To Cheshire and Weaver Words

Tags

A Christmas Carol, A Christmas Carol film, Best Western Hotels, Charles Dickens, Cheshire, Dickens and Staplehurst. A Biogrpahy of a Rail Crash, Frodhsam, NPR, Overton Hill, Weaver Words Literary Festival

My Spring tour continued on Saturday night when I headed North once more, this time to the county of Cheshire where I had been booked to perform as part of the Weaver Words Literary Festival in the small town of Frodsham which nestles at the point where the River Weaver joins the mighty Mersey. I have performed for the festival before, so this promised to be a nice return to a county that I very much enjoy.

As I mentioned last week, I was to perform Great Expectations, which is quite an involved and complicated script, and I had been going over and over the lines for a few weeks previously. Fortunately by Saturday Liz’s car had been fully repaired so I didnt need to hire another van, but could load up my trusty Renault with the various pieces of furniture that I required, including the white hat stand that forms Miss Havisham’s skeleton.

The drive was considerably shorter than that of 7 days earlier, taking only three hours, and I arrived at my hotel at 4pm, which gave me plenty of time to rest before preparing for the show. I was due to meet Philip Reeves, a radio journalist working for America’s National Public Radio, but based in England. We were due to contact each other by phone to arrange a good time to meet and talk before the show, but as it happened we didn’t need to, for we arrived at The Best Western hotel at exactly the same, and, having recognised me from my various online images, he introduced himself to me at the desk. We arranged to meet up in the lobby at 5.30 to record part of the feature that he was making.

I went to my room, watched some TV (the Snooker World Championship) before having a shower to freshen up and then heading to the hotel foyer where Philip was already waiting. We found a small conservatory space in which the inevitable muzak was not being played and settled down to chat, for his technique was very conversational, rather than a barrage of pre-prepared questions. We started talking about my background and career but soon he steered the conversation around to the current BBC adaptation of Great Expectations, which was his main focus. The show has created a great deal of controversy, for it doesn’t portray the soft-focus Victorian age than many would want or expect to see on a Sunday night. Instead the series is dark, violent, and not at all reflecting what Charles Dickens wrote in 1861. There are scenes of sadism, opium smoking, suicide, murder and all of this is laced with a foul-mouthed vocabulary which would make a maiden aunt blush.

So, what do I think about Great Expectations? Well, firstly I must say that I admire and accept any author’s attempt to adapt any work, by the very nature of the process every single adaptation (my own stage shows included) will be flawed and not reflect the original author’s vision. The only way to experience a pure telling of a novel is to read that novel. I therefore respect the producers and their decision to tell the story in their own way, I don’t even have an issue with their changing of plotlines and characters to tell their story. The truth is, that whatever a screenwriter does, however wild their vision, they will never taint the works of my great great grandfather – he is too big for that. Indeed, the very fact that hard-nosed producers are still investing millions of dollars into new adaptations is proof as to his standing, even a quarter of the way through the 21st century. So by mucking about with Great Ex, the memory and legacy of Charles Dickens will not be harmed, I am sure of that, So, what next? Well one of my major problems with the new version is why Great Expectations? It has been done so often (Helena Bonham-Carter, Gillian Anderson and Gwyneth Paltrow have all played Miss Havisham in recent years) and I don’t understand the need to do it yet again (says the actor who was preparing to perform his own adaptation!) If you are going ‘off the wall’ then why not choose one of the lesser-known novels which would not excite the same level of public outcry? I think the series was flawed as soon as they chose Great Expectations.

My second point about the show is that it has to stand up as a piece of theatre or entertainment on its own, without relying on the controversy to give it it legs, and this is where it disappoints me, I have found myself following it out of duty, rather than with any desire to see what is going to happen. I have found my mind wandering and getting a little bored by the whole thing. Some of the scenes and characters I admire, and can see how the original influenced them, but it will finish when it finishes and not leave any waves behind it.

Phillip and I chatted for about 40 minutes, with him gently prodding me to denounce the adaptation, raising many of the criticisms that have been aired and published in recent weeks for me to comment on. By 6.15 I needed to leave for the hall to prepare for the show, so we wrapped up the interview for now, and I drove the 5 minutes to The Frodsham Community Centre. In the carpark there were a few early audience members waiting for the doors to open (they are keen in the North West), and I unloaded all of my props. My contact with the Weaver Words Festival is Lynn Pegler and having greeted one another I started to place all of the furniture in the correct places. The set is dominated by a Miss Havisham figure standing upstage left, made from the white hatstand draped with various white and ivory fabrics to create the image of a stately bride.

