Two Standing Ovations

Tags

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, Dickens and Staplehurst. A Biogrpahy of a Rail Crash, Ebenezer Scrooge, Liverpool, St George's Hall, The Shankly Hotel

After a few days at home, during which the aftermath of my dose of Covid continued to drain me of energy, as well as lingering in the form of a heavy cold and nasty cough, it was all too soon time to get on the road again for the final UK leg of my 2022 A Christmas Carol tour. The time at home had been lovely, even though Liz and one of our daughters were also down with particularly heavy colds, but I had time to hang Christmas lights on the outside of the house, as well as on the tree, ready for us all to decorate when next I am at home.

On Thursday morning I packed the car with the props and costumes that I would need for three days in the North East and set off at around 11.am. My destination was the city centre of Liverpool and three performances at what Charles Dickens called ‘The most perfect hall in the world’ – the gilded concert room at St George’s Hall.

My drive to Liverpool was an easy one, and the landscape was beautiful with the light dusting of icy snow on the fields glittering in the bright winter sunshine. Occasionally herds of sheep appeared, slightly cream-coloured against the pure white behind them. I arrived at around 2.30, and because the area around St George’s Hall is taken over by a huge Christmas fair, I had to ring ahead to be allowed access through a security barrier, so that I could get as close as possible to unload my car. The staff at the hall brought out a small trolley/cage, and we piled everything into it and rolled it up to door. Unfortunately, the journey was across cobbles and various articles fell off along the way, including one of my costumes which got caught beneath the trolley’s wheels and ended up very muddy and dusty.

Non of ‘my’ team where at the hall yet, so I placed all of the furniture on the stage, and hung my one pristine and one soiled costume in my dressing room, and then went to check in at my hotel – The Shankly, just a few minutes walk away. I had an hour or so in my room, during which time I made a restorative cup of Lemsip, and tried to relax as much as I could, for I really wasn’t feeling too great.

At around 4.30 I wrapped up against the cold winter’s night and walked back to St George’s Hall where the door was locked. I was joined on the pavement by a young man carrying a camera bag and tripod, and I guessed that this was Adam, who had been booked to make a short video promotional film of my show. Eventually, after much bell ringing and a couple of phone calls, we were let into the huge foyer. Lynne Hamilton, the producer and events manager who puts on my Liverpool shows was there and we hugged warmly. Lynne and I have been working together for many years and it was great to see her again. Of course she was worried about my state of health, both from a personal and professional viewpoint. I went up to the main hall where my sound engineer Taz was setting up. We have worked together before, and immediately he had some ideas about the show – introducing a few echoes here and there as ghosts came and went. For my part, I wanted to to record a new voiceover for the start of the second act, which up to now has opened with me reprising the lines of Jacob Marley -‘You will be haunted by three spirits. Expect the first tonight when the bell tolls one. Expect the second on the next night, at the same hour…..’ and then I would commence snoring, as if Scrooge had been asleep throughout the interval. Rather than me actually speaking those lines, it seemed better to have them recorded, so I set my laptop and microphone up on the stage, and after three takes had what I wanted. Taz and I did a sound check, and it was apparent that while my voice was quite strong, it was full of cold, so not as clear and pure as usual. There was nothing that could be done to change that, I just had to ensure that my performance was as good as I could make it.

Meanwhile, Adam was scouting out the venue to see how best we could film some parts of the show for his promo video. I got into costume, and performed various scenes, while he followed me around with his gimble-mounted camera. He was very pleased with the results, and was worried that it was going to be very difficult to edit all of the material down. For me, it was time to hibernate for a while and relax. I drank a lot of water, popped a few Fisherman’s Friends, and did as little as possible. Downstairs the audience were beginning to arrive, while I ran through a few lines – actually some new lines. Maybe a show when I was not feeling great was not the perfect time to introduce a change to the script, but a thought had come to me in America and I was keen to try it out. As Scrooge’s time with the Ghost of Christmas Past comes to an end he berates her for ‘torturing him’ and commands that she ‘remove him from this place’ and the spirit reminds him that ‘I told you that these are the shadows of things that have been. That they are what they are, do not blame me!’ It felt important that he is reminded of that fact, so this year’s new addition is that little exchange.

The show was due to start at 7.30, but there was a slightly odd precursor to the performance. As part of Adam’s filming he wanted to get some shots of a Liverpool standing ovation from my perspective, that is from the stage. So when all of the audience were gathered, Lynne told them she needed them to stand and cheer and clap, as if it were the end of the show. I watched on a small TV monitor from the wings as the crowd went crazy. Hands in the air, stamping of feet, whooping, shouting, cries of sheer delight and adulation filled the old hall – that has to be one of the best standing ovations that I have ever received, and I wasn’t even there to bow. Adam, looking very self conscious, recorded the whole thing.

