From a Jack to a King
From a Jack to a King by Bob Carlton
National Tour, 1997–8
BRITISH NOIR
From a Jack to a King is Bob Carlton’s affectionate homage to British film noir, an unfairly neglected genre which flourished in this country between the end of the fifties and the start of the sixties. Taking their cue from Hollywood’s film noir thrillers of the forties, the look they aimed for was a highly stylised and contrasty chiaroscuro of harsh light and deep shadow, a dramatic physical reflection of the often murky morality and ambitious motivations of the central characters.
They also tapped into the fact that a whole new generation of teenagers were just beginning to emerge with opinions and values of their own, and the ever-opportunistic film industry was quick to package up their icons in vehicles which pandered to their aspirations. What they had in common was a setting on the seamier side of life, courtesy of the late-fifties boom in the gritty-realist school of novel and film, while young hopefuls were cottoning on to the fact that the music industry just might be their way up and out of the gutter. The enemy were the manipulative sharks who were out to exploit them, in many cases not that many years older than the kids themselves, but infinitely more streetwise and hard-nosed.
The part of the villain was invariably taken by an imported B-list American star to add a touch of transatlantic glamour to the proceedings. In Idle on Parade (1959) it was William Bendix, overseeing Anthony Newley’s fumbling early days in the army at a time when conscription was still the lot of all able- (and evidently not-so-able-) bodied young men. Val Guest’s Expresso Bongo that same year teamed the up-and-coming Cliff Richard, as pop sensation Bongo Herbert, with Laurence Harvey as his unscrupulous agent (Harvey had enough Hollywood tinsel on him to pass for American), while Beat Girl the following year featured several new stars who would go on to greater things, including Adam Faith, Peter McEnery and Shirley Anne Field, with a soundtrack provided by James-Bond-composer-in-waiting, John Barry. A big-screen version of Jack Good’s Six-Five Special brought Dickie Valentine, Jim Dale, Joan Regan and The Frantic Five clickin’ over the points, while elsewhere the likes of Tommy Steele, Terry Dene and Frankie Vaughan were making the cross-over from concert hall to cinema, bringing their fans with them, no doubt much to the horror of many a staid house manager.
For the new director, too, it was a time of opportunity. Karel Reisz directed Saturday Night and Sunday Morning from Alan Sillitoe’s novel, and Jack Clayton performed a similar service for John Braine’s Room at the Top. Tony Richardson made the film adaptation of John Osborne’s mould-breaking play Look Back in Anger, while Richard Lester was just a few years away from inventing the pop video with a little help from a certain Fab Four.
Yet by the time the sixties really got into their swing, the heyday of the teen movie was already in the past. The coffee bars would soon give way to discos, the bands would find they could make their own success without the grudging help of the movie industry, and the fad died as quickly as it arose. But at the dawn of the decade it was all still to play for, and for a few brief years The Kids Were All Right… before they became All Important.
FAREWELL, MY TRENCH COAT
A Macduff Mystery
The radio had just finished telling me more than I needed to know about the state of the economy when I decided to take a stroll down the block to take care of some unfinished domestic business. The state of my economy was nothing to write home about either. But that’s what you get for being a straight guy in a bent world.
The Wile-U-Wait Laun-Dro-Matte on the corner of Frith and Shaftesbury had been handling my threads for years. The proprietress, Big Ella, knew more about what went on inside my pants than my ex-wife, a proctologist. But today it wasn’t Big Ella lurking the other side of the counter.
“Can I help you?”
She had class written all over her, and all over her was what I was looking at.
“Where’s Big Ella?”
“On holiday. I’m filling in. So what’s on your mind, big boy?”
She was leaning over that worktop in a way that made me jealous, for the first time in my life, of a piece of Formica.
“Maybe we could get into that later,” I said. “For now you might take a look at this.”
I unfolded my pride and joy and laid it on the counter. She sniffed slightly and scratched at one of the beer stains with a fingernail as sharp and sleek as a bullet.
“How long you had this gaberdine?” she asked, like she wasn’t really interested.
“Trench coat,” I rasped.
“You a dick?” she asked, giving me one of those slow up-from-unders with a pair of baby blues that would have made the Pope think twice about his career choice.
“Only on my own time, sugar. How long?”
