breathe acting, I just fancied having a go at it. You can imagine my relief when I ran
in from the kitchen to discover that the actor being interviewed was Burt Kwouk. But nevertheless it did make me think, maybe I was fooling myself on this performing arts course?
College could be fun sometimes, I have to admit, but I was finding it hard to settle in and I wasn't really enjoying myself. The other students were friendly enough but they seemed pretentious and angry. It was the first time a performing arts course had been set up in Bolton, and of course like all things new, there were a few initial problems. In this case the staff members. It felt as though nobody had actually sat down and thought about what running a performing arts course would entail. As time passed by we slowly began to get more and more suspicious about the tutors' qualifications. Did they know anything about performance? One tutor in particular took us for theatre workshop every Tuesday afternoon. I'll call him Mr Delaney (as that was his name). Unfortunately for him he was a severely cross-eyed man, who we discovered also taught horticulture to disabled people on the other side of town. He'd then drive over to us for the afternoon session with soil under his fingernails and spit on his shoes.
Straight away we didn't see eye to eye. In fact, it was more eye to ear where he was concerned. He'd already
thrown me out of one of his lectures because I said I thought that Shakespeare was only famous because of his last name. God forbid you'd have an opinion.
Mr Delaney resented me for being funny. I remember he completely blew his top in a lecture once. Grabbing me and leaning right into my face, he shouted,
'I crack the funnies in here, Mr Kay, and don't you forget it.'
The truth was Mr Delaney wasn't funny. His jokes were just a series of smutty innuendos and double entendres. He also had a fascination for all things farcical. He thought it was hysterical and he would drop everything (including his trousers) at the slightest hint of performing a farce.
Personally I can take or leave farce. All that running around half naked and tripping over next door's dog never did it for me.
I was never a huge fan of Fawlty Towers. I enjoyed the sarcastic, witty banter between Basil and Sybil but I was never too keen on the farcical element. When the guest dies in 'The Kipper and the Corpse' I really just want Basil to call a meeting of all the guests and announce that tragically due to circumstances beyond his control a guest has sadly passed away in the night. I do realise this ruins the whole point and would cut the episode down to ten minutes but I'd prefer that to
twenty minutes of Basil and Manuel running from room to room with a dead body in a hamper. It drives me mad.
So you can imagine how frustrated I was to discover Mr Delaney had entered us for the annual Bolton Drama Festival *2 and told the organisers that we'd be performing a farce.
The play was called The Wages Of Sin and coincidentally it was written by an Andrew Sachs. Now whether this was the same Andrew Sachs who played Manuel in Fatuity Towers, I'm still none the wiser.
I was cast as Lord Peregrine Fortune-Mint, a wealthy eighteenth-century landowner with a shotgun and a penchant for the type of scantily clad maids who like to bend over. Not unlike Mr Delaney who also seemed to have a lingering enjoyment of the maid-bending-over scenes. In fact, it was all we ever seemed to rehearse.
'Now watch what I do,' he'd say in his thick Wigan accent. Then he'd approach the maid gropingly from behind with a naughty look on his face. Licking his lips and outstretching his hands, he leaned forward. Just then his wife walked in and caught him.
I'm referring to the character's wife, of course, not Mr Delaney's. She was shacked up with a marriage guidance counsellor in Clitheroe or so I heard.
Delaney spent so much time perfecting the maid scenes that he seemed not to notice the dwindling attendance
in from the kitchen to discover that the actor being interviewed was Burt Kwouk. But nevertheless it did make me think, maybe I was fooling myself on this performing arts course?
College could be fun sometimes, I have to admit, but I was finding it hard to settle in and I wasn't really enjoying myself. The other students were friendly enough but they seemed pretentious and angry. It was the first time a performing arts course had been set up in Bolton, and of course like all things new, there were a few initial problems. In this case the staff members. It felt as though nobody had actually sat down and thought about what running a performing arts course would entail. As time passed by we slowly began to get more and more suspicious about the tutors' qualifications. Did they know anything about performance? One tutor in particular took us for theatre workshop every Tuesday afternoon. I'll call him Mr Delaney (as that was his name). Unfortunately for him he was a severely cross-eyed man, who we discovered also taught horticulture to disabled people on the other side of town. He'd then drive over to us for the afternoon session with soil under his fingernails and spit on his shoes.
Straight away we didn't see eye to eye. In fact, it was more eye to ear where he was concerned. He'd already
thrown me out of one of his lectures because I said I thought that Shakespeare was only famous because of his last name. God forbid you'd have an opinion.
Mr Delaney resented me for being funny. I remember he completely blew his top in a lecture once. Grabbing me and leaning right into my face, he shouted,
'I crack the funnies in here, Mr Kay, and don't you forget it.'
The truth was Mr Delaney wasn't funny. His jokes were just a series of smutty innuendos and double entendres. He also had a fascination for all things farcical. He thought it was hysterical and he would drop everything (including his trousers) at the slightest hint of performing a farce.
Personally I can take or leave farce. All that running around half naked and tripping over next door's dog never did it for me.
I was never a huge fan of Fawlty Towers. I enjoyed the sarcastic, witty banter between Basil and Sybil but I was never too keen on the farcical element. When the guest dies in 'The Kipper and the Corpse' I really just want Basil to call a meeting of all the guests and announce that tragically due to circumstances beyond his control a guest has sadly passed away in the night. I do realise this ruins the whole point and would cut the episode down to ten minutes but I'd prefer that to
twenty minutes of Basil and Manuel running from room to room with a dead body in a hamper. It drives me mad.
So you can imagine how frustrated I was to discover Mr Delaney had entered us for the annual Bolton Drama Festival *2 and told the organisers that we'd be performing a farce.
The play was called The Wages Of Sin and coincidentally it was written by an Andrew Sachs. Now whether this was the same Andrew Sachs who played Manuel in Fatuity Towers, I'm still none the wiser.
I was cast as Lord Peregrine Fortune-Mint, a wealthy eighteenth-century landowner with a shotgun and a penchant for the type of scantily clad maids who like to bend over. Not unlike Mr Delaney who also seemed to have a lingering enjoyment of the maid-bending-over scenes. In fact, it was all we ever seemed to rehearse.
'Now watch what I do,' he'd say in his thick Wigan accent. Then he'd approach the maid gropingly from behind with a naughty look on his face. Licking his lips and outstretching his hands, he leaned forward. Just then his wife walked in and caught him.
I'm referring to the character's wife, of course, not Mr Delaney's. She was shacked up with a marriage guidance counsellor in Clitheroe or so I heard.
Delaney spent so much time perfecting the maid scenes that he seemed not to notice the dwindling attendance
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