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Famous People You've Never Heard Of
Famous People You've Never Heard Of
All the Fun of the Fair - David Slattery Christy talks about Reg Pratley
Author and playwright David Slattery Christy, talks to us about his grandfather, Reg Pratley.
Reg's story shines a light on the social history of the early 20th Century. From growing up in a sleepy Oxfordshire village via a short spell in the Royal Navy, Reg Pratley ended up managing one of the largest and most prestigious travelling fairgrounds in England. His story is part Mills and Boon romance, part Boy's Own Adventure and part historical drama.
We also learn about David's new play about Ivor Novello and his leading ladies discussing the closure of the theatres - in 1939! Who better to document this episode than David, the man who was the Novello advisor to the Gosford Park movie? And all sorts of other topics are also covered, from the design of a department store to the Music Hall life of Dan Leno and the late Roy Hudd.
Mainly, though, this episode is about Reg Pratley, a remarkable character who literally ran away to join the fair and never looked back.
We hope you enjoy Reg's story and that you'll share, rate and review us so that more people can "meet" him.
Guest's fantasy dinner party guests:
Dan Leno
Reg Pratley
Gloria Swanson
Joan Crawford
Roy Hudd
Ivor Novello
For additional information :
https://www.carterssteamfair.co.uk/:
https://www.londonsongfestival.org/concerts-1
https://www.christyplays.co.uk/
https://www.bookdepository.com
https://twitter.com/DSCAuthor
https://twitter.com/CartersFair
https://www.facebook.com/danlenoaroyaljester
Music:
Additional Music and SFX from https://www.zapsplat.com
Music composed by Adam A. Johnson
Episode Produced & Edited By:
Jacob Taylor
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Welcome to Blue Fire's podcast, where we entertain you with tales of famous people you've never heard of. Each week. Steve L ottie or Linda will guide you through the centuries to shine the spotlight once again, on entertainers, that history has forgotten. Join us for drama, interviews and the occasional chat over a bottle of wine as we discover that the topics of plague poverty and overnight stardom are not unique to the 21st century.
Lottie:So today we are very happy to have with us the wonderful Mr. David Slattery Christie. D avid is an author an d p laywright and also an Ivor Novello consultant to film and radio. Most of his work is based on historical characters from theater and entertainment, but today we're talking about a fascinating character who is much closer to home for David: the wonderful unique Mr Reg Pratley., Welcome David, if yo u want to just give us a bit of background about yourself and also tell us what the fascination is and what made you want to write about Reg.
David:Okay. Let's see. I've done a lot of things really, but I've kind of always done things that, I have a passion for and a real interest for. And history has always been a big thing for me and theater history, especially, but having s aid that most of my work has been to do with things like, the, the film Gosford Park, which was really the precursor to, Downton Abbey of course, with Julian Fellowes. It was an interesting project for me, because it meant that I got to give them lots of information about Ivor Novello because he was a character in the film, played by Jeremy Northam And I also got to suggest quite a few of the most famous musical numbers from his famous musicals that they incorporated into the film as well. So that was interesting. And I've written a play about Dan Leno, the famous Victorian Music Hall comedian. We were supposed to be having, a showcase this year, at The Criterion Theatre in the West End with Roy Hudd as well. But sadly, because of the COVID and also because Roy passed away, e verything was postponed until next year, but Steve Royle who plays, D an Le no o f course, is c urrently on Britain's got talent an d i s i n the final. So we will be going ahead with that next year. So yeah, I' m a b it of a history buff.
Lottie:The fascination with history extends to family history, doesn't it? which i s where the wonderful Reg comes in.
