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!

Quite the Welcome in Liverpool

Tags

A Christmas Carol, Bill Shankly, Charles Dickens, City of Liverpool, St George's Hall, The Shankly Hotel

The final UK leg of my 2021 tour began on Friday when I drove north from Oxfordshire to the city of Liverpool. With only one evening performance on Friday I didn’t need to leave home until around 11am, giving me plenty of time to ensure that the car was fully loaded with all of the props and costume that I would need for three days of shows.

Initially the drive went well, but after I had stopped for lunch and was nearing Cheshire, the traffic ground to a halt and warnings of lane closures due to an accident were flashed up. Fortunately I had plenty of time in hand, and even the 45-minutue delay didn’t cause me any real problems, other than not allowing me time to get into my hotel and relax. Having cleared the blockage, I was soon swooping downhill towards the River Mersey, and more specifically the beautiful St George’s Hall.

In previous years I have been able to drive right up to the side door of the amazing venue and unload my car, before parking in one of the staff car parking spaces behind the hall, but this year the City had extended its traditional Christmas market, which previously had only occupied the plaza at the front, to surround the entire building, meaning I couldn’t get my car anywhere near, without convincing various security guards that I really did have a good reason for unloading. Of course following the spate of Christmas market terrorist attacks involving vehicles being driven through crowded festive celebrations you can quite understand why such rigid precautions were put in place.

When I had parked my car as close as I could to the hall, some members of staff brought a trolley out and we loaded it up as best we could, while I carried the chair and a case into the building, and then took my car to the car park beneath The Shankly Hotel, just a 5 minute walk away.

The Shankly Hotel, named in honour of one of Liverpool Football Clubs most famous and successful managers, is perfectly situated for my stays in the city, and there is a welcoming sense of familiarity to it now. The foyer was spectacularly decorated for Christmas, and as I stood waiting to check in, I was approached by a member of staff, proudly wearing a Great Expectations t shirt: ‘In your honour! I heard you were coming, so I put this on for you!’ Rosalie introduced herself as a huge Dickens fan, and was so excited that I was staying and proceeded to make a great big celebrity fuss of me!

Having checked in and got up to my room, I discovered a beautiful platter of little cakes, with the message ‘Good Luck!’ scrolled in icing. There was also a card in which Rosalie had included the quote: ‘There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour!’. A few days ago Liz and I were watching a very VERY trashy Christmas movie, in which one of the characters was reading A Christmas Carol to some guests in a remote hotel, and it was that particular line that was featured. Liz had commented what a great line it is, and I’d mentioned that it was one that I wanted to get into the show sometime, but never had. The card from the staff at The Shankly seemed to be the final push to make me do it: the new line would be in the show that evening.

I really only had time to drop my bags before returning to St George’s Hall to prepare for the evening’s show. When I walked in there was Lynne Hamilton, the producer of the shows here, and a friend of many years, and we greeted each other warmly, but ‘safely’. With the recent increase of the Omicron variant, Lynne had spent a very nervous week listening to each new wave of restrictions and guidelines from government briefings, not knowing if the events would even be allowed to go ahead. Final confirmation came on the day before, but even so she had received quite a few cancellations as people elected to remain safely in their homes rather then venturing out to a theatre.

From the quite dour entrance hall, I made my up the dour staircase, into a dour hallway and through a pair of wooden doors into the majestic, sparkling, gilded, ornate and utterly spectacular Concert Room at the top of the building.

I would be truly fortunate to perform in this space in any circumstances, but the fact that Charles Dickens stepped out onto the same stage to say the same words, and pronounced the room as one of his favourites to perform in, always adds an extra frisson to my times in Liverpool. I introduced myself to Tas, who was looking after my audio and lighting needs for the duration of my stay, and soon we started doing a series of sound tests, before discussing if there was anything we could do in the way of lighting effects. The hall does not have an extensive lighting rig, so I suggested that he watched the Friday night show and then he could decided if there was any scope to do anything extra on Saturday. Tas explained that he had a background in cabaret and comedy, and was keen to do whatever he could to enhance the performance. His first action was to find some squares of blue lighting gel to fix over a series of uplighters set into he stage floor, just to take the edge off the golden glare on the pillars behind where I would be doing my stuff.

