8.5 miles. 10 people. 2 dogs.
Dan is sitting on the bench outside Waterlow Park cafe. Of course he is. It’s a greyish afternoon at the top of Highgate Hill, rain threatens and it’s a Monday. Monday 27th July 2020. To my surprise and pleasure participant and ex-vicar (I believe) Ken, phoned earlier to let me know he is coming. Apparently Lucy at Bubble HQ has passed on details to some of the group members. Pip, May and I are slightly early but here’s Jimmy, and Guler, and Lianne - I did not know they were coming! Sandy arrives - he wasn’t coming either, but he’s here. Cath, Charter of the Mayflower. And now Michael Breakey - a survivor of the first walk. Then Pip’s brother and loyal audience member Chris with his dog Tobi. Two dogs.
Two dogs is appropriate, for Waterlow is the park where Nick Khan, playing Tweedledee, or was it dum, was attacked by…. I’m a couple of sentences into my explanation when up strides Mr Folorunsho. Charlie F, who himself played Tweedledum - or was it dee? And of course Charlie, has written a poem for the occasion - which he now gives.
A wee little story not long to last
But in Alice at Waterlow we had the twin scene task
Mr Khan was giving his Tweedledee blast
When golden Labrador ran fleetingly past
Hated the sword, shield and acting master class
And barked proper loud for the crowd, lots of laughs!
Ran Dee down as Labbie seemed pretty aghast
And soon she reached him, bit him straight on the arse..
Least when the checked him he’d had his Tetanaas!!
Which he wrote on the tube on the way to the walk, apparently. This is all true and lovely but not quite as I remember it - we drop down the slope to the scene of the crime as it starts to rain gently. My version - there were two labradors. The boys were dressed as boy scouts replete with caps - and apparently dogs don’t like men in hats. Nick fended off the dog with his wheelbarrow. The dog attached itself to his buttock. He did a complete 360 with the dog swinging off the ground securely attached. I’m afraid I was helpless with laughter. Nick was in shock.
A letter we received later from an audience member included three bullet points of feedback - the second reads “Really sorry the dog attacked Mr Tweedle (dum? dee?) - (sic). I hope he’s feeling better. Security needs to be better, they would watch the people not the play. But it was still a shame.
(The third bullet point reads “No sex and violence in the play. Although I guess you did this to make the show accessible to tiny children, you didn’t have to”… and goes on to argue for the inclusion of adult content in kids shows). Well the dog attack was pretty violent.
It’s appropriate the Chris and Pip are here. Our children played together many times in Waterlow, as Chris lived nearby - and still does. We have memories of the older boys on a toboggan - and then when young Sam got his turn, the unforgettable image of him losing control of the sledge as it gathered momentum down the hill, and him disappearing over the edge and down, what I knew was, an almost vertical drop to the footpath below. - I was helpless with laughter then too. This is the place Pip last saw her Mum in London - she was taken to the Whittington at the bottom of the hill. This is the place I got the phone call my Dad had been taken into hospital - I flew from the rehearsal to his bedside and almost as soon as I arrived he said his goodbye as best he could, closed his eyes, then made a slow, gradual and graceful stop - stillness - death, we call it.
And the place had and has much life - we got big joyful mixed audiences here, all ages. And lots of dogs.
Out the bottom of the park we go and down to Parliament Hill fields. Charlie will only go as far as he can manage - he is walking with a stick but quite determined to participate and I am honoured. Charlie is big man of the theatre - he is known by all and knows everyone. He is passionate about story, performance and the politics surrounding our business. We first worked together back in my second Bubble season. He has done Carpet Tales, Pantomimes and Parks. He has been a board member and officiated at Linda Dobell’s funeral. Oh and now he writes poems it seems.
We are aiming for the original Bubble HQ - or the Roxy as it was known, where the company was first set up in 1972. When we get there it is gone. The site replaced by newly built maisonettes. Nevertheless there is an air of excitement and Charlie dubs it ‘The Source’. I read an extract from Tony Rowlands’s history of the first 12 years of Bubble - Castles in Park (available on the company’s website and well worth a read).
“It is hoped the Itinerant Theatre Company will play for a week or more in each Borough in order to involve the whole community in the company’s activities. A possible programme could consist of: a main musical extravaganza; a late-night play; a children’s play, plus specially arranged workshops and school playground ‘events’; two short revue pieces which would be incorporated into a variety show….and a rehearsed reading of ‘The Cherry Orchard’, ‘The Wild Duck’ or a new play.”
Which was taken from the Greater London Arts Magazine the year before the company was formed.
Charlie (that’s him in the hat at the back) leaves us here after Jimmy lets him in on the secret that a secret bus runs from here, southwards, and across the river back to the land of normality.
The rest of us trudge on, past the Roundhouse (and memories of a time before Bubble) through the hell that is Camden Town today and then, just before we start along the long stretch beside Kings Pancras, we come to Old St Pancras Church - which rings a bell for both Pip and me.
We stop in the churchyard and I impart all I know about the Hardy Tree (which takes all of 15 seconds) and Pip imparts all she knows about Mary Wollstonecraft whose tomb is also here (Pip takes about 30 seconds but I’d argue she speaks slower).
For those that want to know, Mary Wollstencraft - philosopher, writer, feminist - wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1792. She died at just 38, 11 days after giving birth to Mary Shelley. As a young architect Hardy had to oversee the moving of graves and their contents to allow the adjacent railway line to be widened. He decided to lay the headstones around an ash tree - see image below.
Erudite and informed we stride on past the aforementioned railway line and Eurostar terminal, then across the Euston Road.
But before the pub we must visit the Cochrane. This is where we did pantomime, and where Breakey worked with Central St Martins. I witter on about the seats - for some reason the auditorium has a slight undulation and the seats were made of different heights so everyone could see. That’s until someone took all the seats out, and then put the rows back in the wrong place so latterly you might find yourself sitting in a low seat at the bottom of the undulation behind a tall seat up the slope in front of you!. Well I find it interesting.
But Breakey has a present for me (the first of two I will receive this evening). He explains something I wasn’t aware of. Apparently he tried to smuggle an image of me into each of the pantos - for morale purposes you understand. And he has a tin of Bubble beans for me. With an image of a younger, svelte looking Peth, adorning the front. This is beautifully made. The ingredients list on the label reads
- Methane 10 cubic metres
- Farts 160
- Runny poos 2.5
- Burps 17
- Uncomfortable silences 4
- Furtive glances 24
Panto. When the whole team makes merry.
When we get to the pub there’s just the hardcore left. We have a good drink and Cath gives me a book - ‘This Land is their Land’ - David Silverman’s recently published book about the history of the Wampanoag people and their relationship to the Mayflower. Not only is this a lovely gift with a lovely inscription, it’s thoughtful and pertinent to the project we’re currently developing. The content is spot on, it’s exactly what we need to bring the next project to fruition.
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