The last blog in Blogger

 I can no longer paste text created in Word into this program so this is my final blog here.

For anyone who wished to continue reading it, my blog is available on my website:

https://mralexander.co.uk/mralexan

Another one bites the dust

I suppose it was inevitable but the reality of it is nonetheless hard to accept.  My one remaining booking for Fylde Show at the end of September has been cancelled.  So the travelling theatre in all its repainted splendour, new stage floor, new booth for Martin, every flat re-varnished, props gloriously gleaming – all will remain in lonely lockdown for 2020. The spike in Preston has spooked the local authority and they couldn’t allow it.  I do understand. 

 

I spent a long night last night working with a wonderful video man - check his show reel out here - https://www.victorpennington.com/. If you are looking for a video solution to anything then he’s your man.  He travels. I asked him to film a short show for Barking Folk Festival which is going online next month and we spent an exhausting but fruitful few hours together.  I think the end result, which I will share with you once it is edited and ready for viewing, will be as good as it could be considering my ambivalence about video.

 

However I found the filming process exhausting and it took quite a toll on this old frame of mine.  A night of pain with cramp was the penalty.  The sort of cramps I generally have after the first few shows of the season.  By August I am usually well into the swing of it and l am leaping around the stage in my usual flouting of the accepted laws of nature; that a 70 year old man shouldn’t be jumping anywhere, and certainly not squeezing through folding chairs, balanced on a plank.

 

So you are the first to hear it here.  Next season will be my last with the stage.  There I’ve said it.  I’ve been working up to telling you, keeping my counsel.  But I need to embrace the obvious (you can’t embrace anyone else these days) and the pandemic has been the precipitative push I needed.  My intentions are still in the process of being worked out in detail, but the shows I do next year will allow me to finish paying off debts and to find the next keeper of the theatre.  Big Doc Marten red boots to fill.

 

I designed and built the theatre in 1984 and steered it through all its different stages.  Three different and extremely talented artists have responded over the years to the challenge of painting my dreams. From sitting on the winched-down side of the Billy Boy Brown and the Circus FG 550 truck bought from Martin ‘Zippo’ Burton when I was his first Ringmaster, through the seasons in a box trailer towed behind my Hobby and the ridiculous American motorhome I once owned, through to its current bespoke and beautifully-painted trailer, towed behind my lovely live-in lorry.  Apart from the (painted) poster on the back wall alongside the stage door, I have never personalised the theatre to Mr Alexander.  It was always a theatre in which Mr Alexander happened to be performing.  I always knew that it would outlive me, indeed it was designed to do so.  And now the time has come for it to move on.  And yes, of course I will cry. 

 

But it is the right thing to do.  I have written recently about the new rules that must govern outdoor shows.  Indeed I have helped to write some of them with pages of risk assessments.  However the thought of this new way of working doesn’t make me feel excited or happy. I would rather remember shows as they used to be, with hundreds of families overlapping each other, fighting for a square foot to sit, watching bunched up children alongside total strangers in the Summer sunshine, than be part of them as they will have to be from now on; sitting masked in bubbles, avoiding contact, the scent of sanitiser swirling in the breeze.

 

I can’t do this quickly or overnight, so a final season will allow me to say goodbye to the many, many lovely people who have watched the show, who have invited me to their celebrations, festivals and events and have been so much part of my life for getting on for fifty years.  I hope my talented and trusty troubadour friend Martin will tinkle the ivories one final season. And of course I will be still be around in some form.  It isn’t a death sentence or a terminal illness, thank goodness.

 

It might be in video, it might be in other forms.  I need the time and space to think about what I am going to do.  A bucket list of sorts I suppose.  Perhaps I can teach.  I have ideas for an entertainment school. I know I have a way with words so I hope you are pleased that the blog will continue.  If I had a good memory I could tell my story but to be honest it has all blurred into an impressionist painting of a life, probably painted by Degas or Lautrec. Trying to make out all the little details that would be the backbone of any biography would be boring and bothersome.  (I do like alliteration).

