CHAZ wrote:
I recall many "Funky Duncy" blockusters and indeed did act in some
My photos from "The Seagull"
will be released unless you cough up the hush money, Chaz
Stuff I appeared in:
One of my regrets in life is not having taken the early opportunity when it was offered to have a non-speaking, non-speaking, physical part in "Princess Ida". Much later in my CH experience, I made up for it by inflicting my singing voice on the public in blink-and-you-miss-them solos in "La Traviata" (I have of course ever since shamelessly milked my infinitesimal operatic career for more than it's worth...)
On the subject of my voice, in the Barnes B house play "Christopher Columbus" I played Queen Isabella of Spain (
those photos are, I believe, safely under lock and key). Unfortunately my voice started breaking during rehearsals. On the other hand, my voice didn't so much break as glide gently downwards over the course of a term. I had to try to keep the queen's voice pitched up a bit, but the audience did notice on the night that her maj started as a treble but by the end of the evening had tired a bit and was issuing her proclamations in rather more of a light but husky tenor.
I remember being in the chorus in the "Golden Mask of Agamemnon", which was fine - but slightly terrifying the night that Clytemnestra (I think it was) came too close to the front which meant that the chorus which was supposed to be writhing in front of her (his) feet, was actually hanging off the edge of the stage, practically in the laps of the front row. I therefore have a clear memory of screaming "
Oh God! The Furies! See their pus-laden eyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees!!" mere centimetres from the face of one youthful but traumatised member of the audience.
I did the Soldan of Egypt in "Tamburlaine the Great" (would have been a good part if most of lines hadn't been cut; had to learn to act tearful weeping too, but the tears got cut somewhere around the dress rehearsal).
"The Quare Fellow" - I had to learn to do a passable Irish accent, but it obviously wasn't passable enough as I ended up as the only character not to do the accent. As the prison visitor (or whatever I was), I was supposed to dish out "holy pictures" to the inmates. Now, you might imagine that what I'd be doing was handing out postcard-sized pictures of saints, but Props had different ideas. When it came to the distribution of the holy pictures, I had to summon two stagehands to carry on an enormous framed reproduction of Holman Hunt's "The Light of the World". Begorrah!
Among other highlights, I took part in the controversial student-led production of "Another Country" in the Court Room (the part I played, one of the prefects, was one of the characters cut out of the film version). The overt critique of the boarding school system was considered so daring at the time that we had to have a dress rehearsal vetted personally by Derek Baker (the Headmaster's veto threatening to shut down the production at a moment's notice). As it was, he said he didn't like the play or agree with it, but he let us go ahead.
Another episode of "My Life in the Limelight" to follow in due course... (out to dinner with the Deputy Mayor of Rennes and select dignitaries this evening
, and up early tomorrow morning to be interviewed on the radio about my new book which is launched tomorrow - it's just a red-carpet life for those of us who've survived the CH fame academy
)