David:Okay. Well, Traveller's Tale h as really been a labor of love for me and, you know, positive things come out of things that are not so great. And I think this situation with the COVID and everything has hit a lot of people. And I suddenly had all this time to kind of work on a lot of research I'd done into Reg Pratley, who was my maternal grandfather. Now I never knew Reg, but I he ard l ots of stories about him from my mom an d f rom other members of the family. And he was a fairground showman, and he was based in, D agenham and Forest Gate in London. But he actually came from a small village called Appleton, which is not far from Oxford. I myself was born in Oxford, so I know the area very well. Now Reg, my grandfather, he didn't have a long life because he died 20 years before I was born. So I never really knew him.So he was a figure that fascinated me and, I, wanted to know more about. Sadly for me I was not really able to do this while my mother was living. My mother was his youngest child and she was only eight when he died and it really affected her whole life, b e cause she kind of lost her father and she was sent away to live with her gr andmother in Appleton and her whole world just imploded. So it was very difficult to talk to about her father because it was far too emotional for her. S o because of that in a way, I never knew him. And I didn't really know as much about him as I do now. So to go on this journey for me, it wa s like a real discovery and I'm just so in awe of this man, b eca use he kind of ran away to join the fairground before the first world war when he was a young boy, becau s e he was determined that he didn't want to be just another farm boy in a small village. Unfortunately fate and life threw lots of things at him. He was sent to Devonport to the Royal Navy because he'kept running away. His mother didn't know what to do with him, so she signed him up to go in the Navy as a boy se aman f or 12 years. And I mean, this was a point where he was barely 14 years old. So he was sent off down to Davenport and went through a kind of horrendous induction pe riod b ecause it was quite brutal at that time, the way they were treated when they were taken in as b o y s eamen. Now probably luckily for him a few months after he'd gone in to, t he Navy, h e was, u h, st ruck down with pneumonia and he ended up in the hospital, the Royal Naval hospital in De venport, t o recuperate from this pneumonia, because luckily for him, it was the kind of pneumonia you can recover from, as opposed to the one that in those days, we'r e goi ng back to 1912, if you had, it woul d hav e jus t killed you if it had been a bacterial pneumonia, there is, a t echnical word for it. But anyway, he, so h e was in the hospital. He'd survived. And that's where he actually met my grandmother who had gone to work there as a, to train as a nurse. So fate was kind of giving him a helping hand. She shared his passion for the fairground as well, and they kind of decided that was going to be th eir life. They were due to get married once she'd a ctual ly finished her training. But unfortunately by that point, the First World War broke out. And because he didn't want to be sent back in the Navy because he hated being on the water, it made him feel seasick., he decided to just switch his name around. So his actual name was Walter Edward Reginald Pratley which he was enlisted in the Navy for. But when he immediately joined up at the beginning of August, when the First World War was declared, he joined up as Reginald Edward Walter Pratley, which meant that there was no cross-che cking, and in t hose days, obviously it was more difficult to do that
Lottie:You'd not get away with it now, that's for sure
David:Absolutely. But I mean, in those days it was kind of easier for him to do that. He enlisted in the Royal Berkshire as an infantry man, and kind of went through the theaters of war in France. They had, they did get married in 1915, their first child Geo rgiana sa dly died a few months old and then by 1918, they'd had another child, which was Reginald the first boy. And once the first world war was over, they had the flu pandemic to cope with, which is very similar to what we're going through now, obviously because a lot of things were clos ed and a lot of fair s did n't sort of open in the towns and villages and cities around the country because of the flu pandemic.
Lottie:And wasn't there, the, the ancient laws in various towns, that whenever the fair didn't come for a year, then they lost the right to come back again.
David:Yeah, well, the,, the charters for fairs like st. John's in Oxford and all these in Banbury and Newbury and all these places, and in North London around there, they're all charters. And if the fair doesn't come every year, then the charter can lapse and there's no guarantee they would be allowed to come back the next year. So what they did then as some fairs doing now, they would go with a sort of diminished fair of maybe a couple of stalls or something. And today, I think what they're actually doing there, they're just building one ride or setting up one small ride. And that satisfies the charter to ensure that the fair carries on for the next year. And because also of course, going back to my grandfather's time in the twenties and thirties, going round, all these charter fairs and the mop fairs were interesting because they were originally set up for people to hire servants for the following year. So that was their original sort of the original conception for them. So people would go to the fairs to kind of offer their services to, go and live in and be a chauffeur, a maid or a cook or that kind of thing. So they had a, a purpose beyond just entertainment, but over time they developed into the fairgrounds that, became very popular in the twenties and thirties,
Lottie:And didn't Reg work with a couple of the really big and famous fairground families as well, the Nichols and the R oberts family.
