Cowboy night

So I’m at the Ilfracombe Victorian Week and it’s all going quite well.  One day of bad weather with no shows, but to be honest I needed the day off.  Relentless three shows daily for ten days plays havoc with the bones, and of course the cybernetics of the bones; the joints. On the wet day I put it all out, did a ten minute warm up and the rains came.  A deluge all day so nothing for it but to put it all away and retreat to the lorry where I fell asleep for three hours and woke not knowing where or who I was.

Somewhere at the back of my mind I remembered it was Cowboy Night. Sounds intriguing? Well I thought so. I knew nothing much about it except that in the past few years at Ilfracombe I had been disturbed by men dressed as cowboys shooting guns along the High Street and terrifying the dogs.  So my expectations weren’t high and the only thing which decided me to go was the fact I’d been cooped up all day in the lorry and that I had been told that last year’s was an absolute storming evening.

The event was at the top of town in the Bowling Club.  The venue was decidedly inauspicious. No sparkling water and no ice at the bar. Luckily I’d brought my own water as most venues here don’t seem to have sparkling water and it’s about the only drink I take now. But it has ideally to be with loads of ice.

The gathering company of Victorians I knew from this and other events.  My good friends Colin and Alice kindly gave me a lift there and it meant I could sit with them.  A long dilapidated room with formica tables and chairs down both long sides and a wooden dance floor that had seen better days.  A venue from Hades.  Anyway I was there and there for the duration as it would be extremely rude to leave.   I have to say though I was struggling for my sanity.  Colin and Alice tried to keep me buoyant.

The event began.  It was masterminded by John and Rosemary Blythe, both like me, enjoying late middle age.  He, a joiner apparently, and his wife, who seemed to do a lot of the spade work behind the scenes while he presented the show.  It was ever thus.  The items on the agenda were motley and bizarre.  A quiz about Buffalo Bill that was so difficult and specialised that I didn’t even know one of the answers. Pass the Parcel and Musical Chairs. (I kid you not.) A Circassian Circle dance. A peculiar game that entailed throwing mini lassoos over a pole on a treasure chest to pull the contents towards you to win a Lottery ticket. A lucky spin the wheel number game.

Please don’t misunderstand me.  I am not being cynical or cold-hearted about these things.  They had a distinct and peculiar charm, especially when all participating were dressed in Victorian Cowboy costumes and the sun was setting over the sea from the window opposite.  It was like being in a flashback in a Fellini film. I was beginning to enjoy it as an outsider watching these lovely people and probably realising that, as most of them were of my generation, this was an event that wouldn’t be repeated many more times and once gone would be gone forever.

However the evening’s climax was unexpected, charming and extremely funny.  It is difficult to describe, but put simply, our host provided the kit for three teams to build a proscenium arch theatre and all the props, masks, script and instructions to put on a performance of Edward Lear’s wonderful nonsense poem, ‘The Owl and the Pussycat’.  Down to the very last detail of everything required. All in kit form. I cannot tell you how uplifting the ensuing half an hour was.  It was funny, charming, endearing, unforgettable, wonderful and extremely British in every positive way as all present laboured in teams to build their theatre and present their oeuvre. My friend Colin has provided a photo and it captures something of the magic of it all. 

It was one of those occasions which, when I am lying on my death bed, I shall look back at my life and say ‘I would NEVER have missed that night.’  I will laugh and breathe my last.

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander

Heat, a hat and heady honeysuckle

An uneventful and leisurely drive down from Salisbury to Ilfracombe.  Salisbury, where I spent a morning en flaneur re-visiting all my old haunts from over forty years ago where as a young, ex-drama school, full-of myself acting asm I joined Salisbury Playhouse and three weekly rep for my first professional engagement.  Much of it was as it was and much was gone and very different.  The best was to visit the Arts centre in which, two years later, in 1973 or 74, I ran the first event which helped launch it from a beautiful but redundant church into a vibrant community arts centre.  A Five-Penny Festival ran every day of the Easter School holidays and over four hundred children came there daily for drama, events, making and processions for five pence a day (you could buy a large Kitkat for 5p then). The space there now is spectacular. (www.salisburyartscentre.co.uk) I spoke briefly to the operations manager, one of a team of 18 full time staff and almost as many part timers who now work there developing the arts for people, just as we dreamed of all those decades ago when the odd band of individuals found ourselves in possession of the keys to the church.  I was uplifted and so proud to see that wonderful space now extended and renovated, vibrant, popular and successful and to think that I had somehow helped the rebirth of that extraordinary space.

