Amdram: More Ham than Dram

For many years I have been involved in amateur dramatics and theatre in its broadest sense. Whether it is teaching school kids through role play or trying to bring characters to life by introducing them to familiar stories in practical drama lessons. I have always enjoyed writing short sketches for church services to illustrate a message and taken an active part in many local am-dram productions both as actor and occasionally as director. In recent years I have enjoyed writing sketches and a couple of full length plays: hoping one day, perhaps, to see something of mine performed to a paying audience. Consequently I am able to recall several humorous incidents over the years that I feel deserve another airing

I recall one leading lady, of considerable stature, both as an actor and woman, who once asked me to help her identify someone in the Panto chorus; whose name she had recognised in the programme listing but couldn’t put a face to. I tried to describe the lady in question but I wasn’t concentrating very well and started by saying, “Oh she is the tall one who stands at the back.  I knew there were a couple of taller ladies so I went on, “Not the thin one but the broad-shouldered one, rather large up top.” It was then I faltered and added, “A little like you.” Realising what I said I tried to wiggle out of it by continuing, “She has a very dominating presence on the stage …with so many slimmer ladies around her in the rest of the chorus.”

  In the early days I used to find it easier to learn words. In fact I used to know most of the scripts pretty much off by heart: which can be dangerous if you then start delivering other people’s lines aswell as your own. Then I discovered that in comedy, and pantomime in particular, if other people, especially children, don’t remember their lines (or worse skip to a line that would omit an important section of the plot ) I was usually able to step in. I could often improvise a few lines in order to get us back on track without many of the audience noticing anything going awry.  
A few years back I was playing Abanazar in Aladdin. The girl who played the title role was not only a good singer but from the first full rehearsal it was clear she had learnt not only most of her words but other bits of the script off by heart aswell. On the Saturday evening, the last performance, her parents were in the audience and quite unexpectedly she started saying my line, “I am your Uncle Abanazar and have I surprise for you.” She stopped abruptly realising her mistake and I luckily I managed to jump in with, “ I have many talents as a ventriloquist as you see but that is not the only surprise I have for you tonight.”

In recent years I must admit I have been reluctant to take on large parts as my ability to learn lines seems to have diminished with age. I recall in ‘Outside Edge’ I played the oily, young solicitor who was the proud owner of an MG but didn’t like his girlfriend meddling with “his switches.” As I recall things had gone pretty smoothly each night as far as my scenes were concerned until the ‘accursed Friday’ evening when my character and Miriam (leading lady) were supposed to be having a protracted discussion about releasing my girlfriend from the cricket pavilion toilet into which she had accidentally locked herself. Suddenly Miriam (leading lady in the play, yes Sally you know it was you) said “Right oh then, I’ll leave you to sort it all out” and went off stage. None of these were words that appeared in the script and I was left alone for several seconds before I too decided i must escape with a similarly improvised line, “Very well,  if you won't help I better go and see if someone else can give me a hand.” I left by the opposite door to the surprise of the prompt and my fellow actors, who were suddenly pitched into the next scene half a page earlier than they expected.

In the last few years, in an attempt to disguise my failing memory, I have favoured playing what may best be described as character parts or what my fellow thespians prefer to call weirdoes and perverts. In ‘Ghost Train’ I was the sneering and sycophantic doctor of Psychiatry who floated in and out with glaring eyes like Cpl. Frazer from Dad’s Army whilst pawing most of the women on stage in a leering manner-that bit wasn’t in the script but it seemed to enhance the nature of my character.  I’m hoping to revive that style of performance should we ever do ‘Arsenic and Old Lace’ it should suit loony, Brother Jonathan’s character equally well. 

   At other times I have played an amorous jogger (Two and Two Together) an accident- prone policeman (Murdered to Death), a nutty inventor (Murder by Love) and a wheelchair-bound, psychiatric patient with a soda siphon who thinks he’s a Pirate (It Runs in the Family).