David:That's right. Yeah. I mean, he did some touring with the Roberts and that's where he, got involved with the boxing booths because, on fairgrounds at that period to sort of just before the first world war and then into the twenties and thirties, boxing booths were very popular on fairgrounds where, the local Jack the Lad loud would, try to win, you know, a pound or a couple of pounds by beating the fairground's boxer. And of course the fairground used to sell tickets for people to come in and watch. And of course the, the idea was that it would be very difficult for the Jack, the l ad to actually beat, the, the fairground boxer. Now, my grandfather was, he was very good at sort of like ducking and diving, apparently. So he was able to kind of go in the ring with the, t he one s th at weren't too aggressive, but of course they always had, you know, k i nd of a big bruiser on hand to go in if there was someone from the town or the village looking like they might take a bit of beat ing. So, so he got involved with that. And of course, then he went on to work with Billy Nicholls, which was a very sort of famous fairground family and still is to this day. What fascinated me when I started researching this book, because some of my cousins are still travellers now in the, in the South, and I got in touch with, B illy Nichols family today. And they immediately spoke in such high regard for my grandfather, which amazed me because it's like 80 years since he died, he's still remembered so fondly. And also one of the wagons that he specially designed the bo dywork f or that was built to make it more practical for building up and ta ken d own and moving on the fairgrounds. Um, t he, the wagon, my grandfather designed, they still own, it still exists, which was extraordinary. I just couldn't, and it' s ac tually in the process of having some restoration done at the moment, but, u m, I have been promised that I can actually see it literally physically, a s a so r t of to t ou ch, which will be quite surreal really, beca use I c an't believe it's still a wo r king fairground wagon, but there you go. I did some research at Sheffield university. They have a circus and fairground archive. And when I went in and kind of a pproached them, I was absolutely amazed at the amount of photographs they h ave from the Billy N icholls era when my grandfather was touring with t hem in the twenties and thirties, but his sons, my uncle Ted, my uncle, Ro ger, my uncle Walter, t hey all continued traveling after the war, the Second World War and some of their families still travel today. Now I was amazed th at i n the,a r chive at Sheffield, they have lots of photographs of all my uncles and their rides, and I never knew that they existed, but there was one very, very special image, t hat I found there, t hat they sent to me. And I've actually reproduced a few of them in the book. One of them is a picture of Billy Nicholls sitting on the steps of the gallopers at St. Giles' Fair. And he's surrounded by all the children from Nazareth House orphanage and standing at the back of the children, up on the gallopers behind him is my grandfather and I'd never ever seen that picture before, because pictures are obviously from that period are few and far between, that was a real magical moment for me. And I have a picture of my mom standing by the gallopers at the fairground. And when I caught the two pictures together, it's amazing how you can see the likeness in them that I never realized really. They had, they also had an image, a photograph of the wagon that my grandfather designed for Billy Nichols, pulling the dodgem load in the 1930s. And he would have, kind of, operatedand driven that wagon. So that was nice as well.
Lottie:Wow. And that, that must've been the, the very first dodgems surely wasn't in the, in the thirties?
David:Well, yeah, they, the dodgems and the Waltzers were introduced, kind of in that period, and were the latest kind of, the newest rides as it were.. But I know that they, as well as bringing the dodgems into tthe fairground, they were one o f t h e first people to actually go and buy, a c o uple of sets of the new Waltzers. Now, people of a certain age I'm sure will r emem ber the thrill of the Waltzers on the fairgr ounds. So t hey introduced them, So t h at's, so all these things that he did and he made such a success of, but aside from that, he, was like a ground manager for Billy N ichols. And h e used to actually plan all the fairgrounds and where the rides would go, where the stalls would go and how peo ple would walk and move th rough the fairground. Apparently they call it a good, tober. A good tober is a well laid out fairground. And I'd never heard th e e xpression before, until I started doing the research on this. So he was obviously a very capable, organized person to be able to sort of manage all that. And a lot of the rides, as much as they, the big rides belonged to Billy Ni cholls, a lot of the stalls and the smaller ri des o n the periphery of the fa irground, they will have been leased from them. They would have arranged the lease and the people who have the leases for these stalls and things like that. They kind of ha ve t hose leases always, and th ey w ere very hard to get onto because it's very rare that anybody ever gives up their space on, yo u k n ow, a fa irground t hat's traveling around.
