Back in Ye
Olden days when I was in the sixth form of a comprehensive in Swindon, I put
forward the idea of us putting on a revue. The idea stalled for a while because
in an early variety of misplaced political correctness The Sixth Form Committee
decided that the revue should be directed and produced… by committee. Naturally
nothing happened for months until I took the reins again – many things rightly
are discussed by committee but not some form of performance. My friends and I
wrote, produced and acted in a number of sketches and a date for the
performance was arranged.
In the meantime,
I had had the audacity to write to John Cleese asking him if he would like to come
and watch. Thank goodness he didn’t because although we enjoyed it and the
local audience seemed to appreciate it (despite it dragging on far longer than
planned before the promised party afterwards) it was about as professional as
the early performances on Britain’s Got Talent. However, he was kind
enough to write me a reply, apologising for not being able to join us,
explaining that he was busy working on the second series of Fawlty Towers.
Not unsurprisingly his letter was a treasured possession for many years, though
sadly not now (more on this later.)
Bolstered by
the success, or otherwise, of our revue, a friend and I sent copies of sketches
we had written to the BBC and other television companies, along with a number
of comedians. Someone from the BBC kindly replied, essentially patting us on
the hand – as well as suggesting we send in type written versions of our work
rather than handwritten duplicated copies. (This was before the days of
photocopiers, do any of you remember those machines you turned around and
around over pages impregnated with ink? We commandeered the one at school that
was also used to produce those school notices that had a distinctive smell
because of the solvents in the machine.) In our defence I was the only one of
us with a typewriter and if I had typed everything out – not being able to touch
type at the time - I would never have completed my A levels! More encouragingly
though we received a reply from someone at ATV (one of the main TV producers at
the time, part of the ITV network) telling us that our work was ‘close to
professional standards’. Not bad for a pair of snotty-nosed spotty teenagers!
Even more
wonderfully, after sending him a copy of a silent comedy of ours called ‘For
the love of Davinia’ (in which Davinia and her admirer experience disaster
after disaster) Ronnie Barker sent us a handwritten letter (we didn’t
complain!!) having read our work. The fact that he had taken the time to do so
was in itself astonishing but he also took the time to explain why ‘For the
love of Davinia’ didn’t work, which was essentially because there were no
breathing spaces between the torrent of disasters faced one after the other by
the main characters. At the time being naïve arrogant teenagers, we didn’t
really understand what he meant - there was one funny event followed
immediately by another funny event, that’s comedy isn’t it? – but with the
passage of time his wisdom and generosity in trying to guide us has become far
clearer. His letter was of course another treasured possession.
The set was
completed after I sent Michael Palin copies of our sketches accompanied by a
daft rambling silly letter. He kindly replied via his secretary by sending a
photograph of the Pythons – signed by each of them.
Heartbreakingly
when my wife and I were up against the wall many years later I had to sell
these treasures. I still regret it now but it was a stark choice between eating,
paying the bills and letting them go. What was worse was that the Ronnie Barker
letter somehow got lost in the post.
I still have
the letter from ATV though, so I suppose that’s something…
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