No 8 — November 1977 Edited by Michael Walters
PEOPLE – ROGER CHESHER
Roger Chesher is my longest standing G & S friend – the sort of distinction that, happily, can never be taken away from him. I first met him at Liverpool University when he was secretary to the Op.Soc there and had written to me in reply to a request for information on the Society's productions. It was one of those meetings where both parties seemed to know instinctively from the first moment that the relationship was going to work and be life–long. As performer and producer of G & S, alas, I have seen him in action but rarely (he spent a good many years working in Newcastle, a long way from me), his performances that I did see and remember were notable for their detailed meticulousness and light–hearted whimsicality.
CHRISTOPHER ORR
Chris is, I think, my second longest standing G & S friend – and certainly my longest suffering (!). I had a curious introduction to him, for I first heard him on a gramophone record (a private recording) singing Jack Point in a production of Yeomen at Liverpool University; then an exchange of correspondence & a meeting in London. Curiously, I have never seen him on stage (save in the chorus of a very bad Iolanthe at the Questors, Ealing) but I remember well two splendid productions which he conducted at the school in Hounslow where he teaches. His conducting style is slow, massive and majestic (G & S's Reginald Goodall perhaps?) I remember being very impressed by the way he made the Patience overture sound like Verdi!
MALCOLM WARD
Another strange meeting! I was sitting in the Playhouse Theatre, Cheltenham watching Cotswolds Savoyards production of Thespis, when the chap in the seat next to me, tapped my shoulder and said "Didn' t I see you at... (some other G & S event)?" Inevitably we exchanged correspondence and I got him to tape some scenes from G & S for me which I still listen to with great pleasure. I only saw him on stage once, in one of those performances which one knows one will never forget. It was Jack Point with Lewisham O. S. It was a piece of acting with a sincerity and depth which one does not expect ever to experience in a musical production. He is a man with a very remarkable talent indeed.
ALAN TITCHMARSH
I first bumped into Alan Titchmarsh some years ago in the Richmond Shakespeare Society when he was playing the second gravedigger in Hamlet. I stood in as an extra spear for the last performance at which he pointed at me and said loudly "Who the hell's that?". Not a very promising first meeting, one might think! Some years later he was playing Ko–Ko in Barnes & Richmond's production of The Mikado; and as luck would have it he was sharing a dressing room with my old friend Ron Sellers. To my utter amazement Alan remembered exactly who I was and where he had met me before, and we immediately (well almost immediately) became the best of friends. Alan has a stage showmanship the like of which I have seen in no–one else, his tremendous capacity for adlibbing when things go wrong was shown in The Trial of Mr. Wells. If he had been born 50 years ago he would probably have been a star of the Music Hall. Or something!
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