The Fun Factory (15 page)
Authors: Chris England
“‘Goodbye?’” I guessed, and do you know I was bang on the button.
“Exactly!” Charlie cried, and shrugged, as if to say: “Women!” Which reminded him. “Hey, what about you and the girl you were with at the Trocadero?”
“Oh,” I said, trying to put him off. “She’s just a super in one of the Guv’nor’s companies.”
“You like her, though, don’t you?”
“Oh yes, I like her well enough. I’ll probably see her when we get back to London.”
“Probably?” he scoffed. “You should have pursued her night and day, as I did with Hetty!”
We finally arrived in Aberdeen in the middle of the next afternoon, and Syd Chaplin was there to meet us. Well, to meet Charlie, of course. The brothers were obviously happy to see one another, and Syd plainly believed the sun shone out of Charlie’s backside, which chimed pretty neatly with Charlie’s view of the universe, so they had plenty in common.
Charlie and I had begun to rub along in a pretty friendly fashion, and Syd’s attitude to me thawed accordingly over the next few weeks. That first afternoon, though, I just traipsed along behind their reunion, listening to their inconsequential catching up, and outside the station they merrily got into a cab to go off to the handsome digs they’d be sharing, while Syd squashed a piece of paper into my hand with the address of my lodgings scrawled upon it, and I was left standing alone on the pavement.
When I finally located the place, I realised I was in for a wretched old week. I knocked on the door of a tiny little shack down by the docks and a crone appeared. When I explained who I was, she beckoned me in with a bony finger and then showed me to a hammock, an honest-to-God
hammock
, slung across one end of a tiny kitchen. Not even a spare room, the kitchen, which was the main living room of the whole tiny place. Her husband, it appeared, was a fisherman, and was presently out at sea on his boat, and thanks to him the entire place reeked of fish.
It wasn’t just the digs, either. The whole grim grey granite town smelled of fish. Every night in the theatre the grim grey granite audience, carved it seemed from the same stone as the buildings,
smelled of fish. Every meal seemed to be fish, as well, apart from the breakfast, which was porridge that tasted vaguely of fish.
Charlie, meanwhile, was staying at the Imperial Hotel, where apparently there was no room for me, in a room adjoining his brother’s.
The rest of the company was an agreeable enough assortment to knock around with. Jimmy Russell and Johnny Doyle were the main support for Syd as the Drunk, Russell the exasperated Master of Ceremonies, and Doyle in drag as the outraged Matron Aunt. There was Albert Darnley and Frank Melroyd, lovely Amy Minister, dotty Dolly Baker, Sara Dudley, solid old Ernie Stone, and the stalwart Karno couple George and Lillie Craig, who were usually to be found touring the country together. In fact they spent so much of the year in digs and hotels I’m not sure they even had a house of their own to go home to.
When I turned up at the grim grey granite theatre on the first morning for the get-in a sharp-looking young rake, who was, it seemed, also on the strength, introduced himself thusly: “Hallo, there. Chas. Sewell. Which is to say, Charles Sewell, but I go by Chas.”
“You’re not a Charlie, then?” I gagged, and his shoulders slumped a little.
“No, you see, that’s exactly it, I’ve just got fed up of being described as “a proper Charlie”, ha bloody ha ha, and what’s more, you know, there’s plenty of Charlies out there. Just look at the company for a start. There’s Charley Bell, Charlie Mason, Charlie Corrigan, Charlie Marshall…”
“And Charlie Chaplin,” I offered.
“Who?” Sewell replied blankly. Which I mention only because
it may have been the very last time in history that mention of that name elicited that response from a sentient human being.
Chas was a young chap, about my age probably, who was on his first Karno tour. We naturally began to knock around together, and also with Bert Darnley, who was an agreeably jovial sort of a type. He was maybe ten years older than me and Chas, and had been with Karno for years. He was still only a number four, but seemed to have no particular ambition to move up. Slow but steady, that was Bert. He’d certainly been around, had worked with (or near) all the greats and could name-drop for England.