Lottie:Do you know, it sounds like, a t a department store, a good tober, because in a good department store, you have to walk a long way to get to the white goods because th ey're a destination thing, but yo u w alk through all the small stuff that you might pick up on the way purchasing as you go. It's why they always put the perfumes on the ground floor.,
David:But it's exactly the same cause it is all designed to generate the maximum footfall, but also the maximum income that you can from from the event, you know? So yeah, as I say, I just have so much respect for him and for the first time in my life from doing this, I actually feel like I know him now and I never did before. Yeah.
Lottie:What's lovely about the book, which I h ave read and I would thoroughly recommend is because the way you've just described it, yo u k n ow, when he met Constance, his wife in the hospital and stuff, it all sounds terribly Mills and Boon and ru nning away to join the fairground sounds so romantic but you're not shy about saying about the hardships and the privations. It was a hard life. Wasn't it?.
David:Well, yeah. And do you know I think that's one of the things on my respect barometer that kind of hit the roof because when I started researching Ca rter's, s team fa ir t h at s till use a lot of these original rides from that period today. An d s o if anybody wants a flavour of what a fa irground w as in the twenties and thirties, t ry and go to the Certer's Steam Fair because they still have all these old rides. But the reason I mentioned Ca rter's i s because they very kindly gave me links to several st op a ction,v i deos of them actually building and dismantling these rides, like the gallopers, the Waltzers, the dodgems, t he flying chairs, all these kind of traditional fairground rides. And you really had to be a tough person to survive and to kind of thrive in that environment be cause i t was jolly hard work. And you imagine- it's not just the physical work of building them or dismantling them, but the wagons and the lorries that carried them from town to town,. Every piece of that ride ha d a p lace. And it, it had to be taken off or loaded back on in a specific order, because if it wasn't, it would throw the whole thing out. So the organizational skills as well were extraordinary because they planned everything to a nut and bolt. So it was amazing really. As I say, my respect went through the roof, caus e I t hought this is not easy. This is a tough, tough life, but I think it's a life that, bro u ght the people who worked on it, especially my grandfather, it brought him a lot of joy because I think he, he got joy in traveling. He was lucky he had a wife, and they had a fantastic relationship. They ended up having 11 children.
Lottie:Goodness, me, how many caravans did they live in?
David:Well, there is another story with that because the three boys, remembering that Georgiana died when she was a few months old, but the three eldest boys, they were k ept and traveled with the f air. Now my a unts who came along my Aunty Ca therine a nd my Aunty Norah as soon as they got to sort of like three, four years old, they were sent to my grandfather's mother in A ppleton sort of to live. And he provided money for her to look after them. And they went to school in the village. You see? So the girls were sent back to the village, o go to school and the boys remained on the fairground and, and were homeschooled on the fai r. B ut my mother actually was the last child. She was born in 1931 and when he died, she was only eight and it really did kind of, it c olored her wh ole life really,. Unfortunately for my mum, I thi nk, because, because she was the last, well, actually she was a twin and her twin died at birth was stillborn., and s h e survived. But, of cour s e, because she was the last child and this was 1931. And, and I t h ink my grandfather was very established at that point with Billy Nicholls. And of course he had a set of gallopers, which w e re his pride and joy an d a ll the horses on the gallopers he named after his children. So each horse would carry one of their names or would carry the name of his wife. And that was a tradition that he had that he named the whole season aft er his children..Fortunately, in a way, because she was his last child, it meant that my mother went everywhere with him. She absolutely adored him and I think he had more time, you know, life wasn't as rushed because he was mo re established. So he had more time to spend with her. Really.