When everything was in its correct place I went to the main hallway to introduce Phillip to Lynn (he was going to record some of the show for his feature) and found that there was a long queue waiting to come in, and many of them offered greetings as they had seen me in other venues throughout Cheshire and on Merseyside. I have quite a following now in this part of the country and love performing for what can be the most enthusiastic audiences imaginable. Having shaken a few hands and said a few hellos, I retired to my dressing room where I dressed and prepared for the evening ahead.

At 7.30 Lynn came to the dressing room to check that I was ready and then went to the stage to welcome the almost sell-out audience, and to introduce me. I stood in the wings, eager to begin like a caged Lion desperate to be released. Fortunately the opening lines are explosive, as the character of Magwitch pounces on Pip in the churchyard. The story is quite dark and intense, but is punctuated by Dickens’s trademark humour (rather overlooked by the BBC). In the opening scenes the audience chuckle and laugh at Pip’s sister, Mrs Joe Gargery, but are then taken into the confusing and domineering world of Miss Havisham at Satis House.

The first act went very well and was greeted by warm applause, which is always a relief with this particular show. I changed from the working clothes of the first act into the smart frock coat ensemble needed in the second, to reflect Pip’s progress from the Kentish Marshes to the respectability of London. I made sure the stage was cleared of the detritus of the first act (scattered playing cards and various items of costume), and then patiently waited until Lynn once again appeared.

The second act features dear old Wemmick and his Aged Parent as comic relief, before getting back to Pip’s frustrations regarding the beautiful Estella and the revelation as to the real provider of his great expectations. Very frustratingly I missed two lines of dialogue between Pip and Magwitch in which the convict, returned from Australia, introduces himself – this meant that the audience never knew that he is called Magwitch, or had used the pseudonym of Provis, making some of the later scenes potentially very confusing. Most annoying, especially after all the work I’d put in. Hey, ho, sometimes these things happen and I just had to put it from my mind and concentrate on doing a good job for the rest of the show.

In my script I use the second ending that Dickens wrote, in which he meets the ruin of Estella in the ruins of Satis House, the novel closes with them hand in hand, leaving the desolate grounds and hopefully into a life together.

Apart from my missed line, it was very good, energetic and convincing performance, and the applause at the end told me that it had hit the right marks with the audience. When the clapping had died down I opened the floor to questions, and was asked about the 2 endings to Great Expectations, about how Dickens had performed when he was on tour, naturally about the TV series, about my childhood experiences in the shadow of Charles and a few others. Eventually I wrapped up the evening and took another round of applause before making my way to the little merchandise table from which I sold my book, some A Christmas Carol brochures, as well as the DVD of A Christmas Carol. Lots of people came to chat and pose for photos. One particularly gratifying comment came from two separate ladies (I suppose that makes it two comments) who both told me that they were hard of hearing and yet could hear every word of my show. Good old fashioned projection and enunciation has always been a central part of my enjoyment when performing, and to have confirmation that my vocal talents are still working successfully is important to me.

Eventually the audience departed and having posed for a few photos on stage with the various volunteers from the festival, including Irina, a children’s author from the Ukraine, I started to change into my normal clothes and pack up the car again. It was around 10.30 when I left the hall, and realised that I hadn’t made any provision for dinner – the hotel restaurant would be closed, and there wasn’t much in the way of local restaurants who may be able to deliver at that time of night. Fortunately I had noticed a petrol station in the town, which had a convenience store attached and it lived up to its title for it was conveniently open. I bought a sandwich, some crisps, a box of little strawberry tarts for my dessert and drove back to the hotel where I sat on the bed watching a film on TV as my mind and my body gently wound down for the night.

The next morning I woke early and headed to the dining room at 7am, when the breakfast serviced started. The room was circular with floor to ceiling windows giving an impressive view of the landscape outside. The hotel is built on the top of Overton Hill which is a commanding position, and the scene before me was made more dramatic by squally rain that was sweeping across the countryside. I was looking over Mersey river, flowing inland from Liverpool, the Weaver and towards the towns of Runcorn and Widnes on the opposite banks.

Having finished my breakfast, it was soon time to get on the road and head back south once more, It had been a successful two weeks and it was good to back touring again and to feel the enthusiasm of the audiences. After a time away from the stage it is always reassuring to know that I can still do it, and that the public still enjoy it. The rest of my year is well booked with more visits to the North, the south and into Wales, and then of course I will be returning to America for my 30th anniversary tour in November and December – an exciting year, indeed.

‘Clash, clang, hammer; ding, dong, bell. Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang, clash!’ Quite a Way to End!

