Morning purveyours of dance,
Been pretty busy all this week, rehearsals for "CHUFFIN' HELL WHERE'S ME OSTRICH!??!!!" began in earnest on Monday morning and as ever in most new productions there has been some slight teething problems and clashes of ego's. But to be honest if you dare to put such huge multi faceted talent like Bernie Clifton, Ruth Madoc and Roger De Courcy in the same room as one and other you are bound to have friction and some fall outs.
Things began brightly enough as my old mate and leading man Bernie Clifton arrived bright and breezy at 10.00am Monday morning at the compact "Arthur Fadgewick" theatre in downtown Barrow. But after a quick coffee and chat with old Clifton, Welsh "Hi-de-hi" legend Ruth Madoc strolled in and began to make some extraordinary showbiz demands. Astonishingly she requested a private flower festooned dressing room, a DVD player with the complete "Hi-de-hi" box set, and a steady supply of Earl Grey tea and finest Scottish buuuuuuter shortbread!! Now don't get me wrong Madoc is a damn fine actress and a veteran of stage and small screen but I'm putting on a deeply artistic and sometimes moving production and I want my cast to be commited, focused, passionate and dedicated wholly to the cause of dance and song, there are no place for ego's in such a proud production as "CHUFFIN' HELL WHERE'S ME OSTRICH!??!!!"
Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse Roger De Courcy bounced in with his cheeky sidekick Nookie on his arm and things instantly went from bad to worse. Unknown to me Bernie Clifton and De Courcy had harboured a long standing showbiz grudge from 1982 when both appeared on the "Little and Large show", it transpired that De Courcy was jealous of the superior backstage treatment being given to Clifton which led to a full on fist fight in the BBC canteen - I never knew of this startling saga and hold my agent and booking manager Maurice Shoteley totally responsible for this apalling oversight. It turns out that the two comedy greats haven't spoken since!!! Fookin' ell I thought as I nervously smoothed things over between the two giants of comedy, with the help of a large pot of strong suuuugary tea and an unfeasibly large plate of assorted pork related treats (Corbetts prime sausage rolls, some thick shards of top quality black pooooding, a pile of finest Mudchute farm ham and picalilli sandwiches and a few pigs trotters) the frostiness began to thaw and within half an hour the two were getting on like a house on fire and reminiscing about the fookin' "good old days!"
Breathing a sigh of relief I quickly won Ruth Madoc around with some flaccid, wilting flowers and a pack of cheap stale shortbread from the nearby garage and hastily got to work with my talented cast!!! With cable tv paranormal crusader Denton Pentangle arriving two hours late things soon got back on track and we began to learn the complex initial dance and song routines.
I had decided to embrace the whole gamut of dance emotions into this ambitious stage show and so had dug deep into my huge knowledge of fleet footery to assemble a diverse array of mediums including the quickstep, the rumba, the cha cha cha, modern jive and the Carolina shag!!! - Obviously Bernie and co are not natural dancers but I was determined to lick them into shape, if Anton Du Beke can make the leaden hooved Kate Garraway look half decent than surely ol Les can do the same with the eager Roger De Courcy!!!
After some problems the cast eventually settled into some of the more basic, limited steps as I finally decided that my Lester Sheepshanks dance troupe' should be able to deflect some attention away and compensate for the main stars heavy footedness......things were looking good but as ever trouble was lurking around the corner. Just after lunch Roger De Courcy slipped off the edge of the stage and fell with a horrifying thud on the floor, after a few hours in Barrow infirmary casualty department old Roger went home to rest his badly sprained ankle and so I stepped in to cover his part for the rest of the day, after a quick warm down we all said our farewells and left for home, feeling a bit peckish on the way back to my palatial mock tudor mini mansion I instructed Maurice Shoteley to stop off at the "Golden Plaice" chippy on Peterfinch Street for a nice supper. After some deliberation Maurice opted for five bumper cod fillets, a large tray of chips and muuuuushy peas whilst I opted for chips, two large battered sausages and a large polystyrene container of curry sauce.....eeeeh fookin' heavenly, the marriage of that good old British staple - curry sauce and the mechanically recovered crispy pork sausaaaaages was chuffin' majestic!!!!
I'll update again soon!!!
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