Whilst in Superstar the musicians were onstage in view (embedded in the set), the musicians were out of sight in Godspell, not even in the orchestra pit. The cast, however, were onstage practically all the way through the show, including the interval (but more of that later!)

I remember sitting near the back of the stalls centre aisle the first time I saw the show, having noticed a rather intrusive vertical scaffold pipe (with a Strand Electric Pattern 263 at the top) at the very back of the centre stalls on the way in and thinking it looked rather out of place amongst the gilt and velvet.

The opening number for Godspell is rather odd- the cast in drab costumes reciting philosophers, then singing about them in counterpoint. The first impressions of both myself and my Mum were along the lines of “Oh no! Pretentious Crap!” …when suddenly, a horn sounded behind us and the John the Baptist character marched down the aisle preparing us for the way of the Lord and joy was unconfined. (Or at least it was until Jesus got crucified near the end of the second half, which put a temporary dampener on things).

The big twist in Godspell was that in the interval, the cast invite the audience up on stage to share in a demijohn of wine. I remember my first time doing this, gazing out at the auditorium with an audience in, noticing all the stagehands loitering downstage either side to prevent punters straying into the Wings and then the cast sloping off five minutes in for a rest and possibly a quick fag. (They could still smoke in their dressing rooms then).

I only recall being invited onstage as an audience member (rather than being singled out!) for one other show- Chaucer’s Pilgrims Progress at reading Hexagon, where the cast were holding a market before the show, actually selling cakes & nick-nacks from stalls .

Godspell is more of a happening than a performance and it has a lot of songs in it, performed in a variety of styles. We did it at school of course and people still talk about my lighting. (Well, my Mum mentioned it recently!) I ended up seeing the 1970s touring version three times, first at the Newcastle Theatre Royal, second at the Nottingham Theatre Royal (which coincided with a backstage visit shortly after re-opening so we had crawled all over the building earlier). The third time was at Coventry Belgrade Theatre, when I saw for myself how low the grid there was. (The Belgrade is the same vintage as my good self, money was a bit tight back then and most of it went on the public spaces).

The movie version completely passed me by for some reason and the next opportunity to see it again was a revival at Leeds Grand in the mid ‘90s. Having talked it up to Karen, the show was a big disappointment. Firstly, it was half full, with the raising of the House Lights for some enforced clapping during song number 2 being nothing short of embarrassing. Secondly, the songs had been souped up for the era, which worked well for the slow ones but the fast ones sounded like Kylie & Jason synth-pop. The sharing of wine at the interval had been dispensed with and whilst the show was still good, it felt like a hollow shell compared with the original. (Sometimes being dated is more preferable than being brought up-to-date).

The irony of the 90s show was that we had gone on a Saturday night; we were back in the Grand on the Monday evening to see Return to Forbidden Planet and the place was full to the rafters & rocking…

Anyway, fast forward many years, during which time the Greys migrated from a Couple to a Family. We had stumbled across a small amateur society from Whitworth performing the Madness musical “Our House” in Rochdale last year and decided that they were one to keep an eye on. This year, they were doing a double header of 42nd Street and Godspell performed over two successive weeks. As it happened, we noticed on their Facebook site that they were giving a platform performance of Godspell in a Church Hall in Whitworth a few weeks before the show so we went along out of curiosity. Anyway, they blew us away. Whilst by no means perfect, they gave spirited performances of all the songs, the only let-down to me being “On the Willows” which was sung in a rather shouty way by the backing guitarist. We were surprised to win a minor prize in the raffle, and even more surprised to find that it was a signed photo of one of the cast members who was famous even though we’d never heard of him…

On to the show itself, and in the third row of a packed but intimate Curtain Theatre sat just behind the Town Mayor (complete with Ponytail). The show seemed to be the best bits of the original, with skilful adaption of all the successful twists that are around on YouTube. The stage was a simple decking set with a somewhat over the top lighting rig (for such a small venue) but it remained tamed and restrained such that it never stole the show. It played with the usual cast of ten (Jesus and nine disciples) in what could be called a hybrid of modern dress and fanciful clothes (the original show had a bit of a hippy clown theme to the costumes but the Superman T shirt logo for Jesus was retained for this production). two songs were particularly memorable- “All for the best”, originally a soft shoe shuffle but played in “Diddy Dick & Dom” style with puppet bodies & oversize heads, the other was “All good gifts” which was performed as a boy band number, with the five earnest singers with microphones on high stools. How they managed not to corpse I have no idea, one in particular was looking so earnest and he swapped his mic for a recorder in one fell swoop to near hysteria from the audience!

