1978 - STRANGERS & EXILES

      Strangers & Exiles was a contemporary piece about a group of misfits living in a London boarding house. It had a rock/pop score as opposed to the 1930's pastiche of Fallen Angels. It never occurred to me that its themes including teenage pregnancy, homophobia and "Gay Bashing" would be seen as controversial: I mean it was 1978. Yeah, 1978 in the rest of the country, 1958 in Minehead.

Does anyone remember LETTERSET?

60p? - Talk about inflation.

Wonder who he's singing about?

Me, Jen, Pat Daley, Joan Passmore & Den.

Publicity shot outside The Ritz Amusements, Watchet.
Sue Harris, Jane Parsons, Kim Ambrose, Kay Daley & Elaine Stevens.

Tin Foil dresses that tore with every move.

What makes you think that I'd recently seen A CHORUS LINE?

Click to enlarge.

         The punters got an extra song one night. Just after the penultimate number in the first act, the lighting guy switched on the house-lights and announced the interval. We were stunned; we had a whole scene and a load of plot that the audience needed to see, unfortunately the break where the REAL interval should be was essential to a major scene change and so I had to write a soliloquy in ten minutes to cover it. I wore one costume under the other and gazed wistfully at the scribbled notes in my hand like a demented method actor; much like I always do I suppose.

Much like the look I perfected on stage when ad-libbing the new song.

FALLEN ANGELS

       Using every musical cliche in the book; FALLEN ANGELS was a pastiche about gamblers, sailors, hookers and the "Sally Army", set in San Francisco in the 1930's. Right up until the point of going to press, the company we had formed had no name. Well at that time, it wasn't really a company. There were no plans to follow it up with a second show. We had no money, no budget, but had discovered that if we produced the thing under the banner of the Queen's Silver Jubilee we could get free rehearsal and performance space at West Somerset Community College. Of course, any profit went to the Jubilee Fund. Typical Queen; greedy bitch. Eventually, we had to have a name to stick on the posters and being Watchet based THE WATERFRONT THEATRE COMPANY cropped up from somewhere'

Cheap at half the price, even in 1977

Cast

Ben Reilly – Paul Mills

Peking Polly – Eileen Murphy

Brooklyn Betty – Sue Bailey

Ronnee Wilde – Joan Passmore

Louis Clarke – Fred Owen

Berlin Bertha – Jean Donnan

Daniel Benton – John Fisher

Judy Kelly – Gina May

Gloria – Kim Ambrose

Max – Patrick Daley

Daisy Spooner – Denise Ambrose

Waiter – Richard Borthwick

Marge Heatherton – Janie Cook

Frank Capella – John Lowen

Patrons of The Cockatoo & Employees of J.J. Frazer

Joy Elgood, Sue Harris, Jenny Keyes, Liz King, Stuart Lowen, Malcolm McNeill, Jane Milton, Clive Richoux, Diane Stevens, Elaine Stevens

Lighting – Jim Almond & Simon Brown

Musical Director – Steve Borthwick

Director – Paul Mills & Fred Owen

 Band

Steve Borthwick – Guitar

Nick Harrison – Drums

Dave Preston – Bass

Rob Pemberton – Sax & Flute

Musical Numbers

HELLO SAILOR

WHO IS HE

HONG KONG

WHAT’S A NICE GUY LIKE ME DOING IN A PLACE LIKE THIS

DON’T CRY BABY

IF I COULD ONLY BE SOMEBODY ELSE

PART TIME LOVE

LOW BROW

ALONG THE WATERFRONT

DON’T TALK TO ME OF LOVE

BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE

FALLEN ANGELS

THE BEAT OF THE BIG TAMBOURINE

SIMPLE ACCIDENT OF BIRTH

TOGETHER SIDE BY SIDE

YOUNG AGAIN

LOOKING LIKE THAT

SLOW DANCING

IF WE LOVED ENOUGH

CARNIVAL TIME

Joan Passmore & Paul Mills

Fred Owen & Gina May

Denise Ambrose & John Fisher

Geek!

Malcolm McNeill & Kim Ambrose
Mac was supposed to have had a lead role until told us he could't make
the last night, due to the cup final.

The Ladies of The Cockatoo
Jean Donnan, Jenny Keyes, Sue Harris, Sue Bailey
Diane Stevens & Janie Cook

Me, all dressed up with nowhere to go.

Kim Ambrose & Pat Daley stepping in
for Mac due to football.

Paul & Joan wondering where my chin has gone.

Ensemble

Much to everyone's surprise, the show was successful and in the days when the local press actually sent out their own reporters, we got a decent crit from Peter Hesp on The West Somerset Free Press and Bob Barron on The County Gazette.

West Somerset Free Press

County Gazette

        So people decided they wanted to continue and so to raise some much needed funds we took the show in revue form on the road and into the wilds of Sampford Brett and Roadwater.

Understudy Jen

Eileen Murphy, Joy Elgood, Sue Bailey
Sue Harris, Jean Tomlinson & Elaine Stevens
at Sampford Brett.

Stony End

         Let's start at the very beginning; a very good place to start. I was 29 in 1977 and wanted to write and appear in my own full scale musical before I was thirty. I was always a late developer. I'd been involved with music for a while, starting with a trio called STONY END with my two cousins Steve and Den. We had a regular booking at The West Somerset Hotel in Watchet, where in a moment of Rock&Roll madness, we were once accused of stealing the butter portions.

Way out West. Fred, Den & Steve

Lennie Langdon, somebody who looks like Ronnie Barker,
Kim Beecham and Stony End

A new folk club opened up at The Old Ship aground in Minehead, and Steve and I, looking for a break from the butter rustling decided to give it a go. Steven pulled out at the last moment and I ended up going on my own. I was so nervous I had to sit with one foot on top of the other to stop my leg from shaking. Still, I survived and Steve and I became regulars, eventually meeting Miss Jenny Keyes, who I later married.

The Folk Club's entry in Minehead Carnival
Me, John Powell, Paul Mills & Rod Fleckner.

Most performers at the folk club were singing songs about gathering herbs and daisies or emulating Bob Dylan; I was singing "The Way We Were"; must have been about 1974 or 1975 then. Fellow performer Paul Mills was involved with The Williton Players; an amateur theatrical group formed by my old English teacher David Beach. The group were short of men, as usual and so I was co-opted to play a gay robot in some play, with a title I can't remember, I also joined them on a daytrip to Rotherham to see a production of a musical called "Tran-Atlantica" that David had written and directed as part of his tenure as Artistic Director of the civic theatre there. I think we played charades on the bus for five hours or more. It pissed down incessantly and I have a vague recollection of mushy peas!

It was through Williton Players that I met Joan Passmore, Malcolm McNeill and Pat Daley; the latter becoming the bass player with our expanded band. We now also had Steve's brother Richard as a drummer.

Stony End - The Village Hall Years

Thirty was approaching and so I began to write a musical.

Me, approaching 30 and writing a musical.

I had no experience in either producing or directing and so approached other local amateur theatre companies; all of which turned me down, because the venture was too ambitious. So I asked Paul Mills for assistance and together we set about doing the job ourselves.

Budding Impresarios 

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