust of anything organised (seeing the human influence as one of potential corruption), so followed his own faith rather than being dictated to by others. I also talked about the little book based on the gospels which he wrote for his children, ‘The Life of our Lord’. I moved onto other questions, and after a while a gentleman in the front row put his hand up and asked ‘I thought Dickens described himself as a Unitarian?’ I picked up from my previous answer and continued to plough my furrow of not trusting organised religion, although, I conceded, he certainly did not dismiss people or organisations that he saw were doing good and would support such groups. The end of my answer was met with a sort of ‘Hmm’ sound. It is amazing how a single syllable can say so much, and this one said ‘you really don’t know what you are talking about, but OK, I will let it drop!’

The incident niggled at me, so when I got home I did a bit of research about Dickens and Unitarianism, and discovered that, in a way, we were both correct. When Charles visited America in 1842 one of the first people he met in Boston was Dr William Ellen Channing, the city’s leading Unitarian preacher and he was very impressed. Other leading Bostonians, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, followed Channing, and Dickens become more and more enamoured with the doctrine, which purely followed the teachings of the New Testament without, as he wrote once, forcing the Old Testament ‘into alliance with it’. When he returned to England he began to attend the chapel in London where the first Unitarian congregation had met, and later another chapel presided over by the Reverend Tagart. He was a regular attendee for nearly two years, and even afterwards he would occasionally return to listen to particular sermons. He was not only attracted by the spiritual comfort that the Church offered but also by the passionate stance on the campaign for abolitionism, a cause that was particularly close to his own heart.

I hope the gentleman from the front row is reading this and will accept an apology for my ignorance into this aspect of Dickens’s life. In a way we were both correct, for his was not a life long member of the Church, but it certainly had a major effect on his life at that time.

Back in The Preston Playhouse the question and answer session ended and I returned to the foyer, where there was not much to do, other than chat, for all of my books had sold out during my first show!

Having changed and made sure that I had retrieved everything from the dressing room, I returned to the theatre and discovered that Norman and Joe had moved all of my props and furniture to the loading door, so my get out was much quicker than it might otherwise have been. When the car was full, and I checked carefully that I had everything on this occasion, I said goodbye to Norman, who said that he was sorry I wouldn’t be staying with him and Lynne this year, as he would miss the Full English breakfast that Lynne has traditionally prepared in my honour!

On Sunday night, however, I had to drive to a hotel near Manchester, for I had two meetings in Yorkshire the following morning, and I wanted to break the journey a little. As I drove there was the most remarkable giant amber moon sitting low in the sky, which looked as if it were a special effect from a science fiction film. I reached my hotel at around 10.30 and called my new best friends at Uber Eats for a late night pizza as I gently wound down from a long but successful day.

Monday Morning

On Monday morning I enjoyed a large breakfast and wondered what Norman was eating back in Preston. At 9 o’clock I checked out and headed for Leeds where I was at last reunited with the large box that I had left there, although the little replacement had done an admirable job standing in during the Preston performances.

From Leeds I headed towards Rotherham where I had a meeting at one of the most impressive stately homes in the country. Wentworth Woodhouse is a truly impressive pile, but without the fame and popularity of Chatsworth or Blenheim. The house is undergoing a major restoration project and there are many events taking place to help raise money to that end. The building is also used as a filming venue and has doubled up as Buckingham Palace in various TV dramas and big-budget films

I am due to perform there later in the year and wanted to see the spaces where I would be, and to check acoustics, which can be problematic in some large spaces, and came away very excited at the prospect of returning in July.

As I drove up the long, serpentine driveway, my obligations in the North of England were done and I was soon on the M1 heading home.

A New Venue

Tags

Casino Royale, Charles Dickens, Doctor Marigold, Ian Fleming, Leeds, Leeds Library, Leeds Lit Fest, Myster of Edwin Drood, The Signalman

Throughout my working year most of the venues that I perform at are repeat bookings, meaning that I know who I am going to meet, where I am going to change and how the room feels. The fact that I have so many requests to return is a wonderful compliment, and makes me feel very satisfied about what I am doing. Occasionally, however, I will receive an email out of the blue asking me to visit a new city and organisation and this is always exciting but slightly nerve-wracking. Such a thing occurred last year when I was contacted by The Leeds Literary Festival with a request to appear as part of their 2022 event. In fact they had wanted me two years ago, but the onslaught of Covid put paid to that. We communicated via email and phone until we settled on Wednesday 2 March as a suitable date, and I would perform my double bill of The Signalman and Doctor Marigold in The Leeds Library.

The day dawned grey and rainy and I spent the morning loading the car up with the various props that the two shows require, and it is quite a collection: for The Signalman I have a large clerk’s desk, which is in two parts – stand and top, a small table, a chair and a stool. On top of the desk is a large wooden box with the image of Victorian signalling equipment pasted to the front, representing the ‘telegraphic instrument with its dial, face and needles’ that Dickens describes. There is a large book, a railwayman’s lamp (complete with a battery-operated candle to make it flicker) and a new addition – a theatrical spotlight (or at least, an interior designer’s approximation of one) on a stand to double for the dismal danger light at the mouth of the tunnel which is so important to the telling of the story. For Marigold I have a small set of wooden steps, a stool (a smaller one than that which features in The Signalman), a wooden crate, an anodised pail with a small metal shovel, a kettle and a rolled up blanket. Alongside all of the hardware I had to pack two costumes and of course a box containing copies of ‘Dickens and Staplehurst’ All of this filled pretty well every square inch of a Renault Kadjar and it was with a sense of relief that all of the doors shut successfully.

The drive to Leeds takes about three hours and I left with plenty of time in hand just in case the notorious M1 roadworks should delay me. As it happened my journey was very smooth and I had plenty of time to stop for lunch before arriving in the heart of the city at around 3 o’clock, ready to check in at my hotel, The Plaza Park. Being in the very centre the hotel had no car park, but I was able to leave the car for a few minutes in order to get directions to a large parking garage nearby, from where I could easily walk back. I had an hour in my room, during which I had a shower to freshen myself up before going to the venue.

Even though the Library was only a five minute walk from my hotel, I needed to drive so that I could unload all of the furniture and props ready for the show, but as I made my way to the car I had a phone call from Carl, who had booked me. In our various emails I had mentioned to him that I would arrive at the library at 4, unload and then go to park the car, and he had suddenly realised that he hadn’t told me that there was no vehicular access to the library at all, so I would need to park in another parking garage, where he would meet me and help me unload.

By the time I was finally parked on the second level of the QPark garage it was almost 4.30 and I had agreed to appear on a Leeds Lit Fest live podcast at 5, so other than taking my costumes and a few smaller articles, Carl and I decided to delay the unloading process until later. We took the lift down to the ground level and walked along a typical city centre street, through the bustle of a weekday evening, past a McDonalds and a Starbucks until we arrived at a rather nondescript door, squeezed in between a branch of the CoOp Bank and a Paperchase stationery shop.

A blue plaque on the wall suggested that the may be more to this building than met the passing eye, and Carl pushed the door open and I found myself in a small marble hallway at the bottom of a curling grand staircase, which lead up to an Aladdin’s cave filled with the treasure of books!

The Library was founded, so a small wooden sign informed me, in 1768, but moved to its current location in 1808. At the top of the stairs is ‘The Main Room’ and this is the modern section of the library where up to date novels, audiobooks and DVDs can be found but, even so, it has a wonderfully antiquated feel to it, with an iron spiral staircase at one end and books packed into the shelves from floor to ceiling.

Through a small door between shelves and then I am in the ‘New Room’ which was built 140 years ago. It was in the New Room that I was to perform and I had to pause for a moment to take in the grandeur and splendour of my surroundings. The room was narrow and again the walls from floor to ceiling were lined with books over two stories. Opposite my small stage was a magnificent wooden staircase leading to the upper level and around 70 chairs were laid out in the body of the room, this was going to be a wonderful space to perform in.

For now though, I had to concentrate on the podcast and was shown into the Old Librarian’s Office, which would also become my dressing room.

There waiting to greet me was Molly Magrath, who would be interviewing me, and huddled behind two laptops was Jack who would be looking after all the technical side of the session. We had a few minutes before the broadcast was due to start, so they pulled out some gems from the shelves – a travel book dating back to the 1400s (the author never left England so it was a complete work of fantasy!), and a second edition of The Hobbit. Molly also handed me a beautifully bound first edition of Casino Royale by Ian Fleming and this was a real treasure for a Bond fanatic like me to hold.

5 O’clock came round and without ceremony Molly was talking to the little webcam about my visit, and we had a great conversation about the theatricality of Dickens and how I prepare my shows for the stage. It was a really good interview, not too rigidly bound by questions, just a flowing chat. I had done a little research into Dickens’ visits to Leeds and unfortunately he hadn’t seemed to be too impressed by the City. He first visited in 1847 to give a speech at The Mechanics Institute. The visit was in December and he had a terrible cold, but the experience of Leeds wasn’t a pleasant one. He didn’t return for a further 10 years but his memories still burned brightly, for he wrote home to his sister in law on that second occasion that ‘we shall have, as well as I can make out the complicated list of trains, to sleep at Leeds-which I particularly detest as an odious place-tomorrow night.’ Charming!

He did, however, return to Leeds 3 further times to give readings, and indeed actually performed Doctor Marigold, as I would be doing later on the evening of March 2.

When Molly wrapped the podcast up I went to find Carl and together we walked back to the car park and began the task of shifting all of my stuff back to the library; it took as three trips to get all of the furniture into the lift, down to ground level, past McDonalds and Starbucks, into the front door, up the narrow staircase, through the Main Room and into The New Room. And it was raining!