As to the Celeb- it was Mr. C.J. De Mooi who is well known from a TV show called Eggheads and he was playing the  role of both John the Baptist & Judas. When he entered to sing “Prepare ye…” I noticed that the Band provided an abundance of musical cues for the start note and I quickly realised why, when he started to sing he was a semitone flat, which of course backfired on him nine bars later when the band started playing along correctly, sharp to his flat. To his credit, he recovered and sang very well the rest of the show. It seems that he would like to diversify his career into musical theatre and he awaits his West End calling.

One noble tradition was retained in the show- the audience were invited onstage in the interval to partake in the wine, although it has to be said that there wasn’t very much of it- one bottle and ten tiny shot glasses, props for the communion scene later in the show (bottle topped up of course). There weren’t too many of the audience joined the cast onstage, they mostly went to the bar or to get an Ice Cream.

I did wonder how much the staging of the show would prove to be better than the already very good platform performance and the answer was it improved it a hundred fold; the cast were happy, sassy, tight and were obviously enjoying themselves immensely.

Digging into the history of the show I realised that the 1973 film was available on DVD so I ordered it on Amazon. Whilst rather twee and dated (the cast look and behave like hippies way after their time) it was still pleasantly watchable, unlike the contemporaneous film version of Superstar which is widely detested by many lovers of the show.

Onwards a few months and a chance browse of some brochures revealed that another small amateur society was performing Godspell, this time, a lot closer to home. We had never heard of the Goodwood AOS but we decided to go and see them as even if the show was terrible it was a night out and the opportunity to visit a new theatre in the area.

The Lawrence Batley Theatre is in Huddersfield and is a conversion of a very large Methodist chapel into an intimate 400-ish seater courtyard theatre. The external walls were retained and it has an excellent forecourt setting in the street scene. I had seen the technical write-ups from when it opened in the mid noughties but the only thing that stuck in my mind about the venue was that there was no access to the grid above the stage. (I think the reasoning behind that was that there was normally no reason to go on the grid outside of routine maintenance. However, if nothing else, occasional cleaning prevents dust cascading down during 1812 Overtures complete with Cannon & Mortar orchestration!)

The only obvious compromise to the theatre (& only obvious from behind the building or if the stage is clear) is that the stage has a curved back wall, something shared with the People’s Theatre in Jesmond, although they did it like that deliberately when they converted it from a Cinema in the 1960s in order to get a permanent curved cyclorama, which was still in vogue at the time. (By the way, happy centenary guys!)

So- to the show. We were in the front row and for some quirky reason the first few rows were fairly empty but the rest of the Stalls was fairly full, along with people on the two three-sided galleries and side tiers. The stage setting was a bit urban looking- a park bench, some road signs, some toys, some graffiti on scenic flats, a few seats, two potted bushes and a lamp post. A staircase disappeared down into the (empty) orchestra pit. To the rear, a scaffold structure created a balcony and five tarp screens (3 up, 2 down), a centre entrance below.

Perusing the programme, we were surprised to see that the cast had a full company, the ten principal actors and a chorus. The show was performed in modern dress (Judas looking a bit like the Terminator with his long leather coat, shades and water pistol) but the way it was performed was very close to the original show as I remember it, including soft shoe shuffle for “All for the best” (along with the Chicka-boom chorus) and mainly Female voices in “On the Willows”.

We weren’t invited onstage in the interval but they got round the lyric encouraging us to “let’s have some wine!” by getting a Wino to shout it on the park bench, a clever bit of direction.

The show was very well performed and the second half became dramatically very dark as it progressed towards the inevitable kerfuffle towards the end. The cast came back with a lively “Megamix” and certainly left us wanting more. There were times when it felt that there were too many people onstage who weren’t really adding value to the show between the numbers though, not uncommon in amateur shows. On a positive note, Goodwood are now on the list of Amateur Societies worth going to see, along with Halifax, Sheffield, Leeds and Whitworth. The trouble is, the more we see, the higher the bar it sets for our local Morley AOS to raise!

