Welcome
The Barn AGM
This year the AGM had, of course, to be held online, and 46 of us – a good AGM turnout even in non-pandemic times – gathered together on Zoom for what turned out to be an interesting and indeed enjoyable occasion. For me, just seeing so many faces I hadn’t seen for nearly a year was justification enough for being there. One person who got a warm welcome from his many friends was John Walton, looking particularly well after recently returning home from a long spell in hospital.
Perhaps the best news of the evening was that the Barn’s finances were a good deal better than most people would have expected. Chairman Simon Parr paid particular tribute to our Finance Director Ian Major’s initiative in successfully applying for a whole variety of grants, totalling £15,100. The result of that and other careful work has resulted in us carrying forward a cash balance of £38,400 to the current financial year, well above the minimum we normally aim for.
This year the AGM had, of course, to be held online, and 46 of us – a good AGM turnout even in non-pandemic times – gathered together on Zoom for what turned out to be an interesting and indeed enjoyable occasion. For me, just seeing so many faces I hadn’t seen for nearly a year was justification enough for being there. One person who got a warm welcome from his many friends was John Walton, looking particularly well after recently returning home from a long spell in hospital.
Perhaps the best news of the evening was that the Barn’s finances were a good deal better than most people would have expected. Chairman Simon Parr paid particular tribute to our Finance Director Ian Major’s initiative in successfully applying for a whole variety of grants, totalling £15,100. The result of that and other careful work has resulted in us carrying forward a cash balance of £38,400 to the current financial year, well above the minimum we normally aim for.
John Davies
FEBRUARY 2021
From the Chair
Welcome to February’s Barn News
As we move into February we’re approaching a year since our last production on the main stage – none of us could have known what was to come afterwards, but here we are still not knowing when we’ll be back in our lovely building bringing tears, laughter and everything in-between to our members.
The very strange AGM happened over Zoom last week and we were able to get through all the formal business fairly easily, and then had a free-flowing discussion about the state of the nation, as it were. Lots of discussion about whether we’re doing enough to keep the membership engaged through social media and email updates, as well as some voices pushing for more Zoom productions, and more simply social online events such as quizzes.
Keeping things going when we’re all wrestling with everyday life is tricky – everything takes quite a bit of effort. The more people who can help the merrier. We’ve had a couple of offers of help since the AGM which we will take up, but if you have any ideas, can spare some time to help in any way, or want to put on a Zoom of any event please get in touch. We’ve lost a small but steady trickle of members over the year and we don’t want people to forget about us!
In terms of re-opening we have no firm dates – but I’m still determined that the productions that have been cast and started work should go on. They are all fairly small cast and pretty low-maintenance so that we can be pretty nimble when we’re allowed to get going again. Professional theatre seems to be targeting September, but their production costs of course are much greater than ours so hopefully we can bring the building back to life before then.
With a following wind we should be able to have some audience too, if we move out of lockdown into tiers that are similar to last year – which would be lovely. It’s going to take all of us a bit of getting used to, I suspect, being part of a large group again after so long but I hope you’ll trust us to follow all the guidance to keep everyone safe.
I’ve had to take some tough decisions over the last 6 months or so with everybody’s safety in mind under the banner of ‘just because we can doesn’t mean we should’ and I’m not prepared to rush people back until everybody can be relaxed and enjoy ourselves as free from worry as possible. Class, My Old Lady, September in the Rain and The Audience are all either ready or beginning to get up a head of steam and we’ll bring them to you just as soon as we can.
In the meantime a renewed thank-you to everyone who joined the AGM, to those who have kept us going over the last year, and especially to all of you for sticking with us!
Simon Parr
Chairman
Membership & Council
Barn Council minutes January 2021
Please find the minutes of the meeting of the Barn Theatre Council held on 3rd November 2020 via video conference
Our membership news depends on information we get from YOU
John Walton - good news!
Former Finance Director John Walton, who recently underwent major heart surgery, is out of hospital and back home. He was discharged on 20th January. He’s in very good spirits and appears fairly mobile – he can get up and down stairs and can drink alcohol! The hospital thinks it’s going to take some time to fully recuperate, but he’s going to have a mobile physio unit visiting him so he can’t get out of regular exercise! He and Coral are going to be self-isolating for the foreseeable future, but it’s great news that he’s back home again.