Tags

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, Ebenezer Scrooge, Leicester Cathedral, Leicester Guildhall, Mr Fezziwig

The final day of my 2021 Christmas performance season was in the City of Leicester, in The Midlands. It has become something of a tradition over the years that on the 23rd December I perform a matinee and an evening show in the amazing surroundings of the Guildhall’s Great Hall, which was built at the end of the 14th Century. The room is timber framed and at the centre there is a huge fireplace which is always lit during my visit to warm the sell-out audiences that always attend.

With the Café Royal’s sad cancellation, I had spent my free day with Liz and the girls, and in the evening we had visited the Silverstone race track, where we had attempted to ice skate (I had a great fear that I would fall awkwardly, thus making my rendition of Tiny Tim rather too real), and then drove a very slow lap of the track to admire the light and laser show that had been installed for the Christmas season.

On Thursday morning the car was a prop carrying vehicle once more and I was back on the road. As I drove, the radio programme which was playing asked listeners to supply their favourite questions for Christmas quizzes, and one chap phoned in with the inevitable ‘How many ghosts visit Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol?’ The answer being, of course, four (Marley and the ghosts of Past, Present and Future), but then somebody else texted in with the pedantic opinion that as ‘Yet to Come’ was from the future it couldn’t be considered a ghost, so the answer was three after all. My solution to this celestial conundrum was to include the words ‘on Christmas Eve’ after the question, which means the answer is one, as only Marley appears before midnight, although there is the issue of the air filled ‘…with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley’s Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free.’, but technically they haven’t actually visited Scrooge, so don’t count!

I arrived at Leicester at 11, and parked as close as I could to the venue and started carrying the furniture down the narrow cobbled alley which runs between The Guildhall and Leicester Cathedral with its tall spire.

I was welcomed by Ben Ennis, a friend of many years standing, and we chatted for a while, catching up on our news. Ben had caught Long Covid very early on, and suffered for many months. Although understandably he had been extremely cautious, worn a mask and kept away from crowds, he actually caught it again, thankfully this second time he recovered within a couple of weeks. I asked him if the Guildhall’s audience numbers were being affected by cancellations (after the Café Royal’s experience I was nervous during these last days), and he said although some had called, their tickets had been snapped up by those on the waiting list, so he wasn’t too worried.

Once the car was unloaded I had to move it to a nearby car park and as I walked back I saw that Jubilee Square was filled with a huge Ferris Wheel and a skating rink – I knew from experience that noise from the square accompany would my performance, and I resigned myself to the fact there may be distractions for both me and the audience – little did I know then that later I would have given my right arm to just have the noise from the ice rink in the background!

My changing room at The Guildhall is The Jury Room, from where I can hear the audience gathering and on Thursday the afternoon crowd sounded a lively bunch, and very Christmassy. There was a lot of laughter and loud conversation, which boded extremely well.

At 1pm I went to the back of the hall, and slowly walked through the masked audience, with my scarf pulled up over my face, until I reached the stage. I was right, the audience were imbued with the spirit of Christmas, and we all shared a great afternoon together. Unfortunately there wasn’t a big enough staff to spare anyone to follow the script and look after the sound cues, so apart from the opening music I was performing unplugged, meaning that Mr Fezziwig had to dance without the strains of Sir Roger de Coverly to give him rhythm, but he managed quite well.

The show finished at around 3pm and I took my bows to loud applause and returned to the Jury Room to change. It has been a tradition in Leicester that between shows Ben has brought in a Christmas lunch of Turkey and all of the trimmings and so, with various staff members and his family, we have celebrated the season with good fellowship, but of course this year we couldn’t gather, which was a shame. Ben made up for this loss by presenting me with a turkey sandwich, some fresh fruit, and a trifle, which I took back to my hotel room, where I lay on the bed and watched television until it was time to get ready for the evening show.

When I arrived at The Guildhall, there were already audience members waiting for the door to be opened, and soon a steady stream were making their way in reserving their seats, before availing themselves of mulled wine.

Once again it was almost a full house and once again the audience seemed in great spirits, boding well for a fine send off to the ’21 tour. But, this wasn’t going to be an easy show by any stretch of the imagination.

I was not far in when the bell ringers in the cathedral began their weekly practice, and spent time perfecting their loudest and most complex peals. Every scene was accompanied, indeed almost drowned out, by the constant noise, making it difficult to concentrate. Every so often a particular peal would end, and you could almost feel the sigh of relief in the hall, which turned to disappointment as the next one began. The Leicester Cathedral bell ringers are a dedicated bunch, I will give them that! The interval arrived and still the bells rang and crashed. Ben apologised, although there is nothing he could have done to prevent it, and said that they would probably finish within about twenty minutes of the second half beginning. That SHOULD just about have been OK for Bob Cratchit returning home without Tim on his shoulder – the narrator says that it ‘was quiet. Very quiet’, and it is one of my favourite moments in the show, for I can feel the emotion and tension of an entire audience in that moment – crashing bells wouldn’t be appropriate.

