Page 251 - Demo

247Gabby and I were fully involved with Tholthorpe by now. A Group calling themselves the Tholthorpe follies had formed in 1981 and put on a review. The stage was erected in the Village Hall using borrowed scaffolding supporting some kind of wooden sheets. There were no wings and so to enter the stage you had to climb onto the scaffolding and balance there waiting for your queue to step forward. Geoff Wood painted the scenery onto 6 hardboard boards. These were hung from a frame at the back and could be turned over to produce a new set. The boards were actually doubled and so 4 sets could be produced. Changing them quickly while the mid curtain was shut, took a certain amount of training but was usually done well. For many years I took some responsibility for this. It was important that only the people who were supposed to be doing it did so. Sometimes others tried to help but they just got in the way. Of course there were no back stage workers. Everything had to be done by the cast. We pinned up notices saying who had to do what and when. Gabby was involved from the start on stage while my first real involvement was as co-writer and director in our third panto. Geoff and Gabby had written the first 2. We then got Graeme Thompson involved as he was almost a professional. In fact later he lectured on pantomime at Newcastle University I think. At this time he worked for Radio York. His wife Ali took over the costumes and that became much more professional. The first one I took part in was Jack and the Beanstalk where I played the King. That is a pretty boring part, just delivering straight lines to move the plot along. After that I usually played an Idiot for some reason! I was often cast as the baddies incompetent henchman, but I also played an Ugly sister in Cinderella and the Baddy in something. These parts were much more fun and got a lot of feedback from the audience. We were only supposed to have 60 people in the audience and as there was no rake we put benches at the front so small children could see. I remember making an entrance in a black costume complete with cloak as the baddie, I