Obituary - George Blee
We received the sad news of George’s death in hospital on 7th January from his niece Sue. George was being treated for a fall and contracted Covid. He seemed to be recovering but then succumbed to the virus.
His first mention in the Club archives is for an appearance in The Thwarting of Baron Bolligrew, our 1970 Christmas production. He dallied with several other plays and quite a number of House Manager duties but it’s ironic that, although these early forays included this Christmas piece, several comedies and a musical, his preference for serious drama and the classics was revealed after he played in Tennessee Williams’ Orpheus Descending in 1974 and The Merchant of Venice in 1977. He was in every one of the ten Shakespeares in our programme up to 2003, highlighted by his Malvolio in 1980.
He continued to be House Manager on many occasions as well, and was an imposing and reliable presence there. He exhibited his range as Chanticleer the cockerel in The Canterbury Tales, doubling as King Arthur, in 1988, and played The Common Man in A Man for All Seasons in 2005. Along the way he directed a festival play and Born in the Gardens in the main house in 1988.
He also had a long career as a professional extra in the film world: the man who dropped the suitcases in Love Actually and in the Windmill Theatre audience in Mrs Henderson Presents, among many others. He also played for The Hertfordshire Players at the Minack Theatre in Cornwall.
A good companion with a great love of theatre, George was welcome and friendly company, and a member who was not afraid to offer his opinions if he felt that all was not as it should be in the organisation of the Club. It was our loss when he retired to Bournemouth in 2016.
We offer our condolences to his family and friends.
You can view and download George’s Order of Service and Eulogy here.
Keith Thompson
Spotlight on David Thompson
Actor and audience member
What is your favourite show and why?
My favourite show is Les Misérables. I love musicals and this is the best musical of all time (controversial 
). The hits just keep on comin’. I reckon more people have seen the show than read the book on which it’s based. The book is for people who find Dickens too pithy. The song Who am I?, when Jean Valjean searches his soul to decide whether he should turn himself in or let an innocent man take his place, lasts less than three minutes on stage: it’s 30 pages of angst-ridden self-torture in the book. How anybody could take a thousand pages of misery (the clue is in the title) and have the foresight, courage and imagination to turn it into such an uplifting show is beyond me.
What’s the best show you’ve been involved in?
I’ve just been on the wonderful archives section on the website to see the shows I’ve been involved in and I can honestly say that I’ve loved every single one of them. I’m lucky to have been directed by 14 tremendous directors from whom I learnt so much and who allowed us all to have a great laugh at the same time. The Sunday before the run heralds the best two weeks of the year for me. One of the first shows I was involved in was Mark O’Sullivan’s A Christmas Carol and this still has a special place in the memory bank. I played Bob Cratchit, and Gabby, my daughter, played Tiny Tim. Jack Wood, formerly of this parish, played Scrooge and when Gabby’s class had to write about their favourite actor, eight-year-old Gabby decided to write about Jack. Gabby also played my son or daughter in The Herbal Bed and Macbeth which was quite special.
What story does your family always tell about you?
Dawn and I were invited to a James Bond-themed party where the instructions were ‘Please come as your favourite James Bond, villain, Bond Girl or heroine’. It’s not the fact that I went as Halle Berry in a skimpy orange bikini that they find strange, but that I found it perfectly normal to do so. I’ve been known to wear the occasional dress (or should that be occasionally wear a dress) on the Barn stage whether it’s in the script or not. Halle Berry was at the time one of the most beautiful women in the world – I just looked like a bloke in an orange bikini who daren’t drink anything for fear of having to take off all the tape.
If you could have lunch with any three people (real or fictitious / dead or alive), which three people would you choose and why?
There are two answers to that. Answer one – slightly selfish. Brian Johnson, Henry Blofeld and David Attenborough. Three wonderful raconteurs. Brian Johnson is the cricket commentator who famously didn’t have a bad word to say about anyone and addressed everyone as ‘My dear old thing’. In a quiet time while commentating on his last Test Match he was challenged about his view of everyone being a perfectly good egg. He was asked about Adolf Hitler, to which he replied ‘Adders? He was only quite a nice chap’.
