…again to play with Barnardo’s, but this time also with The Children’s Society.
I know that Ian Theodoreson and Bob Harvey gave us and their Barnardo’s charges every encouragement to make these evenings happen, but I have a feeling that neither of them made it to either evening.
Anyway, it was a very jolly evening and a great chance for people to get to know each other as well as mess around a bit playing cricket.
Not only did Barnardo’s still supply a bunch of dudes who knew what they were doing – see photo above…
…The Children’s Society was also blessed with some half-decent cricketers, including Chief Executive and glove man Ian Sparks:
Ian Sparks on gloves, Harish Gohil at bat; presumably this was warming up pre contestCharles “Charley The Gent Malloy” Bartlett – starting as he meant to go on
I can’t remember in detail the playing conditions we came up with for this particular evening, but sort-of having three teams in an after work round robin in August was never going to work brilliantly as matches. I have a feeling we played sort-of eight a side with additional supply fielders from the sides that weren’t batting.
No slide rule – but the Barnardo’s score book and my own trusty light meterReservoir Dogs but without the ultraviolence? Kevin Parker (striding, front left), Rupert Stubbs (hatted, central), Michael Mainelli (arms folded in disgust, right).Spot the ball (obviously going uppishly to backward square leg, that’s me batting)Mainelli looks relieved to have been dismissed.
I still think the whole idea had started with Kevin Parker and some of the Barnardo’s team he was working with – I wonder if I can extract a confession from him.
I wrote surprisingly vaguely about this in my log, as I am sure I wrote it up fairly soon after seeing the play:
unsure of length – recall shortish no interval
Impressionistically, I remember the evening fondly. Paula Wilcox was an actress I had only previously seen doing sitcom, but I remember realising that she really could act…and needed to for this piece.
Fortunately for posterity, despite its small scale, it was written up by proper journalists at the time. So I didn’t need to.
Robin Stringer previewed the piece in the Standard:
This was a preview of a show Ken Campbell put on at The Piccadilly Thetre later that year.
I loved Ken Campbell’s work and I seem to recall a very funny monologue in one of his earlier one-man shows when he talked about his fascination with the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu) and vaguely posited the idea of performing MacBeth in pidgin.
In this piece, Campbell goes into far more detail about the language and his desire to establish pidgin as a world language, or Wol Wontok, which he believed could be achieved in just a few days as the language is so easy.
Here is Ken Campbell’s Guardian piece shown on the back of the programme note above, in proper clipping/readable form:
The first part of the prodcution was fascinating and funny, but, in truth, Janie and I found the delivery of MacBeth in pidgin less funny than the idea of it being done.
Never mind. An evening in the hands of Ken Campbell is never dull and I remember this evening more fondly than my log note suggests I would:
Not as much fun as we thought it might be – the idea is funnier than the delivery
Somewhat strangely, through work, soon after seeing this play, I met Patrick Ellum, who was a former Attorney General of Vanuatu. Through Patrick, I met one of that nation’s visiting Prime Ministers and his entourage. No, I didn’t try out my pidgin on them, although I did ask them about the deification of Prince Philip in Tanna. Hopefully I’ll Ogblog that event in the fullness of time.
But I digress.
“Prince Philip” in pidgin was, “nambawan bigfella emi blong Misis Kwin“, by the way.
I digress again, but no more.
Lyn Gardner in the Guardian gave Pidgin Macbeth a guarded thumps up, while signally failing to translate The Bard’s name into pidgin properly – it’s “Macbed Blong Wilum Sekspia“, dear, not Sekstia – typical Grauniad:
Curtis Standard Juicy 13 Aug 1998, Thu Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com
Morgan Hammersmith Juicy 14 Aug 1998, Fri Hammersmith, Fulham and Shepherds Bush Gazette (Hammersmith, London, England) Newspapers.com
