Because I just loved the atmosphere of being in the theatre And the dressing rooms, in the King’s Theatre, for the chorus, were way up many flights of stairs. Big dressing rooms with about twenty people in each, but as we sometimes had a chorus of sixty, more likely fifty most times, we needed those, and then as you progressed and became a senior member so to speak, you got moved down to smaller dressing rooms and maybe um four or five people, and the principals had the dressing rooms on the so-called ground floor.

But I have to say, they were primitive. The toilets were tiny. And how any large opera singer in a very large costume ever got into those toilets I never knew. [laughs] So, hopefully, in the new beautiful King’s there will be some [pause] showers and decent sized toilets.

Mickey York

Right at this point, we heard last night that Sir Ian McKellen had fallen into the pit of the theatre when he was performing Falstaff in ‘Henry the Fourth’. This brings back a memory of 2001, when my husband was appearing with the Edinburgh Music Theatre of which he had been a founder member back in the eighties. And they were doing ‘Kiss Me Kate’, and he was playing the father, um, Bianca’s father and he had a lot of big, heavy robes and it wasn’t a singing part, but it was a, a speaking part and they wanted an older person with experience to play the part, and he was seventy-six at the time. And, the first I knew about anything was on the Friday night and the doorbell rang. And this person said, ‘’um, look, we just brought Roly—you know, my husband—home because he’s had a bit of an accident. He had jumped into the orchestra pit because it was the only way to go.

Towards the end of the show they were running around in a big circle on stage and their hands got slippery. And he was coming, he could see himself, the only way to go was into the orchestra pit because he was just losing trip. And there was an orchestra in the orchestra pit. So, instead of falling as Sir Ian Mckellen did, I believe, he jumped. Um and landed on his feet. Hit a cello as he went past, not bad enough for her to claim a new one on insurance, but, and he damaged his heels very bruised. Um, but people in the audience were heard to say, “why didn’t they get somebody younger to do that?” They thought it was meant, but the director came rushing around the back because she thought she was going to find a very badly injured Roly. Instead of which, he was crawling out from under the orchestra pit and they brought him home. He, the only thing he had hurt, he had a bit of bruising on his side where he hit the cello and very badly bruised heels. But I have to say he went back onstage next day and did two performances, using a walking stick. And the day after he auditioned for the Edinburgh G and S for the part of King Hildebrand. As I mentioned earlier, he played in 2002.

Uh]so, there’s Sir Ian McKellen, who I believe is bravely going to go back onstage tomorrow, um and he’s eighty-six or eighty-five. So, a lot older than my husband was. But Iain Gillespie, who was the resident stage manager at The King’s, who’d been there for a very long time, lovely man, he had never known this happen to anybody in The King’s Theatre stage—on The King’s theatre stage. So, we feel there should be a plaque in the orchestra pit saying ‘Roly York Landed Here.’

Mickey York Oral History Transcript

INTERVIEWER:

This recording is for the People’s Archive as part of The King’s Theatre Heritage Project. The date is the 18th of June 2024 and I’m going to sit down and speak with Mickey York today. The time is 10:37 and we will begin the interview now.

Please can you state your full name and date of birth.

MICKEY YORK:

Gillian Margaret Anne York. Known as Mickey. 11. 4. 1944. [coughs]

INTERVIEWER:

Can you please tell me where the nickname Mickey came from?

MICKEY YORK:

A lost in the dim and distant past somewhere. I think I was meant to be a boy called Michael.

INTERVIEWER:

Can you tell me a little bit about where you were born and then where you were raised?

MICKEY YORK:

I was born in Belfast, simply because my mother, who had been with my father in England during the war, returned to be with her mother in Belfast, for my birth. Em my father was in the south of England waiting to go across to Normandy, although, at that point he didn’t know they were actually going to Normandy. They thought they were going to Calais. And then I was, he was…after the war, um we moved to Oxford and I lived in Oxford until I was ten and then I came to Edinburgh and I’ve lived here ever since.

INTERVIEWER:

Whereabouts in Edinburgh did you grow up?

MICKEY YORK:

I grew up in Bruntsfield in a house in Merchiston Avenue, and I got married from there in 1965, and I’ve now lived in the same house on Orchard Road in Comely Bank, which is rather a long time for living in one house.

INTERVIEWER:

How has Edinburgh changed over the years?

MICKEY YORK:

Well, the funny thing is, you don’t actually notice the changes so much when you’re living through them but looking at old photographs and you look at the traffic on Princes Street, well, there’s very little. And the cars look extraordinary. When I think about it, my father had one of those 1950s cars eh but it’s, it’s that’s the sort of thing that’s changed. And of course the shops on Princes Street have changed and sadly, don’t look anything like as good as they did then. And of course, when I first came to Edinburgh we had trams, and now we’ve got them again which is great! Although, why did they ever take them away ah but certainly, I know the outskirts of Edinburgh changing rapidly and if ever I go out I can’t believe the number of new housing estates that are popping up everywhere.

Who are these people who are coming here?

INTERVIEWER:

Growing up in Bruntsfield, what were your pastimes?

MICKEY YORK:

I didn’t really have many pastimes. School was the main thing. I played hockey at school and that was always a weekend activity. Um there was a lot of school work. And I did help backstage with school productions, and I didn’t, wasn’t really keen on being on stage. I did various backstage, and that really got my interest in the theatre. Um, so, I helped backstage. Although, I did have one very small part in Twelfth Night and man..managed to mangle my lines so, I wasn’t [cough] encouraged by that so I went back to being back stage.

3:41

INTERVIEWER:

How old were you for that Twelfth Night?

MICKEY YORK:

Uh, seventeen.

INTERVIEWER:

So would you say that’s your earliest memory of getting involved in theatre?

MICKEY YORK:

Ah… Apparently, I was a fairy queen at the age of four. And all I know is I’ve seen a photograph and it did look rather nice [laughs] and I did ballet up until the age of ten so I did do performances and ballet, but after that, and until I helped, started helping in school productions when I was about fifteen or sixteen, no, I hadn’t. But at that point, I really would have liked to have become a stage manager, professionally but of course you didn’t have colleges to go to in those days. You had to get a training, you know, as an assistant stage manager and my father was not having that. [laughs]

INTERVIEWER:

So what was your earliest memory of going to a formal theatre?

4:42

MICKEY YORK:

As a child in Oxford, going to see The Mikado, with the D’oyly Carte Opera Company. I think I was five, and I think my mother probably took me because she couldn’t get a babysitter, um, but I still remember that, and it’s interesting because Gilbert and Sullivan, as we’ll hear, became to have such, such an important part in my life.

INTERVIEWER:

Do you remember your first experience attending a show at The King’s Theatre?

MICKEY YORK:

Um, I think we used to go, well we went to the pantomime occasionally, not every year, um but we did go, my mother did take me to see some of the amateur companies. Um, seeing, doing shows like Rose-Marie, ah, The Southern Light Opera, and The Bohemians—who are still performing—were there, and I think my mother may have known people in it and we went along to support but I certainly remember those shows.

INTERVIEWER:

What genres are you most fond of?

5:51

MICKEY YORK:

Opera and operetta, as in Gilbert and Sullivan.

INTERVIEWER:

So, you’ve noted the importance of Gilbert and Sullivan. Can you tell me a little bit more about that back story?

6:04 (TW: Death of a spouse)

MICKEY YORK:

Well, as I say, I I remember going to see it as a child, and then I don’t think it cropped up until I was at college in Edinburgh. And I, one of the people I was playing hockey with said, ‘You can sew. Would you like to help me make costumes for HMS Pinafore?’ And, so, I went along and, yes, I helped. And then I discovered I could help backstage building the set. This was with the University Savoy Opera Group who were only in their third production for, with HMS Pinafore. And I made costumes and I got involved with set building, and their performances, at that point, were at Leith Town Hall. And I went along, um, in to the theatre, and found myself climbing up to the flies, which I’ve seen recently and think, “how on earth did I manage that?” And, I really got so enthusiastic, and particularly enthusiastic, when I noticed this lovely man onstage who was playing Captain Corcoran and had a wonderful voice and um at the after-show party, which we had in those days, he and I got together, and we were married forum fifty-four years until he died four years ago.

INTERVIEWER:

Where were these after show parties happening?

MICKEY YORK:

Well, the…this one was in the old chaplaincy centre, which is now the Bedlam Theatre um of, the university, uh on Bristo Place, um and that was an amazing one because the chap who started the University Savoy Opera Group, Robert Heath, was all for going over the top, and because they’d made money he bought champagne that year, and my husband and I got to know each other pouring the champagne.

INTERVIEWER:

So, your husband was an actor.

7:54

MICKEY YORK:

He was an actor and a singer, as an amateur. He could have been a professional, there’s no doubt about it, but he was very sensible and stuck to his training as an educational psychologist, but he was hardly ever off the stage. And he still, his last stage performance was at the age of eighty-one, and he died at the age of ninety-four. He was still singing at ninety-four, um but he certainly, it was his main… and… I have to say, I was left at home to raise the children. [laughs]

Until, we did take it in turns, but we were members of the Edinburgh Graduate Theatre Group, and he was constantly on stage with them and then, in various amateur opera companies around Edinburgh.

INTERVIEWER:

So, you mentioned you made costumes for HMS Pinafore, and that was kind of the start.

MICKEY YORK:

Yeah.

INTERVIEWER:

What other roles did you take on backstage?

MICKEY YORK:

I did props. I built the set. I uh acted as a call-girl, which my mother was horrified by. She was…realised it was really just going around the dressing rooms because we didn’t, in Leith Town Hall, have any intercom or anything. Um it was all fairly primitive back in those days when I look at it now [laughs] and then, eventually, I decided to have a go on stage and did a couple of shows, um The Mikado and The Pirates of Penzance, with University Savoy Opera Group, but I thought “no, I want to go backstage”. So, I went on making costumes till about 1981 from 1964 because they still used a lot of graduates and people in that company, and then, when my, my husband joined the Edinburgh Gilbert and Sullivan Society in 1986, and that was performing in The King’s. He had already performed in The King’s with The Southern Light Opera Company and The Edinburgh Grand Opera Company, but the great, opening up really, was when he was invited to audition for um The Gondoliers in 1986. And I think three years later I was there in the audience and thought, ‘they’re doing Yeomen of the Guard next year, I could do that,”, the children by that time were pretty well off our hands, so I auditioned and got into the chorus for Yeomen of the Guard, and fifteen productions later I retired and he did too [laughs].

10:24

INTERVIEWER:

Is there a particular, stand out, performance that comes to mind?

MICKEY YORK:

Yes. We did—I think it was 1999—we did a production of Ivanhoe which was Sullivan’s only opera, and very, very rarely done. And this was an amateur company putting on this in a professional theatre, um and it was a huge success. And I think it was one of the most thrilling things because it, the choruses in it were just fabulous to sing.

So, I think that was the most exciting thing to do onstage. Actually, the first performance, when I did Yeomen of the Guard and was in the chorus, and on the first night when I walked on that stage and I thought, “this is where I want to be”. But, after you’ve done all the Gilbert and Sullivan Operas and you start doing them again, you think, time to give this up. So I went back to my original love of backstage and did props for the Edinburgh G and S for another ten years before I thought, “I’ve gotta give this up. It’s too exhausting”.

INTERVIEWER:

How did working in The King’s compare to other theatres?

11:40

MICKEY YORK:

Oh, well. You’re in a professional theatre. Uh, sadly, by that time, Leith Town Hall as it was known, now Leith Theatre, was no longer operating. I am glad to say it is getting back to being used and we… I was never on stage in The Lyceum, but my husband was, and he loved the Lyceum. It was just so intimate. But The King’s, you obviously had to do things at a professional level, and I think I noticed this most when I was working backstage, and you were working with a professional stage manager and had to live up to their standards. Um, which, you know, wasn’t a lot different because we were all used to having to do things properly, but I think that was the great thing when you were backstage you were working with professionals, and they treated us, they expected a professional standard from the whole company. And I have to say the productions were, in the early days, raking in the audiences. Sadly, it’s not the same now.

INTERVIEWER:

Can you describe the experience of getting ready for a show and the emotions you felt before and after?

MICKEY YORK:

The funny thing is, I think, probably because I was only in the chorus, I never got anxious about going on stage. We, we rehearsed for six months and knew the thing inside out, but it was quite complicated as the chorus were expected not only to sing but to dance very often, as well. And I loved that. I think that goes back to my childhood. Ballet, I loved the dancing. Um, but we would always, I would always get to the theatre about an hour beforehand because I just loved the atmosphere of being in the theatre.

13:32

And the dressing rooms, in the King’s Theatre, for the chorus, were way up many flights of stairs. Big dressing rooms with about twenty people in each, but as we sometimes had a chorus of sixty, more likely fifty most times, we needed those, and then as you progressed and became a senior member so to speak, you got moved down to smaller dressing rooms and maybe um four or five people, and the principals had the dressing rooms on the so-called ground floor.