Lottie:I love that all those horses were named after his family as well. Are they still in existence.?
David:Not that I'm aware of. No, sadly, no. I mean, I think, the Nichols family told me that some of the rides were sold on sort of in the, in the fifties and sadly a lot of those old gallopers and the like were actually, s tripped back and sold off for scrap. Really terrible, isn't it. But if they still existed they would be, yo u know, they would be revered today because they're so rare, you know?But that's just how it went back in the day.
Lottie:You hear of so many stories like that don't you? Someone's rubbish is s omeone else's treasure, isn't it?
David:Yeah. And I think it's interesting to mention that a lot of people say, Oh, so your grandfather was, was a traveler or he was a gypsy or whatever. And then there is a real difference in how people are categorized. My grandfather was a fairground showman. He was a traveling fairground man, which is very different to what a traveler or a gypsy is. IThey are completely different cultures really. But everybody tends to kind of, put everybody in the same box as it were, but they are very different cultures and have very different, i deas and, h ow they do things. And, so, you know, my, my grandfather was a fairground showman which is a completely different thing..
Lottie:And are there any special sort of traditions that are peculiar to the, to the fairground showman?
David:Oh, there is one which is quite funny really, and it makes me laugh every time. And my uncle Ted, who was one of my mom's brothers, he traveled all his life. And, because of course my mom was actually born on the fair, when the fair was open at Banbury in 1931. Now my uncle Ted had winter quarters at Banbury and actually my cousin Ted now still has winter quarters there. And they still have a lot of the rides and things. Now, when my uncle died some years ago now, my mom h ad gone to see my aunt Sibyl, his wife, and she was telling her, she said, Ellen, this sounds awful. But she said, the under takers came and took him away as they do. And she said, the first thing I did, she said, because you know what he was like for tradition. She said, I got all his clothes and all his belongings. Now, normally they would like, kind of cremate somebody in their wagon with all their belongings. Now she said, cause w e wer e,living in a house at that point. She said, I couldn't do that. So she said,what I did is I went upstairs and got all clothes and all these things, I took them in the back garden and built a bonfire and set them all on fire. And she said, the next morning, the undertakers came round an d sai d, would it be possible to let m e have some clothes to dress Ted in fo r t he, for laying him out? And she said, I just said to him, well, sor ry. I burnt the m all in the garden last night. And she said, this poor funeral man looked horrified. And she said, I've never thought until afterwards how awful that must have seemed but it was a tradition that he wanted that tradition. So that's what she did, but it makes me smile every time and obviously death, you know, sometimes, it's awful,. It's a terrible thing, but sometimes little stories like that make you realize that it's life, isn't, it that' you know, we do things and we follow traditions and sometimes, you know, you can find humor in all sorts of things. But that little story always makes me chuckle because my a untie Sybil I always remember looking up at her cause she always ran the candy floss stall and I would look up at her as a little boy and she would twist candy floss onto a stick for me. And she had a really cheeky sense of humor. So I can, see her having that conversation with th e u ndertaker.
Lottie:I've just got this vision, of a guy in an undertaker's outfit, running around Marks and Spencer's looking for cheap suit. I have to ask you, do you actually like fairground rides?
David:Do you know? I like, I don't mind things like the gallopers. I like gentle things. Interestingly I think my grandfather suffered from, motion sickness a little bit, which is ironic considering, b ut you know, the strange thing is, is that my cousin Ted gets it. And so do I, so it must be something that is there in your g enes or something, I don't know, but yeah. So a gentle ride on the gallopers. I don't know. I could go with that but I think I'm past the Waltzers now. I think it just made me feel sick now.
Lottie:Yeah, they're as wild as I ever want to get. Never any more than that. I don't think
David:Talking about that though. I have to say, if I hear the sound of the fairground organ playing, it kind of does something to me. It's just a weird sensation really. And it just, strikes a chord in me and it makes me feel quite nostalgic and weirdly like a bit excited. It's a strange feeling really, but,, I'm sure it must come from that. It's ineresting because obviously my, my grandfather was born in a village near Oxford, but if you look back at the, ki nd o f t h e P r atley s ort of, a ncestry, m y mother always said that the they were descended from Italy originally and, g o ing back a couple of hundred years, they were actually equestrians and traveling players that ttravelled around Europe and ended up here. Um, so I think there's kind of there is that in him from before I think it's something that maybe came out in him and he took it up again.
