Unexpected evenings are the best. As you will know we have a small writers' group based in Hethersett and one of our leading lights is playwright extraordinaire Tony Vale who incidentally is performing 50 of his plays in 500 minutes in Wymondham on Saturday. Apparently I might even be roped in to read a couple of them! Does he know what he's letting himself in for?
A few weeks ago Tony suggested popping over to Beccles to see a play entitled "Call Me John." I had no idea of what to expect (hence my comment about an unexpected evening). So three of us climbed aboard his car (do you climb aboard a car?) and off we set.
We got to Beccles really early which gave us the opportunity to have a walk round the town and have a look at the River Waveney from the grounds of the church. We then went to Beccles Public Hall and had a drink before the play started.
Beccles is a strange place for me. I no longer know what to think of it. Let me explain here that I don't use the word strange to mean weird but strange in the sense that this place was once a huge part of my life but isn't anymore.
It was in September 1975 that I began working on the Beccles and Bungay Journal and Eastern Daily Press from the office in Blyburgate in Beccles. Sadly, like all satellite newspaper offices, this building is no longer involved in news gathering. But in 1975 it was a hub of the community. I spent just under three years working in Beccles and those were probably the three happiest years of my working life. The Chief Reporter Tony Clarke, who I have mentioned many times before, made every day fun and I loved working there. The only reason I left was that I realised if I didn't make a move I would have been caught in a rut.
I moved to the Midlands which, for a number of reasons, was a bad move. I ended up in a job I hated and I soon became home sick for Beccles. I even missed the fact that on every working day I popped over the border from Norfolk to Suffolk as we lived in Kirby Cane which is the Norfolk side of the river.
When my job in the Midlands didn't work out (and I will tell you about it sometime) we decided to return to Norfolk and I was fortunate to be remembered and offered a post as a sub editor, working in Norwich.
Our first thought was to return to live in the Beccles area but then we decided to look for somewhere a little closer to Norwich. The rest as they say is history. We settled in Hethersett in early 1979 and have lived here ever since and it is very doubtful that we will ever move from the village due to all our commitments.
Now I don't feel that I have a great affinity for Beccles, although I do have that feeling whenever I return to Cromer. I can't explain why this is, but Beccles is now just another very attractive town but not my home anymore.
I couldn't help thinking that way back in the mid 1970s I would have known and been known by a lot of people in the town, but that anyone born when I worked there would now be approaching 50. That's a very sobering thought. Today when I return I am totally anonymous (which isn't necessarily a bad thing of course).
Anyway I have digressed long enough. The play we were going to see was by a relatively new theatre company based in Norwich and what a show they put on.
"Call Me John" by Reflex Theatre Company featured just two actors - Callum Atkins as Ashley and Tim Nixon as John. Let's get over one of my usual astonishments. These two are on stage for over an hour. How in the name of God's teeth do they learn and remember all those lines?
I'm not going to dwell on this because the answer is simple - they do. But for someone (ie me) who forgets what day of the week it is, I am just in awe of actors. But let's get down to this production.
It's all based on a book by a man with the engaging name of Alfred John Ashley Ridgeon (so you can immediately see where the names of the two characters come from). The play works on many levels. Firstly it's about relationships. Then it's about acceptance, it's about love, it's about history, it's about loss, its about reconciliation, it's about the war, it's about family, it's about a pandemic, it's about pathos, it's about laughter and above all it's about memories. It's also about much more and at times the feeling can be overwhelming but in a brilliant way. I don't really have the words to explain some of my feelings whilst watching the production.
Through memories the granddad (John) and the grandson (Ashley) come closer together, casting aside the bonds of the generation divide to establish that they have more in common than just being related. Ashley comes to realise that there is more to his grandfather than he at first thought and this realisation comes from a notebook in which John is writing down his life story. At first Ashley makes light of this, dismissing it whilst staring at his mobile phone. But gradually he begins to read and listen to John's memories and the valuable lesson here is that people may be elderly but they are people who have lived important lives full of important memories. One of the most poignant moments is when Ashley muses on what his own grandchildren will think of him many years down the line. To start with Ashley is negative about John's writings but gradually they become key to Ashley's very existence and joy takes over from suspicion.
The performances of Tim and Callum were outstanding. At no time did I think they were acting. They were living their characters. John, slightly curmudgeon in his views, but with the heart of gold and Ashley with all his dismissiveness that turns into love as he realises that in 50 years time he will be just like his granddad and that is truly a good thing.
The play is beautifully written by Megan Durrant who just happens to be married to the artistic director Callan Durrant. Megan admitted that, although she is a generally happy person, she finds herself writing pieces more from the dark side of life, although there is plenty of sun peeking through in "Call Me John."
After the play, the three of us from our writers' group stood in the car park for a good 20 minutes discussing what we had seen and the state of the world and the importance of art. Good job it was still a very warm evening.
We discussed it from a set perspective with the brilliant use of wooden boxes as the scenery, we discussed it from a remembrance point of view, we discussed it from an acting point of view and we discussed the book, the story, the brilliant poignant writing and the fact that a relatively small company had put on a play of such poignance that it is something we will never forget.
And it also reminded me of a very important factor in my life: I LOVE WRITING.
As you all know (because I have bored you to death with details of it) I am approaching the end of my book on the Le Paradis Massacre. In fact with a fair wind and too much sun which will effectively keep me indoors for the day, I will finish what I call my first final draft sometime today. I did hit a problem which will probably have you tittering into your beer or gin and tonic. I couldn't work out why a narrative of 65,000 words with multiple photographs should only run to 135 pages. Then horror struck. I have been working on an A4 production rather than an A5. Now its more like 220 pages.
So three solutions here. 1/ we go with the A4 publication which will make it a rather large glossy book or 2/ I spend goodness knows how long converting it all to A5 which means redesigning all the pages and hoping nothing goes really wrong (save it as you go along I hear you scream) or 3/ I do the clever thing of having a run of the bigger book whilst I work on re-designing and then bringing out a second version. Which should I do? Answers on a postcard as they say.
But let's return to Call Me John. There were only three performances in the Waveney Valley, but as the audience said "this may be about a Suffolk man, but it has universal appeal for anyone interested in relationships and history."
There was an interesting discussion in the after play Q and A session about Lockdown and procrastination and how lockdown will be viewed in 30 years' time. Certainly I fear that history won't be kind to what we lived through which of course was living history. I think with the art of reflection, decisions made will not be viewed particularly favourably.
Finally today let's talk about Bibby Cakes. I posed the question as to what they were after seeing them advertised on a poster in the Queen's Head pub.
Well Bibby Cakes were actually cattle feed as you will see from the photo with this blog. I didn't mention that the poster included a herd of cows or it would have immediately given the game away.
Tomorrow I will talk about Ken Dodd's notebooks and keeping records and recording our lives which will pretty much follow on from what Reflex Theatre produced on Wednesday evening.