But I have to say, they were primitive. The toilets were tiny. And how any large opera singer in a very large costume ever got into those toilets I never knew. [laughs] So, hopefully, in the new beautiful King’s there will be some [pause] showers and decent sized toilets.

But it, then we, you got your makeup on, and for things like Mikado it was complicated makeup. In the early days we used to put white makeup on, but we’re not allowed to do that now, ah but you always had to do fancy eye makeup. And we very often, for Mikado, you had wigs. Hot, itchy things. I didn’t like those.

Um. And the costumes. In the early days, we were making our own. Well, uh the lady who was making the costumes helped, we helped out, um but then she retired and we ended up hiring costumes.

But one year, this lady, who was Jane Borthwick who was in charge of costumes, sadly had a stroke. So, another member of the chorus, Kate Duff…Duffield and I, took over. And, at the dress rehearsal, the day before, we started altering the costumes because they were hired, but they don’t always fit when they turn up from the hirers. So, we were frantically altering costumes and I must say, that the cast were very appreciative and we both got lovely bunches of flowers at the end.

15:40

And after the show, usually if you, if it wasn’t too late, you’d go next door to the pub for a drink which you needed to wind down. If you went straight home, you would never have got to sleep because you were on a high.

INTERVIEWER:

What do you think the landscape in theatres for amateur production companies now?

16:04

MICKEY YORK:

Uh, Edinburgh is very lucky because we’ve always been very well supported by The King’s Theatre, originally, and now the, the Capital Theatres Trust. And the Edinburgh G and S Society has been performing here in the Festival Theatre while The King’s closed. Uh I think that’s going to have to stop because I just don’t think we can afford it. Um, it’s a huge theatre.

I have worked backstage in the Festival Theatre, one show, for one show, and that was a thrill really to be on that—not performing on the stage—but just to be there. Um], but, the amateurs are well respected in Edinburgh because they know that they will put on a very good production, professional production, and of course, there’s also the Church Hill Theatre which was designed originally for the amateurs when it was no longer a church and the council took that over.

So, I’ve been on that stage many times with a little opera company called Opera Camerata.

And that again is, is a very useful for the amateurs. But being the other places. I mean, I talked about Leith Town Hall and that was used by the amateurs a lot, and if that gets back into being able to having productions, I can see companies going back there because it won’t cost as much.

But everybody just wants to get back into The King’s. They love The King’s so much.

INTERVIEWER:

What is it about The King’s, other than its kind of professional qualities? Is it, is it the intimacy? You mentioned the intimacy of The Lyceum. How would you characterize The King’s?

17:47

MICKEY YORK:

Yea, The King’s is bigger, but you still when you’re on stage, you can see the audience. We used to say on matinee days you could see the glasses and grey hair, [laughs] but I think that’s becoming the case for every performance now for Gilbert and Sullivan.

But it is, it’s it’s always been such a welcoming place and I’ve been, I’ve been there many many times in the audience and I don’t, I haven’t enjoyed being in the audience sometimes. I felt [sighs], well, it’s very awkward if you’re not very able to get in and out, and that’s going to be one of the new things in The King’s, and very accessible. But it’s not been accessible for an audience with disabilities very easily. And of course, backstage was even worse. Um, I think, there’s going to be a lift now which ha-ha is amazing. [laughs]

Oh, climbing those stairs was just quite something, but no. It, it has a wonderful atmosphere and I hope that that atmosphere will still be there. And of course it has that amazing ceiling that, I remember seeing it just after it was done, but people who’ve never seen it before and if they look up once they’re just amazed. So I hope that’s still going to be there.

19:12

INTERVIEWER:

So on the whole, how has theatre impacted your life?

MICKEY YORK:

A very large amount. In fact, uh, I should also mention that my son and daughter and my husband and I all appeared on The King’s theatre stage in one production of uh Princess Ida. I think it was….nineteen ninety….oh, oh yes it was about nineteen ninety eight. Something like that.

And my husband was playing. No it wasn’t! It was 2002, and I know how I’ll work that out.

He was playing King Hildebrand in Princess Ida. My daughter has a small part as a lady called Ada, and I was in the chorus and they wrote my son in to be in the chorus because he had been doing Gilbert and Sullivan at University of York.

So, theatre to us as a family has been very, very important. They’ve both given it up because of work and children, but I think that was, 2001 was the last uh principal role that my husband played but he did a couple more shows in the chorus.

INTERVIEWER:

Going back to your husband. Did he have a favourite character or performance whether he performed it or not…was…?

MICKEY YORK:

Uh, Probably. Uh, Sir Joseph Porter in HMS Pinafore, which he played at a later date in The King’s, other than when he played Captain Corcoran. Um, but he loved all these baritone roles. They just suited his voice perfect, perfectly, and he was a very good comic actor. So, you know that really was what he loved doing.

INTERVIEWER:

So, you’ve touched on this a little bit, but what do you hope The King’s will be like when she reopens?

MICKEY YORK:

Welcoming, uh, accessible. But not having lost its…the atmosphere. I think it has its own atmosphere, um, and the gilding, and the, you know just, feeling you’re in somewhere special and, ah, just has been a been a beautiful, beautiful place. I gather they’re getting rid of the raked stage, um, which is interesting because we’re told this is because of touring productions can come in and who can’t use the raked stage. Uh, yes there have been one or two incidents with the raked stage. Somebody’s…[clears throat] skateboard you know this chap was playing Koko. He shot across the stage on his skateboard, and he jumped off it and it rolled into the orchestra pit. Um, then, so I know that but it’s interesting. I was here last week in The Festival Theatre for La Traviata and they had a raked stage, I couldn’t believe it. It was amazing! But that, so I know that’s gone, and backstage will be a lot more user friendly, I think [Um] and more modern for equipment but I just hope it doesn’t lose its atmosphere.

22:36

Right at this point, we heard last night that Sir Ian McKellen had fallen into the pit of the theatre when he was performing Falstaff in ‘Henry the Fourth’. This brings back a memory of 2001, when my husband was appearing with the Edinburgh Music Theatre of which he had been a founder member back in the eighties. And they were doing ‘Kiss Me Kate’, and he was playing the father, um, Bianca’s father and he had a lot of big, heavy robes and it wasn’t a singing part, but it was a, a speaking part and they wanted an older person with experience to play the part, and he was seventy-six at the time. And, the first I knew about anything was on the Friday night and the doorbell rang. And this person said, ‘’um, look, we just brought Roly—you know, my husband—home because he’s had a bit of an accident. He had jumped into the orchestra pit because it was the only way to go.

Towards the end of the show they were running around in a big circle on stage and their hands got slippery. And he was coming, he could see himself, the only way to go was into the orchestra pit because he was just losing trip. And there was an orchestra in the orchestra pit. So, instead of falling as Sir Ian Mckellen did, I believe, he jumped. Um and landed on his feet. Hit a cello as he went past, not bad enough for her to claim a new one on insurance, but, and he damaged his heels very bruised. Um, but people in the audience were heard to say, “why didn’t they get somebody younger to do that?” They thought it was meant, but the director came rushing around the back because she thought she was going to find a very badly injured Roly. Instead of which, he was crawling out from under the orchestra pit and they brought him home. He, the only thing he had hurt, he had a bit of bruising on his side where he hit the cello and very badly bruised heels. But I have to say he went back onstage next day and did two performances, using a walking stick. And the day after he auditioned for the Edinburgh G and S for the part of King Hildebrand. As I mentioned earlier, he played in 2002.

 

24:59

Uh, so, there’s Sir Ian McKellen, who I believe is bravely going to go back onstage tomorrow, um and he’s eighty-six or eighty-five. So, a lot older than my husband was. But Iain Gillespie, who was the resident stage manager at The King’s, who’d been there for a very long time, lovely man, he had never known this happen to anybody in The King’s Theatre stage—on The King’s theatre stage. So, we feel there should be a plaque in the orchestra pit saying ‘Roly York Landed Here.’

25:38

INTERVIEWER:

Could you tell me a little bit about your [laughs] experience with the orchestra following the eh the jump incident?

MICKEY YORK:

Well, that wasn’t Edinburgh Gilbert and Sullivan, and I wasn’t there, but with the orchestras in all of the amateur shows they tend to be the same people. You see them around, but um they’re lovely people, but because its a professional theatre they have to be paid which, of course, the people on stage are not. So it’s always been slight—I remember complaining because we were applauding the orchestra at the end of the performance and I’m thinking, ‘”Why are we applauding them? They’re getting paid.” But that is tradition so you do it. Um, but they always had to have their coffee and tea provided at the intervals. So, there was some member of the company had to do that everyday. Go down and do that. So they were sort of treated with kid gloves, but my goodness you couldn’t do it without them.

INTERVIEWER:

Could you tell me about the experience when your daughter was on stage?

MICKEY YORK:

Well, she joined the company, I think, reluctantly. She’d been in Aberdeen and done G and S there and then she joined University Savoy Opera Group when she came back to Edinburgh. As, she and her fa—as my fa— husb—as my husband and I of course had where we met. And [uh] my son had been, done it in York University. But she came back, reluctantly joined Edinburgh G and S. You know, I think, you don’t really want to be where your parents are. But she, when it came to the Mikado, she auditioned and played the part of Peep Bow. Uh, it…the three of them were just wonderful on stage. And it, she had to skip, on stage with a skipping rope which is not easy and sing at the same time. But, and I found it very nerve-racking being onstage as part of the chorus. You know, supposed to be a Japanese schoolgirl of eighteen and actually mother of one of the principals, um but it was quite nerve-racking. But I’d been on the stage when her, when my husband was playing principal roles, and I did worry about that slightly. One time, one of the pieces of scenery started moving downstage and he was about to step on it. Ah, in this, when he was playing King Hildebrand at the age of seventy-seven by then. And luckily members of the chorus noticed and went and put their feet up to stop it going sliding. It might have been the second appearance in the orchestra pit for him.

But my daughter certainly, she had one or two small parts, but um I think she’d like to get back to singing now that the children are grown up, but I’m not sure that she’ll want to go back on stage.

INTERVIEWER:

Well it sounds like theatre has had quite a vital role in how you’ve raised your family and how you and of course how you and your husband built your relationship.

I certainly hope The King’s has the same charm when it reopens and that it carries that same legacy and tradition for future generations.

MICKEY YORK:

Yeah.

INTERVIEWER:

I want to thank you so much for your time. At this point we are going to stop the recording. It is now 11:09, and we are going to conclude this interview for The King’s Theatre Heritage Project.

29:07

End.

Harriet Harris

Um, but he had an absolute ball. He loved it, and they had all sorts of silly things that they did on stage. They had, that year, they had a giant T-Rex, um, dinosaur on stage from Twins FX. Absolutely enormous. And he was involved in, in operating that.

And there was one point in the pantomime where Allan was supposed to bang into the cloth… the, um, the scenery cloth behind him. And it would fall as if by accident. And it would catch the stage crew on stage. So Tony and all of them were on stage, and every night they be doing something different. So they might be having a bedtime story. And they’re all sitting there around Tony with their thumbs in their mouths while Tony’s reading them a story. Or they might be doing some yoga or something.

And they had silly little things that they did. And on this particular night, at Jack’s idea, he said. All that happened was the stage was empty and Allan was a bit thrown. And then this huge banner was flown down that just said, “Taken Rex for walkies. If you need us, get the boys and girls to shout.”

And that was the stage crew, and Allan had no idea this was going to happen. And it practically brought the house down. So Jack now has a seat in the Kings Theatre, which is seat K8 in the Stalls. And on the back of it, it just says ‘Jack Harris’, and then in quotation marks, it says ‘Taken Rex for Walkies’ and under that it says ‘Panto, 2016.’

And he really wanted it to be seat K9 because he’s a great Doctor Who fan. So he really wanted K9. But there is no K9 in the King’s, so it’s seat K8.

Harriet and Andy Harris Oral History Transcript

Interviewer

This recording is for the People’s Archive as part of the King’s Theatre Heritage Project. The date is the 12th of April 2024 and I’m going to sit down and speak with Harriet and Andy Harris today, the time is 17:14 and we are going to begin the interview now. Please can you state your name and place of birth?

Andy

I’m Andy Harris and I was born in Edinburgh.

Harriet

I’m Harriet Harris and I was also born in Edinburgh.

Interviewer

Could you please state your birth dates?

Harriet

I was born on the fifth of November 1962

Andy

And I was born on the first of May 1963.

Interviewer

Can you tell me a little bit about your childhood and what your home life was like?

Harriet

My parents were both teachers. Um, My mother taught English, my father taught Spanish, Portuguese, bit of French, and was, erm, assistant head teacher at Heriot’s just along the road and I grew up in Edinburgh, I went to Gillespie’s, which is just up the road from the King’s Theatre at Tollcross and we used to go to the Kings Theatre on school trips.

