Posts Tagged ‘ family ’

The Emperor’s Clothes and a mother’s pride


The Emperor’s Clothes is back on the stage this week. During the lockdown periods, composer Phil and I worked hard to refine and polish the show, and then Phil spent countless hours working on the musical landscape of the piece. We were then approached by Canterbury Operatic Society who asked if they could produce the show, and would we like to direct and musical direct it. We said yes, and many months later, we will be opening tonight at the King’s Hall in Herne Bay. Tickets from Ticketsource or on the door.

The logo for The Emperor’s Clothes – a purple wardrobe on a bright yellow background.

I am so incredibly excited about this production. Seeing our work come alive again, with a bigger cast and bigger stage, is thrilling. And I have been able to put my own spin on how this musical world looks and feels. One of my favourite moments was seeing a coat stand be transformed into a lamppost, retaining the essence of both identities and looking incredible.

My one sadness is that my mum won’t be there to see it. My family and many of my friends and colleagues are incredibly supportive of what I do on stage, and have seen countless productions over the years. My mum became well known to front of house staff as well. She would always get a programme and make a point of turning to the page where I was featured to tell them “that’s my son!” It did not matter whether they would be people who would know me or not, they got told anyway. Other family members and housemates have told me that this would continue once she took her seat. Whoever she was sitting next to, or behind, or in front of, would know that her son was in the show. And a great many people in my home town who had never met me knew exactly who I was due to being shown the programmes by a very proud mother.

When Legacy Performers produced the show in 2020, my mum and dad were not able to attend. Mum was too unwell to travel and by this time Dad was her full-time carer. She did get to see me as Henry Higgins in Spring 2019, definitely a good last show to see! Due to a combination of deafness and the early symptoms of dementia, I am not even sure to what extent Mum even knew I had co-written a show. She never forgot that I do theatre, but the details became hazy.

And now she is no longer with us. In a strange twist of fate, I learned that the Society were definitely going ahead with the show within 24 hours of my mum’d death. She was given an incredible send-off, where I met some of the people who only knew me as “Barbara’s son who does the shows”. My dad and my sister are both coming down to support the show, as are many friends and colleagues. But mum’s absence will be felt.

However… I don’t know how the afterlife works, and I assume that all depictions in art, music, literature and film are very wrong. But if any of our notions of our loved ones watching what we get up to are true, I know my mum will be very busy right now. Somewhere, whether it is up there or out there, a group of souls or angels or both will be gathering. They will be assuring Mum that their eyes are glued to the King’s Hall. And every one of them will smile when she says, no doubt many times, “that’s my son. He write this. That’s my son!”

This one’s for you, Mum. If you are somehow able to watch this, I hope you enjoy.

2023
04/13
CATEGORY
Musicals
Ramblings
Writing
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Now we are in-laws


My sister got married at the weekend.  However, other than saying that yes, she looked stunning, yes, it was a fantastic occasion and no, it didn’t rain, I’m not writing this post about the even itself.  It is about a new facet of my identity which perplexes me somewhat.

What is the role of the brother-in-law?

The role of the mother-in-law is very well defined, and the father-in-law almost as much.  But what about the sibling of the newly married man or woman?  We get to add -in-law to our list of titles, which is a privilege denied to uncles, aunts, cousins and so on, but why bother?  If the two of them ever decide to start a family (which is, sadly, fairly unlikely, but I will not apply pressure), then uncledom would be the state entered into, and the role of the uncle is quite clear.  The role of the uncle is to lead the little darlings slightly astray by being crazier than the parents, and also to introduce the wee ones to activities they might otherwise miss as their parents have no particular fondness for a particular sport, craft, genre of film or national cuisine.

But what of the brother-in-law?  I suppose if a sister’s husband started being unpleasant to her, a brother-in-law might step in and say ‘oi!’  But as my sister is more capable of looking out for herself than I am of looking out for her, this doesn’t apply in our case.  And her husband is a very nice, gentle man (as well as a gentleman, I suppose) and I’d be shocked if the issue ever arose.  The only other thing I can think of is that the brother- or sister-in-law is the in-law who you don’t have to put on any airs for, who you don’t have to try to impress.  The in-law who you feel comfortable with and who won’t over-criticise the standard of your cleaning, cooking or DIY.  The good cop to the mother-in-law bad cop.  Hopefully, given time, the friend.

2006
08/14
CATEGORY
Ramblings
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Taking pride too far?


Pride is a strange thing. I’m not talking about hubris, or the pride goeth before a fall sort of pride, but the pride you can have in other people, or rather the pride that other people can have in you. Parents seem to have a natural ability to be proud of their offspring, but my recent foray onto the stage has a attracted quite a bizarre mix of pride manifestations.

The sweetest is my sister, who told everyone ‘my brother is/was in a show!’ and was positively beaming when I saw her in the bar after Me and My Girl (my latest show, and my first principal role since I left school almost 10 years ago). A colleague, who also attended the final performance, said that it looked like she was going to burst, she was that proud. I suspect I’ll return the compliment in August when little sis gets married.

Strangest is a colleague who’s convinced that I’m somehow going to leap from amateur theatricals to international stardom (which would be awful – even if it could happen, I wouldn’t want it to, as I’d go insane). Any bit of progress I make, or thing I’m asked to be involved in, leads to a chorus of “I told you so, see big things are happening”. It’s exciting, yes, but it’s hardly as big as she makes out. She has also taken out dibs on writing my official biography, bless her.

Most inevitable is my mother, but I only discovered the extent of her pride in what I did when I visited home last weekend. She already caused me great embarrassment at church the day after the show, when she almost succeeded in derailing the service by talking to the worship leader about it. People from my church obviously don’t see my parents very often, so they have a very odd image of them! To be fair, though, I did have quite a queue of church folks congratulating me after the service. When I went home last weekend, I went along to mum and dad’s church (which was my church when I lived at home) and discovered that she had shown the programme and the reviews of the show to everyone who knows me. I can just imagine her accosting random people and forcing them to be very interested.

I’m embarrassed, but also deeply touched to see how much I mean to people around me. I am proud of what I achieved, in a dazed sort of way, but their sweet, demented, sometimes misplaced, somewhat excessive, pride is a different thing entirely. I’d best stop writing now, as if I dwell on it too much, I may start to cry.

2006
06/01
CATEGORY
Ramblings
Singing
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