People are wicked, wonderful and everything in between.
In the end, it’s all just a question of finding the right ones to be with, isn’t it?
And remembering to enjoy them while you’ve got them (which is the hard part).

My thoughts are with him and his family at this time.

I was asked to write this Obituary which might possibly appear in The Stage next week.

I knew him for more than twenty years and admired him without knowing him for nearly as long before that from his widely published writings on technical theatre.

Mervyn Stockbridge Gould (14/12/1946 – 29/10/2009)

Having  been fascinated in technical theatre from his early teens, Mervyn landed his first paid backstage job  aged 17 in 1963 as A.S.M. (& Props) for a two week run of Babes in the Wood at Boston Regal, touring into Crewe, Buxton and Leek. He remained a casual showman at the venue (and #2 Lime Boy) until moving to London in 1965 to study History at Marjons in Chelsea. Having had the foresight to join NATTKE he was able to get work in numerous West End theatres although it impacted on his Degree, just scraping through the Finals. After several years of touring, residences & even walking Schnorbitz (A period he described as “the painful death throes of Variety”), he spent three seasons at Sunderland Empire as CD Operator then a year as Deputy Chief Engineer at The Palace Theatre during the run of Jesus Christ Superstar.

He joined Loughborough University English & Drama Department in 1979 as technical tutor which gave him the opportunity to gain an M.A. and still work occasional summer seasons or Pantos. He remained there for seventeen years before taking early retirement due to ill health.

Mervyn was a Historian, researcher and avid collector of backstage ephemera; his doorbell was a house telephone and his dining chairs were former Box seats.

He was very active in the SMA whilst still working and in retirement became heavily involved in the Mercia Cinema Society.

As an author, he wrote four books on cinema history as well as numerous articles for the theatrical Press including Tabs, The Stage, Cue & Cueline.

In 2007, he was interviewed for the Theatre Archive Project and his colourful memories are online at http://www.bl.uk/projects/theatrearchive/gouldm.html

He died peacefully at home in Loughborough, aged 62.

Ian Grey, November 2009

Mervyn was a real character and I can’t believe how much I miss him despite only seeing him 2-3 times a year. I hope to expand this 300 word distillation into a longer blogpost worthy of his memory when I feel ready.

We saw the LCGC two years ago and I was blown away. Last night, the emphasis was less on Gospel and more on Soul, Motown style. The event was slightly cheesy with a cod preacher cajoling the crowd into a frenzy (with a somewhat partial success) but with an excellent six piece band and ten singers with amazing voices along with some superb music, it was hard not to love it. My favourite song of the evening was “Say a little prayer for you” in the Aretha Franklin style, closely followed by “Oh happy day” in the style of back in the habit, Sister Act II, where it started off weak then built in strength, complete with arpeggios. “Joyful Joyful we adore thee” sung to the tune of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony Ode to Joy was also a huge crord pleaser, with Rowetta solemnly singing the first verse then the cast exploding onto the stage in a riot of colour and dance in the high energy 2nd verse. It quirkily included a couple of lines from the Janet Jackson song “what have you done for me lately” (with Him substituted for me, as per the movie).

Here is a Telly teaser I found on the LCGC website, if you enjoy watching this and find yourself within 100 miles of any of the tour venues over the next six weeks or so, I’d highly recommend you go and see it. If you really want to have fun, dress as a Nun and get a front stalls seat near the aisle so you can get up and dance.

The tower is 331 feet tall. The building was designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, also famous for Battersea Power Station and the Red Telephone Kiosk.

Tangentially  related to the K2, (as in being commissioned for the British Post Office), I also walked past this fine post box  down near the Albert Docks area, near the office where the Duck boats depart.  This would not look good with an extra postman storage box bolted onto the side of it.

I once had a trip to the Post Office Research Establishment near Rugby and visited their house of the future. One interesting feature was a household external drop box, openable by the householder and also by delivery tradesmen. I’ve waited for such an item to appear for years and got mildly interested when Royal Mail started using the term Safeplace  on their delivery cards. Disappointingly, the scheme is not quite what I’d like yet.

