Some Green Room Conversations
The Green Room was the place where everyone could relax after a show. Some performers like to mingle with the public in one of the theatre bars but, at the Empire (as in many other similar houses, like, for example, Newcastle Theatre Royal), the bars close after the interval so, for company members, the Green Room was a godsend, a place to chat, mix with the theatre staff and just, as the modern word has it, chill.
There was one star, I remember, who entertained us all with the story of how he’d been shopping in The Bridges (Sunderland’s indoor shopping centre) and he was carrying his groceries in a large brown paper bag (that dates it, doesn’t it?) when he realised that, sticking out of the top, the first thing anyone would see, was a box of Fairy.
“Well,” he said. “It pays to advertise, doesn’t it?”
I’ll not mention his name, even though he died some time ago, because he never did come out in public, although everyone in the business knew.
Here's another:
It was in the early seventies. There were these three men in the bar: an actor, a comedian and me.
Sounds like the build-up to a joke, doesn’t it? But it’s not. Far from it.
The actor was in the current show and the comedian was there as a guest of someone or other. We got to talking about money and the comedian, who played the working men’s clubs, said he’d just told his agent the week before that from then on he wouldn’t work for less than £40.
“A week?” asked the actor, impressed.
“A show!” replied the comic, as if the idea of working for £40 a week was unimaginable.
The actor’s jaw dropped! At that time Equity minimum was just under £40 a week. It didn’t reach £45 until the end of the decade.
If you want to know the main difference between legit theatre and variety, there it is in all its simplicity!
Finally a brief, rather telling even if not quite theatre-related, conversation:
There was me, a leading local politician and his friend.
“I’m thinking of giving up politics,” he said. “I’m getting fed up.”
“You’ll never give up,” she said. “You like the power too much.”
“Yeah,” he said, after a moment's thought. “Yeah, you’re right.”
He didn’t!
(And that story would immediately reveal who it was to anyone who knew him!)