Answer two: Maggie Thatcher, Arthur Scargill and Nelson Mandela. I think Nelson would be able to get the other two to see sense and come to some agreement about the miners’ strike of 1984 and not destroy the communities in which I grew up. I’d like to see him in action.
If given complete freedom to start afresh, what profession would you choose and why?
A career choice is like anything else – full of compromises. I’m glad that my jobs (I won’t call it a career) have enabled me to do the other things I love: appear on the Barn stage, watch all the children’s matches and shows, rarely work at weekends, play golf, go on long bike rides, go hiking and spend time with friends.
What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done?
Agreeing to answer these questions.
If you were to change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
I wish I didn’t have the worry gene (although I worry how I’d cope without it).
If you were stranded on a lonely beach, what are the five things that you would want to have with you?
A fully loaded solar-powered Kindle, a juicer, a chair, food and drink.
What is one of your favourite quotes?
‘Anyone who prays more than me is a zealot, anyone who prays less than me is a heretic’. It’s not a famous quote but was told to me by a rabbi friend. It reminds me that I should be less judgmental.
What is your most cherished childhood memory?
Sitting at my Grandmother’s flat listening to the story of her life.
If given a chance to skip work for a day, how would you spend the entire day? May not be relevant in these weird days!
The perfect day would have a selection of this lot. An early start, a long walk with lots of friends in good countryside, good food and wine, a show, a bike ride and bed by 11 with a good book.
David Thompson
Daytime play-reading
The play-reading group met (on Zoom, of course) on Tuesday 19th January not just to read, but firstly to be coached in the creation of an Irish accent. We were privileged to have three natives of the Republic of Ireland to help us – Louise Bateman and Siobhán Hill, who presented poems and got us focusing on our vowel sounds; and John Keogh, new to the group but not to the Barn, who clarified the distinction between the country and metropolitan traditions of Irish drama. Several participants also expressed their gratitude to Father Ted and Mrs Brown’s Boys.
The play we read was Spreading the News, written by Lady Augusta Gregory – Galway-born friend of W B Yeats, and co-founder of the Abbey Theatre. It was first performed in 1904. The play is set in rural Ireland, where the lives of one’s neighbours provide the soap operas of the day. It tells of a tale that grows in the telling. No grain of a suggestion is left unembellished, and before long a man is being sought for a murder that hasn’t even been committed, accused of having an affair with the (dead) man’s wife, and rumoured to be fleeing the country with his paramour. All would, one might imagine, be well in the end were it not for the newly arrived English (in our case, Scottish) magistrate, determined to make his mark after experience in the colonies, who duly acts like a feckin’ eejit.
Our Irish coaches said how well we had done. They’re such charmers…
February’s play-reading
Tuesday 16th February, 10.20am for a 10.30am start.
We’ll be reading an abridged version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This will be preceded by a teach-in on ‘Performing Shakespeare’, which will be given by Jan Palmer Sayer.
Please email [email protected] if you’d like to join the play-reading group, either to act or simply to listen. You’ll be very welcome..
Stuart Handysidess
Alternative Dialogue
The Editor would welcome any new photos and captions for next month.
Please email them to us here:
Hover over the images below to see our ideas…
Comedy Corner
My neighbour banged on my wall at 3am, can you believe it. Fortunately I was still up practising my trumpet.
A man retired to a small village in the country. Every day he popped into the local pub for a drink. He sat and drank, passed the time of day and read the paper. But he had a custom of ordering three pints at a time and drinking them simultaneously. After a few days the barman offered to pour them one at a time if that helped. The man explained that it was family custom. He had two brothers. One was a sailor and the other worked in Canada. They had an agreement they would always drink together no matter where they were. The barman thought that was very commendable. A week later the man came in and ordered only two pints. The barman noted this but was a bit embarrassed to say anything. The word went round the village. Flowers and cards arrived at the man’s house. When he next visited the pub he asked the barman if there was a festival or celebration going on. The barman explained that as he’d only ordered two pints he didn’t like to ask which one of his brothers he’d lost. “Neither,” said the man, “I’ve given up drinking”.
I saw this in B&Q. Stood there for half an hour and it didn’t move an inch.
It was the funeral of the inventor of the dishwasher today. The coffin was lowered into the ground only to be taken out by his wife and put back in properly.
