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If fixing dates takes a long time it’s nothing to the time it takes to write down the programme for the next show. Now I always wanted to learn shorthand in my student days as it would have helped me take notes during lectures but I did develop my own brand of speedwriting. I couldn’t always read it but I could write very quickly! When it comes to Showtimers programmes, even though our repertoire is pretty extensive, there are only a limited number of possibilities for what I’ve written so I can usually decipher my scrawl. However, I reckon I could use the best copperplate calligraphy plus illuminate the first letter of every word in the time it takes some of them to write down our programmes as Con dictates them. Somewhere along the line there will be a cry of “what comes after ‘Anything Goes’” and you realise that somebody is still three and sometimes four songs behind! Jacques waits until all the fuss has died down and then has a look in my book to copy it all down. He can actually read my writing. Con has now solved this problem: she types it up on her PC and prints out a copy for everybody. She includes the venue, the date, the time (this always being the time the concert starts – we used to have a lot of confusion about whether times were for starting or for arriving at the venue, at least this has been cleared up over the years) who is singing what – yes it is possible they could forget this and not only because different people have had a stab at the same song over the years, and what they should be wearing for each set of songs. You’d think that would be fool-proof wouldn’t you? Yes, you would!
| Tea break. That great British institution. We should be able to go two hours without a cup of tea but I have to say I’m often greatly relieved to have a break. None of the singers is involved in every single song but I am. They have included a few poems in shows recently which gives me a break but usually I’m playing the piano, not exactly ‘non-stop’ but more like ‘stop-start’, for two hours and it’s thirsty work so I support this wholeheartedly. We’ve also now got into the very civilised habit of bringing in goodies to eat to celebrate birthdays. The gooier and sweeter the better from my point of view and the more chocolate the better! For some reason, probably because I’m the slimmest of those present, (though growing all the time) I am always encouraged to eat up any left-overs. I don’t often need twice asking though I do try to look as if I’m concerned that others should be offered it too! Tea break is also a good time to chat. It would waste a lot less time if all the chatting could be done during the tea break but no matter how long the tea break, it’s never enough. If Con had a pound for every time she had to raise her voice and say, “are you listening” she would be rich enough to buy a gold-plated loudhailer. |
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After all this we do sometimes get round to some rehearsing. It’s always difficult to strike a balance between making sure they can still remember the routines for the show next week and finding time to rehearse new stuff. Many of the people we perform to ask us back and obviously we want to provide as many new songs as possible. We do cheat a bit in that we always sing our signature tune, “There are no timers like Showtimers”, sung, as you may have guessed to the tune of “There’s no business like showbusiness” and we always finish with our ‘Pearlies’ set which includes songs like ‘Strollin’, ‘Underneath the Arches’ and ‘Lambeth Walk’ and for which they have sown a whole load of pearl buttons onto plain jackets, skirts and trousers to become Pearly Kings and Queens. We are short of men so some of the ladies have to dress up as Kings but fortunately the men don’t need to dress up as Queens! Having sung these songs in just about every show we’ve ever done they stand a good chance of remembering them without having to rehearse. I should add though that, even though I’ve played these songs for every single show I’ve ever done, if you took away my score I still wouldn’t be able to play them from memory. I wouldn’t know what key I should be in and I wouldn’t even know what note to start on. Thank goodness I don’t need to. We have built up quite a repertoire over the years so, as well as finding new songs we also have quite a lot to fall back on – we hope the audiences have memories as bad as ours and won’t remember that we’ve done the songs before. But our extensive repertoire means I have a vast number of scores. I have divided them into two groups. Those Con is likely to ask me for I take along each week and those which I feel I can safely archive I leave in my music cabinet at home. The only problem is there is nothing which I can safely archive – songs we’ve not done for a year or more may suddenly be put into the show for the next week and I won’t have it with me to rehearse. On the other hand I will have half a ton of other scores which won’t be asked for until the week after I decide I can safely archive them. I managed to avoid a hernia from carrying the music and then they bought me a very posh flight bag on wheels! (Very handy too if I want to jet off somewhere!) Now I just have to avoid a hernia when lifting the bag into the car. Trying to keep all this music in order is a nightmare too. I have invested in some file dividers with the alphabet on them. Every so often I put every single piece of music in order in it’s appropriate divider. I then appear to be highly efficient as I can find every required score in less than ten seconds (assuming I’ve filed it in the right place – if I haven’t then I can’t find it at all). However, at the end of an evenings’ rehearsal or after a show I will simply lump it all together and leave it to be filed later. This goes on until I have nearly every score out of the files, take nearly five minutes to find what I want and accuse someone else of borrowing it as it can’t possibly be me that’s lost it. |
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