At last everything was in and I began creating the set for The Signalman. The stage was not large, but there was plenty of room to place the clerk’s desk with the telegraphic instrument and bell atop it, and the stool beneath. I placed the table a little downstage and placed the chair at the back, so that the Signalman, unused to visitors, could grab it, dust the seat off, and place it for the stranger to sit on. Immediately behind the stage was a display case which was the only bit of furniture in the room that was not an antique, and I was able to put my new red light on top of it, meaning that it towered above the scene in a suitably imposing manner. When the first act set was in place I took the opportunity of running through a few lines and as I did another member of the library staff, Ian, busied himself putting programmes on chairs and preparing a makeshift bar for the evening. When I had finished my brief rehearsal Ian introduced himself and asked if I would like to see the basement, an offer that I was delighted to accept. We descended into the bowels of the building where there is a huge collection of very old books, many in a terrible condition. Ian explained that in days of yore the library had been lit by gas jets which had created acidity in the air causing irreparable damage to the leather bindings. The plan is to restore every volume, but at a cost of over a million a shot, that project is a very long term one. I looked along the shelves and there was a first edition of The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Dickens’ final, unfinished, novel. It was such a treat to hold in my hands something that connected me so closely to my great great grandfather. Elsewhere in the basement were racks of periodicals and newspapers just waiting for keen-eyed researchers to discover some wonderful long-lost fact. As we ascended the stairs once more, Ian said wistfully that he never tires of showing off the collection in the basement and that everybody notices something new.

Back upstairs I retired to the Librarian’s Office, my very grand dressing room, and ate a small salad and some fruit before getting into costume for the first act. Outside, the audience gathered and began to take their seats. Ian had told me that this was the largest audience that the New Room had held since the beginning of lockdown. At 7.30 Carl poked his head in and asked if I was ready, and on my replying ‘yes’, he said a few words of introduction and then left the stage to me.

I welcomed the audience, made reference to CD’s rather uncomplimentary words about Leeds, and then launched into a brief description of the circumstances behind the Staplehurst rail crash, vital to both the telling of The Signalman and to the selling of my book at evening’s end. Soon I was into the dark, claustrophobic ghost story and , as ever, I surprised myself by the sheer physicality of what is a very short performance. The emotional intensity of the piece is exhausting and I continually find that by the time I finish every limb is aching from the tension.

On my concluding the story and then announcing the spooky fact that although Dickens was not killed at Staplehurst, he did die exactly 5 years, to the day, after the crash, there was a gasp from the audience, partly in surprise and partly out of relief that they too could relax back into the real world.

Having left the stage and allowed a little time for the audience to drift away, I started clearing the furniture from The Signalman away and setting the stage for Doctor Marigold. In the office I changed into a new costume (long corduroy Victorian-style trousers, rather than the breeches I used to wear), and after twenty minutes or so I returned to the stage to perform my favourite show in the character of the ever resilient and cheerful cheapjack, Doctor Marigold. At one point in the monologue, Marigold describes building a cart with books in ‘rows upon rows’ and so the book-lined walls of the New Room formed the perfect setting for the second half of the story. The audience were rivetted and entranced, as audiences tend to be when witnessing this little gem of a story for the first time.

I finished and left the stage and there was generous and warm Yorkshire applause when I returned to take my bows. Having taken a few minutes to cool down, I made my way back into The Main Room, where I chatted, sold and signed my book, until the audience drifted away into the night.

I changed back into everyday clothes, having briefly donned my black frockcoat again for a couple of photographs that Ian wanted to take on the New Room staircase, and then faced the proposition of taking all of my furniture downstairs, up the street, into the car park, up the lift and back to the car again, however Carl suggested that I actually left everything in the Library, for in the morning the bollards closing off the pedestrianised street would be down, allowing access to the shop fronts for deliveries, and so I would be able to drive to the front door, which would make things much easier.

I walked through the streets of Leeds, back to my hotel and was delighted to discover that they offered a 24 hour room service, so I ordered a plate of fish and chips and let the adrenaline of the evening gently subside, until eventually I fell asleep in the early hours of Thursday morning.

I woke with a start at around 7.40, and decided to get the car loaded before having breakfast, so I quickly showered and retrieved my car, before driving slowly past pedestrians hurrying to work, along the pavement of Commercial Street. Carl and the library caretaker were there to assist and in no time all of my furniture was squeezed into the Renault – actually, we seemed to have hit on an improved system of loading, in that there seemed to be more space than when I had loaded up the day before.

I said farewell to Carl, promising that I would endeavour to find a date for a repeat visit in the winter tour, and returned to the hotel where I enjoyed a hearty full English breakfast before getting on the road for home. The journey was smooth once again and I arrived back in Oxfordshire at midday.

As I unloaded the car I discovered the reason that loading had been so easy, for I had left the ‘telegraphic instrument’ prop in the library. I will next need it for a performance in Preston, Lancashire, at the end of March, so Carl and I will have to work out how to reunite it with the rest of the set, but that is all for another day. For now I could reflect on a wonderful evening, in a beautiful setting, and a new venue for my future tours.

Happy Birthday

Tags

A Christmas Carol, Bob Cratchit, Charles Dickens, Dickens and Staplehurst. A Biogrpahy of a Rail Crash, Ebenezer Scrooge, Jacob Marley, Mr Fezziwig, Saddleworth Moor, St George's Hall, The Custom House, The Tyne, The Word, York

Sunday19 December was a birthday. A 178th birthday. Charles Dickens first introduced the characters of Ebenezer Scrooge, Jacob Marley, Bob Cratchit and his family, the various ghosts, Belle, Fred and all of the others to the world on that date in 1843 and so began one of the most extraordinary literary success stories of all time, for the book has never been out of print from that day on.

My birthday celebrations began with an early breakfast at The Shankly Hotel in Liverpool, as I had to get onto the road by 9am for a drive across the country and north to Tynseside, leaving one great shipbuilding city on The Mersey and travelling to another on The Tyne.

The morning was a foggy one, a very foggy one, and all of the cars on that Sunday morning had both front and rear high intensity lights shining so that they glowed like, as Charles Dickens says, ‘ruddy smears on the palpable brown air’.

As the morning went on my route took me eastwards on the M62 and gradually the fog began to clear, and a bright morning sun shone to my right. I was listening to the coverage of the second cricket test match from Adelaide (a day-night match), and it was extraordinary to hear the commentators describe the sun setting in the west, while I watched the same celestial body rising in the east. The clearing of the weather had less to do with the fog lifting but more to do with my climbing to a greater altitude. Various signs informed me that I was crossing Saddleworth Moor, a name which strikes repulsion and loathing into British minds, but which is also one of the most beautiful tracts of countryside I have ever seen. The low-lying fog nestled in the valleys whilst the hills were illuminated in a golden morning glow. I drove onwards and upwards until another notice proclaimed that I was at the highest point on the UK motorway network meaning, inevitably, that I was soon descending back into the thick fog once more.

Eventually I joined the A1-M road, one of the main North-South routes, and I was back on familiar territory as I headed towards the North East.

I was due to perform at The Word – the National Centre of the Written Word, in South Shields, where I had last appeared at the end of October, just before my A Christmas Carol tour commenced. At that time I had been talking about my new book, Dickens and Staplehurst, as well as performing The Signalman, but I hadn’t yet received copies of the book from my publishers, so had none to sell. Even though the book had sold so well in Liverpool, I had kept a few back so that any audience members in South Shields who had seen my previous performance could buy them.

The journey took around three hours and I pulled up outside the extraordinary circular building at the edge of the market square on the stroke of 12. I called June, who was looking after this event, and soon all of the furniture for A Christmas Carol had been unloaded and was being taken up to the third floor, while I took the car to a nearby car park next to the large theatre in the town, The Custom House.

The room where I perform at The Word is not a theatre, it does not have great stage lighting, and doesn’t have any of the history or atmosphere of St George’s Hall, but somehow performing A Christmas Carol in a venue dedicated to the written word was the perfect way to celebrate the birthday and honour Charles Dickens, so the room was excellent!

While I prepared the stage I chatted with June who admitted that she wasn’t sure how many people would actually attend – the library had received a few cancellations, due to the growing fear of the spread of the Omicron variant of Covid 19. I was also worried about the effect of the virus on my final week of shows and fully expected some cancellations along the way, either due to stricter government regulations, or simply because audience members would make their own decisions based on their levels of caution or fear.

At 1.30 the doors were opened and the audience began to arrive, all masked, and by 2 everyone who was expected had arrived. June formally welcomed them and when she mentioned the fact that we were honouring 178 years of A Christmas Carol there was a loud gasp of excitement.

The show itself was very different from those in Liverpool, as I didn’t have the same space to roam, and with the bright fluorescent lights shining brightly, I could see the audience clearly, but the effect of that amazing story was every bit as powerful as ever. The audience laughed, and sobbed and shouted and clapped with every bit as much enthusiasm as their Merseyside cousins and when I took my bows they stood and called out their appreciation. When the applause had died down I returned to the stage and spoke briefly about Dickens’s writing process of A Christmas Carol, and how it came to be published on the 19th December.

