Madame Galina's Doings Diary

Viva Dame Nellie

I got asked for advice today. By Ros Adler. Ros Adler! I’m a fan. If you’re not: go see, and be.

Chris Green put Ros onto me, as someone who can give the low down on touring a show around the country. Fancy, little me being asked for advice!

(Dame Nellie Melba will never be dead while you’re alive…Ed.)

The great lady herself

First thing to pass on was how to sell the show to theatres.

“It bothers me that I’m not an established production company selling them Victoria Wood”, Ros said.

“If you’re not on TV, part of Jongleurs On The Road, a Shakespeare play, a sing-along-a-songs from-any-bigger-than-the-Boer-War-conflict-you-care-to-mention or A Night Of A Thousand Sprogs, then you’re in the same boat as the rest of us. Write out a spiel with more hooks in the first ten seconds than would be needed to make curtains for the Palace Of Versailles and read it down the phone to theatre programmers. That is, when you’ve caught them in the office. They’re buggers for never being in their offices. Always in meetings.”

Meetings in the theatres should be banned. There isn’t time. And there is e-mail. And when yet again you’ve been put through to a programmer’s voice mail, what is this guff about them being on the other line? Try redialling the switchboard and asking for that other line. The operator won’t know what you’re talking about.

Don’t get Ben, son of Janine, Limberg started on people not being at their desks. I once heard him at the end of his tether chasing a prop for a film.

“There’s no “if” about knowing the extension I require, it’s seared into my clitting forefinger by now.

‘Oh, don’t pull the “away from desk” shit on me; we’ve already talked about that one.

‘Hello. Can you page Dan Holland, please?

‘Yes, page, please.

‘Why can’t you?

‘So, what you’re saying is you can’t do something because you don’t do it? Succinct if nothing else.

‘Yes, I know Dan has a direct line, but the thing is, follow me here: does Dan know?

‘And what makes you think so? Ah, now: if you have a view from your “receptionary” station across the office to his deskionary station, can you tell me, is he at his deskionerical stationerical Uncle Tom Cobbly And Allical…

‘You can’t. Is that a can’t can’t or a don’t can’t?

‘A don’t can’t. Thank you.

‘So, it’s your company policy to have an open plan office so that, presumably, employees can see at any given time where other employees are in the interests of efficiency, yet this efficiency isn’t passed onto clients who are in effect employing the aforementioned employees, who could so easily verify the whereabouts of their colleagues and help the job along.

‘No, I don’t want to hold while you bring up the mission statement.

‘No, I haven’t got access to e-mail at this present time. How about a letter? I could match your efficiency levels and put a second class stamp on it. No, come again, I could strap it to a pigeon. No, come for the third time, follow me here, I could leave the letter in the envelope at the edge of a pond and wait for one of the amoeba in the pond to evolve into a human being, climb out of the pond, see it, think, what’s this?, read the address, decide to be a good citizen and trot round to your office with it.

‘Yes, I’ve gathered there’s nothing you can do. Look, here’s a barmy long shot - can you put me through to the mythical other line?

‘Dan? Ben. The prop I ordered? Okay, quick as you can, Dan.”

Shit!

“Never ring theatre programmers on a Monday, Ros. They might just have had people in on Friday and Saturday watching shows, which puts them right outside their comfort zone, and they’ll just be gibbering. On Tuesday they’ll be catching up with work, so don’t bother them then. Wednesday late morning, I’ve found, is always a good time. Thursday is the Twilight Zone. Friday afternoon’s an excellent time. More than twelve tickets are likely to have been sold, and they’ll be sitting with the box office screen up on the PC staring at it enraptured. Like the horse that writes its name in Animal Farm.”

I was ever so gratified to hear the sounds of Ros writing this down.

“Print”, I said next. “You have to send them A3s, A4s and A5s.”

She asked if I had any dos or don’ts re. print?

