Yuletide, Feast or Famine
Green Room Gossip
By (Sir) C.E.S.S. Poole
Your honorary knighted Thespian.
The Christmas season across the globe, to all practicing Christians and to the
vast majority of non-Christians bombarded with the festive
spend-your-hard-earned-cash-with-us advertising, is usually a joyous time of
the year.
To the jobbing actor this time of the year is no different from the rest. It
is, as always, a feast or a famine. Except at Christmas the feast can either be
so gigantic that one needs a month after the event at a health farm to
recuperate, or the famine is of such dire proportions that one needs to book
into the local Salvation Army hostelry. During the course of my illustrious
career I have had the pleasure of experiencing both scenarios.
While most of the world is busy taking a break from their daily work routines,
the entertainer is often required to help the hordes of merry-makers enjoy
themselves. Such work could always be, and sometimes still is, found in many
diverse locations - on luxury liners cruising the
Caribbean, in old Victorian theatres in the North of England, at working men's
clubs, or at exclusive invitation-only parties thrown by the likes of Richard
Branson in
I have never been fortunate enough to receive an invite, as a guest or as a
performer, to a function in style similar to the latter. This is perhaps because
I've have never moved in the right social circles or maybe because my
networking skills are pretty close to zero. However I have trodden the boards
of several Victorian and Edwardian mausoleums in the
I assume you all know the story of Cinderella. For those of you who do,
you will know that a cow is not an integral part of the Cinders script.
However, during the fifties and early sixties children, throughout
The director of the pantomime, Mr. Brian T. Cosy, yes - you've guessed it, - he
was a tea-totaller, thought it would be novel and
educational to inform the watching audience of mainly children that all that
wonderful free milk they drank came from a cow's rear underbelly. From the
"Teets" as he liked to call them. He was
further directorally inspired to have Cinderella
herself do the milking and the drinking.
So when the dear, gorgeous and well-endowed Cinders, played by a local beauty
pageant winner, was ordered, by her ugly sisters, to go and pull her "Teeeeeets!" the double entendre was immediately caught
by the adults, and the children were delighted when on walked Mrs. Lactose.
That was my character's name. Mrs. Lactose was a beautifully costumed
A fellow junior thespian, Paul, was the front end and used to guide us to our
designated position down stage centre, whilst Cinders crossed to join us with
her milking stool, a pail and a bottle. The main curtain would then close
behind us to facilitate a scene change whilst Mrs. Lactose and Cinders did the
necessary.
We did three performances a day and four on a Saturday. The Lord Chamberlain's
rulings were still in force then so there were no shows on a Sunday. The
property master/chippie was no genius and the contraption he had built to
contain the milk was a cumbersome and heavy Heath Robinson affair. It consisted
of a large plastic container with pipes leading to Mrs. Lactose's four separate
Teets. Cinders would coo sweetly into Mrs. Lactose's
ear, "Oooh, ooh my dear sweet Mrs. Lactose, and
what have you got for me today? Please, please give me all the lovely milk you
can, otherwise my sisters will be horrible to me." She would then
settle herself onto her stool and grasp a Teet. It
was then my duty to apply pressure onto a plunger system that would send the
National Health elixir into Cinder's pail.
I should point out here that it was not our job, as actors, to fill or maintain
the milk-delivering contraption. That was the duty of the assistant stage
manager who was meant to check that all props required by the actors were in
full working order before each performance. All Paul and I had to do was climb
into Mrs. Lactose and be zipped up by one of the dressers from the wardrobe
department. We were always ready a good five minutes before our entrance
and I, like the true professional I am, always used to check the plunger. On
the fourth performance of our Boxing Day show, it was jammed or there was some
other malfunction in the system. I quickly informed the dresser and Paul but
before the assistant stage manager could be found to rectify the problem our
entrance cue came and on we sauntered. Mrs. Lactose was milkless
in
As you know my "Toddie" and I hardly ever
part company. But as our director Mr. Cosy was a tea-totaller
and greatly frowned upon any member of the cast indulging in any kind of
alcoholic beverage, I had been a good boy throughout the rehearsal period and
the whole run of the show.Well, almost a good boy.
I have always been a man of great ingenuity and improvisation. I may be boasting
today if I said, that had I still had been in my youth
in the early eighties, I would have been perfectly cast in the role of Magyver. Unbeknown to anyone other than Paul, I had rigged
up a secret supply of cheap Yate's cooking sherry
inside Mrs. Lactose's wooden frame. It was secreted away in the padding just
above Paul's backside and it was no problem at all for me to pull it out and
for the two of us to enjoy several slugs whilst Cinders yanked away at our Teets.
With Magyver-like dexterity I quickly disconnected
all four of the pipes and breathed a huge sigh of relief when I discovered that
the container was completely empty, otherwise Mrs. Lactose would have been
dripping milk from all parts of her underbelly. We waddled into position, gently
mooing Old Macdonald's Farm in time to our footfalls as I pulled the cork out
of the sherry bottle with my teeth. Using the simple concept of filling my
mouth with sherry and then forcing it down the right pipe on Cinder's cue, a
whole two-pint bottle of the finest cooking sherry squirted out of Mrs.
Lactose's udders into Cinder's pail.
The problem arose at the end of the scene as Cinders had to decant the contents
of her pail into an empty milk bottle, sample the milk and invite the children
up from the auditorium to taste the wonderfully healthy liquid that Mrs.
Lactose had so kindly given her.
The headlines in the local newspaper the next day told the whole story.
"Actor fired. Cecil Edward Steven Simon Poole arrested for trying to
poison local children with cooking sherry!"
I shall never forget that particular Christmas or the nine days I was kept in
police custody till my trial on January the third. The press, my producer's
lawyers, the Crown Prosecutor and local magistrate had a field day. Accusations
were hurled across the courtroom but after numerous witnesses were called it
was finally decided that I should be acquitted due to unforeseen circumstances.
The Christmas of 1962 for me was certainly not a feast but then neither was it
a famine. Her Majesty's government kept me fed and watered and after the trial
I was offered a job as a barman at Yates Wine Lodge.
Till we meet again, don't know where, don't know when..........
(Sir) Cecil Edward Steven Simon Poole signing off till next month
Ron Smerczak
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|
Name |
Comment |
Date |
|
Mandy |
Ron, this is an absolutely
brilliant piece of writing. It had me spell bound and hysterical. I could so
picture the scene - how about writing a limerick for the man and his camel - you
can certainly identify with the situation well |
2007-12-18 |
|
James Tobias |
I have gone through all your
submissions and all in all enjoyed myself. To a fellow writer that is some
admission. |
2007-12-20 |