When I had finished I pulled on my mask (the Christmas Carol one that I had been given in Pennsylvania a week before) and went to the little merchandise table with its scanty stock of books. Soon they were all sold and signed, and the audience made their way to their homes, while I changed and packed up again. I walked to the car park to retrieve the car and noticed that at The Custom House it was interval time. I could tell this because huddled in the cold outside the front door was a group of audience members smoking, while on the other side of the building, at the stage door, were huddled a gropu of actors smoking! On the pavement outside The Word June helped me to load up my props and a little after 4pm I was driving again, this time heading south through drizzly rail towards the city of York, where I would break my journey home to Oxfordshire, with an overnight stay at The Elmbank Hotel, which has become my traditional staging post for this journey.

I had spent a great deal of the day driving to perform for a small audience in the far north eastern corner of Britain, but it had been well worth it, for in that little room at the very top of The Word we had given ‘A Christmas Carol’ a very good birthday party!

The British Return to Lewes

Tags

A Christmas Carol, Antique shopping, Byers'Choice, Charles Dickens, Delaware, Ebenezer Scrooge, Jaws, Lewes, Lewes Public Library, Peter Benchley, Uber Eats, War of 1812

And still I woke early – 3.15 this time, and frustratingly I couldn’t get back to sleep properly. As I sat in bed, watching to the coverage of practice from the Abu Dhabi Grand prix, I realised that having been at Winterthur all the previous day, I had failed to let the owners of The Fairville know what time I wanted breakfast. As I would need to be on the road by 9am, and the breakfast service would start at 8.30, I needed to get in there early, so I decided to go over at around 8.15, hoping to get my order in right at the start.

I packed all of my cases, so I would be ready to go, and when I felt I could reasonably do so, went to the main house, where I was cheerfully greeted by Willie, the young owner. He brushed off my apologies for not letting him know about my breakfast needs and said that of course I could sit down right then, and he would make me my pancakes, and so I was well into my meal when the other guests began to arrive.

With my breakfast finished I was able to get the car loaded up and I was on the road by 9 o’clock. Friday was a strange day, in that I only had one performance scheduled at 7pm, and the drive to Lewes, Delaware, would take a little under three hours, but I had a duo of commitments first thing in the morning: at 9.30 I was due to speak to Warren Lawrence at the WKNY radio station in the Hudson Valley, and straight after that chat I was booked to take my Covid test. I had decided to drive to the branch of CVS where my test was scheduled, and do the interview from the parking lot, so that I was in the correct place to insert a swab up my nose. Unfortunately, there was a traffic issue and I had to pull off the road and park up in a parking space outside some small businesses and called into the radio station. I have spoken to Warren on many occasions, and it he always conducts a really good interview, feeding the questions and allowing me to elucidate my answers at whatever length I feel necessary. There is none of the time pressure of some media interviews. On Friday morning we talked about the character of Charles Dickens, the creation of A Christmas Carol, my adaptation and performance of it, as well as my book, ‘Dickens and Staplehurst. A Biography of a Rail Crash’. Warren even mentioned that the book is available via Amazon in the USA…..

The interview finished at 9.50, and I was able to get back on the road and arrive at CVS by ten, where I drove through the Drive-Thru, and self-administered the test sat in my car as if I were about to handed a Big Mac Meal. The nice thing in America is that you only have to swab your nostrils, whereas in the UK we have to get samples from our tonsils as well, meaning we end up gagging with watering eyes. Having completed the test, I dropped it in the little metal box provided and offered a silent prayer for a negative result, that would be delivered swiftly, so that I can complete all of the official documents that are now needed to fly.

And now I could drive on towards Lewes, which is situated in the south of Delaware. The drive seemed to take forever, and the early start meant that I was feeling very tired. I drank a lot of water, and listened to the radio, or more specifically more podcasts, as I skirted the city of Wilmington, and on. As with my drives around Massachusetts, many of the place names were familiar to me, and I drove through Kent County (I was born in the County of Kent), passed Dover and on towards Sussex County, in which Lewes is situated, as indeed is the town of Lewes in England. Some names were less ‘English’, however and I am not sure that I want to sunbathe on Slaughter Beach any time soon

This would be my first visit to Lewes and it is always lovely to visit a new city. I pulled up in the parking lot of The Inn at Canal Square, which is situated on the water’s edge of a wide inlet, lined with wooden docks and boats of varying sizes and shapes.

The buildings are mostly wooden clad, painted in bright colours, and it is an extremely pretty town. I checked in to the hotel, although my room was not ready, but it meant that I could leave the car in the lot without fear of it being towed and started to stroll around Lewes. Instantly I was greeted by a variety of boards describing the history of the town, and the first one was entitled ‘The War of 1812’. Oh dear, Lewes and the British obviously had previous form.

I read the information and discovered that the British Navy had attempted to blockade the town in 1813, and demanded that the locals provide food to fettle the warships. The residents of Lewes unsurprisingly refused to comply with the British request, and the invaders decided that the best thing to do was therefore to bombard the little town. For almost two days canon ball and rocket rained down on Lewes with absolutely no effect at all, other than breaking the leg of one pig and killing one chicken. The Americans returned fire and managed to set ‘one gunboat aflame’ but there were no casualties among the British forces either. Eventually the ships withdrew from the bay and peace fell in Lewes once more. There is one relic of the violence in the town, for a British canon ball is lodged deep in the foundations of what is now a maritime museum.

I walked out towards the lovely sandy beach, where the only revellers were sea gulls. Actually, the whole place reminded me of the little town of Amity in Peter Benchley’s Jaws, and I imagine that when the tourists flock, as they do in the novel, the atmosphere must be amazing. The beach was lined by grassy dunes, which during the summer months must surely be the scene of late-night teenage campfires, and even a few midnight swims….Durrrr Dum….Durrrr Dum Durdum durdum durdum durdum Diddle deeeee!

I walked back into town and ambled around an antique store where I found the perfect Victorian Hall Stand for my set. It was made of iron and would be far too heavy to carry around, but it would make a magnificent gothic, and menacing addition to Scrooge’s furniture.

I hadn’t stopped for food during the drive, so was feeling a little peckish so I found a brilliant cafe where I had a sandwich, before going to the hotel to rest before the evening’s show. As I lay on the bed I had a message from Barbara, who had used to manage the bookstore, so sadly deserted, at Winterthur, saying that she had felt emotional reading my words, but reassuring me that she had kept all of her ‘goofy stuff’ from the walls of the office and was going to recreate that wall in her home office, the collection being just as carefully curated, as the main Dupont exhibit in the great house itself! I had been booked to perform at the public library and had arranged to arrive there at 5pm to prepare for the 7 o’clock show. Darkness had fallen as I got into the car and the Christmas lights around the city were spectacular – it looked so beautiful. The library was on the outskirts of the town, and was housed in a modern building, similar to those that I have already visited in Kansas City and on Long Island during this tour. I was greeted by the team putting on the show, led by David White, who is a theatre man through and through. David had seen me perform at Winterthur a few years ago and had very much wanted to bring me to Lewes, but various problems, not least the pandemic, had meant that the plans had never quite worked until now. We spent time arranging the stage and working out how best to work the sound cues, which could be run from a laptop, but mostly we simply talked about theatre. Although we were gathered in a modern meeting room in a library it was as if we were in a Victorian auditorium preparing for a show, because we were all theatre folk allowing our mutual experiences to be shared.

The audience started to gather at 6, and I retired to a small kitchen, which had been designated as my Green Room, and began to get ready. The microphone that I was to use was the sort that hooks over one ear, and I knew from previous experience that it would come loose and fall off during the show, but I managed to find a desk in the library offices with a roll of sellotape on it and stuck the unit to my cheek as best I could. I knew it wouldn’t last but thought that it may give me a little bit of time.

David continually poked his head around the door to give me the ‘half’, the twenty, the ten and the five, before it was show time. The room was packed but everyone was masked, and I made my entrance through the centre of the audience. Unfortunately, the little speaker that was supposed to amplify the opening music had disconnected from the laptop, so we could only hear the effect through the computer’s built-in speaker, and during the opening scenes, Jesse, David’s daughter (following the family business in theatre, but more on the tech side), crawled along the front of the stage to try and re-connect it. We wouldnt know if she had been succesful until Old Fezziwig stood out to dance.

The show was great fun, and I gave it my all. It was one of those days during which I had felt fatigued and lacking in energy, but A Christmas Carol cast its magic spell over me and brought me back to life, and Mr Fezziwig DID have music at his dance.

The audience were fully engaged, and at the end gave me a very noisy and enthusiastic ovation. As usual having taken my bows I remained on stage to conduct the Q&A session, and soon the questions were coming in from all quarters. I was asked about my family lineage and took the opportunity to include my new-found knowledge about my host town with a little affectionate and gentle teasing: when I spoke about my grandfather, Gerald, I mentioned that he had been an Admiral in the Royal Navy, and then added: ‘I know how fond you are of the British Navy in this town. I have seen the canon ball, and I have actually been sent by the Admiralty to retrieve it, they would like it back!’ I got a huge laugh and a round of applause and one audience member called out ‘He is OK!’

We finished up and I went back to my dressing room, where the pair of braces (suspenders) that I had been wearing broke, the rigours of the tour are beginning to tell. I will have to order a replacement pair when I get back to England, but for my final three shows I have another set.

The audience had departed when I re-emerged, and I gathered up my things and said goodbye to the whole team. Hopefully I can return and perform some of my other shows in this remarkable community.

It was getting on towards 9.30 when I got back to the hotel and all of the restaurants in town were closed, but I logged on to Uber Eats once more and arranged for a late-night dinner to be delivered to me.

On Saturday morning I will drive back into Pennsylvania and to Byers’ Choice, where the 2021 American tour will conclude with three final shows.