When all of our technical conversations were completed, I went to my large dressing room and ate a simple salad before getting into costume ready for the 7.30 start. Lynne made a few appearances, and we discussed the selling of my book, Dickens and Staplehurst, as well as the souvenir brochures that Ian and I had created a few years ago. As the rail crash book is not really a Christmas volume, we didn’t think that sales would be strong at this event, but we laid some copies out on the merchandise table hoping that a few people would respond to the opportunity of owning a Dickens first edition.

In the dressing room I went through the lines that needed to be re-inserted for the two act version of the show, and with about ten minutes to go Tas appeared to check the microphones (he had given me a back-up pack, just in case)., and then it was time take a final swig of water, and switch my ‘show brain’ on.

The route to the stage is via a small ante room, which has a monitor in it showing the stage, and on the screen I could get some idea as to the size of the audience. With Covid cases rising rapidly across the UK, Lynne had received calls from audience members cancelling at the last moment, and we had no idea as to the extent of possible ‘no shows’, but on the tiny TV screen it looked as of a very impressive crowd had turned up. And then an extraordinary thing took place on the stage which sent the years rolling back: Tas lit the candles.

When Charles Dickens toured with his readings he travelled with a gas man, whose responsibility it was to erect the lighting rig, consisting of two upright pipes, with gas jets backed by reflectors at head height, connected by a further pipe overhead, with a number of lights shining down on Dickens’ face. 5 minutes before my great great grandfather took to the stage (including the very stage I was about to walk on to) the gas man would pre-empt the show by opening the valves and igniting the various lights, and now, 152 years after his last performance in the hall, Tas was recreating the ‘gas man’s moment’

When the last audience member had been admitted, Lynne went onto the stage and as soon as she said hello, the audience erupted into applause – we were going to be in for a fun evening, and so it proved. The crowd were out for a great time and laughed and cheered at everything.

However, I got muddled up! Would you believe it, after all these years, I got muddled up: When Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Past left the school, instead of heading to Fezziwig’s warehouse, I took then straight to the scene with Belle. I only realised my error when I noticed that the stool was in the wrong place on the stage, in other words, it hadn’t been cleared away prior to the ball. I ploughed on, and at the end of the scene, I returned to Fezziwig’s and danced my jig, before leaping forward in time once more to see the married Belle and her husband – what a mess! Well, I got to the end of the half and the applause as I left the stage let me know that there was nothing to worry about, and I could continue knowing that I hadn’t destroyed the story, but I was annoyed with myself.

During the interval Lynne came rushing into the dressing room asking if I had any more of the Staplehurst books, as the audience had gone mad for them and we had run out! Sadly I didn’t, and she went back to the lobby.

After a nice rest and towel down, I prepared to return for act 2, which would begin in a blackout, so that I could say the first lines (a reprise of Jacob Marley’s warning) in the darkness, but even as I groped my way towards the chair, the audience burst out into applause again!

The second act went more smoothly than the first and when I came off the stage at the end of the show I received a great big, happy, cheering, foot-stomping Liverpool ovation. It was wonderful.

With so many books sold, I had said that I would sign, but on the understanding that I would be masked, and that the line would be carefully controlled so that there wouldn’t be a mass of humanity crowding around me (with another week of performances, I had to be so careful to remain safe). When I came into the foyer the queue was backed up on the stairs, but it was well ordered, and I signed my books until everyone was gone.

Fortunately I had another day in Liverpool, so all of the set and costumes could remain at The Hall. I walked back to The Shankly, where various Christmas parties were in full, and loud, swing, and I ate a salad and some sausage rolls in my room – Rock and Roll!