“Come back in an hour,” she said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Back on the street it took me no more than five minutes’ hyperventilating to get my pulse rate back to normal. But it wasn’t just the way she’d been spreading her halter neck all over that work surface that bothered me. On a hunch I slipped into the flat next door. Big Ella had lent me her key years back in case of emergencies, but I’d never been that desperate. Until now, that is.
A muffled thud sounded to the left of me as I entered the hall. Springing sideways I brought my left leg up and smashed the bolt off the broom cupboard with a single kick. The door sagged open and a body flopped face-forward onto the lino. It was Big Ella, out cold and trussed like an oven-ready sack of potatoes.
In a flash it all fell into place. I hurtled back down the stairs and round to the alley behind the shop. I was just in time. Baby Blues was just stacking the last of the suits into a van, a canvas bag with the week’s takings stuffed into her back pocket.
“Hold it, sister,” I rasped. “Get against the wall and spread ’em.”
She was fazed, but only for a second. “Why, big boy,” she cooed. “I didn’t know you cared.”
I wasn’t going to let her soft-soap me.
“It’s the oldest scam in the book,” I told her, frisking her as slowly as I knew how. “You dump the proprietor somewhere out back while you sweet-talk the customers, then when the coast’s clear you make off with the contents of the till and a haul of second-hand duds.”
“They’re only clothes.” She was good, but not good enough.
“Some of us have to work damn hard to pay our cleaning bills.”
“How did you get on to me?” she asked pathetically.
“Two things. One, no professional laundry operative has nails that long. They could snag the material or, worse, cause a tear that would be unsightly to look at and even more costly to mend.”
“You seem to know a lot about it,” she said bitterly.
“I’m a professional,” I said. “In this business you got to know your stuff.”
“What was my other mistake?”
“You told me to come back in an hour for the gaberdine. If you’d taken the trouble to read the sign on the door you’d have realised Big Ella’s is a while-you-wait joint. The game’s up, sister. Let’s go.”
“You think you’re so clever,” she said. In an instant she had a knife in one hand and my mac in the other. Before I could stop her she’d hacked the sleeves, slashed the skirts, and she was just getting going on the button-down shoulder guard with tartan backing when I got to her with the right cross. She was still lying there in a pool of perfume and blonde hair when the cops arrived.
But it was too late for my favourite slicker. That’s why I’ve had to go into my last three cases wrapped up in a navy M&S windcheater with elastic cuffs and not even a big collar to pull up round my ears. I guess that’s why I’m hitting the sauce so much these days too. Not that it helps.
In this business you can’t afford to get too attached to anything.
MYSTIC REG
Each month our very own psychic Mystic Reg plunges into the sun-conscious world of the stars and comes up with some surprising insights into their characters. This month’s celebrity dream is supplied by that new rock’n’roll singing sensation Eric Glamis, or Thane Cawdor as he is now called.
Eric’s Dream
I’m at the bottom of a deep, dark pit with no way out. There’s thunder and lightning going on all the time which turns into the sound of throbbing drums. Some guy comes towards me wearing a crown and blue suede shoes., He’s got greasy hair and an awful sneer on his face. Then in a blinding flash of light I’m outside in the sun, hacking down a huge tree with an axe. Suddenly the axe turns into a spanner covered in oil and blood. The tree falls with a terrible crash, and it sends me spinning round and round with lights in front of my eyes as if I’m on a glittering revolve on a stage. Then the ghost of the greasy-haired king appears dripping blood from every orifice accompanied by some smarmy grinning fool in a shiny suit. I close my eyes and see a beautiful girl in a stripy top and a crown walking about washing her hands. Then I’m floating above the ground, feeling really cool and mellow, looking down at a bunch of flowers in the rain. Suddenly I’m attacked by a flying pig. I crash to the ground, landing back in the deep dark pit, and this time I can see that the walls are made of stone, and they stretch so far up into the sky there’s no way out. But at least I’ve got some other guys with me this time and we all join in having a party. Then they strap me into an electric chair and just before they can pull the switch, I wake up.
Mystic Reg says:
This dream reveals Eric Glamis to be a deeply kind and caring soul, blessed with all the good things in life. Dreams often talk to us in symbols, and in this dream the thunder and lightning motif obviously stands for the sunlight and warmth that flood from Eric’s heart, giving joy to everyone he meets. Above all he generous, thoughtful, unselfish, and would bend over backwards to avoid hurting another human being.