 

I know there will be many who will shed that tear with me.  But courage, mes braves.  Life goes on.  There will always be shows.  There will always be entertainers, storytellers and shaman.  Shamen?  Shamans?  Shapersons?

 

All the best from a road near you,

 

Mr Alexander

 

 

Anxious times

We knew where we were in lockdown.  Locked down.  Cleaning , disinfecting.  Putting up the shutters and gritting our teeth.  Together, united in adversity, we clapped and saved the NHS.  Our leaders spelled out the statistics, the dangers, the risks, the rules.  There was a Brit stiff upper lip stoic confidence in our demeanours. We knew what we had to do.  We stood behind our leaders, we helped our neighbours and marvelled at the birdsong.

But what now?  Hoards invading beaches leaving tons of ocean plastic detritus, no more daily briefings, changes of tack, indoor events on then off.  1 metre / 2 metre? Bubbles in bubbles. All the uncertainty has left me feeling far more anxious than before and there is evidence that many others feel the same.

 

Living in border country in England but close to Wales is even more bizarre.  I had occasion to pop over the border a few miles and called into Lidl on the way back for a few messages (how I love that Scottish word for a few supermarket purchases).  I was shocked.  Not a mask in sight.  I hadn’t heard but the Welsh First Minister had thrown out the requirement to wear masks indoors in Wales.  No wonder the roads west were so jammed this weekend with the masses longing for mask-free aisles making desperate bids to escape the nightmare filmset that our English shopping experience has become.

 

So should I just ignore the Welsh First Minister and wear a mask anyway or ignore Boris, refuse to wear one and speak in a welsh accent if I am challenged?

 

The anxiety is palpable everywhere. So much work potential gone.  Redundancies all over the place.  People radically adapting their life choices.  I have been asked to make a short video show for Barking Folk Festival’s 2020 online event.  I have performed there a couple of times and have written about the event previously. I met a guy who is a video genius.  Check out his work here https://www.victorpennington.com/

He is going to help me put the film together.  He was doing a major contract filming at an International School in Berlin when the pandemic happened.  Suddenly it all went and he is now working in his local pub trying to pick up the pieces.  A bit like me, but without the pub.

 

My video family show project is still ticking on.  I didn’t realise there was such a steep learning curve with managing the software and the hardware and deciding on what I really wanted to do and whether there would be an audience out there anyway that would justify the expense and how to market it and so on and so on.  It hasn’t been easy although there are a lot of excellent free and not so free tutorials on how to do it.  I’m Youtubed out currently and am going to step back from it for a bit and assess where we all are.  If anyone knows maybe they will share.

 

I do know I am enjoying volunteering for a local non-profit organisation in a deprived housing estate on the edge of Chester.  Live Laugh Lache (the estate is called The Lache) is a group of local people who decided to act on their beliefs and have set up a shop in the centre of the estate. They collect out of date but still usable food from local supermarkets, bring it to their shop and you can fill a carrier bag with whatever there is for £2.  I am working as a volunteer there on Friday mornings and, once the shop is set up for the day, I have been doing some magic for the families in the delightful little garden they have established at the back of the shop.  Magic Fridays I call them.  I have a few more children popping in every week.  We wear masks and do it at a distance of course.  The group have all sorts of other positive plans for community development and the place is full of hope and positive intention. We all could do with a dose of whatever they are on.

 

Currently it’s the only thing I am doing that I don’t feel anxious about.  It’s good to have at least one of those things in our lives and it’s amazing what even one can do to reduce the load of the rest. I strongly recommend volunteering as a path through the dense undergrowth of anxiety that seems to be growing up around us.

 

All the best from a road near you,

 

Mr Alexander

 

 

Back to work at last

This week the Government freed us to have live events again.  Of course there are provisos, risk assessments as long as your arm and hoops and hurdles.  But there may yet be time in 2020 to dust off the props, do a few stretches and take to the road. 