Periodically we have taken a foray into the world of Pantomime. Apart from the part of Abanazar in Aladdin I have played an ugly sister in Cinderella (twice) and the Big Bad Wolf in Red Riding Hood.    I really suffered for my art as the wolf having been nearly knocked out on the first night when they attempted to cram a galvanised bucket over my head rather than the plastic one we’d used in rehearsals.

 Also I tripped over a brick when trying to circumnavigate the village hall between scenes. I nevertheless had my revenge when at the Saturday matinee, as I made my first entrance with a snarl from the wings, at least five children were seen to leap back from the front row into the arms of their doting parents; leaving no doubt damp patches on their vacated seats. Now that’s what I call a result!

Yet again the Friday night curse struck when I found myself at a loss for a line whilst lying abed dressed as Red Riding Hood’s grandmother. I couldn’t hear the prompt so I picked up the ear trumpet and complained that she needed to speak up a bit because I hadn’t the foggiest idea what my next line was supposed to be. 
props can enhance a performance but beware they can also trip you up. As the wolf I remember taking on a dimembered arm which i had been 'snacking on' in act one before realising I was now disguised as a lolly-pop man trying to entice kiddies away from the dame. I was supposed to be speaking all my lines in rhyme but all I could manage was, "And here's one I ate earlier." 

Tattershall Castle - Stand Clear of the Battlements

I realize that I seem to be making a habit of using my blog site to make confessions but this revelation has a lot to do with one of the historic gems of our county, the magnificence that is Tattershall Castle.

From my childhood home in Coningsby, a couple of miles away, I could catch a glimpse of the massive keep from the window of our living room. As a small child I had occasionally visited the castle with the family and I recall charging around the dungeons with my brother before ascending the tower, counting all the steps on the spiral stairs. We had several images of the castle around the house on postcards and a couple of mounted prints. I remember reading up about the builders of the castle and the fact that unlike many of the earlier castles built from stone at Tattershall they decided to follow the Flemish trend using over 700,000 bricks, probably made on site, to build the entire structure. It is thought that the building we see today had its origins in a smaller stone castle or fortified manor house built around 1230 by Robert de Tateshale.

However, it was the 3^rd Lord Cromwell, Ralph who was responsible for expanding the castle between 1430 and 1450 when he was Treasurer of England. Ralph Cromwell died in 1456 when the castle was inherited by his niece, Joan Bouchier, but it was later confiscated by the Crown after her husband's death. In 1560 Tattershall castle was given over to Sir Henry Sidney, one of Edward VI courtiers. Subsequently he sold it to the Earl of Lincoln, Lord Clinton. The castle then passed on to the Fortesque family in 1693 but over the centuries it gradually fell into a state of neglect until it was purchased by Lord Curzon of Kedleston in 1911. It was Lord Curzon who undertook a series of major restorations to the keep between 1911 and 1914. The castle was bequeathed to the National Trust on his death in 1925 and today it is recognised as one of the three most important surviving brick castles of the mid-fifteenth century.
Although the guardhouse and the 130 foot keep are the only structures that remain largely intact the moats were originally encased by curtain walls accessed by a series of smaller towers of which there is no trace. Only foundations remain of the stables in the outer ward, between the outer moat and inner moat, and the range of kitchen buildings which were close to the great tower in the inner ward.  When I was young we used to run along these and then race up and down the steep banks of the dry moats. Today the two moats are filled with water and look much as they would have done in bygone days when they were stocked up with fish reared for the kitchens to serve up to the lord of the manor and his guests.