Andy

And… My father originally came from London and he was in the Navy. He met my mother, uh, at a dance in Edinburgh and they got married. And, uh, my mum was hoping to be a gymnast or swimmer and she was the East of Scotland champion for a while. Um… My first experience, probably, of going to the theatre would be with school trips or with the Cubs coming to see panto and Gang Show.

Harriet

Um the… the first few things that I saw at the King’s, my parents used to take me to the D’Oyly Carte, to the Savoy operas, the Gilbert and Sullivan. So I think the first one was The Mikado when I was about seven, erm, and we saw all of them. You know, Pirates of Penzance, HMS Pinafore. The  D’Oyly Carte used to come regularly in November for two or three weeks every year and that was very useful because my birthday’s in November so my parents didn’t have to have hundreds of kids to the house. They used to take me instead to the King’s to see a Gilbert and Sullivan instead.

From school, from Gillespie’s, we were taken to see Scottish Opera in The Merry Widow, which my sister always called The Merry Window, and I can still picture it to this day.

We sat right up in the gods, we’d been listening to the music in class. This would be primary school, so I’d be about, I don’t know, 10 maybe. Um, and I can still picture all the sets to this day, uh, you know, I’ve never seen it since.

But I remember, there was, act one was set in some sort of London or, or European club, and downstage on the right, it had one of these big sofas where everybody sits back to back, a big circular sofa. Um, and it was red and then there were steps up to what would be stage left up at the back.

And then in the second act, it moved off to some magical forest or palace garden or something and then, in the third act, it came back into something fairly similar to the first act, but a slight sort of change. And I can still visualise it. I still know the music, um and I just, I absolutely loved it.

Um, Gillespie’s in those days was all girls at the primary school and it didn’t go co-educational until I went into secondary school. The… We had, I think, the second year there were boys, there were only boys in the first two years. At that point, my sister, who is older than me, there were never any boys in her year, um, so it was quite… I wouldn’t say middle class, but probably slightly middle class school, and it’s the school of Miss Jean Brodie. It’s the school of, um,  yes, slightly, Morningside people, slightly, um, that way inclined. And I do… Yeah, I can remember being taken to fairly, shall I say, slightly upmarket things. We never went to the pantomime. [laughs]

04:54

Andy

Well I, [coughs], I would say entirely different for myself.

Um, it was only by, say, school trips going out to see, um, a panto where you would come in the afternoon.

In those days, we didn’t have the minibuses that took us about.

It was, you all got onto the bus and you all had to make sure that you had your, your um, your group with you because you weren’t allowed to be separated.

The teachers knew exactly who had to sit beside who when you got there.

Which is probably just as well, knowing some of the things we’re about to go on.

The first time you go in, probably the most memorable thing is the number of flights of stairs you had to climb to get up to the very gods and you weren’t allowed in the front door, you had to go in the side entrance.

Harriet

That’s right, we were separated from you know, if you were going to the grand circle, you were really posh. Nearly always the upper circle, in my case sometimes the family circle as well. Which in those days had red flock wallpaper.

I distinctly remember it. So up where the family circle is upstairs at the top, it’s that… Well before they’ve demolished it … It had that sort of taupe coloured, beigey coloured walls and things.

But when I was little, I specifically remember that it had red flock wallpaper up there when they refurbished it into the taupe I remember being hugely disappointed because it wasn’t nearly as warm and rich and in – in- interesting as it was.

Andy

I think what would take the attention away from more? I, I don’t notice things like this quite as much as Harriet does, but it was what was happening on stage that, that was where you suddenly thought, how did they do that? Um, uh… Changing so quickly from one scene to another that, when you’re brand new and going to see your first show it was just absolutely magical.

Um, in those days, it was the Rikki Fulton era. Although we did have, er, Terry Scott who came up, er, at one point.

Harriet

I did see that one because he came on looking absolutely huge and then took off about 40 layers of clothes in that.

Andy

Literally just walking behind the screen and walking out and he had completely changed.

And you thought, No, you can’t do that.

Harriet

You have to remember as well that. We’re not that old, but I don’t know about you, but we certainly didn’t have colour television until into the seventies, so we went to the theatre.

Everything was in colour and that was amazing because we were used to seeing it in black and white.

Any kind of drama was…that was on the television was black and white.

So, the colour, the lighting, the, the, the three dimensionality of everything was just so stunning and overwhelming, you know? I mean, it was just so exciting.

And you dressed up.

Andy

Yes, you did.

If you.. you went with school. School uniform, all the best clothes, best behaviour… sometimes. And with the, the Cubs and Scouts you always had to go in your uniform when you went for that as well. But we were a bit more, shall we say, raucous? Um, there, there could be points where you get to the lovey-dovey bits in panto, kids our age just we’re not going for that. So that’s when the Smarties came out of the box and were getting thrown from the Gods right the way down. That’s a long way down, actually, a very long way.

Harriet

That was also in the days when, when pantomimes tended to stick to the story, where is now they build a lot of stuff and the story is really secondary to the individual, sort of, acts within it. Um…

09:28

Andy

It is, it, it was one of one of the things that, panto, I kind of grew out of. At school I was very evol… involved more in the drama side, and that’s when the play’s started coming in. Because lots of people would say, “why do you want to go and see a play? They’re boring”, but strangely enough the one that really got me was, uh working at, uh a secondary school at Craigmount.

We had a brilliant drama department there who were keen to put on as much as they possibly could. And, er, one of the most amazing ones was, it was Woman of Troy. And it was… It took 18 months to rehearse and get the troupe together so that you could basically close your eyes and everybody in the cast would take a step forward at exactly the same time. They just knew where everybody else was.

It was… That was a special moment. And the minute that came through, and we were given a lot of support to input into what was going to be happening, which was fabulous, really fabulous.

Harriet

Craigmount was quite progressive. It was It was a modern school was built new around the time that you went wasn’t it? And they were given the option of having a theatre or a swimming pool, and they thought, ’We can use the local baths, we’re going to have a theatre’, which was hugely unusual in the, in the, at the time. And the school’s been demolished and rebuilt again since then.

I don’t think they have a theatre now, but they did then. But they were given the choice, and that was actually quite a… quite something to choose to have a theatre over a swimming pool.

Andy

And it was a multi-functional space. It basically was a black box, very high ceilings and it had a large wooden blocks that would put into place. And latterly, when money became available, started using steel deck. Which was supposedly easier to use, but a lot heavier.

But I mean, it was all things like that that sort of brought you back and thought, I want to see more, I want to see more. And thankfully, in the time that way we were growing up and going to the theatre. The ticket prices weren’t all that bad. And even the Fringe…

Harriet

Fringe was 25p a ticket. 35p if you were lucky… if you were unlucky.

And you could see, you know, five or six shows in a day, and not worry about it, you know? I mean, it was just amazing. So but… But going to the King’s was a real special occasion.

I remember it was a real party frock job, you know? I mean, you really dressed up in the evenings. But then my mother was, was, was, was, right till the day she died, hugely into classical music. I mean, that’s what she loved, So I went to, um, other operas as well. One I really remember was, um, Richard Strauss ‘Der Rosenkavalier’, which, they had the full orchestra pit out. I mean, there must have been 100 people in the orchestra, it was huge, and it filled the theatre. It’s long opera, but it’s beautiful. And visually, it’s it’s very funny. There’s a girl playing the leading man all the way through. So, like a pantomime, so it’s a breeches part. Um, so there’s no leading man in at all, so the poor tenor gets one song and that’s it. And it’s… it’s beautiful. And at the end of the, the three women, So there’s a duchess… or a countess I think she is. And her young lover, and his beautiful girl.

And the three of them, the voices just come together at the end of this incredible piece of music. And, unfortunately, much as I loved it, I was in the seat behind the conductor. So I did find, you know, myself having to lean from one side, which must have been very distracting for the person behind me as well, even though I was quite small at the time, I was having to sort of lean round and try and see what was going on. But again, it’s a hugely dramatic piece.

It’s… It’s at the end, there’s a scene in the inn where they’re sort of playing tricks. So they’ve got portrait’s that wave and doors that bang and, you know, it was very good. And I just loved it. And I… I mean, I can’t imagine children today would sit through a four hour opera. But, you know, I just it was just overwhelming and beautiful.

I mean, we saw plays and things as well but we tended to go to the [coughs] the Lyceum for them. [laughs] But ballet. Yeah, we both… In fact, we both discovered that we both seen Prokofiev’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ at the King’s, which must have been difficult because of the floor. They must have built it up, I think, at the front, would be Scottish Ballet. And it’s a fabulous ballet because the boys do all the work. It’s not a girlie girlie, you know. It’s not one where the boys were just there to present the ladies. The lady… The boys were actually doing most of the work. They’re fencing and sword fighting and the market stalls being knocked over and it’s, it’s fabulous.  And again. the music’s terrific, even though The Apprentice have pinched it. But it’s much, much more than that.

15:28

Andy

It’s, yeah, I mean, musicals have played large parts, but as I say, it was m ore, the drama side that I sort of started in. And again, it was the Lyceum Youth Theatre when they first started it, went along to that, which was…

Harriet

Only went to the Lyceum because there isn’t one at the King’s, or wasn’t one at the time. And also the Lyceum’s a producing house, which the King’s wasn’t.

Andy

But that was that was quite an experience. From that, I did actually get a, a walk on. A silent, non speaking part for their Centenary production. And it was ‘Sir Henry Irving, the Knight from Nowhere’.

Andy

Very long play, but the best thing about it was that was a very young, newly starting out Samantha Bond playing the female lead.

Harriet

Yeah, we’ve seen quite a few famous people over the years. I mean, there are the famous Scottish ones, you know, like obviously from the pantomimes of the King’s like Andy Gray and Grant Stott or whatever. There’s the previous generation of them who were Rikki Fulton, Walter Carr, Jack Milroy.

Um, Trying to think who else?

Andy

Oh, you look back at the whole Slab Boys Trilogies.

Harriet

Yes, all of them, um, so that generation, yeah, I mean, we’re amazing.

And Russell Hunter. I mean, people like that, and Una McLean, and you would see them one week across various theatres in Edinburgh. So they’d be doing panto one week or playing a Glasgow drunk one week and then playing the Pope in something you know, the following week or, you know, I mean, it was just amazing what they could do, and the way they changed.

So it was, yeah, it was exciting times.

Andy

I mean, looking back over the number of shows that collectively between us, we’ve seen you couldn’t possibly pick out the best one of all, the most favourite because there’s something new comes along all the time with the advances in the technology and also the quality of some of the, the actors.

Harriet

And the lighting.

I mean, the actual technology is, is, has developed hugely.

You know… I’m sure you know the D’Oyly Carte looked terribly exciting when John Reed, bless him, was playing all the leading baritone roles, including the young lovers, when he must have been in his fifties or sixties, by that point at least. But beautiful, you know? I mean, didn’t, didn’t matter. You didn’t notice under the plaster of stage makeup and whatever. Um, but yeah, I mean, just so many.

And then, as I said, as the technology has improved, there’s been things we’ve just gone, [laughs] hello? Because, I mean, I used to do lighting in the days when you pushed faders up and down, long before it became computerised. And, um, I did wardrobe and I did a lot of backstage stage crewing and stuff.

In fact, I worked at Leitheatre when Mark Bonnar made his professional… well his amateur debut, his first ever time on stage, I was his dresser. Um, so he was in Death of a Salesman. So he was playing on older character and his younger self. So basically, every time he came off stage, I ripped his clothes off and threw him back on in something else. Um, and here we are…!

Andy

What can I say?

Harriet

Here we are so many, you know, 30, 40 years later, he’s hit the big time, you know, which is fantastic.

I mean, we knew right from the start that this was one to watch, he was amazing. But, um, yeah, we’ve done a lot in theatre, I did plays at school, I did stuff, um at the Fringe with loads of people.

But we’ve always come back. I mean, I’ve got a list here of 20,30,40 productions that we’ve seen at the King’s across all genres from musicals to stand-up comedy to opera to dance…

20:10

Andy

And…When I think about the… Gilbert and Sullivan has always been a big part because it was actually my music teacher from school who was the musical director, David Lyle, and, um…. Alan Borthwick, who would do the direction.

Now it so turned out that I was doing an Open University course, and Alan Borthwick was my maths tutor for foundation mathematics with the Open University. And David Lyle was the teacher at school and they said “we saw you doing that… that show, do you want to come along and audition?”

So I went along on auditioned, and that was me into the G&S and so… The Mikado, Iolanthe…

Harriet

Pirates.

Andy

Pirates…

Harriet

Trial By Jury

Andy

Trial By Jury. Utopia Limited, one of the very few times… I played a lifeguard in Utopia and it has one of the steepest, highest sets I’ve never had to work on. I didn’t feel safe.