The deep dark pit with which the dream opens is actually a negative inversion of the clear windy mountain top from which Eric can expect to launch himself off to achieve his destiny. The man wearing the crown clearly represents his father, and the fact that he reappears to Eric later in the dream, dripping gore, indicates that he is asking Eric’s forgiveness for some past misdemeanour. Perhaps he prevented Eric from becoming a mechanic (the spanner covered in oil and blood)? Certainly the image of the falling tree immediately followed by the glittering lights of a stage indicates that Eric has shrugged off the dead wood of his earlier years and has achieved fame in showbusiness – the smarmy grinning fool in a shiny suit is a common sight in those circles, I understand.
The beautiful girl in the stripy top is a sign of danger. Significantly she is wearing a crown (that symbol again!) and this is in fact the dream’s punning way of referring to either a monarch butterfly, or perhaps a queen bee, who may sting Eric if he gets too close. Similarly, the fact that he is later sent crashing to the ground by a flying pig suggests that for Eric the skies are a dangerous place, so he would be well advised to keep his feet firmly on the ground and steer clear of all winged creatures for the foreseeable future!
Ultimately, this is clearly a very hopeful and happy dream, full of joy and good things to come. Although Eric apparently ends up in the same deep dark pit from which he started, as we have already indicated this is in fact merely a metaphor for the pinnacle of success, and certainly by the end of the dream he is surrounded by lots of men (undoubtedly big stars like himself and their bodyguards) with whom he is obviously having a gay old time. Add to this that along the way he has enjoyed some healthy exercise chopping down a tree in the sun, that he has had plenty of rest, symbolised by floating high over a field of rain-washed flowers, and that at the very end of the dream he wakes up before he can be executed, one way and another all the signs are positive. I can think of no reason at all why Eric should not look forward to a fulfilling future with excitement and confidence. This is, in fact, one of the sweetest and most optimistic dreams I have ever had to interpret. (Such a relief after Shirley Temple’s loathsome and disgusting farrago of kinky fantasies last time…)
Next month: Actor Ronald Reagan dreams about becoming President of the United States. (And if you believe that, you’ll believe anything!)
QUEENIE’S BEAUTY TIPS
We asked fashion icon Queenie how she gets to look as good as she does, and this is what she said.
Two words: balls and spunk. That’s what it takes to look as good as this, and I’m not going to pretend I haven’t had to make sacrifices. But if you can’t spoil yourself, why should anybody else?
Take eyes. As the poet said, the eyes are the windows of the soul. I would add that they are also the doorway to the heart, they skylight to the feelings and the back passage to the emotions. Don’t pussyfoot around with mascara or eyeliner. Go straight in with the Johnson’s boot polish and a J cloth. The eyes are the thighs of the face, as my dear departed old mother used to say, and she knew what she as talking about, even if the rest of us didn’t.
And speaking of thighs, there are just three things to remember. Fishnet, fishnet, fishnet. Size of mesh is up to you, only avoid anything that’s going to make your hams look like a bag of onions, and remember always to take them off before you depilate. I shudder to think of the number of razors I short-circuited in my younger days by forgetting this simple basic rule.
Bottoms aren’t half as important as tops, so take a bit of time here. Tops should be as bold and brassy as you can make them. When I walk in a room I want to know it’s my tops the guys won’t be able to get out of their heads, and the more attention they get, the better I like it. Don’t be shy. Let it all hang out. And if it doesn’t, then choose a style that will make it look like it might at any moment. Nothing is more exciting for a man than thwarted anticipation.
As for the rest of the ensemble, keep the accessories flash but not vulgar. Cheap and gaudy is always better than discreet and expensive. Colour of lips should match the colour of the nails (hands and feet, you never know who’s going to see them), and hair should always be kept scrupulously clean: there’s nothing worse than trying to rub half a tub of gel into a greasy barnet, and who’s got the time anyway?
So, girls, the bottom line is this. If you’ve got it, flaunt it. If you haven’t got it, flaunt something else. And above all, if people think you look cheap, that’s their problem, not yours!
TERRY KING TALKS SPANNERS
Motorbike enthusiast Terry King knows that when it comes to maintenance, a boy’s best friend is his spanner. Here he tells you all about the contents of his toolbox.
