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POP SINGER!

Video Director to leading singer of a very famous pop group

"You have Van Gogh's ear for music!"

Pop singer: "Oh Gee! Thanks!

GENEROSITY OF SHOWFOLK!

At the end of his sensational 1960's season at the London Palladium, LIBERACE gave all the artists and staff very expensive gifts. At the end of her stint in Mame, GINGER ROGERS gave the orchestra a bottle of sweets!

NO! not each member - just the one bottle!!

When designing the lighting for the first production of The Hired Man at Southampton, I was invited to join the Director and new Producer for a drink in the interval. I was introduced to a certain ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER

After chatting away for quite sometime, when it came to settle the tab, I was left on my own! No wonder he's so bloody rich!

THEATRE TRIVIA

When building PAIGNTON'S FESTIVAL THEATRE

Once the orchestra pit had been completed it took one of the builder's kids (watching workmen finishing off) to ask:

"Dad! How do the musicians get into it?"

No doors had been provided.

JOYCE GRENFELL (Actress / Writer)

Appearing in her highly successful An Evening With at the Nuffield Southampton, was I gather using a throat mic for the very first time (early days of technology!)

She was asked by the Stage Manager, when not actually on stage to switch the wretched thing off. Came the interval, she retired to the ladies' room. She not only stayed there for quite sometime but had unfortunately forgotten the Stage Manager's request, I leave the rest to your imagination.

WILFRED LAWSON (Actor)

Well known for his liquour intake, appeared at the Royal Court in Kelly's Eye with Nicol Williamson and during a rehearsal, vanished. Nicol was not well pleased and screamed abuse concerning Wilfred's behaviour, when suddenly from the back of the stalls Wilfred's voice boomed "I thought that speech had been cut!"

PRINCESS MARGARET

A young man searching valiantly for her identity across a crowded room

'How are you getting on these days?'

'Fairly' she told him

'The old firm still flourishes eh?'

'You could say say that'

'Your sister still well I hope, still flourishing?'

'Still Queen'

LEW GRADE (Theatre Agent, Producer)

When he was an agent and went to the old Metropolitan Edgeware Road he once saw an act called Winters and Fielding, which he thought was great. He rushed backstage to tell them how he would make them stars, get them big salaries, much better than their present agents.

On finishing, he added 'By the way, who are your agents?'

They replied, 'Lew and Leslie Grade'.

SO'S THIS!!

While working the follow spots at the Savoy Hotel my work colleague, who during the day was running the prompt corner for a very long running and hugely successful thriller. Well into the run, to pass the time, he took it upon himself to read yet another Agatha Christie. Came the end

of Act 1, while still engrossed in his book, he gave the House Curtain warning followed by what he thought to be the ‘Go’. After a few moments he automatically switched on the working-light. The leading lady playing a blind character and who ends up on the floor behind the settee, noticing the working-light, immediately stood up and removed her wig. On turning out front, discovered to her horror, 800 pairs of eyes staring in amazement!

DAME EDITH EVANS (Actress)

Edith Evans on discovering that she was to appear with Kenneth Williams in Gentle Jack commented 'Such a good actor. 'Pity he has such an affected voice' Kenneth remarked 'Bit much coming from Er!'

When she visited Fortnum and Mason's she was amazed to have to pay nineteen shillings and sixpence for a pineapple. When she left she said to the assistant 'Keep the change, I trod on a grape on the way in'.

During rehearsals for Tyrone Guthrie's All's Well That Ends Well she heard Guthrie explaining a difficult scene to a young actress.

After some time the penny dropped.

'Oh' she said 'you want me to camp it up a bit!'

Dame Edith immediately said to Guthrie

'Tony, what does 'camp' mean?'

'Don't be silly, Edith, you invented it'.

KENNETH WILLIAMS (Actor / Director / Raconteur)

The Brighton opening night of Gentle Jack did not go at all well.

Dame Edith misinterpreted one rude shout from the gallery as 'Bravo'.

Kenneth corrected her: 'No it wasn't Bravo, it was "Go Ome".