The End of the Tour: Happy Birthday and a Lamb Pasanda

Tags

A Christmas Carol, A Christmas Carol film, Byers' Choice, Henley-on-Thames, Liverpool, Orgin8 Photography, St George's Hall, The River Mersey, The Spice Merchant, The Wirall, Thornton Hall Hotel and Spa

My extensive 2020 tour of three venues continued and concluded over this weekend as the country was plunged ever deeper into more complicated layers of lockdown.

On Saturday morning I loaded my car with the various pieces of my set (carefully designed to fit into the rear of a Renault Kadjar) and set a course for The Wirral – the beautiful peninsula to the south of the River Mersey. In past years I have regularly performed in the city of Liverpool, specifically at The St George’s Hall where Charles himself gave readings, but harsh restrictions in the city led to a nervousness of many venues to stage events meaning that Lynne Hamilton, the producer who promotes my shows in this region, had to search for alternative sites. With time rapidly running out to organise and market a show Lynne finally came to an arrangement with the Thornton Hall Hotel and Spa, and the date was to be the 19th December, the anniversary of the day that A Christmas Carol had been published in 1843. It seemed as if the stars were truly aligning.

My SatNav set I made the journey north on roads which were very much quieter than in more more normal years of yore. The hotel sits on the outskirts of the very pretty village of Thornton Hough which was originally built as a model village by a mill owner in 1866 before being developed by William Lever as a community for his executive staff working at the Sunlight Soap factory nearby.

Having checked in to the hotel I found my way to the Torintone Suite where I was due to perform. The large room had been set up with a stage at one end and tables and chairs very carefully placed to abide by the strict regulations. Members of staff, all masked, bustled about making final preparations. I introduced myself and received muffled greetings and welcomes in reply, before starting to arrange my furniture on the stage.

Every venue has its own particular challenges and I immediately realised what those would be here: over the stage hung two beautifully designed chandeliers, modern in design, made up of hundreds of glass droplets which dangled from little hooks…unfortunately with the raised stage they dangled to a lower height than 5’10 plus top hat – I was going to have to very carefully navigate my way around.

Soon Lynne arrived and we made the final preparations, the most complicated of which was to arrange my opening music and sound effect to play at the correct moment, for the CD unit was in a completely different room (actually a tiny stock cupboard behind the bar area), meaning that we had to set up a chain of people to allow Zak, one of the staff members, to hit the button bang on cue.

Soon the time for the audience to arrive was approaching so I made some final checks to the stage, before waiting for the start time of 2.30. Although the hotel had not staged any events like this for months they had worked out a system of taking bar orders and serving drinks which they carried out like clockwork. Soon everyone who wanted one had a drink and we were ready to start. Lynne got on the stage and welcomed everyone, who were revelling in a tiny moment of normality in turbulent times, and the show began.

I performed in two acts, and successfully managed to not destroy the chandeliers, the audience responded enthusiastically throughout. After I had finished I chatted to a few audience members (all masked up, of course and from a distance), and learned that many people had seen me perform in Liverpool before and had made the journey across the Mersey to catch up with me this year.

Between shows I went to my room and as soon as I switched on the TV I discovered that the Prime Minister was announcing even tighter restrictions on the country, and the jolly plans that had been put in place to temporarily allow a few household bubbles to meet over the Christmas season were henceforth rescinded. Inevitably Mr Johnson would now be slammed in the press as the PM who cancelled Christmas. It was all too depressing to watch, so I flicked the channel and was instantly rewarded with Alastair Sim skipping around his room in sheer undulated joy: once again A Christmas Carol had come to the rescue.

The evening show was at 7.30 so I had plenty of time to rest before the second audience, slightly larger than the first, took their seats, ordered their drinks and prepared themselves for a dose of escapism to treat the depressing malaise that has spread across the country.

Again the show was a success, and again I was able to chat and pose with some of the fans who had tracked me down!