Lottie:Yeah. But these things sometimes miss a generation or two don't they. They never really go away.
David:I think sometimes it can be circumstances as well, really, you know that can kind of have that, but obviously, I mean, I you know because you've read the book, but it fascinated me that my grandfather's father had a bit of a sticky end in a field with a shotgun as well. So yeah.
Lottie:Yeah. Tell us about that. That is a fabulous story
David:It's a true story, you know, and it's a shame really because his father died young. My grandfather died young and then hi s e l dest b oy, Reg he died, my uncle Reg died very young. He was, h e was actually the same age as my grandfather when he died in a motorbike accident in 1961. Which was a couple of years after I was born. But the reason I was never allowed to have a bike is because of my uncle Reg. because mum, my mum was so terrified of anything to do with bikes or bicycles after he was killed in that accident. I was never allowed to have a bike while I was growing up.
Lottie:And then the incident with your, your great-grandfather. I mean, that was never really resolved. Was it?
David:You know, it's an interesting thing because I did dig, I, I dug deep. I tried to get hold of the coroner's report so I could get more information, because his death certificate confirmed that he'd had, I don't know what you call it. He literally bled to death. It took him 24 hours and it was a result of either a misfired cartridge or something. It was a shotgun, but, but anyway, I did try to find out, and d o you know, the Berkshire record office have all the coroner's reports from 1893 to about 1980 and the only year that i s missing is 1905. And you just think somebody's having a joke and that can't possibly be right. You know, but no, it's true. That one year that is missing is the year that I wanted. So there you go. But I think that was it. T hat was a bit of, s o rt of love and passion and things going on in the village really, you know, t h at was beca use I t hink they wer e rivals for, my, gr e at grandmother's affections as well. So, I thought it was such a great story and it obviously affected my grandfather, so I felt I ca n't miss it out. I'm going to have to put it in. And it wa s a good opener, I hav e to say.
Lottie:Yes, it is. it's fabulous. The whole book is really interesting. I'm just going to give it a bit of a plug. It's called Traveller's Tale, the Making of a Fairground Showman by David Slat tery, Christie, and y ou c an g et it on Amazon. Is it in the shops as well, David?
David:It is now. Yeah, and places like book depository a re very good because they tend to do free delivery and they beat the prices on Amazon sometimes as well. So it's worth looking on Book Depository. And it's, in a hard back and in paperback as well.
Lottie:Right. You heard it here first- Book Depository. I've got to look them up definitely. Now, before I waste any more of your time. I need to ask you David, because I like to ask everybody this. As well as grandpa Reg who is obviously top of the list, who would you like to invite to your fantasy dinner party?
David:So is it another five you want?
Lottie:Yeah. if you give us five and then you've got a nice dinner party of six,
David:Well, I have to say that my first choice i s Dan Leno. I kind of feel like I know him lik e qu ite intimately now, so he's my first choice. My second choice would be Ivor Novello, my third choice would be Roy Hudd because Roy was such a lovely man and I knew him for a period of time, but not long enough because when we met, we were alwa ys so busy doing things that we never got chance to sit down and talk as much as we should have done really. But so he would be another one because that's an opportunity. I feel like I really missed
Lottie:You'd have had some good stories. to swap
David:We did, but I mean, what we could have talked about, you know,..... N umber four would be Joan Crawford the famous actress and number five would be Gloria Sw anson. Now that would be a very interesting di nner p a rty.
Lottie:You know, that would be so interesting that I'm going to give you the opportunity to sit at the head of the table and I'll do the waitressingm b ecause I want to be party to that. Now as well as your book being out then you have the Dan Leno show that's coming back next year, hopefully, all being well.
