Dick Whittington - The View from the bridge ...
... of the Saucy Sal that is, and a fine vessel she is too, or rather was, before she ended up at the bottom of the sea. Sorry, I forgot, Cockle here, Captain Cockle, Master of the Sucy Sal. Oh we had some fine times sailing the ocean blue, even that last fateful voyage started well. I had a colourful if motley crew, some of them even knew their tickled turnspike from their bent spinnacker. I took on Sam Seaweed, a keen young man who could take instructions even if he couldn't read. But as for that nautical nitwit Mr Mussel - First Mate? Ha! What a nincompoop! Had to use the full force of my authority to knock him into shape. Scapa Flo indeed!
And then there was Sarah Suet our alleged cook. Souffle like a deadnaught but the sailors liked her dumplings. We got her from Fitzwarren, he was OK despite the surgical stockings and his obsession with the time of our departure, and his daughter Alice was charming. Then there was Dick and his crazy cat in flippers and snorkle! Oh, and Idle Jack, oh he was idle!
Anyway, I digress. All was going well 'til King Rat conjured up a storm and we were shipwrecked in Morocco. That's when we were captured by a strangely familiar Sheik Dabotall and the screamingly fearsome Tuffazell. That was a close shave, pity Dabotall hadn't had one. Liked his sequins though. Luckily the Fairy of the Bells weaved her magic spell and Tommy came to our rescue and Dick fought King Rat and ... well it's all a bit of a blur now but the upshot of it was that we were all saved, Sarah married the Sheik and Dick married Alice and became Lord Mayor.
Oh I love a happy ending, don't you? And by the way, PC Suet never did show me her credentials.
Would I do it all again? Course I would, even pirouetting atop that rickety ladder. On reflection I probably wouldn't answer the door in full make up next time, but hey - you live and learn!
And from below decks ...
"Shall we join the Panto crew this year? You'll see it will be fun!"
Honest! That husband of mine, sometimes he has strange ideas: at 60 start playing in a panto; I haven't been on stage since my school days! But he is very persuasive, so I went along. Still, I played it safe (or so I thought) and volunteered to be part of the chorus.
Oh la la! All the songs were tongue twisters to me and I thought I would never make it. I had just mastered them when Janet taught us the choreography and that was it: as soon as I started moving I forgot all the words. Panic! Practice was the key word and little by little everything came together.
The great things about being in the chorus is that we spent a lot of time in the sidings and we were able to see the panto from beginning to end, see it improve and every week we laughed as if we were hearing the jokes for the first time. From our priviledged position we also admired the little rats' dances and could measure the intricacies of prop and set changes.
Adrenalin started to run fast when we began the dress rehearsals, it was for real and soon we would have an audience. The performances were over in no time. It was great to feel the interaction with the public and the cameraderie with the participants back stage.
All in all a very exciting experience ... so what do we do next year?
David and Grazy Durham
See also:-
Dick Whittington by Sam Seaweed