Tag: Nicola Moodie

The Pausanias Affair by Mike Ward, The Actor’s Workshop, Halifax, 14 July 2001

Sandwiched between a short break at The White Swan in Pickering and the first Children’s Society v Tufty Stackpole cricket match, Janie and I spent an evening and night in Halifax seeing this show and then dining with Mike & Lottie Ward.

I had written the programme notes for Mike’s play – click here for said notes – and jolly good were the programme notes too…also the play, of course, also the play.

Actually I also wrote a review of the play/production, which I can reproduce in full below:

I thought this production was very good and an advance on The Elland Affair in several respects. The play itself was very interesting, with lots of character development and (almost too much) plot and intrigue. The casting and performances were good pretty much without exception. It was a most ambitious production in many respects and a great credit to cast and crew that they pulled it all off with such aplomb.

The programme notes were, once again, insurmountable and without question the highlight of the whole production!!?

Seriously, if I have any criticism of the play, it is too long and a little short on modern relevance. I know Mike Ward’s brain is already grappling with these issues for his next one. And I hope his next play arrives soon, because these Actors’ Workshop home-grown play/productions are getting stronger year on year and are a rare achievement in a small theatre such as The Actors’ Workshop.

All involved in this production should be commended and the people of Calderdale should be fighting now to get the hot tickets for the next home-grown production.

Not especially coincidentally, we saw The Elland Affair (Mike’s previous year’s piece) while on a tour which also included The White Swan in Pickering plus my first ever book signing:

My First Ever Book Signing, Clean Business Cuisine (the book), Actors’ Workshop Halifax (the venue), Yet Something Was Missing, 5 July 2000

…but I digress.

We enjoyed our evening in Halifax, not least the ever-warm hospitality of Mike and Lottie after show.

New Year Revels 1997, Actor’s Workshop, Halifax, 2 January 1997

This was my first visit to The Actor’s Workshop in Halifax.

It was an unusual start to the new year, that year, in several ways. Janie’s and my diaries both suggest that we had planned to attend a party at Anthea’s for New Year’s Eve, but we are pretty sure that party didn’t happen in the end.

After new year’s day, Janie had a diary full of work for the rest of the week, while I got in the motor to do a round trip taking in Halifax for the New Year revels show and then, the next day, a visit to a soft drinks factory in Nelson, Lancashire, across the Pennines.

Naturally I chose a freezing cold, snow and ice early January for that trip.

The journey to Halifax I recall being problem free (motorway more or less all the way) and of course I received warm hospitality from Mike and Lottie Ward when I got there.

I had met Mike in London two or three years earlier and had submitted material to the New Year Revels show for a couple of previous years, but this was my first (of several) visits to The Actor’s Workshop.

I was clearly impressed by the show. My log reads:

Much better than I expected. Did justice to most material and more than did justice to mine.

There were lots of in-jokes in the show and programme about The Ridings School, Halifax, which, in 1996, had:

…received nationwide attention when staff said 60 of its pupils were “unteachable” and school operations were temporarily suspended while the headmaster and other leading staff were replaced.

I don’t think the entire cast and crew were really alums of The Ridings School…but perhaps they were.

I stayed at The Imperial Crown Hotel in Halifax on that occasion. I think we ate a fine meal pre show at the Ward’s House. That must have been the first occasion I met Lottie and I have a funny feeling that Adam (whom I met at NewsRevue and through whom I had met Mike) was there on that occasion – perhaps also Olivia.

Janie (who was not with me, remember) wrote more details and contact numbers into her diary for that trip than I did into mine – including the local Halifax police and the AA – I suspect she scribbled down the latter two after seeing the weather forecast!

The drive across the Pennines from Halifax to Nelson early the next morning (3rd January) was truly nerve-wracking but I got there and did whatever I had scheduled to do at that factory for most of the day before setting off in the still treacherous driving conditions back to London.

In those days I was still driving “Red Noddy” the Honda Civic, which, although air conditioned, was still a late 1980s vehicle not ideally suited to freezing conditions. I struggled to stay warm throughout the journey and started to itch terribly before arriving at Janie’s place…

…covered in Hives.

I itched through Robert Lepage’s Elsinore the next (Saturday) evening, but that, as we say, is another story.