Er…

You have to translate the premise of your show into a two dimensional image. I’m crap at this. I designed the poster for Madame Galina Ballet Star Galactica. When the show’s director, Neale Simpson saw it, he asked if it was an advert for Turkish Poundstretcher.

Where's the rest of it, Bruce? I'm trying to illustrate my point, here...

Lizzie Roper will tell you to watch the standard of your print whoever designs it.

“A poster is to sell the show, it’s not for mummy to stick on the fridge with a magnet.”

“And, Ros, on the subject of selling the show, even if you tour an animated installation with a set that’s blow-torched bits of a defunct pier featuring you dressed in a bondage-basque made out of lettuce working a Speak And Spell rewired to sound byte about your uncle abusing you, you should still use the word “pantomime” on your print. But never the word haddock.”

So, we’d now covered booking the show into theatres and providing print.

“Next is PR, Ros. I have one up in that I’m a walking sight gag and can hook a photo editor: 15 stone, dressed in a tutu, tights and tiara with feathers over my ears.”

“Right…”

“Regional papers will always want a regional angle; so for my dates in Wales for Creu Cymru, either of my parents were born wherever my booking was.”

I got caught out when I spoke for the umpteenth time to what I hadn’t clicked was the same woman from the central press agency in Wales. She paused mid-interview, I could hear the sound of papers shuffling, and she said, “Iestyn, last time we spoke your mother was born in Rhyll, the time before that in Prestatyn, the time before that in St. Asaph. And your father has so far been born in Caerphilly, Merthyr, Bargoed, Llandudno, Llanelli, Brecon and Llantwit Major. Perhaps we should vary it a bit. Where were you born?”

“Fulham.”

“But you have a very Welsh accent.”

“Yes…”

“Didn’t you tell me you were brought up in London?”

“Er…”

“You’re putting the accent on, aren’t you? God, why would you?”

She imposed a press blackout on Galina at Abergavenny.

“She didn’t?” Ros asked when I finished telling her this.

“She did. But now, what’s next? Oh, yes: travel to gigs.”

“I’ll be driving”, said Ros.

“Good.”

“How do you get around?”

“Public transport.”

“Is that horrendous?”

“Yes.”

I told her about my trip to Builth Wells. (See Hallo Ballet Lovers)

“One thing”, said Ros, “How do you cope with the loneliness of touring?”

“It was horrible at first, but my mother advised me to take little things to remind me of home, and that really helped. I’ve noticed that everyone with, say, Medium Rare does that. Little bits and pieces you’ll see all over their hotel rooms. And we all move our rooms round, too.”

Dame Nellie Melba used to move hotel foyers around. When she was asked by one manager what on earth she thought she was doing, she said, “I am Melba. But don’t worry. I’m not going to charge you.”

If I need to take a bit of home away with me, I’ll pack photos, my alarm clock, the Afghan Rug from beside my bed and a tape recording of the girl in the bed-sit below mine having through-the-sound-barrier decibel multiple orgasms. On her own. Thank God for Saturday nights when her boyfriend’s over, frankly. Then it’s just twenty thuds approx. as her headboard hits the wall, three “Oh, Gods I’m close, why can’t you ever be?” a “thank you” and snoring.

“I’m really bothered by the loneliness aspect, I have to say.”

“Then, Ros, rule number one: if you can get home, do. But, you know, theatre staff are always welcoming.”

Unless they’re the frustrated performer type. As Ben Limberg says, “That type you get too often Front of House. It never rains on a parade with them: no, they’ll be at an upstairs window pissing into the ticker tape.”

“Do you take a technician on tour with you?” Ros asked.

“No. I use the technician provided by the theatre.”

I have a techie in every port. Not what you’re thinking, either – though with Stu, Justin, Gareth and Scott, bring it on. No, Ros’s concerns are justified: it’s bloody lonely touring a one-man show. So it’s nice to know that once you get into the theatre to set up, someone other than you will be there. Your techie.