 

I warmly welcome the notion even though it will be very different from the years BC (Before Covid).  No more Pirate Song, prizes or cash in the hat. No finger chopper. Audiences in discreet bubbles. Hand sanitiser. A very different affair.  As is life now, despite all that many people are doing and pretending in the crazy drive to re-monetise our stricken economy.  I drove through Chester yesterday and there was not one face mask to be seen as they walked past photos of Boris wearing one on front page headlines saying ‘Wear masks in shops’.  What is it about our stupid pride that makes us not take a simple precaution that would save thousands of lives?

 

I had thought that the August Bank Holiday Isle of Wight Steam Show would be the first one back but we will have to wait for the announcement.  I’m sworn to secrecy.  But I do have Fylde Show in pen in the diary for September 12^th and 13^th. It’s a new show for me, run by another septuagenarian, a vintage tractor collector and a stalwart fellow.  He is determined to carry on and I will be there, hopefully with Martin on the keyboards alongside, carrying on our noble and time-honoured tradition of entertainment and amusement, divertissements and badinages. And hopefully no bandages for those who may have misread that!

 

The shows will have to adapt and change to suit the Covid detachment.  They will have to be more visual and perhaps more stylised.  But we will adapt and develop in the new world as we have always done in the popular performing arts.  I hope that our colleagues in the formal live theatre can find a way to adapt to the new world.  How would you direct a scene that involved close up contact between two characters when the two actors playing them were from different bubbles?  One of the  many many such problems facing serious theatre.  I hope they find the solutions but I fear that theatre, as many things, will never be quite the same again.

 

My new streaming show will be available later this week once I have checked a few final things with the software.  I will announce it on the website and on my Facebook page, but I thought you, my faithful blog readers, would like to know about it first.  If you’d like to pencil in a show drop me a line by email to david@mralexander.co.uk.  Be amongst the first to witness it. I will do each 30 minute spot by arrangement with up to four different families or bubbles via Zoom and there will be a chance to watch some live stunts, play some games and magic as well as see some filmed extracts from the stage show.  Prizes will be posted to all the children. There will not be any admission fees as such but of course the virtual top hat (https://mralexander.co.uk/donate) will be placed casually and unobtrusively in front of you as you leave! I’m looking forward to it.  It will be the closeup and personal dimension that will be have to be missing from the stage show.   There will be a chance to chat, share lockdown stories and see Mr A in his emporium of entertainment and wonder.  And when Martin comes back there will also be live music. 

 

It seems to have taken me a long time to adapt to the changes.  Maybe it’s age.  Children and young people can just go with the flow and take the changes as they arrive without worrying too much.  I worry about them in the new world though.  For those of us who have good memories we will always have those sunny days of Pirate Songs and finger chopper routines, of closeup live magic and crowds sitting crammed into every square inch in the summer sunshine.  Will they only ever have face masks and digital onscreen communication with people other than those in their own bubbles?  Will they grow up believing that life has always been like this and read uncomprehendingly of the days when we could shake hands, hug a long lost friend and share a drink from the same bottle of water?

 

All the best, at last, from a road near you,

 

Mr Alexander

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Islands in the stream

Hemmingway or Parton?  I didn’t know it was the title of a posthumously published novel by him until I googled it. Well, a mixture of both artists then as we all watch life passing by with all this continuing time on our hands.  Hemingway’s novel is a review of his life and the 2019 Netflix documentary Here I Am, about Dolly Parton, is a review of hers.  I recommend the latter as a fascinating study of the performance persona at work.  Some great music of course as well, classic tunes which flowed from her prolific pen.

 

Islands in the Stream.  It feels like a life review, the flow of life a river that we all bump along with other islands coming and going.  The islands themselves seem more like floating driftwood pushed and pulled by the tide of the river.  Sometimes together, sometimes apart.

 

That’s is how it has felt recently.  I heard that a good friend’s Mum had died.  Margaret was a strong-minded, witty and kind-hearted person I admired and met annually, like many of my acquaintance. I will miss her, her sharp mind and twinkling eyes. It was good but very sad to watch her streamed funeral service. Islands in the stream.