Harriet

They built the built a huge, very steep ramp, that must have been about what, one in six or something up the stage! [laughs]  And these guys had to march down it. So yes…

Andy

We started off trying to do it in sync, and then we were told “it’s shaking too much! Keep the step out!” So, um, so that was interesting. And, in fact thinking about the G&S side as well, in the Festival Theatre, um, they did the Bravado Mikado. Which was a scratch 24-hour period of rehearsal, where they put on performance to the public for charity in aid of AIDS.

Harriet

AIDS, it was the Waverley Trust. They started on the Friday night and performed it on the Saturday night.

Andy

And I’m trying to… Ooh, I’m trying to remember the names now. I’ve got the programme for that somewhere as well, but, um, I was meant to be umm…

Harriet

Male chorus.

Andy

Male chorus… But when I got there they said, “We’re really going to need somebody to take control… Anybody done any directing?” So I put my hand up and that was it, next thing I knew I was Assistant Director for… for the one.

So I was, like, given the girl’s chorus for their opening number to just sort out something for them to do and make them look nice. Which is, you know, what… what we did. And the professionals, um, Kate Copstick certainly was one of them.

And they… They were rehearsing right the way through the night, whereas we were sent home at midnight to go and get some rest to be back at nine o’clock the following morning. But it was… It was a manic 24 hours trying to get all that sorted.

Harriet

The one you didn’t do at… but we saw, was The Gondoliers, which they’re doing this year, so… umm… I’ve told Interviewer this story already, but I’ll her again for the tape, is that, umm… Andy wasn’t in The Gondoliers that year because I was seven months…. Well in fact I was nine months pregnant. And our son was born about a week after The Gondoliers, but we went to support the cast. So we went to the dress rehearsal on I couldn’t get comfortable, so I was pacing up and down the grand circle. And, everything was fine, the music was going and everything was grand. And every time the music stopped, a tiny little fist or foot in my tummy started banging, going “Mum, it’s gone quiet! What’s happening?”

And that little boy is now a professional lighting designer himself, having got the bug from his parents and…

Andy

Well be fair to him, he found himself.

24:39

Harriet

He did find it himself. We took him to things and he got the bug. But he did… He went, after he left school, he went to Edinburgh College to do the Basic Theatre Practice national certificate. And then he went on to do the Higher National Certificate there. And he was supposed to go out on a placement. And the college hadn’t quite got round to organising it. Now, our son, Jack, had just been involved in helping with the Gang Show at the King’s.

So he rang Tony, the stage manager, and said, “Anything going that I could do my placement for?” And Tony said “If you’d rung me yesterday, I’d have said no. If you’d rung me tomorrow, I’d probably have said no, but as it is, I’ve actually got somebody who’s just dropped out. Would you like to come and help crew?” So he was the only person on the course that, instead of getting a two week placement, got an eight week placement doing Snow White and The Seven Dwarves at the King’s, for which he was paid!

And the others were absolutely furious.

And he absolutely loved it.He still talks about when I did panto with with Allan and Grant and Andy. The lovely Andy.

Andy

Grant still keeps in contact… and Allan.

Harriet

They still keep in contact to time through… through Facebook and things they still… they still keep in touch. Um, but he had an absolute ball. He loved it, and they had all sorts of silly things that they did on stage. They had, that year, they had a giant T-Rex, um, dinosaur on stage from Twins FX. Absolutely enormous. And he was involved in, in operating that.

And there was one point in the pantomime where Allan was supposed to bang into the cloth… the, um, the scenery cloth behind him. And it would fall as if by accident. And it would catch the stage crew on stage. So Tony and all of them were on stage, and every night they be doing something different. So they might be having a bedtime story. And they’re all sitting there around Tony with their thumbs in their mouths while Tony’s reading them a story. Or they might be doing some yoga or something.

And they had silly little things that they did. And on this particular night, at Jack’s idea, he said. All that happened was the stage was empty and Allan was a bit thrown. And then this huge banner was flown down that just said, “Taken Rex for walkies. If you need us, get the boys and girls to shout.”

And that was the stage crew, and Allan had no idea this was going to happen. And it practically brought the house down. So Jack now has a seat in the Kings Theatre, which is seat K8 in the Stalls. And on the back of it, it just says ‘Jack Harris’, and then in quotation marks, it says ‘Taken Rex for Walkies’ and under that it says ‘Panto, 2016.’

And he really wanted it to be seat K9 because he’s a great Doctor Who fan. So he really wanted K9. But there is no K9 in the King’s, so it’s seat K8. So, yes, so the theatre has gone down through the family. This excitement and enthusiasm and just general love of it, is… is moved on, yeah.

Andy

What I think I can remember most about when you’re actually backstage performing. You know exactly where you are in the theatre by the smells that you were getting.

You know… You know when you’re backstage you’re sort of waiting, and you could g et this faint aroma outside the dressing rooms of toilets, especially before the performance.

Harriet

Each theatre has its own smell, but there’s a definite theatre smell.

Andy

Yeah, and you could tell when you were you were moving down a level in the seating areas because in in the past, people were allowed to smoke in the theatre. That was the other thing, but you could go further up, and you could tell by the shabbier of the seats just… and how narrow they were and close together.

Um, it was quite a thing. And then trying to find your way if you ever had to make a front of house appearance. Not in a box.

One of the nice ‘little ashtrays’ at the side, as they call them. But, um, if you ever have to go and enter through the back of the auditorium, it was so easy to get lost.

Harriet

Because there are doors behind the public doors aren’t there?

So if the public doors are open, people don’t realise that they’re… you have to close that door and there’s another door behind it, and then you go through that way to get through the back.

And it is, it’s very complicated

29:56

Andy

And also how some of them, I don’t know how much work is getting done on the backstage side, Whatever… But, you know, I just remember all the pipes being sort of like slightly drippy at points, depending on the time of year you were performing there. Um, and, you had sort of [door slams] dampness in some areas.

Umm, and [door slams] I only ever had to go down into the [door slams] the pit once. Um, [door slams] and that just smelled incredibly musty. But it’s… [door slams]

Harriet

My sister, I was telling her we were going to do this, and she swears, and she’s probably right, that at some point, she was a horn player and she…[door opens, banging]

She played for the Edinburgh [door slams] Schools Secondary Schools Orchestra, and she says [door opens] that she played in the King’s Theatre for the Queen. [door opens]

Now, this must have been 1970s. She would have been at school, so it can’t have been here because the Festival Theatre [door slams], because the Festival Theatre was the Empire Bingo Hall at that point. So it must have been at the… the King’s Theatre. And she said it was incredible because there were about 200 kids, plus all their instruments, plus whatever, squashed under the stage. [laughs]

So, yeah – and also she says

Andy

– I don’t remember that at all…

Harriet

No, she says she also played, um… She used to play in the orchestra, I think for, for a couple or, of musicals and things. And she says, it’s so frustrating because you can’t see what’s happening on stage. So the audience are all, sort of, chuckling away and you have no concept of why. Because they never even see it at rehearsals, you know, they’re just there and that’s that.

So, um, yeah.

Comedy wise, we have seen the best one ever, Peter Ustinov, did a one man show with the stool, a carpet and a standard lamp on stage and nothing else on. We were helpless with laughter. He was so funny, people were sort of begging him to just give them a pause to breathe.

Um, It was incredible.

I can’t even remember what it was all about. He just has one of those faces that that was so mobile, um, and so expressive and his stories were hilarious.

There was one I remember about him being told when he was in the Army, um,

That he was to play….

They were on an exercise, and he was to be the Germans, you know, and his troupe were to be the Germans. And the officer, um, saying that they, they, they went off at a tangent and did something that they shouldn’t have done on. Then, when they were finally caught by the, the officer. They were reprimanded for going off piste.

And he’s going “But that’s what would happen in this situation. [laughs] The enemy don’t know the script!” But he also got scolded because he refused to speak English.

He spoke German the whole time, and they said, “But you mustn’t speak German.” And he said, “Do you expect the Germans to speak English?” You know [laughs] So he got a terrible telling off, but I mean, he told it, and it was absolutely, achingly funny.

I mean, the way I tell it, it’s not, but, um, he was just amazing and he spoke on stage for a good three hours. And we were helpless, absolutely helpless.

Andy

There have been a few times for we’ve been helpless at the King’s. There was the wonderful –

Harriet
-Occasionally for the wrong reasons! [laughs]

Andy

There was the wonderful RSC production ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’, it was the punk version, and by the time you got to the Pyramus and Thisbe, play within the play.

You couldn’t breathe honestly, it was just hilarious.

Harriet

And the cast were stunning. Often when you see A Midsummer Night’s Dream, either the rude mechanicals are really funny, or the mortals are really funny, or the fairies are really funny. Or there is one weak group amongst the three. Not with this one. It was hilarious.

I mean, it was David Troughton playing Bottom. Richard McCabe playing the funniest Puck I’ve ever seen. He was dressed like a punk, Just William.

So he was in a, a schoolboy blazer with his hair in bunches and a little ballet tutu around his waist and little pointed ears. And he comes on reading the Penguin version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

And then he looks at it. So he’s starting off, you know, “Through the forest Have I gone?” And he just looks at The book turns it to the front.

Looks at it is if this is rubbish, throws it into the audience and then carries on.

The fairies were all in Doc Martens and ballet tutus with big pointy ears. And at one point, Puck pings one of the fairy on…fairies on her ear.

You know, he just goes like that. Just turns her head round and pings her on the ear. The next time she comes on, she’s got a huge sticking plaster on her pointy ear. Um,  The details in the sets were phenomenal. There were tiny little mushrooms growing under trees.

There were… it was just amazing.

And it was so funny.

35:28

Andy

There was also, um, The Ladykillers, er, where they were having a few problems with the set, but they had obviously, it happened to them so many times they knew… So basically they just came out of character.

They went… “it’s happened before. Now we’ll just going to do a little dance for you.

Harriet

This was Michele Dotrice? –

Andy

-Yes.

Harriet

She did a little tap dance.

And, uh, they just went. “Just talk amongst yourselves. We’ll be back in a minute.”

It’s just it was just one bit of the set that was supposed to swing out, I think, to form a little sort of subset, and it got stuck

Andy

Yes, yes. And the other one I seem to remember is, well, was Sunshine on Leith, where the fridge doors kept flying open because of the rake on stage, They couldn’t keep them shut, so some people had to go and stand and lean against them so that the light didn’t come on again.

Harriet

And one of the Edinburgh Companies, there was a wonderful review in the in the Scotsman, I think it was.

I think it was a production of My Fair Lady that said they did a wonderful and extremely slick scene change from Scene One to Scene Three and had to stop the show! [laughs] And go back because this had happened.

But then that happened here [Festival Theatre] with The Producers where the curtain came down in the middle of one the-

Andy

The 0-

Harriet

In the middle of Act one.

Andy

Act one, yeah.

Harriet

There’s a lovely bit in The Producers where the, the, chap goes back through the whole story of the show.

So he does this reprise song, which is amazing, of everything that’s happened so far in the story. And right at the beginning, he said.

“Step one, Don’t bring the curtain down in the middle of Act One [laughs]. Step Two …”[laughs] It was just so funny.

So, yeah, there’s been some, some, some things have been less good than others.

We have seen one particularly bad Ayckbourn in the last few years, which was very, very dated.

The play.

It would have been very funny in the seventies.

It was not funny by the time we got here. And the cast were doing their best, but it was really heavy going.

And it wasn’t the cast’s fault. It was just, the script was so out of date and the jokes. Just weren’t funny anymore.

Andy

Ten Times Table was the name of the play, if that’s-

Harriet

-Naming no names, yes.

Andy

-But the one that, er I, er I had seen originally was, um. It was The Woman in Black.

And it came to The King’s and Harriet and I went to it and you could swear that the temperature was dropping in the theatre the whole time.

Harriet

And apparently they do. They put the air conditioning on during the course of it-

Andy

-It may well have been.-

Harriet
-To chill it down. So it becomes creepier and creepier and you get colder and colder.

Andy

-But you were completely aware of something that you shouldn’t have been aware of as the show was going on

Harriet

Just of being this…is… because it’s very, very creep-

Andy
Oh it’s-

Harriet

And uh, It was, um, yeah, with screams when people touched door handles and things were just… You know, I suspect there were a few slightly damp seats in the house.

Andy
And that-

Harriet

-But yeah, I mean, it’s mainly plays I think that we’ve seen more recently.

Yeah.

Andy

Well, that’s, that’s probably because the friends deals. Fabulous-

Harriet

-They’ve been brilliant, yes.