I find it de-stressing to have to work to somebody else’s timetable. You can do nothing but avoid the falling gels while your common or garden Gareth or Justin, in his techie uniform of hair worn long, black top, combats, boots and tool-belt, rigs your lighting. And running through the sound and lighting cues focuses my mind. Pace Daniel Leighton the fourth time we worked together at The Unity in Liverpool calling down, “Jesus climbed down, you’re more jelly brain’d than last year even. We’re going to have to find a clearer way to cue me than all that shit about the piss filled lift. How long is it into the track when your knickers start slipping down? Let’s use that as a marker buoy.”

A techie is like a cat. You feel good if they give a shit about you and yours. One of the things that have most pleased me ever happened in Theatr Clwyd. Scott, who ran my show, tipped off his tech colleagues after the rehearsal and I had a lot of them watching the first night from the sound box. For the second show they were all out front with their respective partners.

One night a techie saved my bacon. It was during a season with British Youth Opera. In Rossini’s The Thieving Magpie, I had a cough and spit as The Magistrate in my own right, was understudy to the soloist who played Giorgio, and learned-just-in-case the leading role of Fernando. During performances in Edinburgh, the soloist caught pharyngitis, and I had to stand in for him. It went really well. Until the courtroom scene in act one, where The Magistrate, Giorgio and Fernando all appear together. About to go on, all three parts for the one stretch of music jammed in my thoughts and I went jelly brain. Calmly, I walked up the wing to where Stu was standing.

”Stu”, I whispered. “I’m sorry, but I can’t remember what Giorgio does in this scene.”

Stu switched on his torch, trotted me to the upstage right wing, hissed at me “down left, face the Mayor, stuff about “I hope your honour has not been too distressed by the events that have taken place”, and remember what Tim has been saying about pushing your ribs out when you breathe…”

With that, he pushed me onstage. Beers were on me at curtain down.

Ex-techie Brian Smith

“Sounds like you really love touring”, said Ros.

“Actually, it’s more a case of I’ve had no choice but to do it, and no reason not to. I have no ties – not married, no children…”

“I have a fifteen-year-old…”

“…see, I have nothing like that. And I have to say I was a bit determined to tour because I was told it couldn’t happen.”

“Who by?”

“It’s one of those accepted truth things. I had a splash in Edinburgh, new kid on the block sort of thing, and my manager at the time said I would get my eight or possibly ten gigs off the back of it and that would be that. And I wasn’t having it. How did other people get gigs? Tour bookers rang round for them. Why couldn’t I do that? Because it wasn’t done. So, I did it. Rang round, got them interested, sent out stuff to them.”

“Just like me when I thought about doing this with a show a few years ago. I sent publicity packs to two hundred theatres, but gave up when I got nothing back.”

“Right, well let’s add another thing to the to do list, Ros: you pester the buggers. Every ten days or so, you ring them and ask are they booking you.”

“But it’s so soul-destroying.”

“It isn’t, it’s a game. Even taking the theatre programmers who jumped about with adoration after my shows in Edinburgh and said if I didn’t perform at their venue they’d commit Hari Kiri on themselves with bits of old Meccano, still I had to ring them every two weeks to plead.”

“I couldn’t.”

“You’ll have to. It’s a nine to five, and you have to chip away at it. Think of Ermintrude.”

“?”

“In The Magic Roundabout.”

“?!!”

“There’s a spiritual parallel to her practising being a number twelve bus going down The Strand. Maybe it was an impossible dream, but she hung on to it. And other problems looked less daunting to her in comparison. Otherwise, she’d have most likely baulked at lighting the way for Dougal to find sugar cubes at the centre of the world.”

“?!!**?”

“You know, in the episode where he asks her, “Is that the light at the centre of the world, do you think?”, and she answers, “No, dear-heart, it’s my bedside lamp.” Let alone her having been able to procure the mechanical digger. Do you see what I’m getting at, Ros?”

“Ros?”

“Ros, are you th…”

Durrrr….the other person has cleared…the other person has cleared…the other…

Posted by Madame Galina2 at May 15, 2007 01:13 PM