I started act two and sure enough eventually the Cathedral Tinnitus ended, allowing me my moment of peace. The Cratchit scene passed and the atmosphere that builds through the final quarter seemed to be well established, until unbelievably a nearby security alarm went off and the rest of the show was accompanied by a loud, screeching ‘whoop whoop whoop whoop’ which didn’t end until the very final sentence of the story. I at least made was able to make an adlib, which broke the ice somewhat, by saying ‘Yes, the bedpost was his own, the bed was his own, the room was his own, the alarm was his own…..’ which was greeted by a loud cheer and even a cry of ‘Brilliant!’ That was rather overstating it, but it proved that we had all been battling the same intrusions into our fantasy world, together.

The show came to an end and the the hall erupted into applause and I earned a standing ovation which was a very fitting end to a wonderful season of performances – it has been apparent that audiences in both the UK and America have needed entertainment after such a difficult two years (I remember the same phenomenon in 2001, post 9-11) and have come out in good numbers to see the show, but have remained respectful of the wishes of others, whether that has meant wearing a mask throughout the show, or distancing in an auditorium.

My decision not to undertake long formal signing sessions has allowed me to conduct the question and answer sessions after the shows which have proved very popular.

What does 2022 hold for me? Of course we cannot tell, but there are a couple of new books in the pipeline, one of which is all about the history of my tours and the development of the show (I may even include the script…), and if everything works well that will be available for sale when I tour next year.

I will also get back to my running, which I have rather let lapse during the 2nd half of this year, with the aim of completing a half marathon before the year is out.

In the meantime, thank you to all of the audience members who have joined me for the ride this year and to the many people who have allowed me to perform in their venues, I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a happy, healthy New Year.

Don’t Break a Leg!

Tags

A Christmas Carol, Applebbe's, Beechwood Hotel, Best Western, Byers'Choice, Charles Dickens, Courtyard by Marriott, Ebenezer Scrooge, Lenox, London, McDonalds, Pleasant Valley Nature Reserve, The Country Cupboard

Monday was all mine to do as I liked in. So, long as by the end of it I ended up in Lewisburg Pennsylvania, I had no timetable or agenda.

Throughout the tour so far, the weather has been clear, bright, cold and beautiful and when I pulled opened the curtains, I fully expected to be greeted by the same sight that Ebenezer Scrooge saw on Christmas day: ‘No fog. No mist, but clear, bright, shining, golden sunlight’, unfortunately, it was the opposite to that, for there was a low, misty cloud hanging low over the mountains and the ground glistened wet from a light, but steady rainfall. But I was not going to let a little rain upset my morning. I am from Britain – we ‘do’ rain there.

I went down to the lobby and once again ordered the yoghurt, granola and fruit bowl. Due to staffing issues all hotels are struggling to provide the full service and at The Courtyard in Lenox there was only a very limited breakfast menu. It is the same with housekeeping services, every hotel that I have stayed in has informed me on check-in that there is no housekeeping service available, and if there is anything specifically that I need, I should ask at the front desk.

I took my breakfast to a table and removed my mask as I ate, and as I sat another man arrived and went through the process of ordering his. Once he had made his selection, the lady behind the counter asked if he would like it on a tray or in a bag. He asked her to repeat what she had said, so she replied, ‘would you like it in a bag?’ ‘What?’ he barked back at her. ‘A BAG!’ she repeated. ‘Madam, if you insist on not removing your mask, I cannot hear what you say!’ At which he grabbed his breakfast items and stomped off to a table where he angrily consumed his morning feast. It all seemed a trifle unnecessary.

Back in my room I had a fair amount of admin to do, not only sorting out details for forthcoming shows, but also liaising with Bob Byers about booking the Covid test that I am going to need before flying home in a week’s time. He had managed to find a testing station that will tie in with my various events towards the end of the week and booked an appointment for me at a convenient time.

Work finished, I packed up my cases and at 10.00 left the room. It was still drizzling outside, but I wanted my morning of fresh air and exercise, so I followed the road signs that I had noticed the day before to the Pleasant Valley Nature Reserve. The narrow road took me through woodland, where there were wonderful remote houses hiding away, and then slowly rose uphill. The surface looked muddy, but soon I realised that it was quite hard-packed ice, and the wheels were slipping and spinning: AT LAST! I could engage the All-Wheel Drive system which had thus far been redundant.