When you’re servicing your bike, I always say you can’t have too many spanners. They’re the key to tip-top performance, and whether the beast between your legs is a Kawasaki, a Suzuki, a Harley-Davidson or simply a good old British BSA, or even an Italian Ducati or an Egyptian Scarab, or what’s that little one the South Koreans make, sounds like a hornet, oh what’s it called, name’s on the top of my, never mind, then nothing gives you more confidence on the motorway than knowing you’ve properly greased up the nipples and serviced the little beauty with the right twelve-inch tool!
I’ve been collecting spanners now for years, since I was a kid. In fact, the first spanner I ever came across was lying in the gutter outside some backstreet garage off the Mile End Road. Sure, it was battered and bent and covered in oil, but there was something about it even then, a kind of nobility, that spoke to my deepest soul. So I nicked it. And do you know, from that day to this, I’ve never got round to cleaning the crap off! Still, I wouldn’t be without it.
Spanners come in all shapes and sizes, from your basic Max Baxter 4-inch nut buster to the 12-pound 20-inch adjustable combined monkey wrench and crowbar from Krupps, but each has a specific function to perform. Some can do several. Whenever I’ve got my shirt off for a good old sweatfest labouring in the shadow of my baby’s twin exhausts, I’ve often found the most versatile tool to be my Baskerville double-ended screwmaster and gasket-clamper, a must for all those fiddlier jobs in and around the carburettor. But you need to develop a feel for what’s right in this game, you can’t just go steaming in with any old rubbish. In fact, a bike is like a woman. Loosen her tappets and get them fouled up on the wrong thread or, worse, drop a galvanised copper bolt down her air intake and forget to fish it out again with a bent wire coat hanger and you’ll never hear the last of it, believe me!
Remember the basic rule of motorcycle maintenance: always use the correct appliance for the job. I still have nightmares over the time I mistakenly took a bivalve Interlaken pin doctor to a faulty splencher gubbins, when what I should have used was a duo-cast multi-drop cross-headed jack blaster with fitted torque converter and in-built embossed silhouette of Jayne Mansfield. It was my own fault, I was trying to rush the job, but boy did I live to regret it! And I’ve never got the stain out of those leathers!!
So take a tip from me, be kind to your spanners. You look after them, they’ll look after you. They may not look much, but they can make all the difference between being king of the road and just another schmuck in an anorak scuffing along the sidewalk!
And I know which I’d rather be!!
LAURA’S DIARY
Monday 12th
Today I made a momentous decision! No more Mister Nice Girl! I’m sick of everyone treating me like a doormat, telling me they love me with their dying breaths and so on. What good is that to a healthy, normal person? I want a bit of action before they fall off their motorbikes. To prove how serious I am I’m turning over a new leaf. When I got up this morning I sat around in my jimjams for nearly an hour before getting dressed. You should have seen Mr Boofum’s face! But he’s only a teddy bear and I’m a grown-up, so sucks to him.
Tuesday 13th
Met some of the other girls down at the candy store and hung out with them for a while, discussing boys. Didn’t understand a word. I had two big milk shakes and didn’t wipe my lips once! Later we all went bowling and I flirted with a very nice boy in the next alley. I pretended to be always on the point of taking off my duffel coat and so on. I agreed to go out with him later in the week. He promised to teach me some French too. At least, I think that’s what he said, I couldn’t be sure because all the other girls were making “Oo get her” noises behind me.
Wednesday 14th
I was supposed to visit my aunt today but I didn’t. I phoned up and said I was ill You should have heard me! I was awful! I kept pretending to cough and the handkerchief nearly slipped off the receiver on more than one occasion! Gosh, that would have torn it! But I had more important things to do than go over and see a boring old aunt. I went into town and tried on make-up I had no intention of buying and ate a hamburger (well, half a hamburger) and nearly managed to sneak onto the bus without paying! And it’s not as if I won’t make it up to her. I’ll go and see her twice at Easter or something. And I sent her a big bunch of flowers to make up, and I always see her on her birthday, without fail, so its not as if I’m neglecting her or anything is it? And I did phone her up later on to tell her I was much better and promised I would visit her very soon. And then she tried to make me feel guilty by saying there was really no need and she appreciated that I must have loads of other more interesting things to do than visit her and I wasn’t to worry myself and I was to go out and have some fun at my age! Honestly! And I gave her that sauce boat for Christmas!
