‘Marley Was Dead, But Charles Dickens Is Very Much Alive’

Tags

A Christmas Carol, A Christmas Carol film, Charles Dickens, Dickens and Staplehurst. A Biogrpahy of a Rail Crash, Ebenezer Scrooge, Jacob Marley, Mid Continent Public Library, Miriam Margolyes, Snow

Saturday 5 November was very similar in shape to Friday 4th, with two performances of A Christmas Carol at a single venue, in this case back at the Woodneath Library auditorium. Woodneath is only a five-minute drive from the Hilton Garden Inn, and I didn’t have to be there until 1pm, so I had a very lazy, and recuperative, morning ahead of me.

After the torrential rain of Friday, I was astounded to see low cloud and snow greet me as I arrived in the lobby for breakfast. Of course, the ground was so wet that none of the snow survived on the ground, but it was lovely to watch the big flakes float down.

There is not much to say about the morning, really (Wordle in 3, is worth a mention though!), I did a little more laundry, not that I really needed to, but it is good to keep on top of it and keep a full stock of white costume shirts in the bank. A day of two shows typically uses three shirts – one to be worn during the first performance, then a second one to change into for the signing session, which I will also wear for the second show, and then a third fresh one for the evening signing. There are days on tour when there is not time to get laundry done, thanks to travel commitments, so I have always tried to catch up as often as possible.

As the morning went on, so the weather cleared and by the time I was collating all of the costumes and props the sky was clear blue with the temperature rising. Kimberly arrived at 12.45 and we made the short drive to Woodneath where we were greeted by a somewhat panicky group of librarians, for they had discovered that when the furniture for the stage had been collected from MGC that morning, the guys had forgotten to load the leather armchair that takes on the multiple roles of Scrooge’s office chair, his bed and Mr Fezziwig’s desk respectively. By the time the discovery had been made there was no time to drive back to Independence, collect the chair and get it back to Liberty in time for the matinee, so we had to improvise. Fortunately, the Woodneath branch has been imaginatively designed and styled, so there were a few possible ‘understudies’ dotted around. I chose a fairly plain green vinyl one which, although a little modern, would do the job. As we placed this humble chair onto the stage, the famous line from 42nd Street came to mind – ‘Hey, kid, you are going out there a nobody, but you have to come back a star!’ I hoped that the chair would not crumble under such pressure.

With much larger audiences expected to attend A Christmas Carol than those that came to watch A Child’s Journey With Dickens two days before, the true flexibility of the brand new Woodneath auditorium was literally revealed, for a wall could be raised allowing a whole new area of seating to have a view of the stage.

With the minor emergency of the chair averted, I went into my usual preparations for a show – changing into my costume with 30 minutes to go. As the audience gathered, so they were entertained by the Dickens Carolers, who sung wonderful acapella arrangements of favourite Christmas songs. The group is highly popular in the Kansas City area, and for my shows a group of 4 (the entire choir is much larger) delighted the audience with their very witty and lively renditions. Having got into my costume, I stood in the wings and watched them perform, which really helped me get into the spirit of the day, as well as giving me a chance to gauge the responsiveness of the audience.

With five minutes to go I made my way to join Sara in the sound booth and watched the end of the caroler’s set from the back of the hall. At 2 o’clock they sang ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’, their final number, and left the stage to loud applause, which boded well for the next 90 minutes. Indeed, the show went very well, although my voice was still a little husky. The chair fulfilled its commitments admirably, and maybe was even a good omen, for when I flung my top hat into the air as Scrooge gets dressed ‘all in his best’ it landed squarely and securely onto my head, thereby earning me an extra, and quite undeserved, round of applause. I am often asked how often the hat lands on my head successfully, and the answer is very rarely, maybe two or three times each season. Usually, as it drops to the floor, I cheerfully pick it up, dust it down and say, ‘One day!’, which actually helps to established old Ebenezer’s new sunny and positive outlook on life. I haven’t quite worked out how to best respond when the hat trick is successful. Yesterday I simply stood at the centre of the stage with my arms spread, soaking up the applause, but I wonder if a better response is simply to carry on the scene as if it were an absolutely normal part of the script: maybe I will try that approach next time.

The audience reaction was wonderful, as it always is in the Kansas City area, where I have so many fans and supporters. I quickly changed into a dry costume (even more important with my throat being a little tender), and made my way to the lobby where a long line of people was waiting for me. My signing table was in front of the magnificent living moss wall, which provided a quite spectacular backdrop for the many photographs that were taken. Last year when I was in the area my Staplehurst book had yet to be delivered, so Kimberly had asked me to sign 200 bookplates which could be stuck in when the stock arrived. Now, even with the bookplates, everyone wanted their copy personally signed, and I can quite understand that. I recently bought a copy of Miriam Margolyes’ autobiography which had been ‘signed by the author’, but it would mean so much more if I was next to her chatting as she scribbled her name. I was actually filming with her recently, for a forthcoming TV programme, and very foolishly forgot to take my book!

When the signing had finished, my first job, as always, was to re-set the stage for the evening’s performance. A performer, or stage manager, will always do this immediately a show is finished, rather than waiting until the evening when, if there is a problem, it is too late to resolve. Once the stool was back in its starting place, the red cloth draped over the stand-in chair and the hat, scarf and walking stick back in the dressing room, I changed into my normal clothes and went to get my lunch, which the team had ordered in for me. Unfortunately, my salad hadn’t been delivered with the rest of the order, so Kimberly suggested we drive back to the deli, collect my lunch and then I could take it back to the hotel eat it there and have a short rest between shows, which was what I did.

Back to Woodneath, the original chair had been collected and now sat rather sheepishly, slightly out of position on the stage, whilst the replacement had resumed its life in the library, having had the briefest glimpses of show business. I positioned the original how I wanted it, placed the cloth over it, and went to get ready. Again, I listened to the carolers (a different quartet) as they did their thing equally as cheerfully and energetically as their afternoon counterparts. The audience was another large one, and they sounded to be equally responsive.

My voice was still not fully up to par, despite drinking a lot of water, sucking on Fisherman’s Friend lozenges, and doing all of my warm-up exercises. The good thing is that it does not feel sore or inflamed and I think that it is simply a question of getting used to being constantly on the road, performing every day. Sadly, I was not able to repeat the success with the top hat, so couldn’t try out my new idea – it may be a while until I can! The response was every bit as enthusiastic as the afternoon’s had been, and everyone stood and cheered and stamped as I bowed to all sides of the room.

The signing session was fun, and there were more gifts bestowed upon me, but the best moment was when a gentleman approached me (he was not standing in the queue), shook me very firmly and earnestly by the hand, and said ‘Marley was dead, but Charles Dickens is very much alive within you’. He didn’t say anything else, had no book or DVD to be signed, didn’t want a picture, he just said those words, which meant the world to me.

My time in the Kansas City area had come to an end, I said goodbye to the various MCPL staff who had looked after me so well, most especially to Sara who had run the shows expertly from the tech booth throughout my visit, as well as wielding the rubber plunger when necessary.

Kimerly took me to the nearby Longhorn steakhouse, where we celebrated with a couple of Ribeye steaks and baked potatoes, before returning to the hotel where we said our goodbyes for another year.

On Sunday morning I get to drive my Toyota Venza for the first time since Wednesday as I make the journey to Omaha to get together with more old friends and to continue my adventures

PS: A very happy birthday to my brother Ian, who has had such a positive and supportive influence of my career, and life. Celebrate well!

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.