I reached the entrance to the reserve and as the office was closed on a Monday, I just took myself in and began to explore. There was a large map displayed and it showed that there were various trails, of different lengths, winding through the woodland and up onto the mountain side, so I just followed the signs and plunged into the undergrowth. It was still damp and the mist hang low over the trees, creating some mysterious and menacing views.

Some of the trails were closed due to storm damage, so I simply followed where I could. Eventually I started to climb, over rocks and branches and streams, and as I got higher, so the ice and piles of hardened snow covered more of the ground. Although this was a nature reserve, I didn’t see any animals or birds, although there was an occasional screech from far away.

As I climbed higher, and began to slip on some of the rocks, I began to think that maybe I had pushed my luck too far, for if I slipped and fell, breaking a leg, I would be alone on the side of a mountain, with no help for miles around. It was time to return to the car, and I very cautiously clambered back down until I saw a gleam of deep red through the trees.

And now it was time to drive. The journey to Lewisburg would take 4 and a half hours, and it was now 12pm. I set the SatNav unit, and left Lenox for another year. The route took me along some beautiful roads, which skirted the mountain, giving me some incredible views, despite the low cloud. I was very surprised after not long driving to discover myself crossing the state line into New York, I had no idea that it was so close, and soon I was joining the New York Throughway, a road that runs straight down the middle of the state. There were signs to Albany, Buffalo (I thought of the lovely elderly couple in The Beechwood Hotel in Worcester), Syracuse and even, at one intersection, Montreal.

After a while I pulled into a rest center and feasted on a McDonalds, before filling my little rouge Rogue up with fuel and continuing southwards passed through The Catskills and later on, when I had made it to Pennsylvania, over The Poconos.

For company I was still listening to the various podcasts about the forthcoming Ashes series, but eventually my phone lost any signal and instead I started playing my Christmas playlist, which actually I haven’t listened to much on this trip. There were all my old friends, Nat King Cole, Johnny Mathis, Bing, Lucy Rose, The Beach Boys, The Peanuts (via Vince Guaraldi) and the rest, who accompanied me across The Susquehanna River and to the very familiar Best Western hotel at The Country Cupboard store.

I checked in (being told that there was no housekeeping service) and made my way through seemingly endless corridors to the room that they always give me here, a large room with a whirlpool bath! As soon as I was settled, I ran the taps and let it fill, which took a long time (in fact it took a very long time, because I hadn’t closed the plug properly, and when I came to check the water was barely covering the bottom of the bath). Eventually it filled and I luxuriated in a bubbling, frothing tub!

Later in the evening I took myself to a nearby Applebee’s restaurant and dined on a Cajun Salmon dish (although the ‘Cajun’ aspect seemed somewhat lacking) and finished off with a very rich chocolate pud. The restaurant was filled with lots of rowdy locals, and I sat quietly at my corner table, minding my own business, watching, observing. Three guys sat at the bar, two had baseball caps on back to front, whereas the other wore his the right way round, and I wondered if there were any hierarchy involved, or if the one guy didn’t want to conform the stereotype of the other two. Actually, of course, it was just three guys wearing hats, but the musings passed a little time!

When I returned to the hotel it was windy and there was a little rain whipping about in the air, but soon I was inside and and settled down for the night, ready to perform twice at The Country Cupboard store on Tuesday.

An afterthought: when I arrived at the hotel I was chatting to Liz online, and she asked me to tell her a joke. Not able to think of anything on the spur of the moment, I quickly searched online and, among a few others, I found this: Q: What did Charles Dickens keep in his spice rack? A: It was the best of thymes and it was tye worst of thymes!

Memories from the Mid Continent Public Library Service.

Tags

Baseball, Kansas City, Library, Mid Continent Public Library, Snow

It was no surprise that following the pictures from Omaha my phone should choose to then remind me of my times in the Kansas City area, for the two venues, being geographically close, inevitably have been paired on my tour during recent years.

Woodneath Library Centre

The picture that my phone produced was from two years ago as I prepared to perform at the Woodneath Library in Liberty, Missouri, but my relationship with the Mid Continent Library Service, who own and manage Woodneath, is not a recent one – oh, no, I have been performing there for longer than any other venue on my tour. My first visit was in 1995.

My career as a performer of Charles Dickens’ work began in England in 1993. That year marked the 150th anniversary of the first publication of A Christmas Carol and I, as an actor, had been approached by a local charity asking me to recreate one of my great great grandfather’s famous readings as a fundraiser. I reluctantly agreed, and that decision changed my life.