Bert’s experience often came in handy. He showed us the best pubs, the best digs, the finest cheap eateries, and he seemed to be on friendly terms with every publican, waiter, landlady, novelty act, chorus girl, gymnast, manager and stagehand we ever came across.
Bert, Chas and I developed a particular fondness for Scottish beers, and began to follow the scheme for life laid out by the great coster singer Gus Elen in his ditty ’
Arf a Pint of Ale
.
For breakfast I never thinks of ’aving tea – I likes ’arf a pint of ale…
And so on through the day, with every meal supplemented by further ’arfs. It certainly struck a chord with me, especially later when my own favoured way to greet the day was with ’arf a bottle of Tennessee sipping bourbon, but we’ll come to that. All in good time.
From Aberdeen we moved on to Glasgow, where you could hardly help noticing that the audience largely comprised blokes with eyes out, or else fingers missing or parts of their ears gone. These were shipyard lads. Tough houses.
The most popular acts on the bill, wherever we went North of the border, were in the Harry Lauder vein. These would typically march about the stage in their kilts or their tartan trews, and troll
some ghastly laments about heather, and lassies, and things being “braw” or else “bricht”, and so on and so forth.
Syd had the bright idea of pandering to the locals by changing the normal bill-within-a-bill of
Mumming Birds
to include a Scottish vocalist reciting a comically impenetrable Scottish poem. This backfired somewhat, as once the heckling and horseplay began from our unruly cast of characters the audiences would shout out: “Let him finish, you English bastards!”
When I wasn’t out on the town with Bert and Chas, I used to like to walk and think. I couldn’t help fretting that I had missed my chance with Tilly, and that by the time I got back to London she’d have struck up a romance with some other lucky chap. Had she even got my scribbled note…?
One Glasgow afternoon, left to my own devices, I wandered into Pickard’s Museum. It was a gloriously barmy place to while away an hour or two, Pickard’s was. For a ha’penny you could hear a demonstration of the gramophone, for example, or you could put a penny in a ‘penny-winder’ and glimpse what the butler saw in thirty seconds of flickering naughtiness. You could marvel at the inexpertly stuffed walrus, done by a taxidermist who had never seen one of these creatures alive and so had smoothed out all its trademark wrinkles, making it look like a giant dirigible. Or you could stroll into the theatre – if you could call it that.
I stood at the back bar nursing ’arf a pint of seventy shilling, minding my own business, watching the entertainment, such as it was, when I heard a hushed voice close by.
“Mr Dandoe, isn’t it? Mr Arthur Dandoe?”
I turned, and there was a plumply pink-faced gentleman in his middle forties leaning on the bar beside me, decorated by a sheen of perspiration and a knowing smirk.
“You have the advantage of me, sir,” I said. It was an advantage he decided to hold onto a while longer.
“I greatly enjoyed your performance yester-evening,” the fellow said, and I acknowledged this by raising my glass an inch or so. “You’re quite the coming man, I hear.”
I regarded him curiously. He didn’t seem to be the usual sort of after-show hanger-on. He’d have bought me a drink by now, for one thing.
“That’s what you hear, is it?” I said.
“Oh yes, the estimable Mr Karno has his eye on you. And so do I. So do I.” He took a sip from a tumbler of whisky and raised an eyebrow enigmatically.
“Oh you do?” I said.
“A fine employer, I’ve no doubt, our Mr Karno,” the fellow went on. “But does he pay you what you are worth? This is the question you should be asking yourself, I think.”
“The question I’m asking myself,” I said, turning to look this smug chap full in the face, “is who the devil are you?”
He looked a little put out at this, as though naturally he was such a substantial figure in the world that I ought to have recognised him at once.
“Why…” he spluttered, fishing out a card from the pocket of his silk waistcoat. “I am Wal Pink, at your service, sir.”
Now then. I’d heard that name. This was none other than the celebrated King of the Water Rats himself. Insofar as the Guv’nor had a rival worthy of the name, this Pink was it. His sketch
Repairs
, a couple of years previously, had been a first tilt at Karno’s crown. Now, it seemed, Pink was back for another go.