The Thin Blue Line

Tags

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, Courtyard by Marriott, Ebenezer Scrooge, Marriott Hotels, The Berkshires, Ventfort Hall Mansion

I woke up in my Comfort Inn in Manchester not at 3am, or 4am, but I actually made it to 6 for the first time on the trip! I had been woken to the sound of a car alarm sounding in the parking lot, and I vaguely had a memory of hearing a similar alarm at a previous hotel which rather worryingly suggested that it might have been my car.

Saturday morning would be taken up with driving to The Berkshires, the beautiful mountain region in western Massachusetts, and it looked as if it were going to be another amazing day to drive, with clear skies and a light frost on the ground. Before leaving I had time to watch some more practice from the Grand Prix and as soon as the session was over, I checked out and got on the road.

For audio accompaniment on this trip, I listened to a series of podcasts about the forthcoming Ashes cricket series. I hope that my English readers will forgive me for a moment, while I explain about The Ashes. The greatest rivalry within the international cricket calendar is that between the Australian team and the English team, which dates back to 1882 when the Aussies first beat England on British soil. On the next day an obituary to English cricket was published in The Times newspaper and the wooden bails (part of the equipment used during the match) were burned and the ashes placed in a tiny ceramic urn. Ever since that little urn has been the trophy that the two nations have played for. An Ashes series only comes around once every few years, alternating between England and Australia, and in the winter of ’21, ’22 the series is being played in the Southern hemisphere, where England have only won once in the last 34 years. The podcast was made by the BBC cricket correspondent and delved into all of the preparations inherent in sending a team to the land down under and was a very interesting listen.

My route took me back towards Boston and then skirting to the west of the city I drove straight back through Worcester where I was just a week before, and once again admired the beautiful old railroad station with its twin white towers making it look like the old Wembly football stadium in London.

Worcester Railroad Station

The Old Wembly Stadium, London

The views as I progressed west became ever more spectacular, with dark lakes shimmering with a thin skim of ice on the surface. The traffic became less, and the mountains appeared on the horizon. After two and a half hours of driving I left the freeway and took the route signposted for ‘The Berkshires’ and soon was driving through the pretty town of Lee and on towards Lenox. By this time the final qualifying session for the Formula 1 Grand Prix was starting, and I was able to listen to the radio coverage, via the F1 App on my phone connected to the car’s audio system: it is amazing what we take for granted now and how technology has advanced during my years of touring (remembering the old days of trying to connect a large heavy laptop to a modem, and enduring the whining, beeping and screeching of the dial-up connection). On the final miles of my drive, I listened to the first two thirds of the action until I pulled up outside The Courtyard by Marriott in Lenox.

As I unloaded my bags, I suddenly realised how much I have relied on Marriott during this tour. Not only have I stayed in hotels run by the company in Long Island, Nashua and now here in Lenox, but also my PCR Covid test was conducted in a Courtyard hotel in Oxford, before I left England.

I checked in as quickly as I could and then rushed up to the room to catch the final moments of qualifying on the TV, and I wasn’t to be disappointed as it came to a thrilling climax, with one of the two drivers still fighting for the World Championship crashing out at the very final corner of the very final lap.

I didn’t have much time in the hotel as it was now 1pm and I had to be at my next venue at 1.30. I quickly ate a chicken salad (which Joe had bought for me before the show in Manchester, but which I had not eaten, and it had remained well refrigerated in the car overnight), gathered my belongings and hurried out, not forgetting to take the little carboard sleeve that my room keys were held in, for I have reached that time of the trip where I struggle to remember not only the number of my room, but even the floor I am on!

My venue in Lenox is Ventfort Hall, a beautiful mansion built at the end of the 19th Century for Sarah Morgan, who was the sister of J Pierpont Morgan, which is an interesting connection in itself, in that the original handwritten manuscript of A Christmas Carol was purchased by Morgan and is annualy displayed in the library bearing his name in New York City. I have performed at Ventfort on two previous occasions, and it is a great venue, with the ambience of the small and elegant room really adding something to the storytelling – actually, it is very simmilar to the General Crook House in Omaha. In previous years we have seated an audience of 80 in the little parlour, packed hard in with not an inch of space left. But this year, due to Covid, the audience numbers had been reduced and the seats spaced out. I was greeted by Haley who looks after the running of the house and who has a background in theatrical stage managegement, and she ran through the precautions with me. The audience would all be masked and would all be required to show their vaccination certificate before admission. On the stage, or at least, on the floor at the end of the room where I was performing, she had stuck a line of blue tape, which marked 6 feet from the front row, and that was my ‘acting line’. I placed the props, having changed a very elegant and obviously antique chair for one that I could stand on. When the stage was ready, I introduced to Chris who would be operating my sound cues. Chris had also supplied the wooden stool for the set, from his own home, so I asked him if it was ok to knock on it with my wooden cane, for that tends to leave little indentations, and he said he would be delighted and honoured to have such a souvenir of the show in his house!

The view from the blue line, with Chris’s stool in the foreground.

It was getting towards 2.15 now and some of the first guests were beginning to arrive, so I retired to my ‘dressing room’, which is in fact the room where Sarah Morgan dressed. I had a chaise longue at my disposal, and a table laid with a bottle of champagne and a plate of strawberries (all fake, unfortunately!)

I changed into my costume and waited for the 3pm start time, and when Hayley gave me the word, I went into the great hall ready to walk through the audience and to begin.

It was strange experience to be in a room of fully masked people without wearing one myself, and I half wondered if I should have done the show masked, but there is no way that could have worked. I made sure that I remained behind my blue line as much as I could (which led to a somewhat linear performance).

The audience were a little quiet at first, maybe sharing my uncertainties about being in this confined space together, but soon the atmosphere began to lighten, and laughter filled the little parlour, and at the end as I took my bows the 50 strong audience stood and cheered.

We had a short Q&A session and then the audience left the room to have an elegant tea at tables spread throughout the house. Usually I would join them, but this year I returned to my changing room, where I noticed a plate of cakes, sandwiches and fancies had been left for me – they were on the table next to the champagne and strawberries, so I had to check that they were, in fact, real; and they were, deliciously real.

I changed back into my normal clothes and slipped out of the house in as inconspicuous manner as I could manage considering I was wearing a bright red Christmas sweater, and drove back to my hotel admiring the Christmas lights which decorated the town of Lenox.

I was due to be taken out to dinner in the evening and Hayley had offered to pick me up at 7 o’clock. There was light snow flurrying in the air and my beanie hat and gloves were still in the car, which sat glowing richly in the winter night.

Fully wrapped up against the chill of the evening I waited for Hayley who arrived bang on time, and we drove to the nearby town of Great Barrington where we joined Alice, Patrick and Stephen in ’10’, a restaurant specialising in steaks. We have all met and dined together before and it was great to get together once more and pick up where we left off, two or three years ago. The food was as fine as the company, and we shared a convivial evening with plenty of laughter, although perhaps inevitably the conversation continually returned to Covid issues.

After the last of the desserts had been finished, we left 10 and said our various goodbyes. Patrick and Stephen would be driving me back to Lenox, as Hayley lives in Great Barrington, and as we drove we talked about the power of American Equity, the actors’ union, as well as the benefits and frailties of the British National Health Service – not bad for a thirty-minute drive!

Back at The Courtyard I checked my little cardboard sleeve to confirm where my room was and retired for the night.

New Connections

Tags

A Christmas Carol, A Christmas Carol film, Charles Dickens, East Meadow Public Library, Ebenezer Scrooge, Long Island, Marriott Hotels, Mid Continent Public Library, The Great Gatsby

Tuesday morning saw the first of what, as regular followers will know, is an important ritual on my tours: laundry. Having woken and written my blog and made my first coffee of the morning, I emptied the two bags of clothing that needed cleansing and sorted them into coloured and whites (the latter pile comprising mainly of the shirts I have been wearing in the show), but with the dilligence of an accountant, I discovered that my numbers were out: I had performed over two days at Vaillancourts, meaning that there should have been be four shirts, but there were only two. I let my mind wander back and remembered that I had hung two shirts to air in the closet at The Beechwood and must have left them there.

You may remember in yesterday’s post I made a big point about sweeping through my room multiple times to check that I hadn’t left anything there, and you may (quite justifiably) imagine that I wrote all of that already knowing that I had left the shirts there, ready to reveal my folly for comic affect today, but that is not the case! I had genuinely thought that I had everything with me, and that for once I hadn’t left a trail of belongings in my wake, but sadly a leopard does not change its spots so easily, and there were my shirts back in Worcester.

At the Marriott hotel in Uniondale I am situated on the 7th floor, and the guest laundry is in the basement, so early in the morning I bagged up what I did have to clean and made my way to the lift which took me down the eight floors and opened to reveal a warren of corridors, with no signs to guide me to the laundry. As if I were in a maze at some large stately home I started to explore, turning this way, then that, following a direction and discovering it led nowhere, until at last at the end of a long corridor I discovered a lost subterranean city comprising a salon, a gym and the laundry room.

I had a bag of quarters with me, which I collect during my travels for such circumstances, but imagine my surprise to discover that these particular machines didn’t take quarters, they actually had terminals for credit cards.

My emotions at this point were conflicted, on one hand there was an amazing realisation that this innovation meant that the days of hauling bags of loose change around the country will soon be behind me, but on the other end of the scale was the sheer frustration that my wallet was up in room 768! Back through the corridoors, back up the lift, back to my room, collect my wallet and back down again. Soon two machines were spinning and splashing whilst I went up to the lobby to have some breakfast.