For the next forty days and nights (well, 38 as it has already started) he will abstain from Jelly Babies.

He made a tactical mistake on shrove tuesday though, he was so busy finding materials for pancakes that he forgot to stock up on them for a blow-out

I have decided to give up sheep shearing, something I don’t do anyway…

To my mind, the albums above have a common style- brilliant playing of keyboards, dire vocals. (Rick doesn’t actually sing and the albums all featured session musicians that to my ear just didn’t fit). Now several of my friends regarded RW as a demi-god (second only to Keith Emerson) but reluctantly accepted that the voices let down the albums.

I can remember Rick coming to Newcastle City Hall and being a very friendly bloke offstage, indeed he is probably the only turn I recall coming up the stairs from the dressing rooms, surveying us all hanging round by the stage door and saying “Alright lads, howya doing?” in is bloke-ish west london accent which was totally at odds with his sparkly wizard-like stage garb which included a red velvet cape! I don’t recall very much about the gig, other than being impressed at him being able to move seamlessly from instrument to instrument arranged all around him at different heights like a keyboard mission control.

Wakeman was at his best on the piano playing thoughtful pieces and his style was very twiddly and embellished in a way that would have had Emperor Joseph II (Of fictional Amadeus fame) declaring “too many notes“. Whilst the playing would be rich and layered, it rarely degenerated into that syrupy over the top twiddlyness much loved by the likes of Liberace. You wouldn’t expect to find a Candelabra on Wakeman’s piano, or if you did it would be in the shape of a raven and have black candles. (These ones are ironic I’m sure)

Back in ’74 an anthology of the Strawbs was released which included a track called “Song of a sad little girl“. This became my favourite of the album due to the incredible piano playing on the track and I later discovered that it was our Rick who had spent a short time in the Strawbs before he joined Yes. Something else I wasn’t aware of until recently was that Rick was the pianist on the Cat Stevens single “Morning has broken“.

Rick’s name resurfaced a few years ago when he became heavily involved in the campaign to save a Cinema Organ in Plymouth, having developed a fascination for the possibilities of the instrument. Then, a few weeks ago, I heard him on the radio talking about his life, including eating a Curry whilst playing keyboards during a Yes Concert (all of the other band members were vegan) due to a misunderstanding with his Roadie.

Reading the Wikipedia entry, it seems that Rick has reinvented himself several times, most of which simply passed me by. One thing did, however, touch a chord. He did an album (& DVD) exploring and inerpreting sacred music entitled “Amazing Grace”, performing each piece richly and powerfully at the piano, sometimes accompanied by synthesiser to round out the sound and give it fullness. The title track is sung simply and refreshingly by his daughter Jemma and a choir, although I personally slightly prefer the Judy Collins gospel-ish voice version for the vocals, despite it being hammered to death in the charts back in ’71 and my loathing it then. Most of the songs on the video have some visuals that tie in with the track (such as views of forests, streams & mountains) and Rick briefly introduces each track with some background to the composition and era. For “Ode to Joy” he comments that Beethoven is probably turning in his grave now that the EU has adopted it as the theme!

The DVD/CD album isn’t widely available and you do need to make sure you get a PAL version rather than an NTSC one (unless you live in the Americas, of course!)

Here is a Youtube of Rick and Jemma performing Amazing Grace, I haven’t found any other of the tracks there, although there is an interesting documentary about the history of Amazing Grace, hosted by Rick himself. (In several parts though, due to the ten minute limit).

The Penistone venue doesn’t look overly impressive on the exterior (particularly from the car park) but inside it is warm and welcoming. It seats 351 in Stalls & Circle, with a premium being charged for the upstairs seats. (We had a Grandma with us so stayed down). Unusually, the cinema has a large bar just off the stalls which allows drinks into the auditorium (in plastic glasses).

Last time we went to the Paramount (to see Chicken Little) there had been a show on the previous week and they had forgotten to remove a mirror ball from the advance lighting bar which impinged somewhat into the projector beam, However, the projectionist personally apologised to everyong in the auditorium individially in the interval!

Yesterday we went to see “Madagascar: Return 2 Africa” which was entertaining, even if something of a repeat of the original formula.