“This is to give you fair and friendly warning,” Pink said.
“Myself and a cadre of fellow sketch writers and performers, all Water Rats of long standing, are planning to incorporate. We have the backing, and we have all had enough of Mr Karno ruling the roost, distorting the marketplace, making our lives impossible. It is our intention to bring him to his knees.”
I observed him frostily. “Really?” I said.
“Oh yes,” Pink went on, “and make no mistake, you are either with us or heading for Poverty Corner. We have already secured the signatures of many of your colleagues – no, I won’t disclose names – and when we are ready to put our plans into action their places will be secure.”
“I beg your pardon,” I said. “What
are
your plans exactly?”
Pink glanced around to make sure no one else was within earshot. “I will pay you twenty guineas on the date of your signature. In return you will agree to walk out on Karno and come to work for us – at an improved salary, mind – when you are signalled so to do, which will be when we are absolutely ready to proceed. Most, if not all, of your colleagues will do the same, I assure you, and it will thus prove utterly impossible for Karno to fulfil his many engagements. The New Wal Pink Company will step into the breach, thus supplanting him at a stroke and leaving his reputation in tatters. The so-called Fun Factory…” – here he became so excited that some spittle flew across the short space between us and landed on my bottom lip – “…will be finished!”
I looked at Wal Pink, his face flushed, a smug, sneery smirk on his sweaty chops, and I wanted nothing so much as to give him a hearty slap.
“I should be on my way,” I said, draining my glass.
“You need time to think, of course,” Pink nodded. “You have
my card. Step into my London office at any time and the arrangements can be made in a trice. Don’t be left behind, now!”
I was going to show my disdain by leaving then, but blow me if he didn’t jam his hat on his head and make for the exit a yard in front of me.
There was plenty to think about. Twenty guineas was not to be sniffed at, and I could well imagine many, if not all, of my colleagues biting his plump little hand off.
Could it really be that the end of the Fun Factory was nigh?
SCOTLAND
had its charms, undoubtedly, but we were all glad to hit the road – the iron road – back to good old England and a week in Blackburn at the Palace. We came down by railway train on the Sunday. Bert Darnley, Chas Sewell and I set up a card school, while Charlie gazed mournfully out of the window in one of his poetical moods, occasionally sighing: “Hetty…!”
As we rattled along the insidious cunning of Wal Pink’s scheme began to dawn on me. I looked over at Bert and Chas and found myself wondering whether the pennies they were laying down in wagers had come from Pink’s coffers. I couldn’t very well ask them if they’d signed up, though, could I, because what if they had? It was damnably cunning, the whole thing. Sad, in a way, too, I thought. The man had let his whole life be taken over by a rivalry – a rivalry, what’s more, in which he could hardly hope to come out on top. (I know, I
know
…)
Mid-afternoon time George Craig wandered down the train to sort out our accommodation for the week, and eased his big,
yellow-waistcoated belly into our compartment, wafting smoke theatrically from in front of his ruddy face. George ignored our moonstruck companion, as we knew he would – we all knew that Charlie would actually be rooming with Syd at a Grand or an Imperial somewhere, and there was no need to rub our noses in it. He thrust a note with an address on it at the other two lads, then looked over at me and said: “You’re with me and Lillie from now on.” He said it in a way that implied I knew why, as well, so I wondered if I was being punished for something. Perhaps he’d seen me talking to Wal Pink?
When he’d waddled off, Bert and Chas started ribbing me that management needed to keep a closer eye on me, ha ha, because of the demon drink, ha ha, but in truth I was no worse nor better than either of them were back then. And I was sure I’d be able to slip the leash, anyway, once we settled in, so I thought no more about it.
Once we arrived I traipsed off with George and Lillie, then, to these digs, where they, as respectable married folk, had quite a comfortable double bedroom. Across the landing, glory be, so did I, which was some compensation, I supposed, for being separated from the drinking party. There was already a trunk in there, set just inside the door, and I didn’t think anything of that.