The restaurant at The Marriott is spread out around the spacious ground floor, and diners were dotted here and there lost in their own worlds. I was greeted by a lady dressed in jeans and a sweater who I had taken to be a customer, but who asked me if I would like orange juice and coffee, and then I attended to the impressive buffet. As I sat at my table another guest came in, an older man with a white beard (no, not HIM!), and a t shirt, it soon became obvious that he is a very regular guest as almost every member of staff came up to greet and converse with him, and he had a gentle charm with each, asking about their Thanksgivings, and their families, discussing their jobs and their lives. Quite how he had time to eat is beyond me, but he gave everyone as much of his attention as they needed, and did it with good grace. A very impressive individual who just by being in that restaurant, where everyone else sat at anonymous little islands, spread happiness and made people feel good about themselves. OK, on reflection, maybe he WAS that guy with the white beard, after all!’

After breakfast I returned to the laundry and loaded my clothes into the drier, which after another swipe of the credit card, started rumbling away, and I went back to my room to be lazy for an hour.

By ten o’clock my morning chores were done and I could go out for the day. As I was on Long Island, I had decided to visit the area which had inspired one of my favourite American novels, and ater a little research I set my sat nav to take me to Great Neck, better known in the literary world as West Egg, the home of Nick Carroway and Jay Gatsby. I had even downloaded an audiobook version of The Great Gatsby to accompany through my travels.

The first part of my drive took along one of the parkways that run the length of the island, and which apparently act as a guide to the international jets flying into JFK airport, for a constant stream of Boeings and Airbuses flew low over me with landing lights blazing and wheels down. Eventually I reached Great Neck, and drove to a neighbourhood that seemed to be the sort of place where Gatsby could have stood in his grounds gazing at the green light at the end of Daisy Buchanan’s dock across the water. Unfortunately, I could’t say for certain, for there was no way to get to the water’s edge, all of the properties privately protecting their own stretch of ocean front. The best glimpse that I got was through the locked gates of a yacht club.

I drove on, still listening to the book. I had studied Gatsby at college but I have either forgotten, or never realised, how funny parts of it are, and I found myself laughing out loud in the car. Of course, a student will never find a book funny, especially if a teacher says: ‘Now make a note of this, this is the author using humour for effect, this is a very funny passage…..’

My drive took me further east to Port Jefferson, where I alighted and strolled around a nature reserve and said hello to a family of swans who glided curiously up to me, and deciding that I was of no interest, glided away again.

The weather was cold, so I didn’t walk for long, but returned to my car to cross the island to the south shore and then ‘home’. Whilst I drove, I called the Beechwood Hotel and inquired about the two white shirts and to my amazement they said yes, they had them, and could I pop by and collect them? By a fortunate quirk of this year’s tour, it so happens that I will be driving straight past Worcester again on Wednesday, so a slight detour will not affect me at all. It is amazing when the stars in the universe all align and everything works out.

Finding the ocean at the south shore proved to be as difficult as finding it in the North had been and as flurries of snow were starting to swirl, I decided to head back to The Marriott. I had a couple of hours before I needed to go out, so I flicked through the TV guide to see what was on and to my delight discovered that Apollo 13 had just started, so I wallowed in nostalgia for a while – nostalgia for the events themselves, and for the film, which I remember watching for the first time in one of the large London cinemas and feeling the whole floor trembling during the lift-off sequence. The TV channel that was screening the movie gave it a rather uninspiring description that really didn’t do justice to the bravery and ingenuity of the characters involved, it read: ‘April 1970. Astronauts try to return alive.’ Not thrilling. I wonder how the same TV company would describe A Christmas Carol? ‘December 1843. Man sleeps and wakes kinder.’

As I watched the film, I also did some research into new Covid regulations that have been announced this week in the UK and discovered that I now have to take a PCR test on my return and not a LFT one. These tests have to be booked and paid for before a passenger returns and I had already booked the previously acceptable Lateral Flow Test kit, but now I had to spend another £50 for the PCR. These tests (one prior to each of my departures from the UK and 2, now 3, for my returns) have considerably added to the expense of this year’s tour!

As Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise came back to Earth, I gathered a costume shirt and black socks for the evening and made my way to the East Meadow Public Library where I was due to perform. On entering the building, I instantly felt at home, for it was like returning to one of the branches of The Mid Continent Public Library in Kansas City. I was greeted by Jude, who had kindly treated me to supper the evening before, and she showed me to a room downstairs which was to be my dressing room. Boxes of pizzas and a bowl of salad sat on the table for the staff to grab as they made preparations for the evening.

The actual performance was to be in a small auditorium on the main level and when we entered, the floor was covered with leads and cables as the sound system was being set up. The acoustic in the room sounded pretty good but we tested the microphone anyway, and my sound man (whose name, I am ashamed to say, I never caught), did a fine job in balancing the levels. We then went through all of my sound cues, rehearsing each one so that he had an idea as to how to bring the effects in and how to fade them out again, and when I needed to speak over them. He was very diligent and as I left the room, he began to clear his equipment away and tape down the cables.

Jude had sourced items for the set from a prop hire company and so Scrooge had a very nice chair and table, but unfortunately, we didn’t have a hat rack to hand, so I simply placed another table behind the chair, on which I would be able to lay the hat, cane and scarf as required during the show.

Back downstairs I set to signing copies of ‘Dickens and Staplehurst’ which had been pre-ordered, and when I had finished that, changed ready for the 7pm start. It is always an interesting challenge coming to a new venue – the show doesn’t change of course, but the atmosphere around presenting it does. For example, at somewhere like Vaillancourt’s or at Byers’ Choice the whole team has done this so often that we all know exactly how it is going to work. Likewise, the audience at those venues is usually made up with a large percentage of people who have attended multiple times and know the style of what they are going to see and are excited to see it again; their anticipation also gives a sense of confidence to the ‘newbies’ in the crowd. But in a venue such as The East Meadow Library it is all new, so there is a sense of heightened consciousness and even nervousness in the build up.

Just after 7 Jude welcomed the socially distanced and masked audience and then handed over to me. The music started and I walked onto the stage. As was to be expected, the audience was quiet at first, not knowing if they were going to see a simple reading, or a rather dry Brit reciting a Victorian novel (albeit a much-loved one), but soon they began to warm up and I began to relax, meaning that the show got better and the audience became even more involved. It was a great shared experience for us all and by the end we were the best of friends!

Having taken my bows to a standing ovation, Jude turned the auditorium lights on and we started the Q&A session. There were quite a few children in the audience and their questions were especially good, one asked me ‘What is your real voice like?’, whilst another inquired ‘What is your favourite Christmas food?’ Other questions took us into the world of the minor characters’ back stories and of course favourite movie choices. But soon it was time to wind up and after taking another bow I returned to my dressing room as the audience left the building.

By the time I had changed it was just the library staff left and they congratulated me on the show as we all packed our things up.

A new connection has been made on Long Island and hopefully it is one that we can extend to future years and, maybe with restrictions eased, we can fill the auditorium to its capacity and really have a fun party. You never know, I may even be able to find the ocean…..

I said my goodbyes and drove back to the hotel where I had a delicious plate of grilled salmon and rice, before rising to floor 7 once more and bringing the day to a close.

A New Stool for Tiny Tim

Tags

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, Ebenezer Scrooge, Newcastle Cathedral, SleeprZ Hotels, The Literary and Philosophical Society, Tiny Tim, Uber Eats

The second half of my 2021 tour began on Tuesday, when Ebenezer Scrooge, Bob Cratchit, Tiny Tim and all the rest packed themselves into my car for the journey to Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, where I would be performing at the Literary and Philosophical Society in the city, more commonly known these days at the Lit and Phil.

However before I could drive North I had to make a brief stop in Oxford to get an official PCR Covid test so that I can gain my Fit to Fly Certificate which will allow me to return to the USA on Friday morning. This was a repeat of my previous appointment a few weeks ago and once again I entered the Courtyard by Marriot hotel in the centre of Oxford and rather furtively announced to the front desk that I was there to be tested. ‘Of course, sir, through the double doors and knock on the door of suite 1, then wait.’ It all seemed very covert, and I thought that when the door opened I should have some code phrase to say: ‘The tulips are surprisingly lacklustre this year.’, to which the voice on the other side of the door would reply, ‘unless you are in Spain, where they are glowing’. However any James Bond fantasy that I may be imagining was swept away when the door was opened and I was welcomed in with a friendly smile and a ‘Good morning. Mr Dickens?’

When the paperwork was filled in I was asked to administer my own test, which I hope I did effectively, and within 15 minutes I was saying ‘goodbye’ and hoping that I have not caught Covid in the week since I last took a test.

Now I could take the cast, as well as the props to Newcastle. The drive was very uneventful and there were no traffic delays on the M1 motorway, which is almost unheard of. I had plenty of time in hand and stopped once for a coffee and leg stretch and then again for lunch. It was around 3pm when I passed Anthony Gormley’s amazing ‘Angel of the North’ sculpture and then crossed the Tyne by one of the many Newcastle bridges, The Lit & Phil is in the very heart of the city and my hotel, SleeprZ is about one hundred yards down the street from it and I found a parking space half way between the two buildings and carefully reversed into it. My first job on arrival was to find a branch of my bank so that I could get some loose change as a float: my new book, Dickens and Staplehurst, A Biography of a Rail Crash (I’m not sure if I have mentioned it before, but it is available through my website, or Amazon), retails at £8.99 meaning that I would need change. I had also invested in a contactless card reader to help me with my after-show sales. Newcastle was definitely ready for Christmas with twinkling lights strung over the streets, department store windows seasonally decorated and. buskers singling carols with varying degrees of tunefulness. It was a lovely sight and the streets were bustling and full of energy.