And so to Devon where the sun is shining and provides my dream location, next to the theatre overlooking the bay (photo below) and just along from the harbour, complete with the infamous huge pregnant woman sculpture by Whatshisname.  The half a cow ‘artist’.  The scent of honeysuckle is all-pervading here this year.  Everywhere we walk around the lorry, it’s optimistic aroma assaults the senses.  The area was the Victorian gardens of a huge hotel, demolished a few years ago to make way for the Landmark Theatre. I think it isn’t actually honeysuckle but a species of palm which grows everywhere in this balmy gulf stream infused county.  And it’s warm and mellow and it’s oh so happy.  So happy that I bought a hat!  A replacement for my two-year-old panama which now is held together by hidden Jaffa tape (an extra sticky brilliant orange version of gaffer tape!).  It was expensive but at least I now am earning and can afford to invest a little into the show, and especially as the old one was looking below standard.

A couple of days to do the washing, roam and relax and tomorrow I am revising some evaluation reports for Cat’s Paw Theatre, so I am keeping myself rooted a little in the real world and not becoming totally seduced by the romance of my life, which, accentuated ferociously by the heady notes of honeysuckle, the wonderful warmth of the summer sun and the shade of my lovely new hat has threatened to take me over at times today.

Victorian Week in Ilfracombe is another of those volunteer-run events whose core of dedicated individuals never cease to amaze and excite me with their energy, enthusiasm and eccentricity.  I am trying to come up with a Mr Alexander special for them again this year but as yet nothing has emerged.  Last year it was ‘Christmas Day in the Workhouse’, a recitation of the famous Victorian Parlour poem which I had learned by heart for the occasion.  Not sure how to top that one this time.  Perhaps better to attempt something of an entirely different nature.  Let it ferment for a couple of days and something will emerge. I fancy something of a mentalist nature, but not sure what.

The weather forecast is mixed but we’ll see.  I shall put the awning up which now has a brand new and rather fetchingly camp burgundy beaded fringe along the top edge.  A great success and lends the awning a real Victorian look, rather like a flamboyant standard lampshade!

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander

The view from my window towards Ilfracombe harbour at night (the dark bit in the middle is the sea which you can't see!)

Theatre? What’s that?

At the start of my ‘Showbusiness Show', usually the first show of the three I do in a day, I talk a little about the old Variety Theatres and the tradition of weekly rep.  I tell the children that my set is called ‘a theatre’, pronouncing the word as if it is a new word that the children will not have heard before.  It’s a little gag about how theatres, especially the older touring houses, are struggling to survive and have been since the invention of television.  Of course I am of the generation that knew life before tv, but there are far less of us around now!  The children (as well as many of the adults) who watch my shows increasingly need to be educated into the conventions of Variety Theatre.  They experience Variety via the many shows on mainstream tv, and then the many repeats of the same show, year on year.  They watch audiences responding to the live event, but of course they don’t respond from the comfort of their sofas (unless of course it’s a football or rugby match!).  They are voyeurs to the Variety experience and don’t know what to do when they encounter my show for real.  Hence the education bit at the start of my Showbusiness Show.

I love the set up day at a new show.  Yesterday morning, after one of those overnight trips down from Derbyshire and a brief stopover in Nottingham Services, I arrived at The Vintage Nostalgia Show (  website ) on a lovely site near Salisbury in the Wylye Valley.  The show is one of a breed of new themed shows that are cropping up now.  This one is perfect for me as I am both vintage and nostalgic.  Almost hundreds of stalls of wonderful paraphanalia from those years before tv and a delightful programme of music and dance from the forties and fifties. And me!!

As I was setting up, but before I had dropped the stage down, a young a man, mid twenties came over and hung there, pregnant for a chat, so I became his conversational midwife and made the first move.  His name is Chris. He was a helper on the slots; a stall of vintage slot machines. He looked at my trailer, looked at the words Theatre Royal on the frontage and said, ‘What’s this?’ 

‘It’s a theatre’, and I apologise if I sounded a bit sarcastic as I gestured at the sign.  I was very tired and I thought it was obvious. In any case it was lost on him.  ‘Theatre? What’s that?’ he asked, innocently.  I asked him whether he’d ever been to a theatre.  He said he hadn’t.  ‘Where you from?’ ‘Swindon’ was the reply.  I told him I thought there was a theatre in Swindon ( website ). He said he had seen the sign.  I looked at him to check he was not just being very subtle and leading me up his garden path, but no, his was an innocence born of telling the truth.  I took to him.  ‘So you’ve never been to a theatre?’  He confirmed the sad truth.  ‘Well, you’ll have to come over and see the show tomorrow then’.  After a few more pleasantries we parted company.

There will be increasing numbers of young people who have never have the chance to experience live theatre.  This is both a sad legacy of the advance of technology and of the state of our education system.  I have tried to avoid politics in this blog, but this is reprehensible.  We are abnegating our responsibility to the heritage of our nation by denying our young people the opportunity to experience live theatre.  OK yes we do take them some of them to the annual Pantomime, but it’s almost the only experience that some children will have of live Variety Theatre.  But there’s a lot more to Variety than Pantomime, as I am trying to demonstrate with what I do.  Nor is it a meaningless, mindless entertainment.  I hope my audiences leave with more than just a half hour spent amicably.

Below is my new photo taken from the window at the stalls at the Vintage Nostalgia Show.  That stuff at the top is blue sky.  Nice to see it again after so long in the rain.

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander

Quintessentially British

Well it has been a while since I put fingers to keyboard.  I’ve just been SO busy.  A couple of days with Cat’s Paw Theatre rehearsing new piece for 16 +, getting all the final bits ready for the summer and trying to rest my poor damaged ankle.  I am pleased to say the last is now almost better.  The swelling has reduced and although it is still painful, especially after a day on my pins, it is much better really.  I can unicycle and do all the high balances so that’s all that matters!

The season has well and truly started with Llandudno a distant past and the Anglesey Vintage Machinery Rally over two weeks ago.  My first visit to this and a most enjoyable weekend all round.  Friendly people and the weather was fine.  Not as fine as the rest of the UK apparently which basked in summer heat.  Anglesey was cloudy and rather windy, but no rain.  Which is not what can be said for the Bank Holiday weekend Saturday at the Hertfordshire County Show.  It was a fine day for the set up when I arrived on the Friday but the rain started in the middle of the night and just didn’t stop.  Well until about 11.00 when a break in the general sogginess meant I could set up shop and announce the first show.  The 12.00 show was very busy and enjoyable, likewise the second, but the third was about half way through when the dark skies presaged a thunder storm of biblical proportions.  The dogs rushed for the safety of the lorry and I rescued props from the deluge!  My occasional call up line ‘The last little show at the end of the world’ seemed it might be very appropriate, and I was seriously worried about the awning which shook and billowed in the angry wind.

But hey, a couple of hours later and a clear sky and open sky sunset and the Sunday forecast was not nearly as bad.  Over 15,000 advance tickets sold and a very busy day.  It’s a lovely County Show, and a really British affair with all the stewards in bowler hats and collars and ties. Very nice!  The shows were packed and I had several very appreciative emails along with an invitation to return next year.  That’s the way to do it!

The other news is that a young film maker called Rhys Edwards (believe it or not, he’s Welsh) is going to make a documentary film about me and the strange life I live!  He is a wonderful cameraman and director.  He recently won a major National film award with a real joy of a three-minute documentary about a sheep farming family near Caernarfon.  The film is called ‘A Good Bitch’ and it is three minutes of real joy.  Check it out on Rhys’ website http://www.rhysedwards.tv

He started filming at the Crich Tramway Village.  Apart from the day he was there, I spent four extremely soggy days there.  But what a lovely place. Check it out on (www.tramway.co.uk). The really great thing about it is the people who work there.  Another army of volunteers all dedicated to keeping the history of trams alive.  I especially liked Phil and Angie who made my stay really special. I was privileged to have the lorry parked in the corner of the tramyard during my stay and every morning the trams were taken from the shed by the volunteers, all in uniform and most in their sixties and seventies I guess, with the occasional young whippersnapper amongst them.  It was like watching Dad’s Army live.  Wonderful and heart-warmingly British.  I love these eccentrics.  The ones who dress up for fun and do something they love doing.  Bury me on their side of the grave yard!

The Village is a wonderful attraction and you must definitely put it on your list of must-go places.

All the best from a road near you,

Mr Alexander

PS I am adding a photo on each blog called ‘from my window’, so you can have some idea of the fantastic places I stay in.  Today’s is the tram yard at Crich with the Red Lion ( a famous pub which was taken down brick by brick and reconstructed here) in the background and the trams waiting in the shed