Another great North/South divide
weekend. Saturday, Witney, the elegant Oxfordshire
hometown of our esteemed-by-some Prime Minister and Sunday, Adlington, the mill and coal
town in the West Pennines.
I have visited Witney Carnival for a number
of years. It might even be ten. It is one of those events that changes
little. I know where my spot is, I have
one brief phone call early in the year from the organiser and apart form the
gradual aging of all those I meet, and of course of myself, little else changes
at Witney, the cornerstone of country conservatism. I do like the place though. Mostly in fact because it doesn’t change and
the people are friendly and welcoming.
And because it’s the one place I meet up with my oldest friend,
Pedro. Of Pedro’s Travelling Show (www.aurorascarnival.co.uk/pedro.htm). Pedro and I go way way back, almost to the
annals of time. We lived on the road in
the 1970s and toured through Europe, mostly into Portugal, to where Pedro still
travels every year. He tells me he is now a firmly-established part of the
street scene in Faro where every winter he busks and lives in his lovely
converted library bus. Pedro has lived
his whole life on the road. We catch up the year in Witney and reminisce about
old times and dream of new ones. There aren’t many of us left,
the travelling shows of that ilk. But it
is always wonderful to see him and share a meal, eaten outside under my awning
and watch the Witney sun set over the cricket field.
Witney carnival is over before it hardly
begins. A two hour frenzy of shows, ice
cream and beer (the latter not for me of course!) and then as frantic a pull
down as there’s a three and a half hour Northern drive ahead and Adlington
Carnival to consider. A new booking for
me, taken through an agent I hardly ever work for. I am apprehensive as I have had one phone conversation
with the Chairman of the Carnival Committee and it filled me with dread and
foreboding. Firstly that he wants me in
the arena. And secondly because he has
advertised me in the programme and website as ‘Mr Alexander – clowning around’.
His idea and he was rather proud of the phrase I felt.
I don’t know which is worse really. I am
NOT an arena act. I am NOT a clown.
There have been two or three times in my forty year career when some uninformed
organiser has insisted I go in the arena, putting up the stage somewhere around
the perimeter, facing into the space.
They seem to think that at the appropriate moment, they can invite ‘all
the kids’ to rush into the arena to see me ‘clown around’. They don’t, or at any rate those who do feel
they are in an alien space and don’t really relax. The start time is often delayed because arena
acts go on longer than planned and there is always a pressure to finish and
shoosh the children out again so the dog show can happen. It’s awful, all round. Try as I might on the phone I couldn’t
persuade the Chairman of all this and the call ended with him virtually
demanding that I do it in the arena as they were paying me and it was their
call.
And I am not just a children’s show, and
certainly not a clown. As anyone who has
seen me will hopefully testify. I
entertain the children and amuse the adults.
Or is it the other way around?
The show is for the child in everyone, including the children. But ‘clowning around’ it was and in the
arena.
Three miles out from Adlington and now
11.00 pm I have a phone call from the Chairman again, checking I am still
coming. I tell him I am nearly there and
expect some help with directions onto the field. Instead he just says that there will be a few
laybys I can pull into and he’ll see me in the morning. Charming.
Come the morning as it does, I pull onto
the show field and meet the Field Manager from the Committee. Luckily he has seen the show elsewhere and
agrees that I am not an arena act and between us we find a much more suitable
spot alongside, but not in the arena.
It’s picking up. However, twenty
minutes later I hear arguing and notice the Field Manager with an older man
gesticulating in my direction. This must
be the Chairman. I am politeness
personified and introduce myself.
“Good Morning, you must be Andrew. Good to meet you”, extending a hand.
The hand is barely shaken. “Is it?’ (a good
morning or good to meet?)
He was still insisting that I move into the
arena and was obviously annoyed that the Field Manager had gone over his
head. Eventually with the arena MC and
the field manager both suggesting it would be OK where I was, he reluctantly
agrees. “I just don’t want you fooling
around (I’d been demoted then from a clown to a fool) while the Emmerdale stars
are meeting people in the arena.”
So that was it. For him the whole day was
about the actors of Emmerdale, not the support act who would fool around until THEY
arrived, then stop on command.
Needless to say, he didn’t even watch
either of my shows. I guess he was too
busy showing them around the arena to watch me.
I don’t think I’ll be invited to Adlington
Carnival again. But, as always, I look
forward to Witney Carnival 2015 and beyond…
All the best from a road near you,
Mr Alexander