I found the bank and having got a small bag of coins in various denominations, made my way back to the hotel to check in. The SleeperZ hotel is a very simple one, with compact rooms, but they are brilliantly designed and are bright and colourful. For my performances at the Lit & Phil it is perfect for my purposes. I lay on the bed and watched TV for a while until it was time to return to my car and onload the props. At The Lit & Phil building I was greeted by Kay who books all of my events at the venue. Even though I hadn’t been in the lovely old building for two years, thanks to last year’s lockdown, it seemed like I had only just been in the same room, setting up my furniture in readiness to perform. The large and somewhat heavy chair, carefully draped with the red cloth, the hat stand, the little table with the candlestick and the simple stool which starts the show as Bob Cratchit’s office stool and ends up as Tiny Tim’s shrine. This last piece of furniture was making its theatrical debut, as I had managed to leave my old stool at a venue somewhere in the summer and a search online found a new one which looks much more rustic and aged.

Having prepared the set, I then arranged my merchandise (the Staplehurst book, and my souvenir brochures that Ian and I produced a few years ago). I had designed and printed a price list proudly bearing the legend ‘Contaclass Payments Accepted’ but realised that it was still laying on my desk at home, so Kay kindly offered to print off another one (I had the relevant file on my laptop). It was 6 o’clock now and with a full hour before I was due to begin the show the audience were starting to arrive and take their seats, so I withdrew to a large meeting room that Kay had given me for a dressing room. My costumes had just been dry cleaned, and felt fresh and stiff as I got into them. I applied new velcro pads to the lapels, and made sure that the Victorian penny was in the waistcoat. I tied the cravat, using a large flat screen TV as a mirror, and set the pocket watch to the correct time. I was ready. With twenty minutes to go I ran through some lines, actually the extra pieces that make up the two act version of the show, although I wasn’t not performing that programme, I would be on the following evening so it was a good opportunity to remind me of the lines.

Shortly after 7 Kay knocked on the door and said that we were ready to go, so I wrapped my scarf around my neck, placed my top hat on my head and made for the room where I would be preforming. After a short introduction Kay clicked play on the CD player and my opening music filled the room (during the week I had emailed Kay to ask her if she wouldn’t mind operating the sound, and when she replied that she would do that I responded by asking would she rather just do the first cue or would she like to follow the script and do all 5 sound cues? I have never known a faster response to an email and almost before I had hit send, the reply came back ‘JUST ONE!’

The show went well, I was not on a stage but performing on the floor in close proximity to the audience, some of whom remained masked but most not. The small room meant that I didn’t have to project too much and it was nice to be able to be quiet and reflective especially in the Cratchit scenes. The new cast member played his role to perfection, by the way, and looked perfect with the wooden cane laid on it, creating an atmosphere of true pathos. An extra bonus was a deep resonance to the knocking as Scrooge arrives at his Nephew’s house on Christmas morning.

The applause at the end of the show was very generous and long, and after I had taken my bows I stayed on the stage to do a brief Q&A session which was fun, before putting on my mask and taking up station at the merchandise table where I sold plenty of books and the new contactless terminal performed well.

The audience drifted away into the night and I was able to get changed again. By the time I emerged from my meeting room all of my props and furniture had been carried to the front door, and as I emerged onto the streets the bells were ringing out from the nearby cathedral (Tuesday night is campanology practice night), it was a lovely way to be welcomed to the street and reminded me of Scrooge flinging his windows open on Christmas morning to be greeted by the joyous peal of bells: ‘He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing out the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clang, hammer; ding, dong, bell. Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang, clash! Oh, glorious, glorious!’

I was back in my hotel just after 9 but the kitchens in the small lobby restaurant had already closed, so I ordered a pizza via Uber Eats, which was duly delivered and I wound down my evening laying on the bed watching a documentary about the super volcano under the Yellowstone National Park.

On Wednesday morning I have a 6 hour drive to the other end of the country to perform again and then it is time to make preparations for my return to America on Friday.

Why Kansas City?

Tags

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, Dickens on the Strand, Mid Continent Public Library, The Dickens Holiday Fair

As the final ‘Bonus Blog’ of this part of tour I would like to address a question that came up at every venue during my time with the Mid Continent Public Library System, ‘Why do you come to the Kansas City area?’ The answer dates not only back to the very start of my USA touring in 1995 (although from one conversation yesterday I now think it may have even been 1994), but in fact even further back to 1974 when the first seeds for my attachment to Kansas City were sewn.

The story starts in Galveston Texas where members of the Galveston Historical Foundation, an organisation dedicated to the preservation and regeneration of the historic downtown area of the island city situated in the Gulf of Mexico a little south of Houston, decided to stage a Christmas festival to raise funds and awareness. Feeling that the festival should have a theme the Foundation decided to utilize the name of the main thoroughfare The Strand, which took its name from the street in London. So, a Christmas festival with an attachment to London led to the marketing team tapping into America’s love affair with Charles Dickens and A Christmas Carol, the festival would be Christened Dickens on the Strand, even though Charles never wrote about, or visited Texas. The temperatures in Galveston in December are warm and pleasant so it was decided to make ‘Dickens’ an open air event, with the city sealing off a large area to traffic. Vendors would be able to rent space and booths to hawk their wares, whilst a number of stages were erected so that there could be a constant programme of music and entertainment throughout the fair. Actors in exquisite Victorian costumes were booked to walk the streets and a Grand Parade would be held with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at its head.

Visitors to the festival would have to pay an entrance fee to attend, but the board took an inspired decision to give a 50% discount for anyone wearing Victorian costume. Everyone likes a bargain, so it was assured that the streets would be filled with young urchins in caps and tatty waistcoats and pretty maidens in recycled bridesmaid’s dresses. Back in 1974 My father’s cousin and Charles’ great grand daughter Monica Dickens was living on Cape Cod and accepted an invitation to attend the inaugural festival thereby beginning the tradition of there being a member of the Dickens family at every event. After Monica the ebullient Cedric Dickens took over for a few years after which he passed the baton on to my father, David who attended with my mother at his side. During his tenure Dad presided over a great banquet during which he would regale the guests with readings from A Christmas Carol. My parents also took pride of place in the Grand Parade, siting in a horse drawn coach waving to the cheering crowds. Mum and dad loved their time at Galvaston and embraced the America zeal to do things on a giant scale with relish.

During his time at Galvaston Dad met with some folk either came from Kansas City or had relatives there, I don’t recall which, but who were keen to stage a similar event there. Of course the December weather in Missouri is not quite as reliable as that on the Gulf coast, so the new event would be held indoors, with the large downtown Convention Center being picked as s suitable venue. To ensure a suitably Victorian atmosphere the Missouri Rep theatre company where brought on board to build huge sets representing London street scenes, as well as costumes for Dickensian characters. Dad was invited to be a consultant on all things Dickensian and through himself into the project. The Dickens Holiday Fair launched in 1993 and Mum and Dad were there, at the centre of everything, signing, reading, parading.

In that same winter, back in England, I was making my first steps into the world of performing the works of Charles Dickens as I gave a single reading to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of A Christmas Carol. I so enjoyed the project and received praise for it, that I looked at reprising the event the following year. My father was excited and proud that I was beginning to show some interest in our illustrious forbear and kept a close eye on my progress. Little did I know that he had an ulterior motive, for he and my mother had decided that their international travelling days were over and he was keen to promote my new show to both festivals. During the summer one of the senior board members from Gaveston was visiting England and Dad invited her to lunch. When the date was fixed he asked if I could arrange a performance of my show somewhere as a sort of audition. I found a venue, a private room above a pub, and a goodly crowd attended. I obviously did a decent job for I was invited to attend the next Galvaston Festival and on the back of that The Holiday Fair in KC also came on board. Details were sorted out by a good friend of mine, Paul Standen, who acted as manager to this fledgling performer, and soon I was boarding an American Airlines flight to Houston.

As this is not a story of Galveston I will simply say that I thoroughly enjoyed that festival and when it was all over I flew from Houston to Kansas City for the second leg of my adventure. Although I arrived on Sunday the Holiday Fair was not due to to open until the following Friday meaning that I had four unfilled days. There was a certain amount of media work to do but the organisers of the Holiday Fair rather wanted me out in the community spreading the word, rather than lounging in a hotel suite doing nothing, so they contacted the board of the Mid Continent Public Library and suggested that I make appearances in a couple of branches. I could do a reading as well as talking about the weekend’s event and try to encourage guests to visit.

My first evening’s commitment was at Raytown Library and I remember it vividly for there was an awful ice storm that night. I had never seen anything like that before and across the city fires were breaking out as power cables came down under the weight of ice. I seem to remember that we did a bit of Q&A on that occasion too and the same question that inspired this blog post was asked – ‘why did you come to Raytown? I answered: ‘The weather!’ The marketing team at Mid Continent had done a good job and there was a reporter and photographer at the library and the next Morning at breakfast my phot dominated the front page of the Kansas City Star’s arts section.

And that is how I came to perform in the Kansas City area and specifically for MCPL. Sadly the Holiday Fair didn’t survive and folded a year or two later, but I still kept coming back to Missouri and Mid Continent Public Library service is now my longest running venue.

I wrote the first half of this post at KC airport and then put the laptop away for my flight and as we soared towards our cruising altitude we passed over the top of the Convention Center, with its distinctive four towers, where it all began for me.