The landlady, a jolly, buxom, pink-cheeked old stick, laid on some tea and cake downstairs, which I wolfed down, anxious to catch up with the other lads to see if Blackburn’s hostelries were open for business.
“Naah then,” our hostess said as I made my excuses and headed out. “She’ll not be best pleased if thee’re late back, think on!” She said it with a smile, though, and so I gave her and George
and Lillie a cheery wave and stepped out into the evening, pondering the local linguistic peculiarity of referring to oneself in the third person. Didn’t ponder it for all that long, though. There was drinking to do.
Near the theatre there were any number of welcoming establishments, in one of which I found my colleagues and spent an agreeable night off sampling the local ales. So agreeable, in fact, that I can’t remember too much about it. Come chucking-out time we all went our separate ways, they to their respective pits, I back to my unexpected and luxurious double room.
I tiptoed softly up the stairs, not wanting “She” to be not best pleased, got myself into the big bed and stretched out in all directions like a starfish, as you do. Then I curled up and dozed off.
After a little while, who knows how long, I was woken by a creak of the landing floorboards. The door handle turned slowly, and the door opened, allowing a small figure to slip into the room. I wasn’t too concerned – after all, this wasn’t a haunted house that I had agreed to spend one night in to win some sort of inheritance. My beer-fuddled brain reckoned that this must be the owner of the mystery trunk trying to get his pyjamas or a shaving kit or something without waking me. Then the figure closed the door to again, plunging the room into complete darkness. I reached for the candle and matches which were on the bedside table.
The match flared, the figure gasped, turned wide-eyed to stare at me, and I found myself staring back in astonishment. It was Tilly Beckett. We gaped at one another until the match burned down to my finger, then I lit another one and we began gaping all over again.
“What on earth are you doing here?” I said when I had recovered some of my wits. Only about half of them, though, or I would have kept my voice down.
“Oh, Arthur,” Tilly whispered, more pragmatically. “Such a silly thing has happened.”
She came over and perched on the edge of the bed next to me, making me acutely aware of the fact that I wasn’t fully clothed, and what’s more that I was really pleased to see her.
“I got your note,” she breathed. “Freddie brought it to me, and I was so disappointed, just then, at that moment, not to be seeing you the next day, when I’d been looking forward to it so much all week…”
This, as you can imagine, was music to my ears, as they say. The people who say such things. Poets and such.
“And Freddie’s such a sweetheart, and he was right there and asked me what was the matter, do you see, and he said he could swing it for me to come and be in the same show that you were going off to be in for three months without even saying
goodbye
or anything…!” (Here she slapped me crossly on the arm.) “Except he couldn’t fix anything until one of the girls was due to leave, at the end of last week, in Greenock, wasn’t it? And so I’ve been taken on, haven’t I? A featured artiste too. If the supers back at the Fun Factory get wind of it I shall be torn limb from limb! I came up from London this afternoon, and met up with the other girls this evening, Amy, Sara and Dolly. They seem very nice.”
“This is excellent news!” I said. “But listen, there’ll be merry hell to pay if they find you in my room. Where’s yours? I’ll help you with your trunk.”
Tilly gave me a sheepish grin. “That’s just it, you see. This
is
my room.”
“Your room?” I said, not especially quick on the uptake (blame the beer).
“
Our
room. Freddie… Oh, Freddie thinks we’re married, doesn’t he, because of that silly thing I made up to put him off, so we’re in married digs. I’d no idea until I got here. Oh, what are we going to do?”
We scratched our heads, tried to think what to do for the best, and in the end both of us felt the only sensible thing to do was to share the bed for the night – after all, there really was nowhere else for either of us to go – and try to clear the confusion up in the morning.
Tilly blew out the candle, and I lay there with my heart pounding and my mind racing, listening to the mysterious rustlings as she located and changed into her nightdress in the dark. Then the covers shifted, the bedsprings moaned and she slipped into the bed alongside me. A warm breath of her perfume wafted over me, and I clamped my mouth shut desperately, trying to make sure that she didn’t get a ghastly gust of Northern ale in return.