David:Yeah, we will definitely be there. I mean, hopefully n ext y ear, but it depends on how things go with t his COVID but we'll be back at the Criterion Theatre and we'll certainly let people know, but, I've spoken to Debbie Roy's wife bec ause ob viously Roy was going to be playing a character in it for us this year. But obviously suddenly that won't happen now, so we are going to kind of make the event, i n memory of Roy as well, because he was such a, well Dan Leno was his idol really. And it's kind of ironic that. I feel sad for Roy because I really wish he'd have had the chance to do it because for him to have done his last thing as being in a play with Dan L eno in t he West end, it would have just been brilliant. Unfortunately, that didn't work but we can still make it special when we bring it back next year. And the other thing that I've been working on as well is, a new play. I wanted to kind of draw a parallel really with the closure of theaters now with the closure of theaters in 1939, when the second world war broke out, because the government actually closed all the theaters then like they have now. So, Gho s tlight I've written for the London song festival, who c ommissioned me to write it for them, and it tells the story, of Iv o r Novello,, Mary E l lis,, Elizabeth Welch, and Dorothy Dickson, all meeting on the empty Drury Lane stage, on the day that the theaters have all been closed in 1939,. They reminisce about the shows they'd be en in and will thea ter survive, what will happen to theater? So it draws a lot of parallels with what's happening today. And ultimately it's about hope. And it's about showing that people had the same fears then that they have now, but we survived and we will s ur v ive now.
Lottie:We will. You know, in fact, in all our publicity f or the shows we do the me ssage i s t hat things don't change. You know, we've seen it all before., w e had the closure of the theaters during the plague and with the Puritans in the 17th century and we came back from that.
David:But to be fair, I mean, it's, I think a lot of people today, especially a lot of younger people feel that this is the end of the world and in a way it is at the moment we're in now. But by showing that these kinds of things have happened before, whether in 1939, or as you say, during the plague and these other times, it kind of shows that things do survive and do recover. And I think it's important that you know, that there's a lot of negativity about who isn't doing, what, and who's doing the other, which is understandable because people's livings and their livelihoods depend on it. But I wanted in this show to give people hope, to show that this happened in the past and we survived and we came back bigger and stronger than ever. So, um, it's an interesting, piece. It Includes a lot of music by Ivor Novello and Noel Coward as well.. And we're very lucky to have, the lovely Rosemarie Ash, who was in Adrian's Mole's Diary last year, and she was obviously the original Carlotta in Ph a ntom. A nd th e musical director is Nigel Foster. Now we're doing a live performance at the Hinde street Methodist church, in, th e West End on Friday, the 11th of December at seven o'clock. Now all the tickets are being sold via the website. There's no tickets on the door,. It's a socially distanced audience, so there's about 60 tickets maximum. That said, it will be filmed on the night of the live pe rfor mance, and then it will be broadcast on the London Song Festival's, you tube channel on Saturday, the 12th of December at seven o'clock. And after that, it will be available for quite some time.
Lottie:Well,I'd better book for that one now I know. I hope there are tickets left.
David:Well, because it's, of the restrictions obviously we can't do it in th e t heater, which is why, you know, we're doing it in the Methodist church in Westminster. And a big part of the thing is that we can't sell door tickets, so it all has to be pre-booked. The London Song Festival website is www.londonsongfestival.org. And if you go to the concert page link, it takes you to, where the details are for the tickets as well.
Lottie:Fantastic. Thank you so much for spending so much time with us today, David. It's been It's absolutely fascinating. I wish I'd met grandpa Reg, too.
David:Me too. Yeah. And one of the nice things about this book, just as a closer really is when I was deciding how i t was going to r un I thought, do, I do it in the first person or not? but in the end, I actually decided to write it as if I was him. I'm actually so glad I m a d e th at decision now, because I think that's, what's helped me feel so close to him be cause I've lived his life through me. And that's been really, really interesting.
Lottie:I really recommend the book and thank you very much.
David:And we look forward s eeing N ellie power as well next year. Hopefully.
Lottie:Oh yes, she'll be there supporting her old mate Dan Leno! That will be excellent. Well, thank you very much, indeed.
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