Thank You Missouri

Tags

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, Colbern Road, Ebenezer Scrooge, Mid Continent Public Library

Sunday 14 November was to be my final day of the the first leg of my 2021 tour, and I would be performing a Christmas Carol twice more. Kimberly was due to pick me up at 11.45, so I had the morning to myself. Slowly my body clock was beginning to catch up with reality (just in time to be completely confused again), and instead or waking at 3, I slept through to 4.45 which I know sounds ridiculously early (it is), but it marked some kind of progress! Having written and then breakfasted I returned to my room ready to enjoy a full morning of Grand Prix racing! I had discovered that not only would ESPN be showing the Brazilian Grand Prix live, but also the full British Sky F1 pre race build-up, which would start at 9. I made sure that I had fresh shirts for the two shows and that my second costume (the first was still in Kimberly’s car along with my hat and cane), was complete and ready. There would be no chance to return to the hotel between shows so I needed to have everything prepared for the whole day.

Preparations completed, I switched on the TV and became immersed in the murky world of Formula 1 politics – there had been lots of controversy over the weekend and various penalties had been meted out, not least to Lewis Hamilton, the British champion, who due to a technical infringement had been relegated to the back of the field for the ‘Sprint Race’ (held on Saturday to determine the starting grid for the main race), and even though he had fought through the field to finish 5th in that encounter, he had another penalty which took him back to 10th on the grid, so it had been a difficult weekend for him so far. There was a real sense of anticipation from Brazil which was infectious.

As race time approached I made another coffee and ate a muffin that I had brought up from the breakfast buffet. For 45 minutes I was able to relish what seemed to be one of the classic races as Hamilton surged through the field to be close behind the leader, his championship rival Max Verstappen. The race was just building towards a very exciting second half when the phone rang and the cheery girl on the front desk told me that ‘your ride is waiting’! Sigh, but work called.

We were returning to the Midwest Genealogy Center again, so there were to be no surprises in store, and as we arrived everything was being readied: Sara and her team were getting the stage ready and Lindsey was practising the sound cues in the technical booth. Philip and Ruby were setting up their i-phone cameras ready to broadcast my show to those who wanted to follow the live stream, rather than being in a live audience and in general there was a sense of concentrated activity in the room. Having hung my costume in the green room, I draped the red shawl (which represents Scrooge’s blanket, as well as becoming a representation of Tiny Tim), over the chair and once again hid the mice in the foliage of the Christmas tree which decorated the set. Lindsey had a couple of questions about the sound effects for A Christmas Carol, so we discussed those and also developed a system to ensure that the microphone was on, to avoid a repetition of the previous day’s mistake.

When all of the preparations were complete Kimberly drove me to the same petrol station that we had visited the day before where we bought a sandwich, fruit and a protein bar (finding one without chocolate was very difficult) and returned to the green room to eat our lunch, as the audience started to arrive. The Dickens carollers were back and doing an amazing job entertaining the crowd with a great zeal and energy which one more was bringing lots of applause and appreciation. At 1.30, with 30 minutes to go, Kimberly left to help the rest of the team and I started to get into costume. At 1.45 I made all of my final checks, shoes tied with double bows to make sure that the laces didn’t unravel with all of the movement, genuine Victorian penny piece in my waistcoat pocket, cravat carefully tied, pocket watch set to the correct time, and I was ready to go.

At 1.55 I switched the mic on and slipped out of the green room and stood at a spot where I could make eye contact with Lindsey, she checked on the sound board that the mic was on and gave me a thumbs up. At 2 Sara began the introductions, encouraging everyone to switch off their phones, and the show began. Once more it felt a very good performance, although annoyingly an electronic beep kept going off – at first I thought it was someone’s phone receiving messages, but as the show went on I began to think that it must be something in the room, for no one would repeatedly let their phone interrupt a show….would they? The most annoying moment was as Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come visited Cratchit’s house and just as I was saying ‘It was quiet. Very quiet’, sur enough the beep beeped. Annoying, but it didn’t disrupt the flow of the story and when I got to the end and took my bows the audience were standing and cheering. The show is in a good place this year, I have kept the pace up and not allowed myself to drift back to the ponderous, overly dramatic performances of previous years in which I tried to give every line drama and gravitas which just led to a serious of long pauses which fragmented the natural rhythm of the narrative.

Back on stage for the Question and answer sessions, and the first came from a young audience member Levi, aged 7, who asked did I prefer being an actor or an author? – A great question which gave me yet another opportunity to shamelessly advertise my new book! The answer though is of course being an actor. The session went on with plenty of good questions, including how did I come up with all of the different voices for the show which led to a sort of masterclass session running through not only the voices but also some of the theatrical ‘tricks’ I use to differentiate characters (citing the conversation between Scrooge and the charity collector on Christmas morning, in which Scrooge holds the hat and cane in one hand and the collector holds them in separate hands – a simple device to create two characters on the same stage together).

Eventually the session came to an end, and having taken another bow I left to change once more as the audience left. When I was back in 21st century garb and my costume was on its hanger, I returned to the room to say good bye and to thank Lindsey, Philip and Ruby for their help through the afternoon.

It was 4pm and Kimberly and I set off for the next venue, the Colbern Road branch of MCPL. As we walked to the car all of the furniture from the set was being loaded onto a large truck ready to take it on to Colbern Road. I have performed there before, but since my last visit the old branch had been flattened and a new, modern, shiny, futuristic steel and glass structure had risen in its place. It made for an impressive sight as we turned off the road and into the parking lot.

Inside was just as impressive, presenting an airy open spacious feel to the lucky library goers who have this in their community. We met with the branch manager, Seth, who showed me around: the room where I was to perform was already laid out with a temporary stage, with a black screen behind, at one side. Having performed in larger spaces over the last two days, this was a return to an old school style of Library performance, under the regular room lighting meaning I would be able to see every expression on everyone’s face throughout the show.

Having checked out the space Seth showed me an area of the library tucked away where I could lay and rest for an hour or so, before I needed to start preparing again, and before laying on couch I glanced at the shelves and what was there? An audiobook of A Christmas Carol recorded by yours truly, featuring a very young and slim image of me.

The rest was very welcome and I lay on the couch until 6, when it was time to go and do a sound check. Back in the room I found Chris, a sound engineer, testing microphones. He had set up two very large speakers (perhaps larger than the space truly warranted), at the front of the stage. I introduced myself and we did a good sound check during which he walked to all corners of the room making adjustments on an i-pad until he was quite satisfied.

Phil and Ruby were back to stream this performance too but Phil was having trouble connecting to a wifi network, without which the streaming would be impossible to achieve. Eventually a system was cobbled together using a personal cell phone as a hotspot and connection was complete. It had been a tense atmosphere in the room and we had to delay letting the audience in until everything was sorted, but that didn’t matter for the good old Dickens Carollers were doing the stuff in the main library.

I retreated to my dressing room (actually an electrical plant room and store room, but quite spacious enough for me to change and relax in) and got into costume. The carollers were now in the ‘theatre’ and I knew their set well enough by this time to know when it was almost show time, I didn’t need to look at my watch.

At 7 they took their much deserved applause, I slipped into the room, Seth stood on the stage and introduced me and the show began.

Seth returned to the stage to host the Q&A and the first question came from Colin in Lincoln. Now, this was an important question, for Colin has been a regular attendee to my shows along with his dad Doug, but this year Colin had suffered a serious illness while at college in Lincoln, Nebraska and was unable to return home to join us (Doug had been at shows the day before and generously given me a gift of banana bread and his favourite blend of coffee!) Colin’s question therefore was his chance to be a part of the event and he was watching the live stream from Lincoln (I was so relieved that Phil had managed to establish the connection therefore.)

The Q&A carried on, with thoughtful questions such as ‘what relevance does A Christmas Carol still have today’ and ‘what lesson would you like us to take away from your performance?’ I was asked if I had ever tried Kansas City barbeque, as my blog mentions all of the places that I eat along the way and BBQ didn’t seem to feature. I am ashamed to admit it in the heart of the best barbeque city in America, but I am not a great fan – I was taken to plenty of restaurants when I used to stay in the heart of downtown Kansas City in my early years, but maybe my delicate British constitution is not fully prepared!

And so my final appearance in Missouri this year wound down to a close, and I returned to my store room to change once more. I thanked all of the library staff and Chris the sound engineer who had done a superb job with all of the effects, and made sure I had everything with me before leaving the magnificent new library at Colbern Road.

Kimberly and I found a restaurant still open on the way home, although we seemed to be the only diners, and then continued the journey back to The Hampton Inn where we arranged to meet at 10 the next morning to get me to the airport in plenty of time to board the first part of my homeward journey,

In my room I hung all of my costumes up on the shower rail in the bathroom, so that they could air well before being packed away in a suitcase, and then it was time to sleep.

Thank you Missouri for looking after me so well.

The Penultimate

Tags

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, Dickens and Staplehurst. A Biogrpahy of a Rail Crash, Liberty Performing Arts Theater, LOnghorn Steakhouse, Mid Continent Public Library, The Signalman

The windy stormy weather of Friday had blown through and given way to another bright sunny Saturday morning, albeit with a winter’s chill to the air. My morning routine is now well set and as usual I wrote my blog and some of my touring memories before heading down to the lobby for breakfast (the oatmeal option this time). I was cheerfully greeted by another guest with whom I shared a ride in the lift the day on Friday. When I had told him that I was from England he went into raptures: ‘Oh! I love you guys, God, you know how to protect your history! I love England! I stayed in Wrexham for a while, such a great place!’ (to be pedantic, Wrexham is in Wales, but we will forgive him that). So, at Saturday breakfast he called across the lobby ‘Hey! My British friend, how are you!’ Which was a nice way to be hailed.