In the evening, we went along to a local Morley Church for Carols by Candlelight (which was a partial lie- there were candles lit but ceiling florrys as well). David has strong ties with the “Church in the car park” as he attended a Saturday morning kid’s club there for several years and it was his idea as he likes seeing the people there occasionally (in moderation!). Since the last time we went, the church has moved into the 21st centrury as far as worshipping goes. Instead of the Hymn Books, there is now an LCD projector which shows the words on a screen with pretty backgrounds. Interestingly, this appears to be an off-the shelf product for the Worship sector, as it would display license activation codes for a few seconds in the left hand corner of the screen.

The church has also mothballed their pipe organ, now using a Technics high end keyboard instead. The organist sang to a couple of songs during the service, the first seated playing at the console, the second from the Lectern. I was expecting her to sing solo when she surprised us all by producing a small remote control and setting the keyboard off on auto-pilot.

Whilst waiting for the service to start, I thumbed through the small Penistone brochure that I had put in my pocket on the way out and Karen pointed out an advert, laughing as she did so. They have a forthcoming musical that scales new heights (or is it plumbs new depths) of the Musicals genre.

Can you guess what the subject is? It isn’t up on their website yet.

I’ll put the answer up later, I doubt anyone will guess it.

So we ventured the short walk up Wesley Street to the Methodist Church. The scale of it exceeded our expectations and I went back later with my new camera as the Kodak went faulty part way round.

It was a simple idea- making scarecrows representing the various people and groups associated with the church & its activities. Using foam stuffed plain cushion covers for the heads and white rubber gloves for the hands with a bit of straw stuck in for tradition, I counted over forty figures.

Although not really a scarecrow, I liked the simplicity of this one best-

Ignore me and think of what happened to the Sphere and all the people who perished or were injured that day.

The curse of faith

There are a number of old sweepers/jingles from earlier broadcasts with a smattering of free use music samples that came with the last recorder I bought. They just play in a loop, shuffled just to vary it, 27 tracks, about five minutes. There is an easter egg in there though!

Check it out at http://radiohosting.co.uk:8080 it should play in practically any media player. If you have dial-up, it will be dog rough.

If it looks like the screen on the left, it is running OK. If it is not running, the screen will look like the one on the right. The laptop is still misbehaving so it might be pot luck!

Update- I’ve had it running solid for sixty hours, but the laptop has a memory leak so I have taken it down again now.

The blogpost title is as usual somewhat tangential- rivers, streams…

I’m feeling a little crazy myself today, I told two Jehovah’s Witnesses to “Bugger Off” and stop wasting my time.

This is a campaign that the English National Health Service are running to encourage more of us to sign up to the NHS Organ Donor Register.

I’ve been on the list ever since I first found out about it, probably from when I first got my Driving License. (It may have not existed then, but I certainly remember filling in a Kidney Donor card with my first provisional license aged 17).

Karen was perusing a leaflet about it this evening (picked up at the hospital, I think) and agreed to register, although she feels rather squeamish about it. You can now do it online with a few simple questions. (They also have a number of pamphlets for those who are uncertain what their particular Giant Green Arkleseizure thinks about it).

I would encourage any Brits who have never got round to it to do so, by clicking on the heart below.

HOWEVER, should that dour bottler scumbag in Downing Street introduce the concept of “implied consent” then I will remove my registration in a defiant gesture of explicit dissent, including appropriate hand gestures. The State serves me, not the other way round.

ª Tom Sharpe, “The Ballad of Prick ‘Em Dry”

Anyway, she asked me whether I wouldn’t be too offended if she prayed for me. I didn’t actually say what popped into my head- the strong urge to talk to her in Georde;

Way aye pet, ah divvent mind what ye dee, as long as it makes yer happy hinny!

Which roughly translated into English means begone, you are away with the pixies you foolish woman.

My views on religion are well known- believe what you want but don’t expect me to take you too seriously. Anyway, Comedian Pat Condell mocks mass delusion much more eloquently than me and has done a number of controversial videoblogs rubbishing fundamentalism in all forms. (He even has an amusing product line in God Bless Atheism merchandise.)

Here is his latest monologue, enjoy. (Unless you are a Tele-evangelist, that is).
Hook, line and rapture

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