Murder Mistaken Opens in Stevenage

Our latest thriller tour finally opened at the Gordon Craig Theatre in Stevenage as MURDER MISTAKEN had its first performances. The staff and crew of the theatre were very helpful in getting the show up and running and allowed us all the necessary rehearsal facilities in the rehearsal studio behind the stage as well as assisting with all the relevant pre-production through the Get-In on the Tuesday and then on Wednesday prior to the opening night. There was a sense of nervous tension throughout the cast, particularly on the Wednesday morning as the cast realised they couldn't get off the roller coaster taking them to the first performance. The Dress Rehearsal was pretty smooth after an initial stumble that became a bit of a false start. As usual Geoff had done a fantastic job with the set, the furnishings, which included a gas fire that he had actually made from a roasting tin of all things, and the costumes. The fifties is definitely a decade that is one of Geoff's favourites.

The show itself went very well and the large audience appeared to be deeply engrossed in the plot as it thickened and in the story as it unravelled towards the final denouement. The generous applause at the final curtain was testament to the fact that they enjoyed the whole thing which will undoubtedly become slicker and smoother as it goes along. It is a classic thriller which I wouldn't describe as a 'whodunit' but more of a 'whose going get done next?'. After the week in Stevenage the play has a short break before arriving in Peterborough on March 26th.

Remembering Philip Madoc

PHILIP MADOC 1934 - 2012

It was very sad to hear of the passing of Philip Madoc today as he was a great actor and one who had worked for us for a couple of weeks this time last year at the beginning of our tour of the thriller I MET A MAN WHO WASN'T THERE. It appeared to be the onset of his battle against pancreatic cancer that unfortunately led to Philip having to pull out of the rest of the tour. Philip was a lovely man who I will remember brightening the rehearsal period with many tales of his past life as an actor as it was a profession that he had served very well and had provided him with so many memories. It also turned out that he got married in the little chapel in the villlage of Llansamlet near Swansea which was, coincidentally the exact same village where my own parents retired to and spent 22 very happy years from 1988 to 2010. I remember one particular lunch break when Philip and I shared many stories of the area and his time as a Russian interpreter.
Philip is probably best remembered as the U-Boat Captain in one of the best episodes of DAD'S ARMY in which he repeatedly asks Ian Lavender, aka Private Pike, what his name is until Arthur Lowe [Captain Mainwaring] utters the immortal line "Don't tell him Pike!" 

Philip will also be remembered for lead roles in the detective series A MIND TO KILL and THE LIFE AND TIMES OF DAVID LLOYD GEORGE as well as a film and the TV version of the ever popular DR.WHO. Philip was also a keen motorcyclist and he loved nothing more than riding his large motorbike all over the country as he did to rehearsals and to Chesterfield when he worked for us, even though he was in his mid-70s by that time. His passing is very sad and everybody at BJP would like to pay tribute to a lovely gentle man.

Murder Mistaken Rehearsals

This week has been another incredibly busy one with two shows out [THE BLACK VEIL in Billingham and A BEDFULL OF FOREIGNERS in Worthing] and one in rehearsal. The play in preparation is another thriller MURDER MISTAKEN, which is more in the classic line, not so much of a 'whodunnit' more of a who might be next? The rehearsals took place in Leigh-on-Sea and it looks like we have managed to assemble another lovely cast, of which half of them are old friends and the other half are what was affectionately termed on the first day of the week "Bruce James virgins". It has a very productive week on this show and by yesterday [Friday] afternoon we were already in a position to do a staggered run of the play. That particular exercise turned out to be very good and I think, after a bit of consolidation weekend, we will be in excellent shape by the time we reconvene in Stevenage on Monday morning. Although there are obviously completely different genres it is good to see that both THE BLACK VEIL and A BEDFULL OF FOREIGNERS have enjoyed very successful weeks at theatres at both ends of the country. It is difficult to get your head around the fact that we are already in March and 2012 is flying past at a very fast speed. There are a lot of things currently in the pipeline and hopefully we will have more news about various projects very soon.

Catching Up

Apologies the lack of recent posts. It has been both a sad and a busy time as on February 5th my brother died after four weeks in intensive care and became the third close family member to pass away in as many months. In addition to this we have been rehearsing for another couple of weeks of THE BLACK VEIL which is currently at Swansea's Grand Theatre. Hopefully now another funeral has come and gone we can get back to keeping everybody up to date with what is going on here at Bruce James Productions. Our hilarious touring production of Dave Freeman's farce A BEDFULL OF FOREIGNERS has played both the Marina Theatre in Lowestoft and the Gordon Craig Theatre in Stevenage and is due to head for the South Coast next week as it arrives at the Connaught Theatre in Worthing. It has been receiving great reviews and audience feedback and if you need a good laugh then I can thoroughly recommend a night out with Damian and the cast.

We have also been busy with preparations for our upcoming Musical tour of BUGLE BOY - THE LIFE STORY OF GLENN MILLER which opens its National tour at Southend's Palace Theatre on Tuesday 27th March. If you would like more information on the show itself as well as a wealth of information about the great man then why not head over to www.thebugleboy.info where the playwright Den Stevenson has gathered together all sorts of memorabilia, photos etc. Definitely well worth a look.