A man’s wife was very upset with him. She found some letters he’d been hiding – she said she felt betrayed and had lost all trust in him. He professed that he couldn’t blame her and felt so ashamed. He said he wouldn’t be surprised if she never played Scrabble with him again
Gordon the Gnome
Gordon the 6ft golden gnome who found fame in the Barn’s production of Neighbourhood Watch has found a new role in the shop window of a ladies’ fashion boutique, SuSu in Old Welwyn.
Gordon commented ‘It’s tough – since starring at the Barn work’s been difficult to come by. I was up for a role in Gnome Alone 3, Sherlock Gnomes and Gnome and Away, but to no avail’.
His new casting with SuSu is in a non-speaking role as a 6ft golden gnome in the window to brighten the High Street during these difficult days. Gordon commented ‘It’s a tough role. I’m constantly on and very much stage-centre, but I think my stage work with the Barn will help me rise to the challenge’.
Bob Thomson
My Christmas present
The Oxford Book of Theatrical Anecdotes, edited by Gyles Brandreth.
This 700-page delight was my present from my daughter, Ruth. The blurb says ‘Sarah Bernhardt is playing opposite Benedict Cumberbatch and Orson Welles is sharing the limelight with Noël Coward. Kindly take your seat’. Snippets of gossip and lengthy stories – here are a few samples.
Ralph Richardson:
- An ill-fated Macbeth opened with Richardson in June 1952. Later in the season, during a performance of Volpone, Richardson took another actor aside and said ‘If you don’t give me five pounds I’ll have it put about that you were in my Macbeth’.
- More than once Richardson was found on his knees scrabbling in a corner of the wings, moaning plaintively ‘Has anyone seen my talent? It’s small but it used to be quite shiny’.
- Lunching in Rules restaurant his attention was caught by a man he appeared to recognise. He called out ‘Oh, Stanley Jackson, my old friend, how good to see you. But how you’ve changed! You’ve gone all bald and you’ve shaved off your moustache. And your round jolly face is now all long and lugubrious’. At this point, the man across the room interrupted to say ‘I’m not Stanley Jackson’. ‘Oh,’ cried Richardson, ‘changed your name as well, have you?’
Re audiences:
- ‘Persistent coughers should be removed, placed side by side in the road, and treated by gently passing a warm steam-roller over their chests.’ – Bernard Shaw.
Audience reaction:
- At a performance of Henry IV Part I in 1945, as Olivier as Hotspur re-entered in a carrot-red wig: ‘Look, here come old Ginger again!’
- A young Judi Dench as Juliet in 1960 (with her parents in the audience). Juliet came on and gave her line to Peggy Mount, playing the Nurse, ‘Where are my father and my mother, Nurse?’ A reassuring voice from the stalls: ‘Here we are, darling, in Row H’.
Critics:
- A performance of Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape at The Abbey Theatre, Dublin, in 1959. The headline for the review: ‘At last, the Krapp we have been waiting for’.
- ‘Watching Tallulah Bankhead on stage is like watching someone skating on thin ice. Everyone wants to be there when it breaks.’
- Dame Edith Evans at a first rehearsal, spotting a young man in the stalls, enquired who he was. On being told he was the director she replied, ‘Oh well, I dare say we’ll find him something to do’.
Stage nudity:
- Noël Coward after a performance of David Storey’s play about rugby players The Changing Room, in which all the actors stripped on stage: ‘I didn’t pay good money to see fourteen acorns and a chipolata’. The actors in the play expressed alarm during the previews when they heard a metallic clicking in the darkness of the auditorium and feared armed members of the audience were cocking their rifles. It turned out to be the noise of opera glasses hitting spectacle lenses at the moment the lads on stage stripped off…
And nestling among the humour, a profound statement:
- Olivier Award-winning actress Denise Gough, on the current fashion for describing both male and female performers as ‘actors’: ‘We fought to be on the stage. We should reclaim the word: I don’t know where it came from, this f*****g notion that putting ‘ess’ on the end makes us weak. I would be no less afraid of a lioness than a lion’.