At the start of the hugely underrated revue Share My Lettuce. The cast all wore different coloured costumes and introduced themselves by their colours. The first actor announced 'I am Pink' this was greeted from the stalls by a gentleman shouting 'How dreadfully effeminite'.

Kenneth introduced himself with 'I am Green' another man from the stalls shouted 'Oh, dear. Another pansy'.

Kenneth quickly retorted 'Be Quiet Madam'.

A bank clerk once welcomed him with big smiles.

'You're Kenneth Williams, I'd know you anywhere. I've seen all your films and television, heard all your radio broadcasts'.

'What would you like?'

Kenneth got his cheque book out, 'I'd like to withdraw £60' he said.

To which she replied 'Certainly, have you any identification?'

DAME EILEEN ATKINS (Actress / Writer)

Back in the '60s she went shopping at Harrods. On her way she passed some workmen on scaffolding. There were the usual whistles and shouts, one of which was 'Ardly worth 'er burning 'er bra was it'.

She was so angry that she sped into Harrods buying everything she could lay her hands on. She left the shop still much angered strode accross to the scaffolding and yelled 'I suppose you've all got small cocks but i don't go around shouting about it'. With that she turned her back on the puzzled workmen and strode off. On turning the next corner she suddenly realized she had come out of a quite different door than the one through which she went in and had confronted a different group of workmen

ETHEL MERMAN (Broadway and Hollywood Legend)

A chorus girl asked her in the wings on the first night of Annie Get Your Gun if she was nervous

She replied: 'Why should I be nervous, I know my lines'.

On dining with Victor Spinetti, she announced that she was doing The Killer Black Show

'It's Cilla' said Victor

'I know that's why I'm calling it Killer

During rehearsals of Annie Get Your Gun, the choreographer asked her to move downstage at one point.

'Why?' she demanded

'Oh' he said 'When you sing There's No Business Like Show Business, I'm choreographing dancers behind you.

'The hell you are' said Merman 'When I sing There's No Business Like Show Business the only thing behind me is the American flag'.

On returning home to her husband Ernest Borgnine after a meeting with the studio head.

'How did you get on?' asked Borgnine

'Swell' said Ethel 'He said I had the eyes of a teenager, the complexion of a twenty-year old and the legs of a twenty-five year old'.

'How about your sixty-year old c..t?' grunted her husband

'You were never mentioned'.

Ethel and Ernest Borgnine announced their impending nuptials at P.J. Clarke's, a legendary night spot in New York in 1964 but Merman filed for divorce after just 32 days. Johnny Carson soon quipped on his Tonight Show, "And they said it wouldn't last!"

ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER (Writer, Composer)

Lloyd Webber's unpopularity, stems from his enormous success.

Lunching with Alan J Lerner, he asked 'Why do people take an instant dislike to me?'

Lerner replied 'Saves time'.

It has been said that an article in the New York Times suggested that things were not so good now that he had stopped working with Tim Rice.

'Oh God' he cried, I'm having just the same trouble as Giacomo. Wolfgang and Giuseppe!'

A famous story has him sending a musical message across the Caprice to Stephen Sondheim's table, He looked at it and ignored it. On being reminded that it was from Lloyd Webber, Sondheim is supposed to have said

'I knew it wasn't from a musician'.

SIR JOHN GIELGUD (Actor / Director)

On the set of Becket. It was early in the morning and Gielgud, fully made up, was patiently filling in his crossword.

(Popular report was that he just filled it in, ignoring the clues). Peter O'Toole and Richard Burton arrived somewhat hung over, probably still slightly pissed. They were mucking about and hitting each other and at one point rolled around on the ground. Sir John finally looked up from his crossword and said impatiently.

'Oh, why don't they get on with it and fuck'

During a performance, on meeting a fellow actor. The actor was surprised (Sir John was supposed to be on the other side of the stage). Worried, he said:

'Sir John, what are you doing over here?'

'I'm hiding from Alan Badel, he will keep giving me notes'.

When starring in Peter Brook's production of Seneca's Oedipus, they were well behind with rehearsals. The cast were asked to improvise the most frightening thing they could imagine. Came Gielgud's turn, he stepped forward and said simply.