What we used to call the dungeons the National Trust (rather boringly) refers to as the Basement. Although it is possible that it was used as a prison during the civil war it was probably more likely to have been used a place for storing spices and other items for the nearby kitchens. The large ground floor room was the Parlour and it was here that local tenants would regularly come to pay their rent. Today it is used to host civil ceremonies like weddings and private functions accommodating up to a hundred guests. A separate door leads up the spiral stairs to three great upper rooms which formed an independent private suite for the lord and his family. The design is very simple, with four floors, slightly increasing in size at each level by reductions in wall thickness. The first floor of the private suite was the Hall, which would have been used to entertain and wine and dine guests. The middle floor was the Audience Chamber, and only the really important guests would have been admitted here. A brick vaulted corridor leads to a small waiting room, before the great hall of the Audience Chamber, in which are displayed some of the Flemish tapestries bought by Lord Curzon. The top floor would have been the Private Chamber, where the Lord and his lady would have retired for the night. As a child I must admit that I was somewhat disappointed that most of the rooms were rather devoid of furnishings: I supposed I expected them to be crammed with armour, weapons, ornaments and furniture like the majority of other stately homes and castles like Belvoir. I remember that my aunt and uncle, who were in the antique trade at the time, had helped at some point in the 1970s, to source some early pieces of 16^th century furniture to help recreate a small domestic scene in one of the tower chambers. I do remember however the impressive fireplaces situated in the main rooms on each floor. Their size indicated that the rooms were never intended to be subdivided, but kept as one great room at each level. We had great fun as kids standing inside these fireplaces and looking up to see whether we could see the sky-light. I remember the story that these fireplaces had been removed from the castle, prior to its sale to Lord Curzon in 1911, and sold to a rich American collector. They were only rescued at the eleventh hour waiting to be shipped to the states on the dockside by Lord Curzon himself.  He arranged for them to be brought back to Tattershall by horse and cart to be reinstated in their rightful place.  Above the three floors of rooms are the roof gallery and battlements, which offer tremendous views across the Lincolnshire landscape, from Boston to the south, to Lincoln in the north.  It is not possible to access the turrets today but it was when I was a youngster-which brings me back to the subject of my confession.

My mother was, from sometime in the mid 1960s up until the early1980s, a district nurse in the area. She frequently made visits to one of her nursing colleagues, Nurse Taylor, who lived in one of the pair of cottages adjacent to the peacock pens to the south side of the keep. On this occasion a friend and I accompanied her and getting rather bored after a few minutes sat in the car we decided to explore the ruins around the peacock enclosure. We were able to cross the waterless moat into the inner ward before creeping up to the walls of the keep. Sometimes there were volunteers on duty checking tickets but this day we were lucky.
We didn’t risk being spotted by going into the parlour room but headed straight for the stairs. The stairs were carefully designed for defence. As most soldiers held their swords with their right hands the staircase spiralled in a clockwise direction going upward so the defending soldiers would be able to stab around the twist but the attacking soldiers would not. We met a group of Japanese tourists all with their cameras snapping away, taking photos of each other, and posing inside the fireplaces whilst we hastily explored all the anterooms, garderobes and corridors.. From the vantage point of the battlements I recall seeing over to the lakes amidst the adjacent gravel-pits where my Dad once worked and in the opposite direction we could see planes taking off from the aerodrome at Coningsby. But we knew we might be able to get a slightly better view from the top of one of the corner turrets. Indeed the view was fantastic. We soon spotted some of the Japanese tourists we’d encountered earlier emerging from the keep walking towards the kitchen ruins.

It was whilst we were there that it happened! I suddenly realised that I had, how shall I put this delicately, I needed the little boys room and if you gotta go … I recall dancing a bit of a jig agitated about what could do. My friend asked me what was the matter and I told him that I needed to go, desperately. I knew the toilets were located behind the guardhouse and, even if I ran, they were a good five minutes away and I knew I wouldn’t make it in time. We looked around and seeing that there were other visitors gathering for photo-shoots on the roof gallery below we realised we had few options open to us. “You’ll just have to do it in the drain,” advised my friend. I looked and indeed in a corner of the turret roof was an open drain hole. So surreptitiously, looking casually over the battlements, I went. What I didn’t know at the time was that the drain ran into a lead-lined channel that emerged through a spout overhanging the battlements (it can be seen in both pictures). A few seconds after I had relieved myself a stream of golden liquid emerged descending like an April shower close to the heads of the unsuspecting tourists below as they clicked merrily away with their cameras. What they thought I never knew all I can say is we moved a lot quicker down those spiral steps than we came up and we never stopped running until we arrived back at my mother’s car behind the peacock pens.
I therefore not only apologise to the National Trust for entering their premises without paying the required entrance fee but also to those Japanese Tourists who witnessed, first hand, the unpredictable nature of the British weather.