Shrewsbury seguay sensation

Shrewsbury Flower Show has seen the flowering of a new mode of travelling life for Mr Alexander.  I’ve blogged about the hoverboard/seguay/electric skateboard previously and my walkabout burlesque character Verity who inspired its original inclusion has come out at a couple of venues this summer, but it has not been until Shrewsbury that the device itself has really come into its own.  I love it.  I’ve spent a lot of time practising on a range of surfaces and now feel very comfortable on it.  Not without a few bad falls initially but that’s only to be expected. It is so wonderful to use, quiet, easy and fast and personal energy saving, and even more significantly saving on knee use. And my poor knees do suffer from all I expect them to do. Local travelling around a show site will certainly never be the same again.  It is controllable, safe and wonderfully economical and eco-friendly. It also provides a small additional height so provides a kind of mobile stage, on hand, or rather feet, at any time. I have been using the off-road version for floating around the showground and travelling into town and the smaller wheel version for onstage experimentation.  I can ride to the shops or for a drink and carry it inside without anyone even noticing and it hides under the table until I leave.  (Yes I’ve had the occasional beer this year.  Nothing too dramatic but an occasional pint or two. It’s nice to be back in the pub.)

I am going to spend some time choreographing a dance using the smaller board on the stage to Noel Coward’s moving and emotional  ‘I’ll see you again’.  It emerged as these things do with the computer on shuffle play.  I think I need a prop that will work with the floating quality of the movement the board allows. And maybe a story.  Perhaps a theme linked to the First World War.  The variety theatre has always been a vehicle for examining war and I came of age with and loved Joan Littlewood’s ‘Oh what a lovely war’.  Noel Coward wrote Bitter Sweet in 1929, but it still has a flavour of the war which had finished eleven years earlier and offers a wonderful possibility for a story.

Anyway the potential for the board is great and I think by Wallingford Bunkfest I will feel confident to use it comfortably in shows as well as between times and I am developing some other characters with elements that hide the board.  I have to avoid overusing it though as I’ve not had so much fun since I learned to unicycle and it’s tempting to try lots of different routines on it.  I’ve managed juggling on it. And bending down keeping the balance on it is interesting, especially when the ball is four inches below the feet and I’m standing on wheels.  The sort of thing I like experimenting with.

The Shrewsbury show was very enjoyable.  It’s not been a great season thus far but this show changed things.  The weather has been pretty dreadful and my state of mind has matched it, but I now feel things are on the up again.  The weather was warm without rain (the first of the season when it hasn’t rained at sometime) and I felt good about things. It’s about time.  Family and friends have kept me on the positive side this season and I will always be grateful to them.

The ‘last show of the day’ has changed.  I feel I am discovering something really positive, different and creative with it.  First show three chairs ‘Showbusiness show’, second two, ‘The Classic’ and the third no chairs.  A silent show.  And a change of costume. Quite a different feel but I am enjoying it with potential for improvisation and experimentation.  It met with approval from the cognoscenti Shrewsbury audience if their generous contribution to my hat is anything to go by.  Apparently I’m ‘quite good, sometimes’. I’ve always said you’re as good as the money in the hat and this weekend has been very pleasing in that regard. I don’t do what I do for the money but there are times when I need money more than others and this year has been and continues to be a difficult one for me financially.

Anyway enough of all that.  Without these challenges life would be far too easy and we couldn’ t have that.  Creativity comes from chaos. The best things in life are hard.  Nothing good ever came easy. Certainly true of the hoverboard.

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander

Netley to Hinckley to Heckington

It’s all in the location. Not just the style and theme of an event but location can make a huge difference to the success of my contribution.  I have been concerned for a couple of years about my pitch at Netley Marsh Steam Rally and this year it was made considerably more difficult.  I am beside a main ‘road’ leading to and from the main arena and this year was at least a yard closer to it.  This of course resulted in problems for the vehicles coming past my audiences.  At times it felt like perfoming on the M6. At least the organisers this year closed the road for the middle part of the day but it meant the exhibitors had a slightly longer detour to the ring and expressed their dislike in no uncertain terms.  I thought one man would have a heart attack as he lambasted me for having the audacity to prevent his tractor taking the route they had always taken.  His wife even said that if she had children there was no way she would let them watch my show.  It is fascinating how shows bring out all the best and worst of people.  The showground becomes a microcosm of the world as a whole.

The location in Hinckley is as near perfect as I could wish for.  A gently sloping market square with a level patch at the top for the lorry and stage.  Easy access and the sun facing me and not in the audiences’ eyes.  Travelling performers must have occupied this spot for centuries. I love the few town centre gigs I do. Britain’s town centres are in sad and rapid decline due mostly to the ease of out of town shopping and the burgeoning of the superstores.  Towns like Hinckley are becoming ghost towns with mostly charity shops and only the usual national chain stores. The town centre managements who are addressing this issue may be fighting a losing battle but I applaud and support their efforts.  The management of Hinckley Town Centre are brilliant.  Helpful, supportive and imaginative.  The result a sweet stand and good audiences. Hinckley used to be sock central for Britain.  All the sock makers have left town.  I bought a pack of socks from the town’s TK Maxx.  They were made in Taiwan.

And so to Heckington Show in Lincolnshire. This was a new one for me and I had been looking forward to it.  Advertised as the ‘largest Village Show in the country’, it certainly was big.  I was to be part of what is called the Heritage area, and had offered to come for busking money only as it was on my route south from Hinckley, I wasn’t booked that weekend and they wanted to see whether the show would fit into their Victorian theme for 2017.

Maybe because they weren’t paying me, maybe because this year's World War I theme didn’t quite fit what I did, maybe it was the style of the area which was populated mostly by re-enactors and there wasn’t a lot of available space (strangely as there were large open spaces alongside the area), but all in all it was a disappointing stand.  There were other performers on the area who all needed their time slots so I could do no show buildup or wind down.  No improvisation between shows so I just was standing around for much of the time.

The worst aspect was that there were fireworks on the Saturday night and everyone there said it was usually the best display around.  So I made plans to leave in plenty of time with Mimi and Blue.  Heckington has a railway station so we caught the train to the nearest small town Sleaford and enjoyed a meal near the station in a sunny pub garden.  The event organiser had said the fireworks were scheduled for 9.45 and the last train was due back at Heckington at 10.15 so it all seemed good.  When we arrived back at the station and walked into the village the place was deserted.  This was unsettling because if the fireworks had finished the place should have been heaving with the 30,000 people who attend.  I met another dog walking couple who told me the fireworks were late and had not yet started. They were heading home speedily.

This was a nightmare as I was in a strange village late at night with two dogs who become very disturbed by fireworks.  We started walking away from the show site but hadn’t gone very far when the display started.  My two started shaking and fretting and all we could do was hide behind a transit van at the side of the road and sit it out. Horrible for them.  Blue shook so badly I thought she was going to have a fit. When I returned to the show site afterwards my neighbours said the horses in the ring who were there as part of the World War 1 show had been so terrified they had almost broken out of the ring. 

I wont be going back to Heckington.

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander