A strange heading, you say? Not to me or anyone familiar with Original Theatre's last offering at The Theatre Royal, York. Well, actually. It might be…. When we toured 'The Private Ear, The Public Eye' last autumn our final track was 'Concrete and Clay' by… Area 51? Something like that. Where I'm going with this (and I promise you that I am going somewhere with it) is that there was a line about 'feet begin to crumble', which Paul Bouchier, our CSM, changed to 'I want a rhubarb crumble'. Hilarious, I know. Anyway, I mention it because I had it in my head all day during the York fit up. I'd managed to get down to Devon on the Sunday to see my mum for a pre-Mother's Day, Mother's Day and had a really nice day out, but it did mean that I had to tackle the 5 hour drive to York (normally only 4 - bloody M5 road works. You have forsaken me…) very early on the Monday morning and I was in a singing mood having belted out a few numbers on the drive up. We were only in York in November so it felt like we hadn't been gone too long and it was great to see al the guys, particularly the wonderful QOS Nick who was my sound guy for the day, Zanna on lighting (who replaced Liam who moved to Birmingham Rep - remember from last week?) and one of my favourite stage door keepers, Brian.
History Lesson:
I don't know it you've ever been to York, but it's an old Roman City (a bit like Exeter where I hail from), however, there is evidence that it dates back much further than that. See, this is where I am in danger of becoming a bit (more?) boring. I didn't always work in theatre. My degree is actually in Archaeology (from Exeter, over 10 years ago, so you can look forward to me regaling you with stories about my mad University days when we're there in May) - well, Russian and History first and then Archaeology…. As you can see, I am putting my University studies to good use… Actually, I did make up some labels for Russian vodka bottles for a farce in 2005 and wrote and taught an actor how to read the back of a Russian tin of tuna once. But I (as usual) digress. We're not talking about me, we're talking about York. So, although it may bore some of you I am going to tell you a bit about York (please feel free to skip to section four if you wish).
York: Founded by the Roman 9th Legion in cAD 71, who came across it whilst on their way north from Lincoln and named it Eboracum, York was the site of government for the whole of the Roman Empire on two occasions (the governing city being wherever the Emperor was). Most famously it was residence for a time for Constantine The Great, who 'created Christmas' (in its current form - I'm sure you know about it originally being a pagan festival) - he was actually the first real 'Christian' emperor and responsible for the unification of Christianity throughout the Roman Empire. Roman York thrived for a time, but by AD 400 as the the Romans fled Britain, it was all but abandoned.
James and Simon in The Shambles
I'm going to try to keep this brief - I've gone on enough already and I haven't forgotten that this is a theatre blog not a history one! After what is known as the 'sub-Roman' period, York became known as Eoforwic in the Anglo-Saxon period and, along with London and Ipswich, was one of the main centres for commercial production in the country. Then the Vikings came in AD 866 on All Saints Day, took control of the city and it became known as Jorvik and was not, by all accounts, a particularly pleasant place to live. Imagine scenes similar to those we think of when picturing the cholera outbreak in London in the 19th Century. Squalid living conditions, waste in the streets, unhygienic food and water, it certainly would bear no resemblance to the beautiful city that we were in. I'm going to stop now. I've (badly) covered two of the most famous periods of York's history (and I do apologise to anyone who has a much better and deeper knowledge of its history than me - I know I've just sketched), but if you do want to learn a bit more about York and its history, please go to www.visityork.org.uk or www.historyofyork.org.uk (excellent site - thanks for confirming dates), or better yet, try to visit if you ever find yourself in the area. It's beautiful, the old walls still survive and you can take a historical walk around them (as did Sinead and Lucy and Alastair and Simon) seeing all the buildings that still stand. I went out in search of a well known stationary shop/newsagents/book store that isn't Woolworths (MISS IT!) and got promptly lost. I'm ok around the theatre location wise, but as soon as I set foot in The Shambles (York's rambling cobbled maze of lanes with a variety of shops inside leaning and creaking Medieval and Tudor buildings) I get completely lost.
York's walls
Simon wondering if it's safe...
Cuckoo and Bear Scale York's Walls: I don't think this needs any further explanation. Let's say that Bear's (Simon's) attempt was a little more successful than Cuckoo's (Alastair's):
Back in Theatreland:
Right. Welcome back if you've skipped straight to this section. We've taken a short trawl through bits of York's history and I'm trusting that those who didn't skip are still awake?
So. The Theatre Royal is a beautiful building parts of the old walls are still visible backstage (our stage right props table was actually a sort of workbench in a alcove of the the old wall). York
is another producing house, similar to Salisbury, and so the
in-house team were busy working on their owns shows as well as ours.
As usual Jude, their head of productions, was there to greet the
whole company and give us a health and safety briefing, as well as letting us know how
best to get about the building, what codes we needed to know and
(most importantly) what discounts were available from the marvellous
cafe front of house (excellent brownies by the way).
York Theatre Royal Warm-up
Simon warms up…. Do you see how high the stage is? Look at his leg!!!
Ever wondered how backstage/lighting/sound etc know when to start a show? Ever sat in an auditorium and seen people turning back to glare at the lighting box or the sound position looking grumpy because they can see that the auditorium doors are shut but the show hasn't started? (Please don't ever do that by the way. It is very rarely the fault of the technician in the box or at the sound desk's fault that it's late starting. It's far more likely to be that an actor has locked him or herself out whilst having a cigarette or there's been some sort of prop malfunction backstage. There is nothing anyone out front can do to make it start more quickly….) Anyway, for the uninitiated, we have this thing in theatre land called 'clearance'. This will usually be given by the front of house or duty manager to the DSM (me) either via the in-house stage manager or the lighting box by radio, by phone or in person. For example, I'm writing this in Worthing. Here it is radioed to Martin in the lighting box and he tells me over cans (headset with mic). In Birmingham the front of house manager came backstage. In York, it is given by…. 'BAT PHONE!' There's a phone backstage and a blue light on the prompt desk which flashes instead of the phone ringing and then I pick it up and speak to front of house. When I was in York last Halloween I was so impressed with this bat phone that I made a bat sign on it so it flashed like the bat signal (it can get cold and boring on tour in the dark months….) and I was delighted to see that this was still in situ. It was my intention to turn it into a Birdsong phone, but I'm afraid that I didn't get round to it…
BAT PHONE!!!!!!
FUN, FUN, FUN!!!!!: So much happened in York and I am, once again, in danger of this blog becoming longer than my dissertation (on the Rosetta stone, if anyone's interested I can probably find a copy somewhere…), but I do have to tell you a couple of bits that happened on the social side. The boys had their boy house in Durham, so we girls had our girl house in York. Lucy had found the bargain this time and had even managed to get the price knocked down a bit more for her, myself, Selma, Lizzie and Carolin. We were had our own townhouse about a 10 minute walk from the theatre, with a little garden, a (very) small parking space for Ernie, big airy rooms and a nice kitchen which became the hub of the house. We had a great time and on more than one occasion stayed up quite late having a good gossip. One night I went for a drink with the lads as the girls said that they were going home for sober night to watch 'The Little Mermaid'. Were they heck as like. I came back after about an hour to find them in the kitchen drinking wine and vodka, eating crisps and chatting away. So, I did the only thing possible and joined in. Two particular girlies (who will remain nameless) had a very late night indeed, but still managed to be bright and bushy the next….afternoon! It wasn't just our house though, Sinead was with a few of the lads and they had a pool table and a jukebox in their basement, so there was a bit of a boys evening over there one night and more than a few beers were drunk. York is also amazing for having so many secret pubs hidden away and Sam found a fantastic one: On Wednesday night, as I was leaving the theatre I received the following text from Alastair: 'The House of Trembling Madness. Go to evil eye. Keep walking down 3 or 4 doors. There's an off license. Go in there and upstairs…' Weirdly that made perfect sense. The Evil Eye was a pub that the guys had been to before. There they had an amazing assortment of spirit bottles and George found a shot glass pourer shaped like a tommy gun…. So, I went past The Evil Eye and lo and behold a few doors down was an off licence. In I went and asked 'Is this the house of the trembling madness…?' Yep. I was in the right place. Up the stairs I went and there was a real gem of a pub. If you're not keen on stuffed animal heads then it may not be the place for you, but otherwise it's a cosy little upstairs pub with original beams, a selection of real ales and extremely generous servings of wine……
George and The Evil Eye's spirit collection
Tommy Gun Shot Glass Pourer
House of Trembling Madness
Alastair and Jonny with stuffed heads behind them
Malcolm with the 'generous' serving of wine
After the trembling madness a few of us more hardy souls decided that we wanted an extra 'snifter' or two and so Alastair, Selma, myself and George went off in search of a bar that we had found back in October. Yeah. Right. We couldn't find it, of course, and so settled for a random bar that seemed to be still open. Can't remember the name, but they did two for one cocktails and they are somewhere in York and open late…. We had a good laugh and I even got chatted up (and I know this will amaze you to know, but this is not something that happens that often) by a very nice rugby playing chap called Nick. Is it this it, you ask? Is this the week when we shall FINALLY get the stories of sexual intrigue and debauchery???
No. Sorry. I sent him on his merry way - after drinking one of his cocktails (priorities). But I do have some nudity for you later on in the blog….. So, that was Wednesday and Thursday nights. The next night some people needed a bit more of a quiet one. Some of the boys went for a curry and then George joined Sinead and I for……. A SHOW BAR!
Monroe's Show Bar
Nick, my sound guy for the get-in also works in a place called Monroe's, which is not too far from the theatre. On Fridays and Saturdays they have drag acts from about 10:30 - 12:30am and stay open until 2am. Nick invited us along and we had a great night. We were very good (and I didn't drink -this is part of the 'dry 45' which I'll tell you about at a later date) as we had two shows the next day and so didn't stay very late. But, we did see Marilyn, Liza (fabulous) and Cilla and even saw one audience member getting a make-over to 'Popular' from 'Wicked'. If you are in York then do go along as it's a good night. George suffered a bit of a war wound and got a bit of glass embedded in his hand, but was brilliantly looked after by the staff there. It had been a bit of a few weeks for war wounds. If you've seen the show, then you'll know that Alastair comes on at the end and he and George hug. One night in Durham the hook from the hook and eye in Alastair's jacket had become away from the material. When he hugged George, the hook somehow got up George's nose and when he pulled away from Alastair the hook ripped his nose! He had to do the whole of the last part of the play bleeding! Then, halfway through York week, a screw that holds the floor down had come loose during the tunnel scene. When Peter ran on for the last tunnel scene he put his hand right on it…. Owww. They really are brave boys on this tour and Peter carried on as normal despite a bleeding hand!
George and Sinead in Monroe's
While Sam and George had a curry…..
And were a bit tired the next day…...
But you can't have fun without a bit of work too. On the Tuesday morning Jonny and Alastair had a radio interview with Minster FM which was a great success.
Jonny and Alastair hard at work
And then, on the Saturday…. It was our 50th show! This meant that Malcolm, myself and GMoss had done 254 performances in total and Sinead 253! This was celebrated with a spot of 'who can balance on one leg on a crate/stool for the longest' competition. George won, but Peter was a close second with his crane pose. George then presented the company with a celebratory gift of giant cookies for all diets. Nice one George.
There was also a new nickname. Carolin is now 'The Otter' and Alastair even found her a chocolate one that he thought looked like her. It lasted about an hour before it got eaten…...
George doles out the celebratory cookies
The balancing competition
It's down to the final two…. Peter and George take it seriously
What do you think? Does it look like her?
Then, after the get-out, George and I set off for a late night road trip to Eastbourne (via Watford) - George challenged me to a variety of car games and won them all (rigged) whilst we navigated the stupid roadworks and diversions that seem to constitute the M1 at the moment… And that was York. A grand old week indeed.
It's such a brilliant theatre to work in and I'm sure all the company would join me in thanking everyone there for making it so easy and enjoyable. Hope to see you all again soon! Worthing next. And I am at home! Yes! Oh…. I promised you nudity, didn't I? Teenage girls of the world, you can now thank me. Who needs One Direction when you've got….. JONNY!
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