Keith Thompson
A set builder's story
Nigel Rive
Welwyn Garden City Youth Drama Festival 2021
We’re very pleased to announce that the 77th Welwyn Garden City Youth Drama Festival is… digital this year! We are ready to meet you in a virtual space, via ZOOM, between 1st to 6th March 2021, as planned. It’s a new experience for all of us, but nevertheless very interesting and very modern – at least we can’t complain about kids being on YouTube all the time, when all we do is keep having ZOOM meetings! We are now in the process of sorting out the schedule and the entries, but watch this space, we’ll be back with more information soon!
Laura Llinca
YDF Secretary
Call for sound techies and readers!
The charity Welwyn Hatfield Talking Newspaper has been in touch to ask if, among the Barn’s cast of thousands, there’s a sound technician and some male voices who’d be willing to give a little of their time and talent to help with the production of WHATnews.
WHATnews is produced and distributed by the Welwyn Hatfield Talking Newspaper for blind and partially sighted listeners. The charity, which has been running since 1970, records and distributes to its members, free of charge, CDs of news and items of interest from Welwyn Hatfield Times.
They’re desperate for more male readers and another sound engineer, so Hazel Bell, their editor, has asked the Barn for help. Who else would she ask!
Hazel said: ‘We have been operating with a rota of only three technicians since March, and are desperate for more to take turns on the rota for part of the production process. Robert Handscomb, our secretary-cum-recordist, has a
background in broadcast system design, and his preference is for a
Windows / Audacity-based system. Other recordists are committed Apple users’.
If you’d like to know more, Robert would be very pleased to hear from you at [email protected] / phone 01438 716757.
Apparently, some Barn members used to be part of the reading team, but now numbers have dropped dramatically and Hazel would love to hear from anyone who’d like to read and record local news for the paper. Before lockdown a team of four readers would meet to make the recordings, but now they use smartphones to read and record from home. The recordings are then emailed to the sound engineer who edits them and produces a master CD, copies of which are sent out to listeners. The recording is also put on YouTube and can be heard at www.whatnews.org.uk.
Two of the Barn’s leading lights have already offered their services, so you’ll be in good company. If you’d like to join them, please contact Hazel at [email protected] / phone 01707 265201.
I should just say that this is a voluntary organisation, so no payment is involved, but it’s a worthwhile use of your talents and it’ll keep you in good voice till the lights go on again!
Carol Bush
Crossword
Clive’s Amazing Technicolor Crossword
by Cliew
ACROSS
8 Glyn’s City that’s ‘always a day away’ (8)
9 Needed for winter Rear Window viewing? (6)
10 The colour of Malvolio’s stockings (6)
11 A case of mistaken identity in Honk! (8)
12 Wardrobe tuition may include use of this (4)
13 Boris’s favourite move on the parade ground (5-4)
16 The colour of Kneehigh’s Shoes (3)
18 The colour of Potter’s Remembered Hills (4)
19 Message sent back by parliament (5)
20 Feeling of optimism starts to herald our pandemic’s end (4)
21 Biblical priest who features in The Life of Brian (3)
22 The stars of Shopping and F***ing? (9)
24 The colour of the morn’s eyes in Romeo and Juliet (4)
26 The Academy Awards perhaps – or a 70s multi-category winner (4,4)
29 The colour of Macavity in Cats (6)
30 The Color of 2015’s Best Musical Revival Tony-winner (6)
31 Crucible judge: a man desperate for hollow truth (8)
DOWN
1 Hinders by anticipating the seats closest to the stage? (10)
2 Coke to help you cool off? Quite the opposite (4,4)
3 The colour of Paddington’s adoptive family (5)
4 Was in debt to the sound of poetry (4)
5 Felix and Oscar seen in the 7-Eleven perhaps (3,6)
6 The colour of Mr Wonka’s Ms Beauregarde (6)
7 Miserable and light-fingered protagonist (4)
14 The colour worn by The Woman at the Fortune (5)
15 Plays a character the theatre company begrudges (10)
17 Heavily affected – as some say our currency was exactly 50 years ago? (9)
20 Western elevated almost no-one (4,4)
23 Countries evoked in amateur opera (6)
25 Mr 007 or Mr 15% (5)
27 He sells dodgy tickets for everything in Paris (4)
28 Drink starts to sell out despite age (4)
Solution next month.
For any hints or comments, email [email protected]