It's Snow Way to Finish

The last day of our week in Southend and then Buxton finished in heavy snow falling on the Derbyshire town. The forecast had been for a large dose of the white stuff and because of the height above sea level in the heart of the Peak District there was obviously every chance that the Opera House and the surrounding areas would be severely affected. By all accounts from the cast and crew the snow started around lunchtime and never really let up after that. There was never any chance that either the matinee or the evening shows would be cancelled but the Box Office was probably affected, especially the evening performance when the snowfall had taken full hold. Because of the deteriorating forecast the vast majority of the company, well all except Kylie whose parents were in the audience last night and took her home, stayed an extra night in the town and then made their attempts to get home. It was probably just as well they did as the south of the country received its major snow around 11 p.m. so any journey back to London and/or Essex might have been a nightmare. Indeed there were stories of drivers and their passengers stranded on the M25 for over eight hours and the A127, the main route towards Southend was blocked by a broken down gritter of all things and that left many other cars either abandoned or just with nowhere to go as the snow took hold.

Back in Buxton, the lorry that was due to arive at the theatre to allow the Get-Out to happen phoned to say that conditions were so bad they had only gone 400 yards in an hour and there was seemingly no way they were going to get anywhere near their intended destination. In such situations there is very little that can be done except to grin and bear it and, having re-arranged the set to be loaded on Tuesday, Chris, the Company manager, text me shortly after midnight to say the flats etc had been struck and the company had all managed to get back to their digs. The cold weather seems to be set in for the week over the East of the country so maybe it is a good thing that our tour has a week out this week before it moves on to Lowestoft and then Stevenage in the following week.

An Eventful Bedfull

We are only half way through the second week of A BEDFULL OF FOREIGNERS and already its been an eventful one. For Tuesday and Wednesday the production was seen playing at the Palace Theatre in Southend and on the first night Adam, the understudy was on in place of Paul, who was on compassionate leave attending a funeral in Liverpool. As Paul is 6' 3" and Adam about 5' 8" there were obviously some discrepancies in the costume department, so Company Manager Chris and Adam went to our store in the centre of Southend to sort that all out on the Monday. On the Tuesday with the Get-in underway at the theatre I went over to Edmonton to see if I could find some size 8 boots for Adam and locate our smoke machine. As I was leaving Chris sent me a text asking if I could collect the white gauze from Billericay as the Palace Theatre didn't have a cyc we could use. That part of his text was fairly easy to sort out although I did have to drive into Southend to get the store keys from Chris. However the request to bring a single mattress I told him wasn't something I was likely to be able to fulfil as I was using our Toyota Yaris, in which a mattress of any kind just wasn't going to fit. Chris explained we were a camp bed short, having borrowed one in Chesterfield last week, but as luck would have it, on his next visit to the charity shop across the road from the theatre a camp bed had come in overnight. Now that is what you call timing. By the time I returned from Billericay the rest of the company had arrived at the theatre and were going through Adam's scenes for the evening. With Adam going on for the first time it was almost like an opening night all over again - well certainly for Adam in his role as 'Heinz' the hotel manager. The first Palace Theatre performance went very well in front of a very appreciative audience and all was looking good for the two shows on the Wednesday.

However it wasn't all plain sailing for those two shows, especially the matinee, as the sprinklers above the Palace Theatre stage had leaked overnight and soaked the carpet on the set as well as a lot of the wires and cables. The theatre crew warned Chris that they would have to be 100% certain that nine of the electrics had been compromised by the water or the matinee would have to be cancelled. The prospect of losing the performances on the day wasn't a good one as both shows were particularly busy so it was fingers crossed that the crew would be able to complete their mopping up operations and ensure all was safe prior to the house opening about 2 p.m. Fortunately for all concerned I received a text message from Chris about 1.50 to say the "house is now open". That was indeed good news and both of the two Wednesday performances went really well with lots of laughs and fun enjoyed by all.

Today [Thursday], as the temperatures plummeted in Essex, the production headed north back to Derbyshire for four performances at the beautiful Buxton Opera House. With Buxton being in the centre of the Peak District and some 1,000 feet above sea level, it is the highest market town in England. Suffice to say that snow is far more likely in the current cold conditions up there than in many other places. Fortunately it would appear any snow for the rest of the week seems more likely to arrive in Essex rather than over the latest tour venue as the cold snap moves in from the East rather than the North. Let's hope the forecast is right and the performances in Buxton are unaffected by any white stuff although I anticipate it will be very cold!

A Bedfull of Foreigners Opens Its Doors

Nearly a week has gone by since the opening night of A BEDFULL OF FOREIGNERS and maybe that is a mark of how busy we have been since that first performance. The lead up to the opening night did have a few problems and the old adage that a bad Dress Rehearsal makes for a good show was certainly brought to the fore. However after all the trials and tribulations it all came together to be "all right on the night" and the large initial audience were soon laughing loudly at the farce as Damian Williams was on top form. With Damian having done the play a few times before he is well aware of what works and what doesn't so there wasn't the danger for him that some farces can create. However that wasn't necessarily true of soem of the rest of the cast and I am sure they all felt better having done the first night. Even the try-out Wednesday matinee, a performanace that had worked very well for our tour of IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE back in November, was very popular again as were all the other performances. This was particularly true of the Saturday night which Damian described as a "brilliant house". The production moves on to Southend's Palace Theatre for three performances on Tuesday and Wednesday [another Wednesday matinee] before moving back to Derbyshire for the rest of the week at Buxton Opera House.