 

I also learned that a good friend with whom I shared two happy years many years ago has Parkinson’s.  Luis and I are the same age and in his illustrious life he achieved all he promised he would do in the world of theatre, opera, film and literature in Portugal, his home.  Time and life drifted us apart and I hadn’t heard about him for nearly fifty years.  And then in my ongoing life review I looked him up on Facebook to discover the news which came as a sad and salutary shock. Islands in the stream. His timeline has since gone silent again. I send him my love along with very happy memories.

 

Back to Dolly Parton whose performance persona has taken over her life.  It’s hard to know where the real person is behind the wigs and makeup, and yet the persona is so tangible and real that we accept that as who she really is.  A fascinating phenomenon.  Those who have come to know me will also know of my fascination (bordering sometimes on obsession) with my own performance persona.  I have been grappling with Mr A recently.  Sometimes it felt like a real fight as he and I found that playing to a camera in the Covid era just wasn’t right. 

 

We both came to the conclusion that a live audience is an active collaborator in our creative process. That collaboration is part of the appeal of the travelling showman who has become me (or is it that I have become?) You, the audience are pulled into the strange world of the show and your reactions contribute to its process and growth.  It’s pretty obvious really.

 

I watched a fascinating short documentary (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdrBT0YxQwo&feature=youtu.be) on the subject and found I wasn’t alone in being ambivalent about internet shows.

 

But it is a niggle as we are all having to deal with that other stream in our lives.  So if making video recordings doesn’t work, what might?  I offered this week to perform some live magic to two families via Zoom.  Suddenly something started to happen and the half hour flashed by. The feedback was very positive, despite the poor quality of the connection and the picture through the laptop webcam.  But definitely something came alive and it gave me heart and hope for another try with streaming technology.  I think I could offer shows to small family groups with a live streaming connection.  I’ve discovered some appropriate software with a wealth of online teaching and learning.  I’m enjoying the process as I think I can see a way  forward with it.  I see it as a marketed personalised show run live via Zoom but which plays specifically to a few separate families at a time.  A closeup live chat with Mr A in his emporium.  People would book and make a small contribution for attendance and the show would be personalised to those attending by maybe giving them some choice as to which (pre-recorded) video sections I showed and also some live closeup magic, chat, physical interaction and maybe some games.  A family party show but personalised to those attending. Sanitised prizes sent through the post, and the whole available for watching again later. 

 

It’s still very early days but there is something in it. Let me know your thoughts and ideas.  After all you’re a collaborator in it too.

 

All the best from a stream near you,

 

Mr Alexander

 

 

My response to the Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sports’ call for evidence

The Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sports is asking for evidence about the effect of the pandemic on the arts industry.  Here’s what I said:

I am a travelling Show who has worked for over fifty years in the open air events sector. My show is a family Vintage Variety Show involving magic, music, juggling,  unicycling, illusion and high balance.  Last year I was joined by a live keyboard accompanist, a former marine bandsman with forty years live performance experience.  Before the pandemic the show was booked every weekend at galas, festivals and events between the beginning of May and the end of October.  2020 was to have been my busiest year to date, with many new bookings as well as those I visited every year, some for as many as thirty years without a break.

The effect of the pandemic has been disastrous.  Every booking has been cancelled.  I have one or two bookers have said they will book me again in 2021 but this will depend on what restrictions will be in place then. 

I am a member of Equity and the Outdoor Arts UK associations and I have received some emergency funding through these organisations. I also received a grant from the Grand Order of Water Rats. In the short term their grants and generosity have been able to help me financially but the medium and long term is by no means as optimistic. If I am to carry on as a professional (and I am now too old to learn another skill), then the open air event industry must be supported to survive.

Open air events must change to reflect the changes in acceptable and legal social interaction.  Admission must be monitored. Audiences must be separated into distanced groups.  Toilet facilities must provide safe use. There must be stations to allow for hand washing and sanitisation.  Graphic reminders of social distancing rules must be obvious and security must be in place to support this.  Queuing must be monitored.  The use of technology must be accelerated to aid all these measures.

