I reached out to a couple of the ‘stars’ in this show.
Royston, who actually had a lot to do in this production, remembers not remembering his final lines for a musical number at the conclusion of the play. Harsh considering he was on stage pretty much most of the running time.
Alison recalls being demoted from Esmerelda to the minor ‘actress’ role which however didn’t stop her from remaining firm friends with Anita Griffin. Her first line, which she remembers still was ” Ze ‘osses are ready and waiting at Calais”.
For myself, I was hopeless, required to be the comic relief, appearing on stage minus my trousers which were being sewn up by my ‘wife’ Denise. My defence is that I was over rehearsed and some very unfunny mumbling took place when exposed under the lights on the first night.
My strongest memories of this play were actually my lack of understanding of the plot. With very few lines, delivered at the very beginning, I spent most of the production time in the ‘green room’. So I failed completely to follow the on stage tussle between Royston’s Constable and Luke, played by Steve Heath (who’s lurking on here somewhere) the two stars of the play, together with Chris Fulford who of course went on to make a career on the stage and screen.
Finally there should be a shout out for the staff who led this production – who not only had to obtain a performance from us, but went on to hold us a ‘wrap party’ at the house they shared in Leigh-on-Sea. That was an evening I have still not forgotten.
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I reached out to a couple of the ‘stars’ in this show.
Royston, who actually had a lot to do in this production, remembers not remembering his final lines for a musical number at the conclusion of the play. Harsh considering he was on stage pretty much most of the running time.
Alison recalls being demoted from Esmerelda to the minor ‘actress’ role which however didn’t stop her from remaining firm friends with Anita Griffin. Her first line, which she remembers still was ” Ze ‘osses are ready and waiting at Calais”.
For myself, I was hopeless, required to be the comic relief, appearing on stage minus my trousers which were being sewn up by my ‘wife’ Denise. My defence is that I was over rehearsed and some very unfunny mumbling took place when exposed under the lights on the first night.
My strongest memories of this play were actually my lack of understanding of the plot. With very few lines, delivered at the very beginning, I spent most of the production time in the ‘green room’. So I failed completely to follow the on stage tussle between Royston’s Constable and Luke, played by Steve Heath (who’s lurking on here somewhere) the two stars of the play, together with Chris Fulford who of course went on to make a career on the stage and screen.
Finally there should be a shout out for the staff who led this production – who not only had to obtain a performance from us, but went on to hold us a ‘wrap party’ at the house they shared in Leigh-on-Sea. That was an evening I have still not forgotten.
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