‘Yes, sorry about that. There’s been so much on this week I just haven’t had time to get the details of the contract finalised.’
Charles wondered whether this was true or whether Paul Lexington was once again using delaying tactics for devious reasons of his own. Distrust of the producer was now instinctive.
Bobby Anscombe gave an evil grin. ‘I don’t mind having no contract if you don’t. Gives me the freedom to walk out at will.’
But nobody believed his threat. They all knew that The Hooded Owl had just survived a great crisis. For the first time that week, they all dared to feel confident that the show would open the following Thursday, as planned.
CHAPTER EIGHT
There’s nothing like a long Technical Run to dissipate any euphoria attached to a theatrical production, and that was the effect of the one held for The Hooded Owl on the evening of Sunday, 26th October, 1980.
As is often the case with such events, it started late. Peter Hickton had had trouble with the resident stage crew at the Variety over the Saturday night. He was used to working with crews who knew him and who, like his casts, were prepared to work round the clock to achieve the effects he desired. The staff of the Variety did not have this attitude. They had no personal loyalty to him and were too strongly unionised to accept his way of working. Peter Hickton, unaware that co-operation could be bought by payment of ‘negotiated extras’, responded to the crew’s apparent lethargy by throwing one of his tantrums, which had only served to make them less willing to help out. Paul Lexington and Wallas Ward had had to devote much energy to smoothing ruffled feathers, nobody had got much sleep, and everything was way behind schedule.
When eventually, after ten o’clock at night, the run started, it was very slow. Apart from the unfamiliarity of the entrances and exits and the other customary problems for the cast, Peter Hickton had not had time to complete the lighting plot, so much of that was being done in the course of the run, which meant endless waits while new lighting settings were agreed. This left the cast standing around; they got bored and giggly, which set off explosions of bad temper from the technical staffs working around them. The atmosphere degenerated.
Members of the resident stage crew wandered round, looking at their watches and making dark remarks about amateurism and provincial rep. and the folly of trying to bring in a show so quickly and the unlikelihood of its being presentable in time for the Monday night preview.
Paul Lexington rushed around, also looking at his watch and working out how much overtime he was going to have to pay (or, to Charles’s suspicious mind, how much overtime he was going to avoid paying).
The latest technical innovation, the deaf-aid transmitter, did not make things any easier. For a start, the resident sound engineer didn’t like it, because he hadn’t been consulted about its introduction and he maintained that he should be responsible for all sound equipment. This led to a circuitous discussion with Paul Lexington about whether it was sound equipment or not, which was only settled after much wrangling (and, almost definitely, money changing hands).
But even when its use had been approved, it didn’t work as it should. Michael Banks, who by this time looked terminally tired, seemed to have lost the knack of timing which he had so laboriously achieved the day before, and so his lines were once again all over the place. Alex, from his position in the wings, was not concentrating as much and could not easily be kept informed about when they were stopping and starting, going back to rehearse lighting changes and so on, with the result that he was often feeding the wrong words.
Setting the transmitter’s volume level was also a problem. If it was too low, Michael kept mishearing lines and producing bizarre variations, many of which would, under other circumstances, have been funny, and did in fact produce some snorts of ill-advised laughter from the overwrought cast. If the level was set too high, Michael could hear all right, but unfortunately so could the rest of the theatre, in a sort of ghostly pre-echo.
But the climax of technical disaster came, as the climax always did, with the Hooded Owl speech. Charles was out in front and saw what happened.
It was then getting on for three in the morning, but in the last quarter of an hour things had been getting better. With the end of the play in sight, everyone seemed to get a second (or possibly tenth) wind. Michael Banks, for the first time in the run, showed some signs of his real power as the Hooded Owl speech drew near.
‘But, Father,’ said Lesley-Jane, ‘you will never be forgotten.’
‘Oh yes. Oh yes, I will.
‘Three generations of us have lived in this house. Three generations have passed through this room, slept here, argued here, made love here, even picked up a passenger in Shaftesbury Avenue to take out to Neasden. . ’
There was silence in the theatre. The star, suddenly aware of what he had said, looked pitifully puzzled. Charles wondered if Alex Household had carried out his threat of feeding the wrong lines. If so, he had chosen a singularly inappropriate moment for the experiment.
It was some time before the cause of the error was identified. The transmitter was on the same wave-length as a passing radio-cab.
Somehow the Technical Run ended. Somehow a Dress Rehearsal was achieved on the Monday afternoon. And somehow, not too long after eight o’clock on the Monday evening, the curtain rose for the first time on the London production of The Hooded Owl by Malcolm Harris.
It was just competent. To say more would have been to overstate the case, but as a first preview it got by. The West End had witnessed many worse first previews.
The house was about a third full and they were respectful if not ecstatic in their reaction. Those of the cast who remembered the euphoria of Taunton were disappointed, but they comforted themselves with the fact that they were at least on,something which three days previously had looked most unlikely.
Michael Banks managed his lines fairly well, with only a couple of mishearings and one awfully long thirty seconds where he totally lost the thread. Perversely, George Birkitt seemed to have lost his lines completely and had to take at least half a dozen prompts. Charles Paris was heard to remark cynically that George, having seen that the star had got a deaf-aid, thought he ought to have one too.
Though he got the lines, Michael Banks’s performance was very subdued, only a vestige of what he could achieve. That was just the result of fatigue. The strains of the last fortnight were catching up with him, and he looked every one of his sixty-four years.
No one was too worried about it. After all, these were only previews. Wait till the first night they thought, and watch ‘Doctor Theatre’ do his work.
Two more previews to go, and then, at seven o’clock on the Thursday (early so that the critics could get their copy in), the curtain would go up on the first night proper of The Hooded Owl.
‘Hello, it’s me.’
‘Charles.’
‘Sorry to ring you at school, but I wanted to get hold of you and I’m in the theatre in the evenings.’
‘Yes.’
‘Can you talk, Frances?’
‘Well, I’ve got someone with me, but if you’re quick. .’
‘It’s about the first night.’
‘Oh yes. Of your play. When is it?’
‘Thursday.’
‘Ah.’
‘I wondered if you could come. .’
‘Thursday. Hmm. I am actually meant to be going to a meeting. .’
‘Frances. .’
‘But I suppose I could. . Yes, all right, Charles. After all, I don’t want to miss your opening in this wonderful part you told me about.’