When everyone had calmed down again, the choir, who had been entertaining the audience as they arrived in the lobby below, took to the stage and, using the acoustic of the Concert Room as an extra member, performed three exquisite pieces, all rapturously received.

And at last it was my turn. The danger is, when feeling below par, that I try too hard, and over-dramatise and over-emphasise everything, so I made sure I gave a well-paced, but not too theatrical performance. My voice wasn’t great, but my characters, movements and general stage presence was pretty good, and the audience seemed engaged with the unfolding story. My new line fitted in perfectly (although in my concentration on slipping it in, I did mess up one of the proceeding lines, but that passed by in a moment.) The round of applause at the interval was loud and long, and I could relax into the second half in the knowledge that all was OK.

The second act has all of the tom-foolery in it – The Cratchit’s at dinner, Topper, Old Joe and the like, and the atmosphere in the Hall became more and more joyful as we headed to the show’s conclusion, and sure enough, when I left the stage, the ovation was every bit as energetic and loud as the pretend one of a couple of hours before. I took my bows to each quarter and as always thought of my great great grandfather doing the same when he had stood on the same boards. It is always a very memorable and emotional time in Liverpool.

I quickly changed and went to the lobby where there was a line of people clutching copies of Dickens and Staplehurst and my DVDs. We chatted, and I signed until the foyer was empty, and then went upstairs to change once more, and headed back to my hotel, where the bar and restaurant was closed for the night. So, once again, Uber Eats got my custom and at just after 11 I had a pizza in my room.

It had been a successful day, despite my cold and cough, and the positivity of a St George’s crowd gave me the confidence to face the rest of the tour with relish.

‘The people were so hurried and so eager….’

Tags

A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, City of Liverpool, Ebenezer Scrooge, Liverpool 1, The Quran, The Shankly Hotel

Sleep didn’t come easy on my first night in Liverpool, as the Shankly reverberated to the various parties it was hosting late into the night and early into the morning. It didn’t help that the couple in the next room seemed to have had a disagreement, and he kept leaving and then coming back and continuing their argument through the door, as she refused to let him back in…..

The last time I checked my clock was at 2am, so I assume I must have dropped off around that time. Fortunately I didn’t have an early start, as my first show was not due until 2.pm, so I could sleep for as long as I needed into Saturday morning, which, naturally, was not that long.

Breakfast at The Shankly is an impressive buffet, and I availed myself of a full English, with plenty of refills of coffee (the cups were far too small and needing lots of replenishing). I went back to the room and caught up with some emails and waited for the city to come alive. I was planning to walk into the city centre and complete a little Christmas shopping in Saturday morning, as well as trying to get a float for the remaining merchandise sales.

Liverpool 1 is a large, open shopping mall that embraces many of the city’s historic districts and stretches down to the banks of the River Mersey. Like any port city Liverpool is exciting, brash, vibrant and loud and has its own distinct personality and on that Saturday morning the shopping district was busy.

Hopeful musicians performed their latest songs, or covers of old ones, hoping to be discovered and follow in the footsteps of The Beatles, whilst elsewhere various political factions shouted their opinions over small PA systems (at one point, two diametrically opposed groups had set up camp in the same street and spent the time shouting abuse at their rivals – even making occasional forays to pull each other’s displays down). Another stall was selling English translations of The Qur’an, and a recorded message continually broadcast the fact that it was available. It was a very strange phenomenon to see, but lots of people stuck their fingers in their ears as they walked passed, as if even hearing the words would somehow effect them.

Peace on Earth and goodwill to all men……

Having bought the gifts I needed, I then went in search of cash, and to my dismay discovered that my own bank wasn’t open. I tried a few other companies, but they all said the same – ‘you have to have an account with us to change money’. One helpful lady suggested the post office may be able to help, so I walked to the local branch and patiently stood in line, and here part of my show almost came true.

At the point in the story when Scrooge and The Ghost of Christmas Present stand on the streets of London, Dickens describes the people as being so busy and eager that ‘sometimes they tumbled up against each other’, at which point I strike a pugilistic pose, and if possible make a little ‘ad lib’. In America I suggest that this moment is like Black Friday, but in the UK I will often mention the local shopping mall, saying something like ‘Liverpool 1 on Christmas eve!’

