On a train in England

At the moment I am on a high speed train speeding through the great green expanse of England – or will be soon – we have just left London Liverpool Street Station and on our way to Suffolk; we are going to a tiny village called Great Finborough which is near Stowmarket – an old market town as you will deduce from its name.
I am due to do my play The 2 Sides of Eddie Ramone in Edinburgh for 3 weeks in August and whilst in London I went to a small pub theatre to have a look at the space as they offered me a slot there for July 23^rd to try it out before going to Scotland.
At the moment the train has stopped at the station in Stratford; now this isn't the Stratford in Stratford-upon-Avon where the Royal Shakespeare Company hang out but the Stratford in east London made famous many years ago by Joan Littlewood and her theatre group in Gerry Raffles Square – I believe Gerry Raffles was her partner in the venture and they produced plays by Brendan Behan, Lionel Bart and many others and some great actors. At the moment Stratford seems to be famous for the upcoming Olympic Games and I can see the buildings ready for the games as I look through the window I can see plenty of work and a wonderful round of delights to come next year.
I will be trying my play out first of all in Santa Monica as they offered me 3 nights there in June – so by the time I get to Edinburgh I should know it – I hope.
Yesterday I met the guy who runs the Edinburgh venue and he offered me a nice spot for a bigger poster – I hope that wasn't the lager talking so I sent him an e-mail this morning telling him that I would be taking him up on the offer.
We were in a pub in Great Russell Street, in Covent Garden, very near the Royal Opera House which is truly a beautiful white building and newly refurbished; I don't know if they still get funded by the Lottery Fund but it's well worth it; unfortunately it costs a fortune to get in way much more than regular theatre seats in the West End.
This means, of course, that the man in the street can very rarely afford to go there. Now you might say that the man in the street isn't interested in opera well I have to tell you that this man in the street loves it. I worked with a couple of opera companies many years ago; not as a singer, I hasten to add, but as a technician.
With the D'Oyly Carte company I did the sound; they specialised in Gilbert and Sullivan operas which is not grand opera as there is spoken dialogue. I didn't have to pick them up with a microphone or anything like that as their magnificent voices would carry over the sound of the orchestra and into the auditorium.
I had to play the announcements, which were pre-recorded – you know 'ladies and gentlemen would you kindly take your seats as the performance if about to commence.'
Usually the person who did the lighting on the grand master very sophisticated lighting board would do the sound which only be used for effects and music but with the opera companies and ballet troops the lighting cues were many fold so they needed another person to do the sound.
Now we are stopped at Colchester; it is the oldest recorded town in England and is also famous for a military nick; that's the place the army send you if you’ve been sentenced after a court marshal. It's not only a military prison as they have soldiers there too. I can't remember what regiment is there – maybe an Essex regiment. I was there years ago when I was in the Army Cadets and remember seeing a prisoner or two being marched around the parade ground by a sergeant on the double and the prisoner didn't have any laces in his boots.
We were only cadets and very young too; I looked younger than most and one of the regulars turned around to me and said “Oye! When did you leave off your nappy?”
I didn't say a word back, of course, but my mates decided it was a good excuse for a fight so we went outside and had a scrap; can't even remember if we won.
So back to the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company; as I sat in the control box there were a few tape recorders at the back which I would use for the announcements and when the company manager from the opera company came in all he saw was tape and immediately thought I was going to record and pirate the opera. Nothing could have been further from the truth because even though I loved the opera we had The Beatles White Album in the control room – nuff said??
But I worked with the Sadlers Welles Opera Company too on Grand Opera and that was really exciting and gave me a lifetime of pleasure.
The opera singers with their wonderful voices didn't always sound like that – most of them were Italian, of course, but I remember one singer who had a wonderful bass voice; I was backstage this time and had to knock very loudly and angrily on a door. It had to be a really hard knock and I had to use a hammer. The singer, with the bass voice, didn't speak with a bass voice when talking and he had quite a thick London accent.
“Give it a good bang there son – a really good old smack!”
I wondered who this was and turned quickly to see the aforementioned bass singer.
“Nice one, son” he said, walked on and came out with his wonderful voice.
So now we are nearing Ipswich and I thought I would be posting this on the train as it said there was free wi-fi; I looked on there and, in fact, it does say it's free but in order to use it free of charge you have to pay £2.95. Now what's free about that?