This article first appeared in MARK MAG March 2009

HENLEY HALL MEMORIES

Thank you JOHN IRONS for this . . .

John Ford’s article last month stirred up interest when he spoke of the Hall being used as a canteen and place of entertainment for billeted troops during the war. Ladies of the church organised teas and meals etc. My Grandmother and my mother to be were part of this help. It was there that my mother met my father and were eventually married at St Mark’s in 1942.

The story of the Henley Players drama group also stirred my interest for when I was around 11 years of age, as a budding Thespian, (they cannot touch you for it) I was intrigued by several scenery flats that used to be stored in the room where we now keep the tables and chairs, and I had ambitions to use them. I persuaded a number of friends to take part in an adaptation of Charles Dickens play A Christmas Carol for the Sunday school Christmas party. That was the start of the Church Drama group again. I produced several one act plays for various occasions mainly for the entertainment at the New Years party/dance which Jack Davies and others organised. A notable and, looking back, totally unsuitable excerpt was from Henry VI, the scene where Gloucester murders Henry in the Tower of London. In the quest for as much realism as possible, sachets of artificial blood were strapped to Henry’s (Malcolm Seymour) chest under clothing. Half the front row of the audience was splattered and a set of drums never fully recovered in the subsequent stabbing.

Act IV scene 1 of the Scottish play with Michael Longdon in the cast, when I was around 14, also stands out. Everything went wrong with great hilarity including the set falling down and the audience running for cover. However, it gave me ideas about ‘sending up’ Shakespeare. I think he must have spun in his grave every time The Henley Players did a J. Irons adaptation.

By my late teens the hall was still standing in spite of me being let loose with wires, biscuit tins and home made dimmers from an early age. People said that I would burn the hall down and Fr Bayes, incumbent at the time, hoped I would, and having survived being ‘got hold of’ by the electrical member of the Ford family, I became the lighting technician to the only Pantomime, Jack and the Bean Stalk, produced by Rev Tony Starbuck, our curate.

That was around 1961/2. Soon after that I ventured into 3 Act plays with precocious daring, no doubt to the despair of the establishment. The first one was called ‘Caught Napping’ (picture right) followed by ‘Wanted One Body’ and finally ‘Loves a Luxury’. All these were farces. These productions always followed the weekend of the Autumn Bazaar and there was a mad dash to build the sets etc. A few days before Loves a Luxury was performed the leading Lady (Maggie Day) was rushed into hospital and I had to find someone quickly. Amazingly I did.

In 1965 we entered the domain of the Drama Festival competitions and here we were a bit more successful than the original Henley Players. Most of my cast was of Youth Fellowship age and with little or no experience and we rehearsed in the hall every Sunday afternoon. I say rehearsed but there were ten minutes of rehearsal and 30 minutes of ‘pop music’ followed by tea and games. To the outsider it was a shambles.

BUT when we started winning things folk sat up. The County Youth Club Drama Festivals were very popular at the time. We won all the local heats for four years and were chosen each time to be in the Finals at some ‘Show piece new School’. Of these plays we were runners-up the first two occasions and won the last two. On the advice of one of the adjudicators we were told to consider Shakespeare. I knew we could not make a mess of these so I chose Act One Scene One of King Lear and Scenes from Hamlet for the last one. Alan Parker played the ghost of Hamlet’s father and Terry Fletcher as Polonius. To get us around the county with the scenery Webster’s Coal Lorries, courtesy of John Almond, was our trade mark. The Press got hold of this on the King Lear Scene with Headlines - Enter King Lear - on a Coal Lorry!

Sadly the County decided that competitive Drama was bad for young people and there were no more Drama Festivals after that. However there was the Local Mansfield Drama Festival and again we were very successful. For years the open Drama had been won by the ‘Ladybrook Towns Women’s Guild. Before you question Ladybrook I should say these were formidable Ladies all mostly well to do about town. They produced excellent plays, superbly cast etc. We turned up with one old bed, a tatty chair and an overcoat as props. The Play ‘The Bespoke Overcoat’ by Wolf Mankowitz was about two old East End Jews and parts for the likes of David Kossof and Alfie Bass. There was no scenery, just pools of light here and there on the stage. We brought home the trophy though.

Around this time the Youth Fellowship Drama group was being noticed and we were invited to do a Revue by the Mansfield Youth Committee at the Civic Theatre (Palace). The theme was Mansfield and I wrote ‘Mansfield Ails’ and ‘Had a go’ at Mansfield which is not terribly hard to do. Following the injunctions and court orders, we were invited to do another one the following year called ‘Mansfield Ails – Again’.

On the advice of a friendly solicitor we did repaint the motto of the Town Crest from ‘Semper in excretum’ to ‘I am all right Jack’. Of course we all know the meaning of the Latin Motto Industry Flourishes (or did) as the Oak! I am sure there is enough fuel for another Revue. Our final Revue in the series was called ‘Somewhere over a ‘Slag Heap’, if any of you are old enough to know what one looked like.

Someone suggested that there should be a Mansfield Youth Theatre Group and that perhaps a musical might be done and ‘Salad Days’ was suggested. I advertised for young singers to audition for the parts and an Ann Wilson turned up. The poor girl got the part and also me, as we have been married 34 years. St Mark’s Youth Fellowship provided 99% of the cast of that show.

One notable festival piece was ‘An Act of Faith’, a play about the Spanish Inquisition. According to the author the play would not cause much difficulty as all that was required in way of research was in just one book available from any library. The book written in the 1600s had to be especially ordered from London and I had to view with white gloves on – together with the rest of my clothes.

The hall began to look like Widow Twanky’s wash house as costumes for monks, bishops and cardinals were hung up to dry after being dyed, all made out of Hessian. It also involved the making of a full sized Crucifix. After the play the cross ‘bit’ was used for a number of years on the Good Friday processions around town.

The last real major production took place in Church as part of the 75th Anniversary of St Marks and two plays were suggested, one ‘Murder in the Cathedral’ or ‘A Man for all Seasons’. I chose the latter. It will surprise many that it took two weeks to build the set, which spanned the gap between the Lectern and the pulpit and the services had to be held in the Henley Hall. We did go further afield to find other members of cast to compliment our own excellent people and I managed to secure the services of some of the actors and actresses from the town’s excellent drama groups. Because the Church had not been re-wired it could not take the strain of the stage lighting so a cable had to be brought over from the Hall. The lighting controls were on the ledge above the High Altar. Notable performers still known to the present congregation were Joyce Buckingham and Fr Geoffrey Maltby.

John Irons

Recognise anybody? Scenes from ‘Last Judgment’ (left) and ‘Hamlet’ (right)