Well, on Saturday as I stood in the post office, the guy in front of me was trying to draw his benefits from an account, but none of his cards were working, the patient cashier patiently explaining to him that he had already withdrawn all of his available funds. Unfortunately, such reasoning didn’t work as he was obviously much the worse the wear from some substance or other. Eventually a manager was called, which didn’t help either, at which time the queue behind me began to get impatient, and one man shouted ‘Just get out of here’, well that ignited the situation, as the guy at the counter rounded quickly, fists flying and screaming every obscenity he could think of. Fortunately in his impaired state none of the blows landed, but he stood staring with bulging eyes, daring his opponent to respond, which he was about to do, when security arrived. In reality there was none of the calm resolution described in A Christmas Carol and maybe there was no spirit present to shed drops of water on the two men. Instead of happily saying that ‘It was a shame to quarrel….’ the two were parted and led away. Phew. Oh, and the post office wouldn’t exchange cash either!

The morning drifted on and I returned to the hotel to prepare for the afternoon’s show. I showered to re-energise myself and took the short walk back to St George’s Hall, where Tas was already setting up. Having watched the show, and pondered overnight, he had had a few ideas, the most obvious one being to add a lingering echo to Jacob Marley’s final line as he floats away out of the window. We rehearsed the scene a few times just to be sure of the timing, and then I went back to my dressing room to prepare.

At the 2 o’clock Saturday show we had a small choir present to entertain the crowds as they arrived (in fact they had been booked for all of the shows, but had cancelled the two evening performances due to the members not feeling comfortable using crowded public transport at night.) Initially the singers sung in the large foyer area, and then at 2pm moved up onto the stage to perform in the Concert Hall itself which was perfectly suited for the beautiful choral harmonies that they created. The audience were suitably impressed and gave the singers a great ovation, as they filed off the stage.

Lynne made her introduction, the lights dimmed and I began once again. The Saturday matinee was played to an almost full house and was another excellent show. I was on good form (and even managed to perform all of the scenes in the order in which they had been written), as were the audience. We had great fun with the aromas of the goose, and with Mrs Cractchit’s pudding, and Tas subtly changed the levels of lighting, as well as adding his echoes to Jacob Marley’s voice (not only when the ghost left, as we had rehearsed, but also during the reprise of that line at the opening of act 2).

Again Liverpool gave me a huge and loud response and I lingered on the stage to make the most of it. It is very moving, but Merseyside has really welcomed me over the years, indeed almost adopted me as one of their own.

The afternoon audience had a good many children in it, which was lovely to see, and at the signing session one young boy asked ‘which ghost did I think helped Scrooge the most?’ I said I have always thought that Past is the one who starts everything, and prepares Scrooge to learn, but I also said that wasn’t the correct answer, just my opinion, and asked which one he thought. He plumped for ‘the jolly guy!’ because he showed him what might happen to Tiny Tim, which is an excellent answer too.

After I had finished and changed, I purchased myself a large Bratwurst hot dog from the Christmas market and returned to the hotel for a couple of hours. I discovered that ‘The Man Who Invented Christmas’ was on the TV, so I watched a little of that with great interest, before showering and getting ready for my last show in Liverpool for this year. Before leaving the hotel I asked the restaurant if they would put a slice of cheesecake aside for me (the kitchens would be closed by the time I got back), so that I could have a little something to wind down with.

The Saturday night audience was the smallest of the three and therefore, the quietest, and my performance wasn’t quite as strong as the other two, I could feel the tiredness effecting me and the temptation was to over-compensate a little, which I tried not to do. It was one of those shows where the audience response wasn’t as lively during the show, but at the end there was an explosion of cheering and clapping, showing me that they had been fully engaged throughout. Rosalie, my Great Expectations-loving hotel greeter, had come to the evening show, and I knew that the voiced that shouted out ‘EVERY ONE!’ to finish the final line, was hers.

There was not much signing to be done, as we had pretty well sold everything, so I could start the process of getting all of my things packed away quickly. I changed, packed my various cases, and loaded all of the furniture into the lift to take them down to the ground floor level, where the St George’s Hall team helped me to load the car (which I had retrieved from The Shankly’s parking garage.)

Back at he hotel I went to the bar and my cheesecake was produced. Rosalie was there and gushed with excitement about the show, and then introduced me to the social media manager of the hotel. It seemed a strange time of the night to conduct business, but I suggested that The Shankly should come on board as an event sponsor in the future!

Eventually I said my goodnights and went up to my room. On the following morning I would need to be on the road by 9am, so I made sure that everything was packed, and then retired for the night.

It had been a very enjoyable and very successful two days in Liverpool, and hopefully I will be back in 2022.

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!