talbot tattler - Beaumaris Theatre

P A G E 14
As It Happened
B E A U M A R I S T H E A T R E T A L B O T T A T T L E R
ONCE AGAIN WE ARE GRATEFUL TO LIFE MEMBER JOHN REES-OSBORNE FOR MEMORIES OF PRODUCTIONS PAST AT
BEAUMARIS THEATRE. HERE HE TALKS ABOUT THE LEGENDARY CHRISTMAS REVIEWS AND AN ACTRESS WHO APPEARED
IN MANY SHOWS AT BEAUMARIS IN THE 1980’S - JO JOHNSON.
This piece was really intended to be about the
series of Christmas Reviews we began in 1981,
but I have to preface it by another White Hat
anecdote because it leads, inexorably, to Jo
Johnson. Here’s a quick reminder of the criteria
for the award:
• At the end of a producon, at the aershow
party, the director shall announce the
winner of the White Hat. It is preferable,
though not obligatory, that the award be announced
while a majority of those present are
sll capable of understanding what is being
announced, and why.
The Hat is awarded for ‘an act of theatrical
grossness unsurpassed in the run of the producon’.
The director is the sole judge and,
though the decision may be protested vigorously,
it is final.
In 1982 Roy Baldwin and I were both in the
running for the Hat when we had small roles in
1982’s Once a Catholic, he as the music master
and I as the priest Father Mallarkey. With too
much me to kill in the Green Room we indulged
in a glass or three of cask white. I had a
long monologue scene, delivering the Easter
sermon to the nuns, and one night I dried completely.
With the confidence of the slightly
high, I delivered the words ‘Now, what was I
saying?’ in the same cod-Irish brogue I had
adopted for the role. The prompt came clearly
and I replied ‘Ah, yes, THAT’S what I was saying!’
and connued. At the award ceremony I
was named as a Hat contender, for ‘gross acceptance
of a prompt’, but was defeated by
the legendary Jo Johnson.
Despite the non-compeve convenon, the
Hat was somemes awarded for acts that were
deliberate, but which evoked admiraon
for their ingenuity and posive contribuon
to the scene. I don’t know how many mes
Jo Johnson won the Hat, but small roles
presented Jo with a challenge she could not
resist. Cast in a non-speaking role as one of
the Once a Catholic schoolgirls, Jo managed
to steal a classroom scene by nose-blowing
and stuffing the handkerchief up her knickers.
Fortunately the Christmas reviews allowed
Jo to indulge her comic genius to the
maximum, or she might have wrought havoc
in dramac producons.
The Christmas Reviews
For those readers who were there in the
Eighes, let me remind you of Jo as Snow
White, Jo as Princess Anne, Jo as Cinderella,
Jo as the drunken dancer in ‘Rum & Coca-
Cola’, Jo as the Air Fungus stewardess Deirdre
performing the safety demonstraon – the list
goes on.
The Christmas reviews started off in 1981 on a
pocket-handkerchief stage in the clubroom,
inially as a one or three night bit of fun for
members but audience demand rapidly escalated
to longer runs and in 1986, I think, they
became main stage events. It is far beyond my
powers of descripon to do jusce to the best
of the material for any reader who did not see
them, so I will content myself with some of my
favourite memories, knowing that at least
some of you will share them.
I have menoned Jo as Snow White. Her reac-
on to the Huntsman’s invitaon to go into the
woods was deeply salacious, matched only by
her disappointment when the he told her he
wasn’t going to obey the Queen’s instrucons
to ‘muck her up a bit’. Dorothy Chadburn was
the Queen, screaming for the ’Untsman; Barbara
Stewart and Stephen Mulholland were
the Three Dwarfs (yes, really), shuffling on
stage on their knees and muffled behind huge
beards. I was the Prince, who turned out to be
Inspector Prince.
Jo’s performance in ‘Rum & Coca-Cola’ was
inspired slapsck. Dorothy Chadburn and
Elaine Honise sashayed on stage in a roune
carefully choreographed to the famous Andrews
Sisters’ record, fingers clicking and
heads piled high with arficial fruit in the style
made famous by Carmen Miranda, followed a
few bars later by a clearly sloshed Jo. Her
headdress dangled over her face, she made
frequent frenec dashes to the stage le wing
where she had a glass stashed for emergencies,
and she managed to dance downstage
when the other two were progressing upstage,
then to catch them up with an inspired spinetwisng
manoeuvre that evoked roars of applause
every night.
John Rees-Osborne, Jo Jackson & Dorothy Chadburn
Ask your grandparents (a) what a record was, and (b) who the Andrews Sisters were.
In 1982’s It’ll Be All Right on the Night I partnered
Jo as Captain Mark Phillips to her Princess
Anne in a so-called Parkinson interview,
conducted by Geof Laurenson. Jo was superb
in riding cap (with ara) and lolly teeth, answering
quesons à la circus ‘talking horse’,
with two thumps of her foot for yes and one
for no. I fed her sugar lumps for correct answers
while I answered quesons in an incomprehensible
Hooray Henry drawl, supported by
vigorous arm-waving and miming gestures to
illustrate how we had met at a ball and what a
jolly good sort she was in the shrubbery. It was
very successful, so much so that it was repeated
the next year with Dorothy Chadburn as the
interviewer. It was also one of the few mes I
ever saw Jo get the giggles, when her lolly
teeth began to slip out of her mouth.
The material originally came from many
sources. Everyone seemed to have an old
script tucked away from their uni days and I
unashamedly stole a couple of scripts I halfremembered
from my Cambridge Footlights
days. One of these was ‘Turkish Delight’, a
lament by a mediaeval Turkish lady during the
Crusader invasions that ‘There’s not a man on
my Ooman’, deliciously performed by dear
Barbara Stewart.
Another was ‘The BBBC News’, dateline Jerusalem
69BC. It opened with ‘And we go first to
Jericho, where emergency workers are sll
digging through the rubble following the sensaonal
collapse of the walls of the city. Witnesses
say they just seemed to tumble down.
Authories say they fear for the safety of the
touring rock group, Joshua and the Jordanians,
who were last seen in the vicinity doing sound
checks for their open air concert’.
It also involved sport: ‘At the weigh-in this
even for tomorrow’s big fight, Goliath pped
the scales at 15 stone 3 pounds and David at
14 stone 3 pounds. David’s manager spake
unto our reporter and saith that the odd
stone could make all the difference.’;
And weather: ‘Down in the South-west,
well, Egypt’s been having a prey nasty
spell recently. Seventeen or eighteen days
ago it was frogs, followed by flies, lice and a
murrain on the beasts. Now, moving in from
the north-west, boils. So, the further outlook
for Egypt is 2 - 3 days of a great darkness
falling over the land, followed by death
of the first-born. Sorry about that, Egypt.’
Stephen Mulholland’s contribuon to the
reviews was huge, both as performer and
writer. For one of the clubroom shows he
wrote ‘Hotel Sound of Music’, set in a pub
where all dialogue was set to songs from
the musical and when we moved on to the
main stage he wrote a parody of ‘My Fair Lady’.
And if you want to know more about his
material, you’ll have to speak severely to him,
as he won’t reply to my emails!