Andy

And it’s, it’s the reason why we became the sort of, what is it they’re called leading-

Harriet
–Leading friends-

Andy

-Leading friends-

Harriet
-I think we’re called now, yeah. We’ve seen some amazing things-

Andy
Because we’ve saved so much money by being able to take that. But there again, we’ve seen a huge range of things that-

Harriet
That you wouldn’t normally have seen–

Andy
–you wouldn’t normally take a punt on because they’re so expensive.

Whereas if you get that chance to come and see something, er, and you think, oh well, that’s not too bad.

But for, for some of the big shows, now it’s going…

Also think a lot of the big shows now, transferring, are going into the wrong size theatre.

The King’s Theatre is just.. It gives you a big hug when you come in.

40:08

Harriet

It’s the right

Andy

It’s the right shape, the right size

Andy

The sight lines are great for seeing wherever you’re sitting

Harriet

Apart from family circle, which is no more.

So, yes, and please hope they give us some more legroom in the upper circle.

Because it’s, it’s very, very painful, um, up there because it’s been very, very cramped-

Andy

-and wider seats, I’m sure the generations are, are getting a little bit wider now.

Harriet

-Yes the gen- people are getting a little bit wider now, yes. Yes, but um, But we have seen some things that we probably wouldn’t necessarily have gone to see.

But, um…

Andy

Vulcan Seven.

That was a strange one, Yes.

Harriet

Um, yeah, I mean.

I’ve…I’ve…We’ve seen Vulcan Seven.

Harriet

You’ve seen Shirley Valentine, We’ve seen ‘Art’, that was superb with, um, Nigel Havers, Denis Lawson and Stephen Tompkinson.

I’ve never seen anybody have a breakdown on stage that was so funny and so moving at the same time as Stephen Tompkinson. He’s got this speech in the middle, which goes on for about, I don’t know, for about 20 minutes when he’s explaining about the bad day he’s had, how everything is going wrong in his life until it becomes… it starts off almost like a toys out of the pram hissy fit, and then it sort of becomes a complete breakdown. But to start with, it’s just this real sort of, uh, a 50 year old having a two year old tantrum, you know? I mean, it’s very funny, but it’s an amazingly well written play, Fabulous.

And the other one, of course, is is David Haig’s ‘Pressure’, which was just incredible.

For a, for an Englishman to come and do an Edinburgh Accent in Edinburgh is very brave. When he has written it himself-

Andy
-and directed.

Harriet
-and directed and I thought ‘I don’t know what this is going to be like’ and it was breathtaking, absolutely breathtaking.

Um, I would have gone and seen it, again and again-

Andy

-but it’s a very strong cast all round.

You know, it was a very well balanced cast.

Harriet

Yeah, it’s mainly three, isn’t it? The one playing Eisenhower and the girl who’s there as the assistant-

Andy

-secretary, yeah.

Harriet
And the chap who’s predicting the weather forecast for the D-Day landings.

Um, and saying, “No, you cannot go on fifth… or on the third of June you have to wait till the fourth” or whatever it was. N o, it’s the fifth and the sixth and holding it back, um and it was just amazing.

And all the time, his… is his wife having a baby or something?

But the whole building is in lockdown-

Andy

-Yes-

Harriet

-Because it’s all confidential-

Andy
-and he can’t get there-

Harriet
-so he can’t get there-

Harriet

And, uh, It… it was such a wonderful play. Wonderful, wonderful play. And I think it got a standing ovation at the end, which is unusual in a play. It’s not, it’s not unusual in a musical these days, but for a play. Um, absolutely stunning. So I mean, that one was good, um.

Interviewer
Do you think the intimacy of the size of The King’s makes it stand out from other venues in Edinburgh- do you think it’s showing is a bit different?

Harriet

-In Edinburgh, yeah-

Interviewer
Do you think it’s showing is a bit different?

Harriet

The Lyceum again, also small, it’s fine.

The Playhouse and the Festival Theatre here. They’re huge barns.

They were built as cinemas. Well, there’s not so much or or, um, pl… um musicals.

You know, when everything was sort of broad and whatever, but I find… yeah, the distance from the stage here at the Festival Theatre.

Even in the upper circle, you’re a long way away.

Um, The King’s, much more intimate, um and the acoustics very good.

I mean, I watched an Agatha Christie potboiler thing in, in the week before the Festival, you know, the dead week, and they used to bring some sort of Agatha Christie’s and things in for people to see.

And I was in the very, very back seat of the Family Circle where there’s only one or two in the row, I can’t remember. And I could hear everything.

Andy

That’s, that’s the other thing, I suppose, is when we first started going a lot of the actual plays were not amplified.

Harriet

No.

 

Andy

It was the actors physically-

Harriet

-the musicals- the operas weren’t amplified.

People sang, but they weren’t mic-ed. Yeah, they could fill those theatres without.

Out of sheer technique, you know? I mean, and you could hear a whisper at the back-

Andy

-And Matthew Kelly in the dresser, as well at The King’s-

Harriet

-That was a very, very good one.

Harriet

We didn’t see it with Julian Clary, he wasn’t there and his understudy, whoever he was, was absolutely fantastic-

Andy

-And he just stepped in that, that day.

45:02

Harriet

Ah, yeah, I mean, it’s a touring company, so they would have had an understudy anyway.

Andy
Yeah

Harriet

And he probably did one performance a week generally anyway but-

Andy
-he was, he was, amazing.

Harriet

-He was very very good, um, so yeah, so that was, that was terrific. We’ve seen, um musical’s going back.

I’m looking here.

‘Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.’ That was wonderful.

Um, It was, um, very funny.

They’d written some new songs that aren’t in the film.

Um, and I think I saw it three times when it was, when it was here, because I just loved it.

Um, trying to think what else.

Andy

Jesus Christ Superstar was actually done at the King’s, and it was the original staging of it from when it appeared in London.

Harriet

Often when shows come up from London, they only bring half the scenery and they don’t bring, you know, they say ‘Oh we’ll put in a Scottish person instead the big lead role.’

And you think ‘Oh, you know, we can see the Scottish people any time, we’d quite like to have the big London star come up.’

You know, it’s the same with the Royal Shakespeare Company.

It was… They used to come here.

Now they just sort of send a production and you watch it, you know, on the National Theatre Live or RSC Live or whatever, which is lovely, But it’s not the same as seeing it.

Actually, physically, you know the broadcast ones…

Yes, they’re a broadcast version of the stage play, but you can’t see what’s going on off camera, so to speak.

So there may be something else happening in that scene that would normally draw your attention.

But you… it’s been edited for you, so you can’t see that-

Andy

-And not only that-

Harriet
-and I think that’s a pity.

Andy

It’s the atmosphere. It’s that buzz that you can pick up in the audience.

Harriet
Yeah.

Andy

That’s going.

Harriet

It has to be live, it’s not… it’s just.

Andy
It’s got to be, yeah. Otherwise, you might as well go to the cinema, you know? I mean… Yes, it’s nice to see them, but all these big companies used to tour, and they used to come here with the original cast, and they just don’t seem to do that anymore.

Harriet

I mean, ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ originally opened in London, and I think it was Michael Ball or somebody who was playing the lead.

And then it comes to Edinburgh.

We get Joe McFadden, who is lovely, but we can see Joe McFadden any time.

We don’t get to see the big stars and when they brought ‘The Lion King’, I think they only brought half the set the, same with ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’.

You know, they don’t bring the whole thing, so we don’t get the full experience that they have. Obviously…

Andy

Well, they didn’t have the elevating stage, that was kind of required-

Harriet

-Yeah, they don’t have the hydraulics in some cases, but… But, yes, that’s a shame.

I mean, they managed to bring the whole of the, of Le Mis.

You know, they managed to bring the whole of the barricade and everything and take out a wall in the back of the Playhouse to put it in.

So, so why can’t they do that for other shows? You know, that’s…. that’s a shame.

Interviewer

Where do you think the King’s fits in within the theatre ecology here in Edinburgh?

Harriet

It’s hugely missed at the moment.

Andy

Very much.

Harriet

There’s… the Lyceum does plays.

Harriet

They’re producing theatre and they always have been, and they’ve done some fabulous stuff over the years, and they’ve done some less fabulous stuff over the years, but that happens in lots of theatres.

Harriet

Um, and, then there’s the King’s, which is the next sort of biggest and does plays and things.

And then there’s the Festival Theatre here, which is… it… I still call it The Empire.

I’m sorry. I used to work in the book shop across the road. So it was The Empire then. So it’ll always be The Empire.

But it was a bingo hall for a long time, and ah, it’s echoey, and I suppose, because it doesn’t have as much carpet in the auditorium, they… it can be a bit sort of echoey.

But then maybe that’s better for the acoustic, for the ou-for the actors and performers I don’t know on.

Then there’s the Playhouse, which was built as the cinema and again is huge.

But everything is miles from the stage, so the intimacy of The King’s, I think, is really, really important.

It’s the middle ground.

Um, because you’ve got the Church Hill as well, but that’s mainly for amateur use-

Andy

-The other-

Harriet
-But it’ a lovely space-

Andy

-The other important thing about it is the fact, the variety you’re talking about a week long run.

Most of the things that are coming to the sort of, the Festival now tend to be long scale runs. Or, um, certainly that’s the case in the Playhouse.

You’ve got the Traverse, which just does the original works, which is a good kicking off place for a lot of folk.

Harriet

For new writers and stuff like that, yeah.

50:00

Andy

Um, and that’s important to have that so that, so you’ve then got other outlets that you can actually work.

And a lot of people don’t realise how many, sort of, theatres there are in Edinburgh.

I’m not-

Harriet
-I still think we’re short on them-

Andy
– I’m lucky enough the only one I haven’t performed on is the Traverse.

Harriet

I think- I think we could do with more.

Sometimes I feel that, you know, for the size of the city, we could do we could…

I know that they don’t fill things, but maybe, you know, there are other spaces.

I mean, you’ve got The Studio now, which I think will be, will be interesting.

Andy

-that’s-

Harriet
-You’ve performed there as well, actually-

Andy
-that’s a nice space.

Apart from getting to the dressing room upstairs [laughs] if you forget your key. [laughs]

Harriet

Yes, I think, I think, um…

Yeah, we need, we need the mixture because they’re different sizes of productions and I think not having the King’s we’ve realised that there are plays that are going to big spaces that are too big and the-, they don’t really fit.

Andy

I think ‘Come From Away’ is going to be lost in the Playhouse when it comes. Something the size of the King’s-…

Harriet

-I think, um our, our daughter-in-law was touring with Peter James that was here.

Um, and, that again, you know, a murder mystery needs a small, cosy theatre.

It’s, it’s too, too big.

You’re too far away. You can’t see people’s faces.

You need to be able to see people’s faces to be able to see their emotions properly.

It’s one of the first things you learn as a Lighting Designer is that the darker it is, the clearer people have to speak.

Um, and, um, because people’s eyes will always follow the brightest thing.

Or the fastest moving thing on stage, and you can use that for misdirection a lot.

If you want to distract the audience from something that’s happening on a, on a particular area of stage I mean the likes of Mischief Theatre and whatever do it all the time, because… um, and magic shows did it, you do it because you could make an area brighter, and that makes the audience sort of turn their heads.

It’s one thing that amateurs always do is.They will always have people sitting around a table with a white tablecloth on it and you always say to them, ‘Please, could it be something other than white?’ ‘No, no. We have to have a white tablecloth’.

And it, it just means that the audience see the tablecloth and nothing else.

Um, it’s very, very frustrating.

Um, but yes, I think people need to…

You need to be able to see people and you need to be close to them, and that subtle face light is really important.

So even though it… the stage, you get the feeling that the stage is dark, you need to be able to see enough otherwise you can’t hear, which is a strange thing. Um… yep.

Andy

The, the other thing I was going to mention is that having been involved in seen plans and what’s all coming up, the exciting idea is having the community hub and the community space.

And if you can get children involved in the theatre in drama.

And get them to come in and not look at as playground, but as somewhere to explore and learn about, so therefore, it’s no longer such a mystery, but you keep that little bit of mystery back until…

Harriet
Yeah,

Andy
…They’re ready to move on to the next stage, it’s…

Harriet

Well, that’s where your audiences for the future are coming from.

So you, need you need to get the kids involved and, uh…

You know, not just do things that are for them, obviously, but things that make them think.

I think having that space is going to be fantastic, as are, for example, doing the relaxed performances, which is great for the people who go to see them, but also means that those people who want to go to performance and not be distracted by [laughs] by Children and noise they also have that option.

Um, so I think that’s, that’s important.

I have to say I’m rather horrified by the London business of having black only performances, which I think is a bit controversial.

I think that’s not a good thing.

Um, but that’s my opinion, um…

54:40

Interviewer

Speaking of the kind of, the new offers, and how things are changing what, what would you hope to see at the King’s? And what do you hope it becomes in the future?