When I returned to my room the day’s duties were not quite done for I had a Q&A call from America, which was arranged to celebrate the 177th anniversary of ‘The Ghostly Little Book.’ The video session had been arranged by Sandy Belknap, my good friend from Nashua, who has been doing a lot of marketing work to promote the film during the last few weeks. I was to be interviewed by Pam Byers, who would usually be organising and managing my American tour. The whole technical aspect was overseen by Scott, a colleague and friend of Sandy’s. We virtually forgathered in our virtual studio and ran through the running order that Sandy had drawn up and then with a couple of minutes to go Pam and I were left to our own devices, but with Sandy and Scott feeding chat messages to us, guiding the session.

Pam welcomed me and invited me to chat about the gestation and publication of A Christmas Carol, before opening the ‘floor’ to questions, which started to pour in. I was asked if I had a favourite copy of A Christmas Carol and I talked about the ‘reading’ version upon which I based my first show. The volume in question was first published in 1969 with a white cover (and that is the one that was read to me by an uncle – my first experience of the story), then re-published with a red cover (I am not sure when that was), and finally with a green cover which is the copy I have marked up with some of my own performance suggestions from 1993.

Another question was about Dickens development of characters and did he base any on real people, also the names, where did they come from? Of course Charles Dickens was an observer above all things, so his greatest characters were an amalgam of many character traits that he had noticed around him. As for the names, they were very important to him, having to capture the essence of the character in an instant.

I was delighted to notice a couple of questions pop up from ‘Martin at Orgin8 Photography’ Martin is a good friend who took the fantastic still photos for the film’s promotion. Martin’s questions focussed on the making of the film and the challenges I faced in creating it, which was a lovely avenue to go down, and useful in that the point of the session was to stimulate plenty of rentals. I assure you Martin was not a plant and his presence online was a complete, yet very happy, surprise’

Our thirty minutes ran its course, with Pam and I keeping up a dialogue, whilst watching for Sandy and Scott’s comments to guide us. It was a fun session and the whole thing can still be watched online and I will post the link at the end of this article.

I was still buzzing with adrenaline when we finally signed off, and it took quite a while to get to sleep. It had been a fun day and I think we honoured the anniversary of A Christmas Carol in a suitably celebratory fashion.

On the next day I left the hotel after a large breakfast and headed home to be with the family for a few brief hours before setting off to perform my final show of 2020. Once again this was a new venue to me and an unusual one at that! I had been booked by a friend of many years (I was going to say an old friend, but that is ungallant), who works as an event promoter. I had first met Paula when she worked at a theatre in the Oxfordshire riverside town of Henley and had booked me to perform Mr Dickens is Coming and The Signalman. We have kept in touch ever since and this year she contacted me to ask if I would perform A Christmas Carol as a dinner theatre show for her client: The Spice Merchant Indian restaurant. Dickens and an Indian restaurant do not seem to be a natural fit, but there was plenty of enthusiasm for the project and I was very happy to sign off my year in this way.

The drive to Henley from Abingdon is a short one, so I travelled in costume, admiring the beautiful Christmas lights which are adorning Britain more extravagantly this year than ever before. The room I would be performing in was long and narrow with tables on either side, so allowing for distancing I only had a single track to move up and down along.

The guests arrived and ordered their meals, before I performed chapters 1 and 2. As I performed so the waiters were carrying plates of food and drink, meaning that I had to be careful not to send a plate of Lamb Pasanda and Pilau flying with some theatrical and flamboyant gesture. I was however able to include some the waiters in the performance, one unwittingly becoming Dick Wilkins, Scrooge’s fellow clerk in Mr Fezziwig’s warehouse.

After a brief interval I returned to fisnish the story, taking care not to roam too far up the room this time as one table has an elderly and therefore vulnerable lady in their party and had asked Paula if I could not come quite so close to them during my show, a request which of course I honoured.

The show was another great success and after I had finished we spent a little time chatting in an informal Q&A until I packed up my things, said goodbye to Paula and drove away from my 2020 tour, which has involved 5 performances!

To view the online Q&A with Pam Byers visit my Facebook page: Dickens Shows

To watch my film of A Christmas Carol go to my website: http://www.geralddickens.com