But open air events must continue and can only do so if they are supported by government.  They represent a cultural dimension of human activity which dates back millennia through fetes and galas to parades and touring troubadours, mystery plays and way beyond back to the lone travelling storyteller and shaman.  We open air performers carry this tradition forward today in everything we do, everything we work for.  The cohesion of community and social life is furthered through our work.  It is not just entertainment.   It is a vital celebration of community and social life, traditional and essential.  It must change and adapt certainly, as it always has to war, disaster and the like, but it must be supported by central and local government intervention to allow it to continue.  Without that financial and fiscal support, this rich. life-affirming, colourful tradition cannot survive.

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander

The trail of breadcrumbs

I’ll start where I left off last week, and with the possibility of a new start. 

It’s been a rollercoaster week of learning and creating and I have to say I am back on form after my dalliance and dance with the black dog.  Several things brought me out and I want to tell you about them.  I had some uplifting emails and I am so grateful for those who sent messages of hope and encouragement.  People who had really thought about what I’ve been saying and knew where I’ve been.  One of the best things about us humans is our capacity to be there.  I’m not sure about empathy.  I have a friend who says ‘a problem shared is a problem doubled’, which is funny and true because it is funny or maybe funny because it is true.  But being there and showing up for someone going through mental health challenges is a lot more helpful honestly, so thank you.

It all launched me on a search for what it means to be creative and my guru in the search became Elisabeth Gilbert, by way of her TED talk (https://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_your_elusive_creative_genius ).  I downloaded her book ‘Big Magic’ after listening to her talking recently with head of TED, Chris Anderson, about being overwhelmed by the coronavirus.  That journey took me also to the thoughts about what I have been good at in my life and what I could explore in the way of following Ms Gilbert’s ‘trail of breadcrumbs’.

I responded to an email from someone I knew years ago when I ran The Clocktower, the training and education centre I founded in the heady days of the early lottery.  She founded and now runs an arts charity in North Wales and was looking for a project to launch and rebrand the Charity’s work.  The long and the short is that I’ve been helping with that as a volunteer and have been creatively involved with developing a project for 18-24 year olds who have been effected by the constraints of lockdown and feel isolated and a bit lost.  Like us all really but we oldies have at least had the huge advantage of a pandemic-free career to look back on, reflect on, remember and feel good about.  And unlike half the world who, as well as all those feelings, are also suffering, starving, homeless, disenfranchised and desperate.

So I am following the trail and I must say it IS fascinating.  It’s not about a new career, though the thought of earning a penny or two from it at some point is a vague possibility.  It is about doing something for the others again.  'Storing my grain in the belly of my neighbour' as Ms Gilbert quotes. And I must say that thought is uplifting and energising. I am finding a new energy and enjoying all the new ways of co-working now far more technologically than they ever were in my day, but clever and useful and matching in some ways the workings of the human brain.

The project would be a four week online (how could it be anything else) project for young people interested in discovering their creativity and working towards a career.  There’s a psychologist also in the brainstorm (sorry – blue sky thinking) team and I am finding the process hugely rewarding.  Wherever it leads.  There is the possibility of a live event (or whatever might be possible under the emerging guidelines for human:human contact) or a video showcase at the end and mentoring young individuals in their personal career journeys.

In many ways it is a reflection and realisation of some of what I have tried to do whilst on tour.  I’m thinking of the many, many young people who always seem to be ‘hangers-on’ (wrong phrase, I know) to the show in almost every place I visited.  How easily that has stepped into the past tense! They were mostly open-minded thinking people who become fascinated by what I do and end up being drawn into the ‘big magic’ of it all.  I could list them now as I have learned their names over the years and it has always fascinating to catch up with their journeys annually as we met and met again.  I have watched many grow up and have children of their own. The project is a way I can stay involved with learning (another life-long study and fascination), community development and, hey, let’s not be humble here, the future of the human race, the planet and existence itself.

Because in all this I can only do what I can do from the perspective of lockdown, shielding, video conferencing and old people’s shopping hour.  And a bit of practice of close-up magic for fun and brain exercise.  But these local and neighbourhood processes and actions are virtually all we have.  Funny how the word ‘virtual’ has come to mean something very different now.  But the virtual is at least far better than nothing.

All the best from a road, on the other side of the screen, near you,

Mr Alexander