Harriet

I want it to be busy, I want it to be comfortable. I want it to be open all day

Andy

And I want no sweets and, and sweetie wrappers-

Harriet
-sweetie wrappers, yes.-

Andy
-upstairs or boxes. Or people taking them in…-

Harriet
-In fact, there’s no need to have food in the auditorium at all, that really annoys me.

People treat the theatre like they’re in their own sitting room, and I think it needs to be that little bit different.

Um, it’s, it’s not the cinema.

Cinemas can boost the, the sound level to cover all that.

But I think, you know, surely people can manage for a couple of hours without stuffing themselves with something to eat or drink. Um, yeah.

I think, I have to say when, when my my great aunts, my wonderful great aunts, my real Edinburgh great aunts, said they used to go and see Wagner at the King’s, the big long operas.

And they said that at the interval they used to have… starched white cloths were put along the front of the balconies and people brought out their, their picnics and whatever, because they would have a long… because the show was like nine hours or something, you know, for the opera, it used to have either a 45 minute or an hour interval, so people used to bring their picnic hamper.

And   she said, that all these white cloths used to be put along the front of the rows, you know, starched white things, and people would get out their, their picnic, um. But… [laughs]

That’s quite amazing! And, um.

You know, I think I’ve only once sat in a box at the King’s and it was the second ones up.

So the middle row. [electronic chime] and it was the stage box, so it was nearest the stage, and I absolutely loved it.

I couldn’t see half the show, I didn’t care, I could see what was going on backstage, which was as exciting, if not more so even as a, a 10 year old.

And that was a performance of the ‘Pirates of Penzance’ by an amateur company.

So possibly the Edinburgh G&S, I don’t know, because I was very young at the time.

I do remember that the lady who was playing Mabel comes in with a big, um, she comes in with this huge high note right at the beginning.

Um, she’s off stage and she comes sweeping in and she hits this high note, only she didn’t and the whole audience went ooohhh! [laughs]

There was this, this sharp intake of breath because she was [laughs] somewhat flat! And that was, I’ve never forgotten that either.

But just being able to see into the wings was magical, absolutely magical.

Going on backstage tours was magical, um, always loved that.

Um, one of the first plays I ever saw.

When I was about eight or nine, my parents took me to see Oliver Goldsmith’s ‘She Stoops To Conquer.’

And, amazingly, the following night, it was on the television as a play.

Er, a completely different production.

And, apparently, according to my father, I spent the whole of watching the television one going ‘well, that’s different, and that’s different, and that’s not as good, and they were better doing that last night’ or whatever.

And he said, “This is the beginning of Harriet’s It’s career as a theatre critic” He said. Now that was, I was nine or something at the time and he’s absolutely right.

Um, It’s very easy when you’ve done a lot of theatre, even as an amateur, to get quite critical of what you see and, because you know how certain things are done, sometimes and, um,  you can say, “Well, that could be better and that could have been done differently, or, you know, that person was in the shadow”. Or, you see my husband, Andy, here when he was on stage, he hated the lights, so he- if there was, if there was a dark patch on the stage, he would find it. [laughs]

Andy

Well, it’s the-

Harriet
-Sort of go, ‘it’s too bright, it’s too bright.’-

Andy–

-You know, if you’re if you’re there and you’re scrunching your eyes up because you have somebody throwing a follow spot straight into your face, you know, you tend to do that.

But I do remember one night in the King’s, there was a particularly long, um, lighting get up on some arrangement between Andrew Wilson, th Lighting Designer and operator and the King’s people, meant that we were there till about three o’clock in the morning.

It was just the guy on stage door.

And basically, it was me standing on the stage, getting blasted with these lights. Um, and saying, “Okay, can you see the filament?”

And I’m going “I don’t know, I can see four.” [laughs]

It’s like… just so many, um, lights getting done, but it was mainly just to get edges as

well, because if you couldn’t get the lighting done that night, then there wouldn’t have been anything for the, for dress rehearsal-

-People, people forget that, you know, a cast, particularly in the amateur world, have maybe three months to rehearse.

1h:00:19

Harriet

The technicians get maybe four hours.

Um, and uh, you know they’re all going oh we- the cast are all going “Oh, yeah, we want to rehearse this and we want to do this bit and we want to do that bit.”

But, uh, as, as a tech technical person, you have to say “You’ve had your turn, this is our slot. This is the only slot we have. You’ve had months to rehearse that bit, if you haven’t got it right now, you probably never will. But we need to get this right, um, and we need to do it now because it’s the only time that we have and…”

We used to have beautiful coverage over the stage and then there would be a sort of one patch and we use to say “it’s all right, that’s Andy’s” [laughs]

So the bit that’s not lit, we say “Oh that’s all right, that, that’ll be Andy’s”.

Andy

They would deliberately put me on stage to find out where the spot was that I- they’d missed. [laughs]

And that, even that was in the King’s.

They knew all about it as well.

Harriet
Yes, yeah.

Andy

It was like…

Interviewer

So how do you see- or how do you hope amateur theatre grows or changes in the coming years?

Harriet

Amateur Theatre needs to do- its kind of split now into two different levels.

I think. There are the, the old companies who were still doing what we would call church hall drama and-Although people who are in the amateur world, they go to the theatre, they love the theatre, and then they put on their own productions and they ca- [laughs] They can’t see the difference. And you say to them, “Can you really not see how theatre has moved on? How the technology has moved on? How the skill has moved on? From you wearing copious amounts of stage makeup and a badly painted set. You, you go to the theatre. How can you not tell the difference?” So there are the ones who have embraced it and moved on, um, and they’re the ones who were still stuck doing what they would have done in the fifties and sixties.

Andy

But I, I-

Harriet

Um, but I think that evolves with each generation.

Andy

I, I think, more importantly, now, is everybody just seems to want musicals. All the good drama is vanishing. Um, all of the…

Harriet

Musicals have definitely over taken,

Andy

They’ve over taken and it’s, it’s mainly because people want the glitz, the glam, um, and, unfortunately, in some cases, when you go to shows, you’re getting folk next to you singing along, which is a real… it’s a bugbear.

The… one of the only times I’ve heard, um, anything like it work was at the King’s in Glasgow.

It was ‘Me and My Girl’ and the minute the overture started playing the whole audience started singing along to the overture. The minute it started…

Harriet
It stopped.

Andy

…nothing. They just sang along to the tunes in the overture.

Andy

But not on the actual performance.

Harriet

But there’s a big difference between Edinburgh and Glasgow. You wouldn’t have that in Edinburgh ‘cos we’re a bit more toffee nosed, um, but-

Andy
Staid!

Harriet

We were, in those days. Um, yes, I think, you know.

You go to see the show, you don’t go to be distracted by people round about whether that’s because you’ve got cramp in your leg because you haven’t got enough room or you’ve got somebody kicking the seat behind you.

Um, these things happen, you know, but it can be annoying.

Um, but a really good play is such a thing.

I mean, we’ve, we’ve seen some crackers, ‘Canterbury Tales’ with Brian Glover years ago.

Um, they, they did the tales.

I don’t know whether it’s true or not, but they used to go round the audience at the beginning and take a name out of a hat and they would do that Canterbury Tale and then they’d say, “Right, which one are we going to do next?” Well, from a- I me-they must have cribbed it so that they always did them in the same order.

Because otherwise for the lighting designer it would be an absolute nightmare, not knowing what’s coming next.

But again, I mean, they were in the audience.

They were, you know? I mean, there was all sorts going on that night and there were people, you know-

Andy
-They were all over the place-

1h:04:39

Harriet
There were people that came back from the bar and they sort of went “He’s late back from the bar.” you know. [laughs]

“You should have made- You should have got- You’re, you’re, you’re disturbing all that row now coming in”.

You know, they’ll never be late back from the bar again, I tell you , mortified. [laughs]

But again, that was something that we hadn’t really thought that we would bother with.

And we went to see it.

It wasn’t hugely- there weren’t hundreds of people there, but it was absolutely brilliant.

It was so well done.

Um, and that was, I can’t remember where that was from.

He’s the ex-wrestler who became an actor.

Andy

It was-

Harriet

Um, and uh, he was extremely good.

So sometimes you just get a little gem.

You just, you go to something, you think ‘uhh, yeah it will be all right, I suppose,’ and it’s fabulous.

But there’s nothing like it when that happens.

It’s just such an experience.

You know, sometimes you go to things that are really, really hyped up and they’re a big disappointment.

And then you go to things that, you know, you’ve barely heard of and you’ve…

Somebody said, “Do you want- I’ve got a spare ticket, do you want to come?” And you think, ‘oh God, it’s a Wednesday night do I really want to go out? Well, all right, I’ll go.’ And it’s fabulous, um, and it j-, it just depends.

You know, something just catches the moment the moment and suddenly everybody’s on their feet at the end and, you know… And sometimes you expect a big star to be wonderful and they’re not, particularly, and then you get a whole group of unknowns and, you know, it just works.

Andy

There was the wonderful ‘Jekyll and Hyde’, um, it was on, um… Oh, I forgotten his name now. Never mind, it’ll come back to me. [laughs]

But, it was- You thought it was going to be all nice and pleasant and very sort of like, staid and whatever, and then, the whole thing just began to turn and twist and the language became darker and fouler and s- ‘Oh, right, and so he is going’

And it was just an absolute gem. And it was also apparently more factually correct.

Harriet

But it’s nice because you get things, you know, you go to Noel Coward, you go to Shakespeare, you go to, you know, Alan Ayckbourn, you go to you know all sorts of people you’ve never heard of.

And there’s just such a mix.

I mean, ‘Brassed Off’ was brilliant,

‘The Pitman Painters’, which I knew nothing about, um, was, was fabulous.

Um, and again it was-

Andy

-I’ve remembered-

Harriet

-bare stage. All right sorry-

Andy
-Phil Daniels! There you go.

Harriet
Phil Daniels, yes.

Andy
Sorry.

Harriet
Yes, I’ve seen him on stage with RSC, at one point as well, um.

Interviewer

It seems there’s such-there’s a magic to having that variety and having that surprise. Have-

Harriet
-yes-

Interviewer
– you a show that you just wouldn’t expect, and maybe you wouldn’t see in another venue, you wouldn’t see it at a different time or it could just be totally by chance but it leaves such an imprint?

Harriet
Yes.

Andy
Yeah.

Harriet
And you can see a show of 30 years ago and think ‘it was brilliant. It was fabulous. It was wonderful!’ And you go and see it again and you think ‘What?’ Which, which did happen with [laughs] ‘Return to the Forbidden Planet’!

 

Andy

But I- I think that’s the beauty of a lot of them when you’ve got so many, um… [background voices and door slam]

Andy

You’ve got so many different possibilities of shows being interpreted.

Harriet
In different ways.

Andy

As to how it works, different ways. And sometimes that can be what it needs. Just that little tweak, a different, sort of angle-

Harriet
A different perspective –

Andy
-rather than keeping the same set and everything that everybody had in mind.

Sometimes you need to move on.

But, um, you do hope that somewhere there is an archive of all these performances kept somewhere.

Harriet

[laughs] And a lot of them, I hope now are kept on, on film or, or whatever you know, because it would be… be…- a shame to see them…

Andy
-Well, considering the amount of video feedback and whatever that you’ve got going on, you must get a good…

Harriet

But you’re saying about reinterpretation.

I mean, we saw that ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ here, that was fabulous, and we thought it can’t be beaten.

And then we saw another version, which was also a Royal Shakespeare Company version in Stratford, where they played the rude mechanicals play absolutely straight.

And it was breathtakingly moving.

So the actor playing Thisby.

1h:09:29
Andy
Ryan Gage

Harriet
Yeah, instead of being this idiot in a woman’s dress, suddenly becomes a woman sobbing for her dead lover, and there wasn’t a murmur in the audience.

You could have heard the proverbial pin drop.

It was just so different and they just turned the whole thing on it’s head and suddenly nobody was breathing.

You know, I was just… and, and that’s with a play that’s 400 years old, you know? And I have never seen that done before.

Maybe it has been done before, I don’t know, but it was just completely different.

And it just took my breath away.

I just thought ‘Wow!’

So I think a lot of plays are open to interpretation.

And things like the Ayckbourn will have their time again.

At the moment they’re dated, but they will eventually become period and that will… Will work, um, and they will become funny again because people will think, ‘well, how silly were they in that… in those days?’, Rather than be offended by that, which they are moment on, I’m sure that happened with the likes of Noel Coward. I mean, Gilbert and Sullivan’s gone slightly out of fashion at the moment it will come back.

Um, and, you know, Andrew Lloyd Webber will go out of date and then will

And you may end up having Lloyd Webber societies in the future where you have Gilbert and Sullivan Societies now.

Um, but it’s, it’s strange. I mean, there are so many other forms of entertainment now.

People have games, they have everything on their phones.

They have- you know, everything so immediate.

Um, and I hope that, you know, they said radio would kill theatre.

Well, it didn’t.

They said television would kill theatre.

Well, it didn’t.

