Low-ranking performers like me don’t expect to look into an audience
mid-show to see a banner like this.
Whatever level you may be on the theatrical spectrum, you pray you'll never see this.
In September 2005, I took to the road for my first tour with the actor / musician show Buddy Holly and the Cricketers. It was a grueling affair: four months of one-nighters booked up and down the UK and Ireland with scant regard for geography, doing five or six shows a week. I was playing Buddy, which was exciting yet daunting, not least because I had to keep myself in vocal shape while spending most of my waking hours in the back of a van; not to mention all those lonely hours in the dead of the night, trying to get to sleep in another dodgy B&B.
The last two shows were at The Brewhouse in Taunton on the 22nd and 23rd of December. This was a blessing and a curse: it was nice to end the run spending a couple of days in the same place, yet you knew you’d have to travel back home from Devon on Christmas Eve.
The final performance was a strange one. A family sitting front-centre were getting hugely into the show. At one point, the mother and daughter threw underwear at the stage – literally – while the father looked on. It was wrong on many levels.
After the show, we got talking in the bar. It turned out that they’d been fans of the show for years. Watching it was an annual event. They’d sneakily taken a few photos of that night's performance. They offered to send me them, so I gave them my address; the names Mark, David and Chapman clearly meant nothing to me.
We returned to the venue with the show a year later, which was when the sign was revealed. It was pulled out during Maybe Baby. It was hard for me to keep on top of the lyrics. I appreciated the fact it was reversible. It was sinister, but ecologically sound.
We've since become friends. They’ve supported our shows up and down the country. It’s always good to see them. I’ve also yet to be assassinated, which bodes well.