Well it’s
been a long while since I last wrote so some explanations are required. Just over a year ago when I stopped writing
this blog I was going through some personal challenges and felt the blog had
been acting as a kind of therapy. I then,
almost overnight, found it all too much and just stopped along with participation
in all social media. So I apologise to
anyone who thought I had died, or far worse, retired. I have done neither and don’t intend to, at
least for the foreseeable future.
So the
news is that I am now back to normal (whatever that is) and I have been asked over
the summer by a number of friends and erstwhile blog readers to start again. It’s taken a while but I have decided to
listen and to restart the blog so this first one will try and sum up some of
summer 2017. I will then try to keep you all informed weekly about the strange
and wonderful life I live and the adventures of a travelling showman and two
little dogs caught up in the twenty-first century.
Summing
up a year in one page is totally impossible so this will probably have to be spread
over a few episodes. I couldn’t sum up
the year without mentioning Martin Orbidans who became a close friend and
collaborator during the year so let’s begin with him.
To set
the story properly we have to go back to June of 2015 and what I had hoped to
be a wonderful new chapter in the history of Mr Alexander as artistic director
of Ilfracombe Victorian Celebration. Of
course those who have read the story will know that liaison ended abruptly in
antagonism and antipathy, but the one good thing to come out of it was my
meeting Martin.
Ilfracombe
has a sweet little High Street, or perhaps what was once a sweet little High
Street, having succumbed like many to the decline brought about by the out of
town shopping spaces where most of us now buy our stuff. It has a little walk through
arcade; a Victorian-style market which has a number of people occupying booths
and doing their small scale trading. I happened
to be walking through it during the Celebration and heard a piano being
played. There was something about the
quality of the playing that attracted me so I followed my ears and found a man
in a striped blazer paying songs from some of my favourite musical shows. There was no-one there so I stopped to chat
to him and that’s how it all began.
Martin had
learned piano from his mother and was one of those children who was musically
gifted and had the good fortune to have that gift recognised and encouraged. Like me he had experienced an unhappy time at
school and took refuge in music. Later he
joined the Royal Marines as a musician and travelled the world and was commissioned
to be the cocktail pianist aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia, including the time
when the yacht was used by Charles and Diana for their honeymoon base.
How he
ended up in the little tatty Victorian market is a long story but we got on
well from the start and a winter of emailing saw him out on the road with me
for some of the key summer events playing a range of music on a range of
keyboards sitting in a red gazebo alongside my stage.
Those who
have heard him with me will testify as to how brilliant he is at improvising as
well as playing from medleys of marches (reflecting his military heritage) to
tunes from shows and musicals. Having a
live accompanist at those gigs has changed the style of my performance and the
audiences have enjoyed the performance relationship between us as we have
rehearsed and performed new shows through the summer.
I have
worked with many people in performance over the years and although I had
reached a point where I felt I wanted only to be a solo performer, working with
Martin opened my eyes again to the potential of working with others and meant
that when I met the Old Time Rags, a dance/one man band combo from Leeds I
immediately saw the potential of expanding Mr Alexander’s Travelling Show even
further. More about them next time.
It’s good
to be back on a road near you,
Mr Alexander