In 1994 I performed The Carol a few times in the UK and one show was watched by a representative from the Galveston Dickens Festival where my Dad had been appearing for the past three years. After the show we all chatted. My father didn’t wish to travel any more and was keen for me to take over the mantle, he had made the introduction with a view to making that happen.

And sure enough, when December ’95 came around I was on a plane heading to Texas. I spent a weekend becoming part of ‘Dickens on the Strand’ which was an amazing time, but when Sunday evening came I didn’t fly home to England, I boarded a flight for Kansas City, Missouri.

The superb festival in Galveston had inspired a similar event in Kansas City which was the brainchild of the Missouri Rep Theater Company and my father had worked closely with them over the previous two years as a consultant. He had attended the inaugural festival in ’94 and now I was stepping into his shoes to carry on the legacy.

But there was a timetabling problem: The Galveston festival finished on Sunday evening and the Kansas City one wouldn’t begin until the next Friday, leaving me doing nothing for four days in a rather luxurious hotel.

Enter the Mid Continent Library Service. The Charles Dickens Holiday Fair organisers thought it would be great publicity for their festival if I could get out and perform in front of as many people in as many areas around downtown Kansas City as I could, encouraging them to visit the Convention Center at the weekend. The library service, which is based in Independence, has branches all over the Kansas City region (thirty-five currently) and so presented the perfect solution.

During that first year I was conducted from venue to venue by a lady named Linda who was volunteer with the festival. I remember that she had a stylishly coiffured bob of platinum blonde hair and wore a large fur coat, so dark that it was almost black: she looked a bit like a walking pint of Guinness!

In those days I used to perform three times a day and, as I mentioned in an earlier post, the performances were given as readings and were well received. The following year we repeated the exercise, but during that year the Holiday Fair went bust, meaning that there was no reason for me to return to the Kansas City region in ’97.

Except The Mid Continent Public Library Service had other ideas. The appearances had proved so popular that they wanted to continue the relationship and booked me to return to Missouri in 1997 and I have been going ever since, except for the years when I ‘retired’.

Memories? too many to mention! In the early days I used to be looked after by two librarians in the events and programmes team, Miriam and Marlena, and we would spend whole days driving from one branch of the library to another, each performance punctuated by a huge meal in various restaurants.

Performing in a library space was strange, for although the audiences were relatively small, the buildings themselves were built to soak up sound, meaning that projecting my voice was incredibly difficult and I would frequently end up very tired and hoarse after a day’s performing.

A Library Set

Mid Continent not only enjoyed the audiences that I drew but also the attendant publicity that came with my visits and we often had to find time for media events and interviews between the branch visits. On one occasion we were due to have a very early morning radio interview at a station who broadcast out of a small shack across the state line in Kansas. There was heavy snow on the ground and the air was filled with blizzard conditions as we crawled slowly on. I was in costume as we had to drive straight to a library branch as soon as the interview was done.

At one point of the journey we reached the bottom of a steep hill and the route up was slick and icy meaning that we couldn’t proceed. However Marlena noticed that the route DOWN the hill had been well used by various trucks meaning we would be able to get up the hill by driving on the wrong side of the road. Of course a problem would arise if a car should be legitimately driving only to be confronted with us squirming up the slope, so I rather gallantly, or foolishly, volunteered to walk ahead of Marlena’s car to warn any oncoming traffic. I wrapped my scarf around my neck and pulled my top hat low over my forehead and held my walking cane ahead of me to alert anyone who may be there. It was fortunate that I did, for indeed a pick-up truck driven by a bearded guy in a baseball cap did start the descent. I waved my cane high in the air, matching the movement with my other arm until he stopped and stared at me, mouth open.

To understand his shock you have to relive the scene from his viewpoint: He was driving into a whiteout, nothing to be seen, an alien landscape ahead of him. What was that? A shape, a shadow, a figure: out of the mist appeared a ghost, the ghost of a Victorian gentleman waving in tormented anguish. If the scene had been included in a 70’s movie our pick-up driver would have looked at a half emptied bottle in his hand and shaken his head, before tossing the liquor out of the car window!

On another occasion we had a little time before we needed to be at a venue so the M&Ms decided to take me to a baseball batting cage where I could try some hits. I was fitted with a helmet and gloves but other than that I was in full costume as the automatic pitching machine pelted balls at me.

It was during these early years that I performed at the Blue Springs branch where the head librarian was Kimberley Howard. During subsequent years Kimberley rose up the ranks and began to work on the programming team, initially alongside Miriam and Marlena and more latterly on her own. For the past goodness-knows-how many years Kimberley has been the one who has booked me and looked after me during my stays.

With Kimberley (r) and the team

On her watch my performances have changed somewhat as the interest and audiences have grown. The smaller branches have not been able to accommodate the growing numbers and Kimberley has found other ways of presenting my shows to her patrons – the biggest being in a facility attached to a retirement community called the John Knox Pavilion where we pack around 900 people in, and the amazing thing about it is, that Mid Continent offer all of their programmes for free!

You can imagine therefore, given our history, that Kimberley and the team were very sad that I couldn’t travel in 2020 but as has been their way over the years they weren’t going to let a thing like a global pandemic get in the way of their programming.

Mid Continent Library Service have been instrumental in getting my new film made, and have assisted financially in the production, so our relationship which goes so far back is now even stronger and deeper than ever before.

Introducing Sir Sidney McSprocket

Tags

Charles Dickens, FunKids, Great Exhibition, Inventions, James Dyson, Sir Sidney McSprocket

Those of you who follow my blog posts know that I perform one man theatre shows based on the life and works of my great great grandfather, Charles Dickens.  It is a respectable calling and to have a script writer who was one of the greatest novelists the planet has ever seen is quite a privilege.  It is fair to say that Charles Dickens guided my professional life for more than 25 years, but there is another individual who recently has occasionally tweaked the tiller and navigated me down a slightly different stream.  The gentleman in question is titled (Dickens never was) and is a man of astounding eccentricity, not to mention great imagination.  I never know when he will holler, but for ten years or so I have answered his call on numerous occasions.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is time to introduce you to Sir Sidney McSprocket.

 

Let me explain.  Many years ago I was recording a series of audiobooks featuring unabridged works of Dickens. I was working with a major independent radio company based in London and the idea was to record the complete works in order but unfortunately the corporate suits cut budgets and decided that audio books had no place in the station’s output.  It seemed as if the plan had foundered, leaving me, and more importantly, a talented group of producers without work.  But from the ashes rose the phoenix of Create Productions, the brainchild of Suzy Jamison and John Hirst.  Initially the company took studios in London’s famous Denmark Street, the heart of the capital’s music scene. On recording days I would enter a saxophone shop and then make my way up four flights of stairs (the rickety caged lift took an age to arrive and in one of those quirks of fate it was always at the top of the building when I arrived, and the bottom when I was ready to leave), before arriving somewhat breathless into the stylishly decorated Create offices.

Working with a succession of young producers I would sit in a tiny studio and steadily read Dickens aloud from 10 until 4. Together we recorded The Pickwick Papers, Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge, as well as A Christmas Carol and some of the other short stories.  It was intense work, but great fun and gave me a much deeper knowledge and respect for Charles’ output.

At one recording session one of the producers asked if I wouldn’t mind passing my eye over a script for a new radio show which Create had been engaged to produce on behalf of their client, Fun Kids, a national radio station for children and their families available on DAB digital radio and http://www.funkidslive.com.  Fun Kids were launching a show to promote science and technology.  The brief was that children should be entertained and inspired so the ‘host’ of the programme needed to be fun, engaging and a little bit bonkers, and this is when Sir Sidney McSprocket was born.

Sidney is a Scottish Laird, living somewhere in the Highlands.  He is an inventor of only limited success, for most of his inventions either explode or leave unpleasant smells in their wake, but you can never criticize him for his enthusiasm and quest for advancement.  During each episode the listener finds him working on some outlandish invention, before talking about a real-life product, inventor or engineer.  Inevitably he is having his favourite snack, a toasted teacake, for he often feels ‘something rumbly in my tumbly!’

For the initial recording (which I now suppose was an audition) I adopted a Scottish accent never before heard on these isles – it was sort of like a sing-song Mrs Doubtfire, without the veracity of Robin Williams’ performance.  As his voice soared to high peaks of enthusiasm dogs across the nation must have been howling, wondering what this strange call was.

The wonderful thing was, a year or so later I was invited back to record another series, and another and now I am the official voice of Sir Sidney McSprocket.

During these long months of lockdown I have not worked, with all forms of theatre and public entertainment being impossible under the strict distancing measures that are currently in force.  It has been a hard time, and professionally speaking it has felt as if my reason for being has been removed.  Of course there is a personal positive flip side to that, being that I have been able to spend so much more time with Liz and our children, enjoying the peace and pace of the countryside, listening to birdsong, watching the trees turn from bare to green and the crops in the fields grow.  Together we have discovered beautiful scenery on our doorstep.  However as the months have come and gone so have various dates when I should have been on stage performing, and each one has hurt a little bit more.

