"Pleased to meet you Mr Ironside"

There are some places that inadvertently feature as a key location in your life. The Steak & Kebab Restaurant. The name just screams prawn cocktail, steak & chips and the obligatory Black Forest Gateaux, or, as a friend of mine always calls it, 'Dark Forest' which I always think gives the desert an air of RR Tolkien. In fact, this time-warp restaurant situated in a leafy square in the Manchester suburb of Didsbury, managed to serve up a great European menu alongside the  steaks. 1981 - I climb the narrow curving staircase leading from the main restaurant to an upstairs room. Joyously crammed with a long trestle table. The white linen looking cream in the candle-light. I join the party for after-dinner  drinks. Marion, my house mate of only a few weeks is 21 and this is her celebration party. The other guests include Marion's parents and sister and a good number of young friends. An open Methusala of champagne helped me overcome...

It's a cliché to say that life is wasted on the young but, looking back I wasted some opportunities and, of theses this is the one I regret the most. When I was 18 I was working the pantomime season that the Palace Theatre Manchester which featured a great cast and a particular comedy hero, Eric Sykes who played Alderman Fitzwarren in his inimitable surreal style. Although a great comedy writer, I always thought of him as a wonderful physical comedian in the Buster Keaton / Stan Laurel style. Supported by now sadly missed Roy Kinnear, Andrew Sachs who was at that time best known for his role as Manuel in Fawlty Towers playing  Sarah the ship's cook and The Great Soprendo, the show was packed with comedy set pieces. It also featured my favourite corny gag ever when the hero's are all captured in Morocco and herded into the throne-room of the Sultan. The characters  fall to the feet of a grandly dressed courtier and the dame bows proclaiming "Salam, Salam!". Th...

When I was about 8 or 9 my mum took me to Blackpool for the day. It was November. Freezing cold and horizontal rain that made your face sting. We went on the pretence of seeing one of my mums old friends who was working in the cash booth of the amusement arcade  on the North pier. As soon as we got off the train at Blackpool North the wind cut straight through the pair of us and so we jumped into a taxi and headed  to the promenade. We found Woolworths and my mum bought herself a crazy (even for the 70's) bottle green knitted hat and scarf. The scarf was about 6 foot long and wouldn't have looked out of place on Tom Baker. The prom was deserted like a film set waiting for the extras to be bussed in. The waves crashed over the railings and the strings of light bulbs between the lamp posts swung like they would be wrenched away any minute. The Grand Theatre had closed as a live venue some years previously. This Frank Matchum jewel of a venue was patiently waiting to be sa...

My recipe for slosh was given to me by Sid Green. Sid joined the crew at the Palace straight after being discharged from the Navy in 1946. As well as the recipe for Slosh, Sid taught me just about every trick you can do with a drape from swags to tunnels & columns which came in very handy on opening night of panto at Liverpool Empire some years later. I was lighting designer and every time in rehearsals when we got to the villains lair scene, which was ironically titled 'The Theatre of Fear', we were presented with a bare stage. When I asked what we were using as a set I was told that an 'Old Time Music Hall' set had been hired from a company down south and, like the Velcro, it was coming. By lunchtime on opening night, I was still sitting in the stalls staring at an empty stage. I looked around the place and saw the stage crew ambling about aimlessly. The red mist descended and I leaped up onto the stage and asked the stage manager what drapes they had in t...

We were rehearsing 'When Did You Lat See Your Trousers' in some red brick rehearsal complex in south London. The name escapes me but I remembered having visited the venue before to see a final run through of a panto I was lighting starring Russ Abbott. A production of Babes in the Wood based on all of the music from 'Pippin' with a really avant garde design by Tim Goodchild, re-created by his then assistant David Shields who is now an amazing designer in his own right.... I'm getting off the point! A couple of days into rehearsal we got a visit from the author Ray Galton. For anyone who doesn't know,Ray is one half of Galton & Simpson. Google 'Hancock's Half-hour' and 'Steptoe & Son' if you need to find out who this comedy genius is. For me, meeting Ray Galton is the equivalent to a life-long Man United supporter meeting Alec Fegusson, except a hundred times bigger. This man was half of the biggest and most successful comedy writi...

I was Stage Manager for a revival of 'Fiddler on the Roof' starring Topol and Sarah Kestlemen which was nearing the end of it's run at the London Palladium. The rehearsal process had been difficult. The director, a chorus boy from the original Broadway production, was charged with re-creating the original Jerome Robbins choreography to the last step. A process which seemed to suck the creativity out of he whole process of creating a new production. Tensions ran high between the director and the leading man, both having their opinion on 'how it was done before'. Sarah Kestleman, hot off her Oliver Award nominated portrayal of Fräulein Schneider at the Donmar Warehouse must have wondered how she had become involved in such a cynical commercial undertaking.Basically a techie at heart, this production marked the end of my Stage Management career and towards the end of the west-end run an opportunity presented it'self. "When Did You Last See Your...

In the early 1980's stage crews benefited from a loophole in the tax system when it came to get out payments. The payments which the visiting company made to the crew for dismantling the set and equipment and loading back onto the trucks. The get-out payment was subject to a negotiation between the visiting Company Manager and the local stage manager, was paid in cash when the last wagon door closed. These negotiations usually went ok. There was a generally accepted amount per wagon used throughout the country although the sheer weight and complexity of the set could cause this amount to become subject to negotiation. In this pre-working time directive era, we would often work seven days a week with our basic pay being inflated by many overtime payments. I remember that a girl I shared a flat with told me months after the event that she had gone into one of the drawers in my room to look for something I had borrowed from her. In the drawer, she came across a roll of £2...

I'm walking down Oxford Road from St Peter's Square. On my way to the Palace Theatre to do the pre-show checks for whatever was playing that week. As I passed the Odeon I saw the Stage Manager from the Opera House stomping up the street towards me dressed in his usual odd-mix of stone-washed jeans, shirt, tie and 'Big Verne' sheepskin coat. As we approached each other and I went to greet him,I noticed that he was somewhat red in the face. "Hi". He cast his eyes to the pavement and strode off right past me without a word. It was a bit odd however, I didn't give it much more though until I reached the Palace and heard what at gone on that afternoon. The  Opera House was the Palace's sister Theatre and tended to house a few long running musicals each year to compliment the Palace's programme of opera, ballet and plays, The big show at the Opera House was 'Peter Pan the Musical'  and it was Wednesday, matinee day. The show, starring Lulu ...

It's early Monday afternoon and I'm standing at the bottom of a ladder on the stage of the Palace theatre. Footing the ladder along with me is Gil Binks the Chief Electrician. Dave Moore is up the ladder trying to twist the focus knob on a Fresnel lamp on LX bar 1. Even with the use of a spanner for subtle persuasion, he's not having much luck. We've all been there since nine o clock when the Luckings artic backed up to the scene dock door and we  unloaded the set for a thriller called 'Underground'. The show,  a cut above your bog standard Monday opening play, had  a great set which consisted of an uber realistic London tube carriage. I remember the opening of the show clearly. The houselights went out and a sound effect of a busy station faded in with 'Mind the gap' and the rumble of closing doors. We hear the whine of the trains motor and the crack of sparks as the train pulls out of the station. The tabs fly out to reveal a crowded carriage t...