So I’m just hoping that theatre will still manage to survive through all this because it’s, it’s just- It’s such an immediate and emotional experience and you get so absorbed in it in a way that you probably don’t with a film or, or something like that.

I mean, the, the most amazing plays that I’ve seen sometimes are ones that don’t get an immediate a round of applause at the end because people go-there’s a pause and then people go. ‘Oh, wow!’, and they start to applaud.

But they’re so lost in the moment. They’re so involved in what they’ve seen that they haven’t quite realised that it’s come to an end.

They’re, they’re, they’re so engaged in what they’re seeing and, and feeling and, and absorbed in that they just need that moment to come back to reality.

Um, I think that’s… you just don’t get that unless it’s live.

Andy

There’s- we went down to see Hamlet, David Tennant, um and we had booked tickets for the last performance in the evening.

And he’d been out of it for most of the run with- he’d put his back out.

And then we heard, you know, that he may not be playing the part, but we flew down and we got stuck on the runway at Edinburgh Airport in the fog.

And we didn’t know if we were going to get away or if that was going to be it.

We got there by the skin of our teeth, um.

Harriet

With our then 11-year-old son.

Andy

Son, who’d- he just loved Doctor Who. And he said, “I want to see it.”

So that’s why we did it.

Got the tickets.

Sat down, and it was in, like, the third row, um, in the stalls.

And behind him there was Catherine Tate sitting and, and going –

Harriet
-she was about four rows in the back.

Andy

-ooh, ooh, ooh. So he was, You know, that whatever and then he just sat there.

And he just watched the whole thing and it was, what? About two-

Harriet

-F- it’s about two and a half, three-

Andy

-two and a half, hou-

Harriet
Well, it’s quite long, actually, I think it was nearly four, getting on for four

Andy

Near- for four, um, and…

Harriet

Modern dress version of Hamlet and he didn’t move.

Andy
He didn’t move. The only time he jumped was, um, a thunderclap, but then a flash, or a flash and then the clap, but-

Harriet

He was absolutely absorbed.

And that’s an 11 year old, you know, watching a Shakespeare for the fir-

Well, not the first time because he had seen a ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’, but that one.

He just was mesmerised by the whole thing.

And that was very clever, because- this has nothing to do with the King’s.

But the floor was a kind of mirrored perspex. And for the first scene, when, um, the soldiers meet the Hamlet’s-the ghost of Hamlet’s father, there were three characters on stage and two of them were holding, um, torches in the- electric torches, battery operated torches.

Now there was no lighting.

But you never missed a single person because they were using the torches to bounce the light off the floor onto the face of the person who was speaking.

And there were two torches and there were three characters and you never missed anything.

It was so cleverly done.

So the actors, they’re having to remember their lines.

They’re having to move, and they’re having to remember what angle they need to shine the torch at on the floor so that the, the light mirrors up and hits the face of the other person who’s on stage, um and it was absolutely amazing, you know, and again, he was just completely absorbed in the whole thing.

1h:15:17
So that’s an 11 year old. So  if 11 year olds, boys can like Shakespeare if they’ve got the right-

Andy
-person behind it that they know, but he he wasn’t going to go and wait in a queue.

He said “there’s too many people outside” but they had organised it in such a way that everybody would get seen.

Andy

So he came out and signed Jack’s- programme.

Harriet

-Not, not on that one he didn’t ,that was for ‘Much Ado’ when we went down a couple of years later.

Andy
No, he’s, he’s got- did he not?

Harriet

-No, no, the Hamlet programme we had to send away because the paparazzi were pushing the kids out the way, um, because it was the last night.

Um, and a lovely girl came up who was in the auditorium and she, she’d seen the play and she was waiting as well. And she said, “Tell your little boy not to worry.” She said, “Get hold of David, Google it, get hold of his agent. Send the programme to his agent and he’ll sign it for him” And he did.

We sent a letter saying he got pushed out of the way by the paps, we had to go and get the train because it was going to be the last train back to where we were staying.

Um, and ,um, so we sent the programme to his agent, explained what had happened and said, You know, Jack was devastated, not to meet David Tennant at the end, but we had to get the train and the paparazzi were pushing all the kids out the way and he just couldn’t get there. Um, and it came back, signed, ‘To Jack, love from David Tennant’ and he’s still got it.

And then when we went to see ‘Much Ado’ a couple of years later, he actually got to meet him so he was really pleased.

Andy
And Catherine Tate was in that well, so he got to see them both. [laughs]

Interviewer

It’s really, I think it’s really amazing to see just the amount of interaction, I think theatre is such a human experience from getting an autograph, you know-

Harriet

-yeah-

 

Interviewer

-seeing your hero to having that first magical experience to having that pause, having that moment at the end where-

Harriet
-Yeah-

Interviewer  
-you just have your breath taken away, and I think it-

Harriet

-I’ve got two autographs that I got from the Lyceum way back, way, way back.

And one of them was from a production of ‘Charley’s Aunt’ and it was Tessa Peake-Jones, who was in it.

Now, she said, “I didn’t know you recognise me without my wig” because it was a big thing. She must have been about 18 at the time.

Phillip Franks was another one.

Who trained at the Lyce- Well, I mean, he never trained as a, as a, as an actor formally, but he was at the Lyceum again, straight out of university, eighteen, nineteen. Martin Clunes was there, um loads of people- Tom Conti started off at the Lyce-.

Andy
-Samantha Bond-

Harriet

-And again here… Samantha Bond, um-

Andy
-John Hart Dyke-

Harriet
-Yeah, but we’ve, we’ve seen some amazing people at King’s as well.

You know, who’ve grown over the years, and

There’s been a, a theme throughout this interview, which has just been talking about faces, talking about expressions-

Harriet

-Yeah-

Interviewer
-there’s something so personal about that, I just, I love the absolute intimacy and-

Harriet
-the connection-

Interviewer

-but it’s amazing to see the different experiences as well and see how they really all come together to make this one massive theatre experience.

Harriet

Yeah.

Andy

What, you were talking about, experiences, um, and, famous people, and, and um, knowing faces and meeting them. Nine times out of ten, they were absolutely fabulous if you wanted to go and meet them at the, the stage door, but there was production of, um, ‘Joseph’ in the King’s.

And I, I, I, I maybe shouldn’t say the person’s name because I don’t think they’re with us anymore. Uh, But this, this man came down to the stage door and said, “Who’s thrown all of these fliers away? I paid a lot of money to get these made. Why? Why are you throwing them all away?”

And you just thought, ‘Oh, right, okay, don’t want to go near him to go away’ [laughs] You know, I mean, that was in front of a whole group of people.

Andy

He came with all his teeth, and his white, and his… [laughs]

Interviewer

Well, I think, I think that also has, like, you just get a lot of characters on and off stage [laughs]

Harriet
Yes.

 

Andy

Yeah, and, but the thing is-

 

Harriet

And they’re tired, you know, they’ve come out, they’ve done a show, whatever…

But, um, you know, but one who was absolutely lovely to Jack was-Um, well, two, in fact, was Jason Manford and Ross Noble, when they did, um, ‘The Producers’ and-

Andy
-Kate-

Harriet

-they were absolutely delightful.-

Andy

-Kate O’Mara at the King’s, she was in-

With Gary Wilmot-

Andy
With Gary Wilmot-

1h:19:52

Harriet

In ‘Lady Fander-’ Well, no, ‘Lady Windermere’s Fan’ we always called it ‘Lady Fandermere’s Wind’. [laughs]

Andy

Um, yeah, and the other, um.

Andy

And she spent plenty of time, you know, because I thought ‘Oh she’ll probably be… a juckit”-

Harriet
Lee Mead was the other one-

Andy

-Lee Mead was the other one, yeah, but she was all wrapped up in a sort of fur coat.

Andy

Um, and you thought ‘Oh they’re probably waiting to get picked up’ and whatever.

Andy

No, I think they were just going next door to the bar into the, into Bennett’s.

Harriet

And we said to Gary Wilmot “We really missed Showstoppers” because he used to have this wonderful show on the television where they did songs from the shows and he was absolutely stunning in it and he was just a delightful chap.

Well, I said, “we really miss Showstoppers” and that was him for about 15 minutes. [laughs]

He was off! So some people are absolutely delightful.

And other people, you know, if they come out of the theatre wheeling their suitcase looking as if they’ve just arrived, you know, they, they came straight from the previous venue.

They’ve done a show and they’re now, off to find their digs.

You don’t interrupt.

You know, that’s fine.

Interviewer

I think… we’re all human. [laughs]

Harriet

Exactly!

Interviewer

We all go and I think when you’re on stage, you’re putting in your best effort and I think as an audience member you’re also putting in your best energy, so well, at this time, I think I’m going to have to wrap this up but this is a wonderful interview-

Harriet
-Not at all-

Interviewer

Thank you so much for your time we’re going to stop recording at 18.40. And we’ll conclude this interview for the King’s Theatre Heritage Project.

END

 

Carol Ramsay

When I was very young there were still trams, but old trams, and um, there was a huge procession the night that, that they ended the tram service. And the trams were all decorated, and I remember standing in the street and watching them all go by. And then after that there was just a mess because they’d dug up the tram line, which was really a sensible thing to do. Um, also it was a neighbourhood where there were gangs. And, um, there were certain streets I wouldn’t go into, and they would scare me. And in those days it was what we called Teddy Boys with their long jackets and their winklepicker shoes and their greased back hair, and they frightened the life out of me. And they, they often had knives and there just, there were parts of Tollcross that felt like a dangerous area to be in, and I think that has changed significantly. I mean, I still wouldn’t walk across the Meadows by myself in the dead of night, but, um, I don’t think I’d be afraid on the streets in the daytime, um, like I was, you know, when I was younger.

Carol Ramsay Oral History Transcript  

INTERVIEWER 

This recording is for the People’s Archive as part of the King’s Heritage Project. The date is the 26th of April 2024 and I’m going to sit down and speak with Carol Ramsay today. The time is 12.39pm and we will begin the interview now.
Good afternoon! Please can you state your full name and date of birth for us?  

CAROL RAMSAY  

Carol Ramsay, October 22nd 1950.  

INTERVIEWER  

Can you tell me a bit about where you were born and raised?  

CAROL RAMSAY  

I was born in Edinburgh and raised in Tollcross, uh, right around the corner from the King’s Theatre and I was, I was born there and lived there until I was 15 and then my family moved, but I spent 15 years living in that area.  

INTERVIEWER  

Can you tell me a bit about where you moved to and why you moved?  

CAROL RAMSAY  

Portobello. Um, because my parents wanted a new house and they were, um, they were building new houses down there that they really liked and so they just decided it was time for a change. I mean my family; my grandparents, aunts, uncles, everyone, had always lived in the Tollcross area and then my parents, um, went out on a limb and moved to Portobello, then my, then my granny followed, then my aunt and uncle followed. ]Laughs] Yeah, but I wasn’t there for that long because, you know, I went off to college and so I was from 15 to maybe, like, 18. So I never thought of Portobello as home, never. Um, you know, Tollcross, Bruntsfield, that whole area, I went to school there as well at Gillespie’s, uh, just up the street.  

INTERVIEWER  

What were some of your favourite subjects at school? 

CAROL RAMSAY  

My favourite subject, my very favourite subject was French because I just happened to be good at it, it just was like I had a natural ability, so I didn’t have to work too hard and I also enjoyed English so both of these very much. Um, anything scientific I did not enjoy at all. Anything a little bit creative was um more what I liked doing.  

INTERVIEWER  

Speaking of your creativity, what is your earliest memory of going to a theatre?  

CAROL RAMSAY  

Well, my earliest memory is of the King’s. Um, we started going, I started going when I was very, very young. I mean, my parents, my grandparents, everybody had always gone. Um, my grandfather when he was young used play in the Theatre Royal for, um, silent films, and so he was always kind of in the business, if you know what I mean. Um, and so I think I was, the, I couldn’t tell you exactly how old I was, but I would say somewhere between like 5 and 8 is the first time I ever went to the theatre, to the King’s and I will never forget it. Just the whole thing of the inside of the theatre, and what it looked like, and the curtains, and the stage, and the lights, and the people, and the whole experience, I really, I will never forget, I’ll never forget that, and I’ll never forget the first time I went to the cinema. They both just stick out in my mind really clearly.  

INTERVIEWER  

What was the first performance that you went to see?  

CAROL RAMSAY  

I think it was probably the pantomime, I can’t tell you for sure, but I have a feeling… that that was the first special thing that they though that they could trust me to sit through [laughs] and behave myself. Um, so I’m pretty sure of that, not 100%… And I don’t know which one it was so that’s stretching my memory too far. [Laughs]  

INTERVIEWER  

Can you describe the experience of going to a show, getting ready for a show, and the emotions that you felt beforehand?  