I lay on my back with my arms by my sides like a corpse in a coffin, and if I can give you a hint of how I was feeling without being too indelicate, let’s just say that if I had really been lying in a coffin there’s no way the undertaker would have been able to screw down the lid.
All may have been well, though – I mean, I wouldn’t have slept a wink, but nothing untoward would have occurred – except that after a minute or two her hair brushed my cheek and she whispered in my ear: “Aren’t you going to give me a kiss goodnight?”
And that kiss goodnight went on, and on, and on, until the morning, when we found we’d both arrived at the conclusion
that, well, if everyone thought we were married, then perhaps the simplest thing to do was to let them carry on thinking so.
It turned out to be the easiest thing in the world. George and Lillie greeted us at breakfast in the morning with that slightly prurient nudge and wink the older married couple likes to bestow on a younger, with a hint of: “We know what you were up to, we were young once!” mixed with the strange approval that goes with that for those who have validated their own life choices.
And at the theatre the rest of the company were charmed to meet Tilly, and were remarkably unsurprised that I would have kept her a secret. After all, why should they have known about her? What business was it of theirs? Bert had a wife and he barely ever spoke of her. He and Chas melodramatically lamented the loss of a drinking colleague, but both seemed thoroughly convinced that my excesses of the previous few weeks were now explained by my having been briefly off the leash.
The only one who seemed to give the matter even a second thought was Charlie. He had met Tilly, of course, at the Trocadero that time, when we hadn’t mentioned that we were married, and I had also failed to mention the ‘fact’ once on our long train journey North.
“Delighted to see you again …
Mrs Dandoe
,” he oozed, when we met at the theatre, managing to invest that slight pause before her name with more suspicion than seemed humanly possible.
“Tilly, please. Not so formal,” my ‘wife’ giggled as he took her hand and kissed it. “I still haven’t got used to it, have I, Arthur?”
I fancy I smirked rather at this, and Chaplin replied: “Well, and you must call me Charlie. Now tell me all about your wedding day, this one’s told us nothing at all!” And he hooked his arm in hers and led her away, the two of them chattering like a
pair of old biddies. Tilly was enjoying herself, improvising happily. I gathered we’d had a small affair, family only, nothing too extravagant, in a little village church in Essex, on a lovely sunny day.
It suddenly occurred to me that we might both need to have our story straight at some point, so I hovered nearby committing Tilly’s fantasy to memory as best I could. Charlie glanced over at me once or twice. I could see he was curious about something, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was.
Charlie and I had begun the
Mumming Birds
tour on an even footing, but Sydney Chaplin’s favouritism towards his younger brother was not to be confined to swinging him the swankiest digs, I discovered.
Our first forays into the comical mayhem of
Mumming Birds
were to be in the supporting roles of the Naughty Boy and the Magician. Charlie was ideally suited to playing the Boy, being slighter than me (slighter than almost everyone, actually), and it would mean that he would be onstage for the duration of the piece, so he snagged that part with his brother’s approval. Meanwhile I went to work on my portrayal of the hapless Prestidigitateur – one of the better parts to play in the show-within-a-show, actually, because although he was supposed to be bad, he was bad in a hammy sort of way which was good fun to do.
I even got to feel the Power in action. It seemed to enable me to convey that even though the act I was portraying was bad, I myself was competent, and funny, and in charge, and I revelled in that feeling of strength.
During our travels in Scotland I’d found that I was getting more and more of a response as the Magician, and was quite happy with the way things were going. Charlie was trying to catch the eye as the Boy, but the part really involved little more than going: “Yah! Boo!” and chucking fruit about the place. Once we got going at Blackburn, I noticed the Boy becoming more and more rowdy and vocal during the Magician’s act, almost as though he was trying to drown it out completely. I was so preoccupied and full of the joys of life, though, playing at husband-and-wife with Tilly, that I hardly minded.