Having finished breakfast I went back to my room where another practice session from Brazil was being broadcast and I watched for an hour, which took me to 10. It wasn’t to be such a lazy day for Saturday would see me performing twice, and Kimberly was due to pick me up at 11.45. Alongside watching tv and having another coffee, I prepared my costume for the first show of the day, another performance of The Signalman, so it was the all black ensemble.

At around 11.30 I had a message saying that Kimberly was stuck in traffic so may be a little late but as it happened it wasn’t long after the agreed pick up time that the front desk called me to say my ride was waiting. We were driving to the Midwest Genealogy Center, where I have performed o a few occasions before. The main performance space there is a large room with a stage at one end, it was obvious from the amount of chairs laid out that the library were expecting a good crowd. The auditorium space was under the directorship of Lindsay, who had set theatre lights ready for the show, and undertook a good sound check, playing with the various levels and settings until everything sounded perfect. I was feeling a little hungry, so Kimberly and I drove to a nearby petrol station to buy some sandwiches and fruit, which I ate in my dressing room as the audience began to arrive.

I got into costume, fixing my microphone before butting up my waistcoat and at 1.55 I left the greenroom and stood on a ramp which leads to the stage (hidden from the audience). As the clock ticked further, I reached round for the switch on the mic and clicked it over as Sara, one of Kimberly’s team who I have worked with many times, took to the stage to make the introductions. Once again the excitement of having live events back in the library service was palpable and there were rounds of applause for almost every part of Sara’s opening remarks. Having gone through all of the official stuff and demonstrated her potential prowess as airline cabin crew, indicating all of the emergency exits, Sara welcomed me to the stage and I began. Strangely my microphone didn’t seem to be on, and I asked the audience ‘am I on?’ the answer came back ‘Yes!’ so on I continued, maybe Lindsay had got an absolutely perfect setting. The first part of The Signalman presentation is given over to talking about Staplehurst, and as I was doing that I was aware of the librarians scurrying around a bit, eventually Sara pushed a note onto the stage which read ‘Microphone Off!’, so I had been right, I reached around and clicked the switch again, and sure enough I was properly amplified.

The Signalman itself was very well received and I was pleased with my rendition of it. It is a piece that I perform spasmodically, but this was the third time I have done it on this trip, as well as once in England shortly before travelling, so it had gained a solidity and confidence that perhaps it doesn’t usually have. When I had finished I talked a little bit more about my writing of the Staplehurst book, which gave the library team an opportunity to collect written questions – the hall being too large to effectively take questions from the floor. Once all the slips had been gathered Sara would host the Q&A, and again there were some good questions: ‘Did Charles Dickens hold the Rail company responsible for the crash?’ ‘Did he have any premonition of the crash?’ While I was answering those questions a huge freight train approached rumbled along the tracks which pass next to the building, so I was able to cry Halloa Below there!’ Sara continued to feed me questions: ‘How did I come to be in Kansas City and how did I first hook up with the Library?’ (maybe the subject of a Bonus Blog), and then the inevitable ‘what age did you get into theatre?’ Cue the Rooster anecdote which of course brought huge amounts of laughter to the room. The final question Sara prefaced with ‘Of course you know that we are all foodies in Kansas City and think that our food is the best in the World, so bearing that in mind, where is your favourite city to eat in?’ Slightly loaded question one may feel! I gave a diplomatic answer saying that if I wanted fine beef then there was nowhere better than Kansas City, but for seafood then coastal cities maybe a better choice. I think I got a away with it.

Time was up and I took further bows before returning to the greenroom to change. When I gave the microphone back to Lindsay we discussed what had happened at the start of the show, she has seen me turn the mic pack on when I was changing (she had it muted on the desk, so there was no worry about me being heard), and then noticed that I turned it off again when I was waiting in the wings, so what must have happened was that I accidentally flicked the switch to on as I dressed, and then just before the show when I thought I was turning it on I was actually doing the opposite. I will be back at The Genealogy Center on Sunday, so we will make sure the same doesn’t occur.

Kimberly took me back to the hotel, briefly, so that I could get the costume for A Christmas Caro, including the top hat, cane and the red shawl, and then we drove on to the evening venue – the Liberty Performing Arts Theater where I would be performing in their 650 seat auditorium. It was dark as we drove and for the first time on this trip I saw Christmas lights adorning neighbourhoods, which gave me a warm glow inside! I will be putting up our own lights at home in the gap between my American trips and as I looked at the multi coloured bulbs twinkling, and caught glimpses of trees bedecked with white and golden lights, I really felt that Christmas was on the way.

Walking into the auditorium I could instantly see that it was going to be fun night – the stage was huge and would give me plenty of scope to play with.

Although the auditorium was large it felt remarkably intimate, helped by the stage curving out, as if reaching to the audience. Sara and other members of the team were decorating a small tree which would adorn my set and I thought that would be the perfect place for my daughters’ little mice to hide and watch the show from, so I hid them away among the boughs and baubles.

Far away at the back of the hall was stationed Lyndal in her tech box, and I mounted the steps so that we could discuss sound cues etc, when all of that was finished I descended to stage level again to do a sound check and, as with Lindsay earlier in the day, Lyndal spent plenty of time finding exactly the correct balance before pronouncing herself satisfied.

With the preparations completed I retired to my dressing room, where a wave of tiredness came over me and my body seemed to switch off – no energy. It may seem strange to say, but I wasn’t concerned by this. It is often the case that before a big show (and this was going to be a big show), the body seems to recognise that a huge amount of adrenaline and energy are going to be required shortly so it shuts down slightly, preserving itself. Sometimes in such circumstances I am almost on the point of sleep. I pulled up to chairs and just sat, alone, relaxing. I played a little backgammon on my phone, and waited.

With 30 minutes to go I got into my costume and starting waking myself up. On stage The Dickens Carollers, who are often called in by the library to entertain the audience as they arrive, were singing beautifully to loud rounds of applause: this was going to be a good night I felt. There is something wonderful about the solitude and anticipation of standing in a dark wing space in a theatre, preparing to perform. Even when I used to be in productions with a large cast I would always try to be alone in those final moments.

And then it was time to start. Steve Potter was due to make my introductions. Steve is the Director and CEO of Mid Continent Public Library, so an important man, but I first met him in 1995 when he was a branch manager at Blue Springs South, where one of his team was Kimberly: these two have been part of the system through my entire time performing for Mid Continent and are dear and good friends (Indeed, this year Kimberly celebrated 40 years with the organisation, which is an astounding achievement).

Steve made his introductory remarks and once again the announcement of the recommencement of live programmes brought a loud round of applause. He welcomed me to the stage, the first music cue started and I began my slow walk to Marley’s grave and began. The first clue as to how the evening was going to go would be when I broke the fourth wall for the first time, telling the audience that ‘I dont know what there is particularly dead about a doornail, do you?’ The response to the line was loud laughter and when I asked them to reiterate that Marley was as dead as a….’ the cry of ‘DOORNAIL!’ was enthusiastic and joyful. Yes, this was going to be a great night.

I loved every second of my time on that stage, in that theatre, it was energising, exciting, invigorating, and the audience were along for the ride at every moment. Once more I tried my new trick of velcroing the black frock coat to create the dark spectre, and once again I did it too early – more work needed on that effect, but I will persevere.

The standing ovation at the end was amazing, and I took bows to all sides of the auditorium as they cheered and whooped. I eventually retreated to the wings as Steve took to the stage ready to host the Q&A. The library team had already gathered plenty of questions, and Steve began running through them and we formed quite the double act up there. Some questions were familiar (how did you first start doing A Christmas Carol leading to the anecdote of losing the script in Tennessee), and then there were others such as ‘Where did the name Scrooge come from? ‘In these days of pandemic and isolation is there a parallel to be drawn with Scrooge’s solitude and ultimate reformation?’ ‘What age are you?’, and one from Gwen aged 6, just checking on the validity of my claims to be part of the Dickens family, with the testing ‘What was your grandfather’s name?’ It was fun session and maybe ran longer than it should have, but we were all having such a good time it was lovely to keep going. Eventually Kimberly whispered to Steve that it was time to wrap up and after taking one more round of applause I returned to the dressing room.

I changed and returned to the stage to retrieve the various bits and bobs that belong to me, and I rescued the girls’ mice as the library staff packed away all of the decorations from the tree. Lyndal was on the stage and I thanked her for all of the tech expertise (the cues had all come in at the perfect moment and levels, and had faded out as necessary). She was very excited and saying ‘you guys must come back again, I LOVED this evening!’

Kimberly and I loaded up the car and we drove back to the Longhorn Steakhouse near to my hotel where we met up with Steve for a lovely dinner. We chatted about libraries and communities, and I showed them images of The Word, where I perform in the UK, which they were suitably impressed by. We laughed about Steve’s name (he had touched on this during my answer about Scrooge’s name earlier), saying that for years, until JK Rowling came to his assistance, he had always been known as Mr Potter, the curmudgeonly old banker from Its a Wonderful Life. He said that on becoming Director of Mid Continent Public Library the first email he sent to all of the staff was instructing them to call him Steve and NOT MR POTTER!

It was late now, we were the only ones in the restaurant, except the staff who were sat around in their coats, and the adrenaline that had allowed me to sail on the stage that night was subsiding and exhaustion was returning. It was time to leave,

Sunday 14 November will be my last day of this leg and two more performances of a Christmas Carol will bring it to a close.