CAROL RAMSAY  

When I was a child? Um, well I remember first of all putting on a dress which was a very, very unusual thing to do. I mean I had my school uniform, and I had my scruffy running around clothes but to put on a dress made it feel like it was Christmas. Um, and I remember being very excited, and I’d been told about it and what to expect and everything. And I’m pretty sure it was a pantomime because I think it was winter. I remember walking around the corner I mean it took all of two minutes to get from our house to the theatre. And it was very cold.  

5:00 

I remember being really cold, but I also remember being really hot in the theatre itself. I don’t know what they had in those days for cooling maybe nothing at all. Um, and, um, yeah, just a lot of anticipatory excitement involved in it. Yeah. 

INTERVIEWER  

So thinking about that excitement, that must have happened before a lot of shows that you saw. Can you tell me about some of your experience seeing some variety performances at the King’s?  

CAROL RAMSAY  

Yes. And we talked about this a little bit on the phone and I did look it up and it was the 5 past 8 show, which I gather came from Glasgow, it used to be the half past 8 show and then it changed when it came through to Edinburgh and it was a variety show and it changed weekly and so we went every single week. I can’t remember what day, I think it was maybe a Friday night, um, and it, they were great shows in, in those days, they were just, it was, it was a variety, I mean it was everything, it was singing, dancing, it was comedians, it was, um, you know, probably a magician or something it was just a, a complete mix. But what I loved most I think were the dancers. Ah, I was taking ballet lessons at the time and I was really totally fascinated by, by the dancers out of everybody I saw on the stage.  

INTERVIEWER  

Are there any moments from seeing dancers on stage that really stick out to you in your memory that you’d like to elaborate on?  

CAROL RAMSAY 

You know honestly I can’t think of a specific instance no not really.  

INTERVIEWER  

Going to back to something you said earlier about your grandfather being a pianist and how that opened up the world of performance for you, em can you describe a little bit of how that kind of changed your perception or how that changed your world or any kind of special experiences that maybe brought for you?  

CAROL RAMSAY  

Well I think it was always just part of my life. It wasn’t something that you know later on I got introduced to, it was just always there. My grandparents were very, very sociable and they  con… they had parties constantly with theatre people, um and I can remember being quite small and walking into the living room and seeing the haze of smoke hanging over everybody and just thinking “this is awful get me out of here”, but you know, they,  everybody was very social and you know,  I was, it lasted for probably for a large part of my childhood and you know, people were nice to kids and paid attention to you and, and made you feel at home and I just thought they were great people, I was always thrilled when they were coming over or anything like that. [Sniffs] 

INTERVIEWER  

You had mentioned earlier that you moved, em, moved house as a teenager. How did that change your, did it change your relationship to the King’s at all  em throughout your life and how did that change manifest?  

CAROL RAMSAY  

It did change it you know, um Portobello seemed to be like the other side of the world to me and having to get on, was it one bus or was it two? I can’t remember to come into town for any reason was suddenly a big thought you know. Instead of, I’d just been accustomed to walking everywhere and going where I pleased when I pleased and um as far as the theatre goes I would say um I was not going as regularly then, partly because I was growing up and I was finding myself and I just you know it changed but largely because of the move because of the geographic location because it was no longer a simple matter to just pop round the corner, it was a thought, yeah.  

INTERVIEWER  

And did you continue to come, did you continue to consciously make the choice?  

CAROL RAMSAY  

Well um what happened is, I got married very young and my husband was offered a job in America in California, I don’t know if you hear the fact that I lived there for a little bit. Um and it’s all about technology it’s not about theatre or arts or anything at all like that so it was a barren wasteland to me um and the performances that we did see in San Francisco were always like you know touring shows that were just not quite as good. Um, but then while we were still living there, we began to come back here every summer for the Festival and then it really took off again. And you know we’ve become like 30 shows per season [laughs] people. And I have been involved in my work life with theatre in, in a few different ways, being on the board of directors of a theatre in San José um and being involved in um putting on fundraising events for theatres and so I’ve carried it on. I, I need to have a theatre in my life it’s just that simple. [Laughs] 

11:39 [Pause] 

12:06 

INTERVIEWER  

How do you feel your relationship to theatre has changed growing up, from the young child around the corner to the King’s to now? 

CAROL RAMSAY  

Well I think then it was just, um, you know something fun to do. But the more I’ve become involved with theatres, the more I understand about, you know, how they operate, um, how, how they’re funded, um, a lot about the financial side of it. There’s a, I have a lot more knowledge than just looking at something pretty on the stage um and you know, I like being involved, I, I do volunteer. I won’t do ushering, that’s the one thing I absolutely won’t do, but I have volunteered doing many different things, particularly in the areas of fundraising, yeah.  

13:09 [Pause] 

13:24 

INTERVIEWER  

Speaking from your experience then with theatre and going back to the King’s a little bit, what do you think the King’s legacy is for theatres in Edinburgh, Scotland, and even wider? 

CAROL RAMSAY  

Well, I don’t know the exact history but I know that it was, um, opened, was it 18..90? I can’t remember, I can’t remember what year it was, but it was a long time ago and, um, and so it’s, it’s one of the oldest, most established theatres I believe in the country, I think I’m right in saying that, and it’s an institution. Um when, when there were problems, you know, with the building and money had to be found, it would have devastated me, and I know many, many other people, if it had had to close down. You just cannot imagine seeing the doors closed and that theatre not being there anymore. It would have been tragic. So, now is very hopeful for the future and I can’t wait to see how it turns out. [Laughs] 

INTERVIEWER  

On that note, what do you hope to see on the stage of the King’s when she reopens?   

CAROL RAMSAY  

Oh I, I would imagine, um, I don’t know if they’re going to change their programming for this theatre, but I would imagine seeing similar things to what I saw in the past, which I would consider to be popular. I mean they’re not going to do opera. Um, it’s more, it’s more um, they’re appealing to a wider audience and, you know, more, I think, about entertainment would be a primary goal, I imagine, um, and so I would expect, I suppose I would expect to see similar shows to what I saw in the past.  

15:47 [Pause] 

16:26 

INTERVIEWER  

You had mentioned earlier, em, being fascinated by the building itself of the King’s. Em, would you like to go into a bit more detail about what in particular em interests you or fascinates you about the building? 

CAROL RAMSAY  

It’s the, um, I think it’s the intricacy of the, um, décor, if you will. The, um, also the feeling that it’s a relatively small space, let’s say compared to the Festival Theatre, and it feels, um it feels intimate, you know, when you’re in and they close the doors. It feels like an intimate space that you can really appreciate what’s going on, on stage because you, you feel fairly close to it. Um, the thing about the building and, this is a little bit of inside my personal experience is, where I lived, our flat backed on to the dressing rooms for the King’s Theatre so that, that part of the building, that back side of the building that was all tiled and had the dressing rooms, is a part that I know, or knew, really, really well. And we would go out and play in the back green and listen to the singers, you know, tuning up or whatever, and, um, just people getting ready for the show and, especially if we were going that night, to how exciting that was to feel you know, that I knew these people. And I would run round to the stage door constantly to try to get autographs and almost every time somebody would say I’m just in the chorus or I’m just in the orchestra or I’m whatever, and then one time when someone actually signed my book, I didn’t even know who it was, [laughs] but it was obviously someone. So the stage door, that whole little bit, that whole little area, I spent a lot of time hanging out there. Um so that’s another part of the building that, that I feel I was familiar with as well as the inside of the theatre. Also  I remember uh the foyer very clearly, going in and getting chocolates or, I think Maltesers was the other thing, and in the foyer there was a phone box and whether it was intended for public use or not, I don’t know, but I used to use it and it was one of these old, old, old “push button A, push button B” phones that you put pennies in, big old um pennies and I used to go round there and you know when I was a little older, probably getting into my teens, and call my friends and hang out and it was the best phone box because you didn’t have to keep shoving money in, you didn’t get the beeps, and shove the money in, you just got to talk for a long time for very little money… I remember the smell as well. I couldn’t describe the smell but the smell of it, it’s a warm, sort of cosy smell, and the smell of the make-up. Um, you know, I can literally remember what that was like.  

INTERVIEWER  

Fantastic.  

Going into the theatre and being surrounded by that encapsulating smell and eh the ornate building, can you remember if there was anything that surprised you when you visited? 

CAROL RAMSAY  

Um I suppose surprises would have come early on, like, I don’t know if they were marble, but the marble staircase, whatever that was made of. And um, you know, I seem to remember kind of gold-coloured handrails on the stairs, um, and you know, where, where we lived was kind of not a very up-market place to live, let’s put it that way. It wasn’t exactly a slum, but it was definitely down-market and going from that, 2-3 minutes and then opening the door to this opulence, um, was just astonishing, and really, I didn’t want to leave. You know, so I’d go “Oh please, can we do it again?” [Laughs] 

INTERVIEWER  

How do you feel the area has changed since then? Can you describe a little bit of that?  

CAROL RAMSAY  

Well, you know, it’s changed dramatically, it used to be all the way up and down Home Street were like individual shops. You would go to the butcher, you’d go to the baker, you’d go to the greengrocer. I remember doing shopping with my granny and going into all these individual, you know, so it would be like a morning’s work to, to do shopping and, um, there, there was a fabulous toy shop that I just, I loved. Um, when I was very young there were still trams, but old trams, and um, there was a huge procession the night that, that they ended the tram service. And the trams were all decorated, and I remember standing in the street and watching them all go by. And then after that there was just a mess because they’d dug up the tram line, which was really a sensible thing to do. Um, also it was a neighbourhood where there were gangs. And, um, there were certain streets I wouldn’t go into, and they would scare me. And in those days it was what we called Teddy Boys with their long jackets and their winklepicker shoes and their greased back hair, and they frightened the life out of me. And they, they often had knives and there just, there were parts of Tollcross that felt like a dangerous area to be in, and I think that has changed significantly. I mean, I still wouldn’t walk across the Meadows by myself in the dead of night, but, um, I don’t think I’d be afraid on the streets in the daytime, um, like I was, you know, when I was younger. Um, now, there’s, there’s a lot of, um, you know, shops that have gone out of business, things that are boarded up. I think that’s true through whole city, not, not, not just Tollcross. There’s things that we never had; nail salons, tattoo parlours, all that kind of thing. One big feature of when I was growing up was the department store Goldbergs which was unbelievable, they had escalators, and that was the very first time ever, ever anybody had ever been on an escalator in Scotland, I’m sure. And they had, it was just an incredible place, and they had a wonderful tearoom on the top floor and going up there and getting tea and chocolate biscuits and all of that was like very, very exciting. Of course it’s gone. Um, and I think there were a lot, there were a lot of smaller shops, there was a Woolworths, and there was Blyth’s and, um, you know, many little shops selling things like, you know, women’s nylons and you know stuff like that, that are just now, you know, now it’s just like big huge Co-op. although, I do remember right at the end of Valleyfield Street, which is where I lived, is a Co-op and it’s still there today and it was the first supermarket in the city and going there was like a big thrill as well, going up and down these aisles, you know, with a basket and picking stuff off the shelves and, and it’s bigger now, they expanded it, but, um, I lived back in the neighbourhood for a little while, while I was here doing some work with the film festival and on my way home, um, which was Bruntsfield at the time, I would pass that Co-op and I would go in, and I would get something for dinner. So, it remained a constant. And they cleaned up a lot of buildings, that’s the other thing that they did, um… There was, there was, on, on, on Valleyfield Street there was a car mechanic shop, it used to h-have lots of young boys who worked in it, and as I got older, there would, there would be like a real running the gamut to get by there to get to the end of the street to do, you know, whatever. And there was this sweet shop on the corner, it’s now, it became, it became like an interior decorating place then it became something else. I don’t know what it is now, but I spent an awful lot of time going back and forth to that sweet shop as well. And my father used to send me to buy his cigarettes for him. Which now I just find like crazy, like, I’m seven years old and I go in “20 players please” and they’d give them to me. [Laughs]  

INTERVIEWER  

Thinking about Tollcross, what would you hope to see or want to see in Tollcross’ future?  

CAROL RAMSAY  

I, I, what would I like to see? I think of, um, where I live now is Stockbridge and it feels like a little village, and when I was growing up Tollcross felt that way, it felt like a little village, a little neighbourhood and, um, not that I live there anymore, but going through it and being there for many different reasons, it doesn’t feel that way anymore. I feel like it’s lost some spirit of, um, community that it would be really nice to see return. I think part of it’s got to do with retail, um, and, and I suppose housing, ‘cause that has not changed that much over the years, but I think that, that sense of community, it would be nice to see that return.  

INTERVIEWER  

Fantastic. On that note, em, thank you so much for your time. 

CAROL RAMSAY  

You’re welcome  

INTERVIEWER  

At this point we’re going to stop the recording at 1:08pm and we’ll conclude this interview for the King’s Theatre heritage project.  

End.