Tag Archives: Theatre Royal Drury Lane

Audiences

I thought I saw it all during my time as a theatre usher, but the story in today’s Guardian about a performance of The Bodyguard musical being halted after audience members refused to stop singing tops every one I have. It certainly never happened at the musical playing when I worked at Theatre Royal Drury Lane in London, nor at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto. Most of the shows I worked at RTH were Toronto Symphony Orchestra shows and those audiences were incredibly polite and restrained; the worst thing that can happen at a symphony concert is someone clapping between movements!

Roy Thomson Hall was also rented to other artists. Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan performed a fantastic and very long show for an excited and enthusiastic audience. As part of showing their appreciation for him and his music, audience members would make their way to the stage, dance, and toss money at Khan and his musicians. There were probably people singing along, too, but that was expected in this tradition.

I was stationed in one of the upper levels of the hall for the Khan show, enjoying this joyous event, when suddenly a man jumped up from his seat, overwhelmed by both the experience and probably a bit too much to drink, and started down the stairs to the front of my section, seemingly intent on jumping down to the main floor to give money to Khan. His poor wife was crying and pulling on him to stop, and a couple of us ran as fast as we could to intervene. Luckily some men grabbed him as he reached the bottom of the stairs and was getting ready to hoist himself over the railing, and someone helped him find safer passage to the stage.

There was also the evening when some Hong Kong-based pop stars performed to a full house. The audience wasn’t memorable, but it was one of the young singers who caused quite a fuss. He had been a tennis player at one time, and part of his schtick was throwing tennis balls into the audience. He didn’t just gently toss them into the first few rows, but instead lobbed them off the walls of the theatre! Most of the walls at RTH were cement at that time and the balls bounced wildly, bonking people who couldn’t follow the path of the projectiles. The management were livid, but thankfully he didn’t throw too many and no one was seriously injured.

There were always a few difficult patrons, people who weren’t happy with their seats or didn’t like the show, but most audiences were unremarkable and blur together. One audience, though, was unforgettably rude and unpleasant, and it might surprise you to find out who they were.

One December evening in the early 1990s, a religious organization held a Christmas song service for their Toronto region members. There was a delay in getting the stage set, so we couldn’t let the audience in on time, something totally out of front of house control. In my section, questions turned into huffing and puffing and heavy sighing when I denied people entry, promising them it would open soon and they wouldn’t miss anything because actually nothing was happening inside the theatre. People ripped programs out of my hands, others asked to speak to a manager, annoyance and anger tensely buzzing in the air.

After everyone was finally seated and the carol service had started, I went down to the main floor to join other ushers in preparing for intermission and everyone had the same wide-eyed look and similar stories: rudeness, people pushing past, sneering, threats. Some had worked at RTH for years and had never had an evening like it. None of us could believe that this particular group would have been so awful, and the fact that most of the Salvation Army members had been in uniform added a whole other level of strangeness to the evening. I went on to another job where I had dealings with Salvation Army groups and I can’t say anyone ever changed my first impression of them!

Oliver!

Oliver! has been stalking me for a few days. The 1968 movie was on Turner Classic Movies last week, and earlier today, the enjoyable Lost Vinyl from the Internet Archive Twitter feed offered up the original cast recording as its hourly gem.

I played the Artful Dodger in a high school production because there weren’t enough males to play all the parts. Our show was pretty good because our school, Westisle, has a large, professional theatre, and as the principal’s wife was the drama teacher, we had a very generous budget!

My first year of university was a disaster, so I took a year off and went to London to work, becoming an usher at Theatre Royal Drury Lane in the fall of 1985. The musical 42nd Street was playing and it was a big hit. When I started, the older female role of Dorothy Brock was played by Georgia Brown, who had originated the role of Nancy in the original production of Oliver!, and when Georgia left the show, Shani Wallis took over, and she had played Nancy in the 1968 movie.

I had a nodding acquaintance with both of these women, and they were lovely. I worked for a while at the main souvenir stand in the Drury Lane rotunda, and Shani would come through just to get out of the rather dismal backstage area during a long break, and she always said hello. I would sometimes see Georgia walking through Covent Garden in the afternoon before a show, no big deal.

During rehearsals for that year’s Royal Variety Performance, which was held at Drury Lane, I snuck into the theatre during a break to watch from the back of the stalls. A small woman with dark hair walked past and stood in front of me, dressed in sort of a safari-style pant suit and hat (remember, mid-80s), and I thought, oh, there’s Georgia, she must be in the show, too, lovely.

The woman left and there was a bit of a pause in the rehearsal. I was talking to another usher when someone announced “Ladies and Gentlemen, Miss Joan Collins!” and there she was, the lady in the safari pant suit minus the hat, appearing for a publicity photo call. She was one of the biggest stars in the world at that time because of her role on the prime time soap Dynasty, and was one of the many stars appearing on that year’s show. Every time Joan would move and strike another pose, the 35 mm cameras would all go off, volleys of shutter bursts chukachuakachuakachauka shshshshshhshsh, like someone squishing cellophane in their hands. It was transfixing, and a little scary.

I should have been far more impressed with having a nodding acquaintance with Georgia Brown than I did when I was 19, but I wasn’t, and that’s the silliness of youth. Her theatre and film credentials were solid, but perhaps most famously she performed with her Oliver! co-star Davy Jones (later of The Monkees) on the same 1964 Ed Sullivan show that featured the US live television debut of The Beatles. Ho hum.

As for Joan Collins, she never blocked my sight line with her big safari hat again, but her sister, Jackie, cursed at me and another usher at the end of the Royal Variety Performance when we wouldn’t let her leave the auditorium to join Joan backstage right after the curtain fell. That story involves the Queen, Andrew Lloyd Weber, the IRA, and a dust pan, but that will have to wait for another time because I just pulled something trying to pick up all those names I just dropped.

Everybody after the 1985 Royal Variety Performance. If you look about 200 feet to the left and through a couple of walls, you’ll see me. I also have a Lauren Bacall story…and a Patrick Duffy story (his is short – he came to 42nd Street and was very sweet for a famous dude).