'We open on Tuesday.'

"Do you see that man, just coming in?"

Asking his dinner companion in a restaurant one day.

"He's the biggest bore in London - second only to Edward Knoblock"

Unfortunately, Gielgud had momentarily forgotten the identity of his dinner companion - Edward Knoblock.

"Not you, ofcourse" he awkwardly added

"I mean the other Edward Knoblock".

Sir John's account of the Dress Rehearsal of The Sound Of Music (28th Sept 1959 New York)

The Mary Martin / Rogers (sic) and Hammerstein run through was ghastly. I thought Ivor's ghost would come down on a wire to bless it. Cute and appallingly sentimental by turns - seven children, singing nuns and M looked as old as God and was frisking around as if she was 17. Hideous men, no dancing or chorus and an endless boring plot'.

"I don't really know what jealousy is," John Gielgud once remarked, before correcting himself: "Oh, yes, I do! I remember! When Larry Olivier had a success as Hamlet, I wept."

OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF

Following a performance of Peter Pan one evening, a small boy who had been given a seat in the author's box was asked which bit he had liked the most. "What I think I liked best," he replied, "was tearing up the programmme and dropping the bits on people's heads!"

PETER O'TOOLE (Actor)

As a young aspiring actor Peter O'Toole was overjoyed to have landed a bit part as a Georgian peasant in a Chekhov play.

Although the script simply called for him to come on stage, announce, "Dr. Ostroff, the horses are ready," and exit, the ambitious

O'Toole conceived of the peasant as a boy of steel, the future Stalin.

He perfected Stalin's minor limp, made himself up to look like him, and carefully rehearsed the line, imbuing it with a subtle nuance

of proletarian resentment...

On opening night, the excited audience was duly intrigued by the entry of the angry peasant - who, turning to Dr. Ostroff, suddenly announced: "Dr. Horsey, the Ostroffs are ready."

SHERIDAN MORLEY (Writer Critic)

"I think the best audience review I heard," Sheridan Morley once recalled, "came at the end of a Peter O'Toole Macbeth at

the Old Vic, which was not as bad as many of us said, but rather worse. By the doors on the way out, a man turned to his wife

and said, 'Well, all I hope is that the dog has not been sick in the car.'"

CLIVE BARNES (Critic)

New York Times drama critic Clive Barnes once attended a mediocre play called The Cupboard in London.

His one-word review in the next day's paper? "Bare."

At the interval of Stephen Sondheim's Company at Her Majesty's, a Knightsbridge blue-rinse lady approached the barmaid urgently. 'How long does the second act last?' she enquired, 'About an hour, madam.' 'Oh,' she considered the prospect. 'I think I'd rather go home and watch the King of Denmark's funeral.'"

HMMM!!

Arsenal midfielder Freddie Ljungberg once sought to answer allegations that he was gay. "These rumours are completely false," he declared. "I've only watched two musicals during my entire spell in London and they are Mamma Mia and Saturday Night Fever!"

TALLULAH BANKHEAD (Actress Icon)

Was rather unimpressed by the screen adaptation of Tennessee Williams's play Orpheus Descending. "Darling," she later told the playwright, "they've absolutely ruined... your perfectly dreadful play."

JONATHAN PRYCE (Actor)

Having won Best Actor In A Musical for My Fair Lady and having had to put up with the appalling behaviour of his leading lady,

when asked if he would do it again with McCutcheon on Broadway said that "there's as much chance of me getting a date with Julia Roberts as doing My Fair Lady in New York with Martine McCutcheon".

JOAN CRAWFORD (Actress Icon)

I didn't know her well, but after watching her in action I didn't want to know her well. (on Bette Davis)

BETTE DAVIS (Actress Icon)

Why am I so good at playing bitches? I think it's because I'm not a bitch. Maybe that's why Miss Crawford always plays ladies

I'd marry again if I found a man who had fifteen million dollars, would sign over half to me, and guarantee that he'd be dead within a year.

BESSIE BRADDOCK (MP) to Winston Churchill: 'Winston, you're drunk'. Churchill replied: 'Madam, you're ugly but tomorrow I shall be sober'