It was with delight, then, that I opened an email a few weeks ago from Create Productions asking me if there was any way I could record a new series of Sidney McSprocket programmes for Fun Kids.  I send a couple recordings made on my phone and laptop, but they were not of suitable quality, so Charlotte, the producer, arranged for a professional microphone to be delivered to the house.  I tested the acoustic of various rooms in the house until we discovered that the bedroom, with the blind pulled down, offered the best sound quality:  Sir Sidney was ready to ride again.

Charlotte sent me ten scripts, and each one began ‘Och! Hello!  Sir Sidney McSprocket here!’ (lots of exclamation marks).  The theme throughout this season was linking inventors who exhibited in The Great Exhibition in 1851 with their 21st Century counterparts, making the point to children that inventions were not only something that happened in the olden days, but a constant occurrence and that anyone with an idea and imagination can possibly change the world and be a truly GREAT Briton.

I tackled each script with as much energy as I could muster, whilst ensuring that the story of each invention was told.  From 1851 I had such delights as the J Harrison steam loom, the Stereoscope invented by Charles Wheatstone and GM Gilbert’s eccentric Pilot Kite, which was a horseless carriage tugged by a 5 metre kite through the streets of London (quite how Gilbert planned to get around the problem of numerous vehicles making turns at road junctions without all become tangled up was not explained in the script!).  Each Victorian inventor was paired with a modern day one and featured in the scripts were James Dyson, (of Ball-Barrow, Dyson bagless vacuum and Airblade handrier fame), Jonathan Ive, the designer behind the stylish look of Apple products and Lucy Hughes who has created MarinaTex a plastic substitute made out of the waste products from fish production, which biodegrades within 6 weeks, thereby protecting the ocean environment.

I don’t know about the children who will be listening to the programmes, but I was becoming more and more inspired!

But then I came to two modern inventors who brought both Sidney and Gerald to a crashing halt: Oluwaseyi Sosanya and Jane Ni Dhulchaointigh.  This collections of letters looked less like pronounceable names and more like an eyesight test at a high street optician and the thought of attempting them in my McSprocket accent was terrifying.

Taking Sosanya first, I searched the internet and eventually found a YouTube clip that featured his name, allowing me to write down a phonetic pronunciation of his name, which actually proved easier than I had anticipated.  For the record Oluwaseyi has developed a method of weaving in three dimensions, as well as a computer programme that allows the user to build the model in virtual reality.

Jane proved to be more difficult prospect, however.  The scriptwriters from Fun Kids had helpfully provided their own phonetic translation, but I wasn’t convinced, they suggested that Jane Niggle Quintish would suffice, but I wanted to delve deeper.  As the YouTube route had proved so successful with  Oluwaseyi Sosanya I returned to that platform and sure enough discovered a documentary about Jane and her Sugru company.  The piece was narrated by an Irish reporter which meant I would get not only the correct pronunciation but the inflection as well although unfortunately he glided through the name with a silky speed which meant that I couldn’t distinguish any specific syllables, beyond realising that ‘Niggle Quintish’ wasn’t going to work.

My next idea was to send message to my sister Nicky who lives in Ireland. It ran: ‘Panic! Help needed from Ireland!! I am doing some voiceovers for a children’s science radio programme and have to talk about a young Irish inventor: Jane Ni Dhulchaointigh. – HOW DO I PRONOUNCE!!!!!?????’  Subtle, adult and to the point, I am sure you will agree.

Although Nicky is not an Irish speaker her daughter-in-law Una certainly is (and a teacher, to boot), so my request was swiftly forwarded to her and returned, with a full explanation as to how the Irish language works, which was fascinating in its own right.  Not only did Una provide the phonetics but also recorded a beautifully modulated, and slow, voice memo.  Oh, families are a wonderful thing.

I printed out the name and placed it on the wall behind my laptop so when the time came I could easily read it.

 

I started the script and as the first use of Jane’s name approached, I glanced at my crib sheet: would I get the pronunciation right?  Could I do it in Sidney’s accent?  YES! was the answer to both questions, I sailed through JANE KNEE GULL-QUAAN TIGH only to find the next line completely impossible to deliver: ‘From Ireland, Jane is the inventor of Sugru – an innovative mouldable glue’  Innovative modular glue?  Impossible to say, and my pride took a severe fall as I attempted take after take

Finally I got the entire series recorded and sent it back to Charlotte at Create.  What a fun couple of days I had inhabiting my old friend the mad professor, and I hope that he is waiting for me with more mad experiments.

But for the time being, As Sir Sidney McSprocket himself says at the end of these episodes: ‘Tatty bye for now!’

 

 

For those interested in listening to some previous episodes of Inspiring Engineering here are the links:

Inspiring Engineering

Everyday Items

How’s It Made with Sidney McSprocket!