Thursday 15th
Went to see auntie.
Friday 16th
The Big Day! My date with Dave from the bowling alley. I wonder if he’ll bring me flowers and a small present of a fluffy animal or chocolates or something? I expect he’ll take me somewhere nice and romantic to eat, somewhere the waiters all wear little aprons with flowers on the table and fingerbowls. There might even be a band playing discreetly in one corner and a small dance floor where we can shuffle around rubbing knees. Alone in a crowd, as it were! And then afterwards we might go on to see a movie, something with Doris Day and Rock Hudson, or James Garner, or Audrey Hepburn or someone. And we might giggle and throw popcorn at each other until an irate manager throws us out for disturbing the other customers and we’ll be able to run down the road I the dark laughing at our own wickedness! And then I expect we’ll stroll along the river hand in hand beneath the stars, swapping our most intimate secrets like our middle names and our favourite colours and desserts. And finally he’ll probably see me home and stand silently on the threshold as I slip back into the house, quietly closing the door on his handsome, sincere smile. I’ve never done any of that before! I can’t wait!
Saturday 17th
Men are disgusting.
Sunday 18th
Have decided to go back to being nice. It’s cleaner. And Mr Boofum is happier too.
WITCHES’ BREW
Hungry for a hit? Here The Witches tell you how to cook up a tasty recipe from the leftover bits and pieces you might find lying round any old studio.
First Witch
Round about the waste bins go;
In the spoiled off-cuts throw.
Roadie who, beneath the chair
Days and nights hath slumbered there,
Leave him to his stinking cot
But nick thou first his charmèd pot.
All
Bubble, bubble. Oil and stubble.
Tape decks turn. Let’s make some trouble.
Second Witch
First a pinch of Elvis take.
Add some hippy hippy shake.
Eye of Dusty, Haley’s quiff.
Hair of Dolly, tongue of Cliff.
Buddy’s trousers, creased like blades.
Cochran’s shirts and Charles’s shades.
Next, to give it Brit appeal,
Add a touch of Tommy Steele.
Frankie Vaughan will give it kick,
Johnny Leyton turns it thick.
Now you’ve got the thing good-looking,
See that sound mix get to cooking.
All
Bubble, bubble. Oil and stubble.
Tape decks turn. Let’s make some trouble.
Third Witch
Now we want a touch of blues –
Scrape it off my blue suede shoes.
Next a hint of harmonies
Borrowed from the Everlys.
Make a riff of deepest bass.
Lay a drum track in its place.
Then a snatch of Jerry Lee,
One and one and one makes three.
Smash that keyboard, thrash that axe,
Fill in what the music lacks!
Now it’s time to improvise:
Make the volume start to rise.
Reverb, re-dub, make it wail
Till the speakers quake and quail.
When you’ve got it right at last,
Give the volume one more blast!
When it’s right and sounds sublime –
Then re-mix it one more time!
All
Bubble, bubble. Oil and stubble.
Tape decks turn. Let’s make some trouble.
Hecate
(entering)
Cool it, man, the mix is good.
Big time! Next stop – St John’s Wood!
THE CURSE OF MACBETH
Macbeth is every actor’s favourite bête noire. To quote from it or use any sets, props or costumes from a previous production is deemed a heinous sin. The play is never referred to by name inside the profession, only by a series of euphemisms – “that play”, “the Scottish play”, or simply “the unmentionable”.
Walking Shadows
Some think it’s all to do with the witches. There is a theory that many of their best lines are taken from authentic spells and incantations as used in the black mass, and representing the evil goddess herself, Hecate, on stage is surely asking for trouble.
Another tradition states that the hex comes from the days of the old touring companies. Macbeth was always a money-spinner put in the sticks because its blood-and-thunder plot was so accessible to less sophisticated audiences. If a new play was found to be going badly, the company would switch to a Macbeth, so to quote from it at the start of a run was seen to be tempting fate.
The history of disaster started at its premiere on 7 August 1606, when Hal Berridge, the boy actor playing Lady Macbeth, dropped dead during the performance. He may have been the first to keel over in harness, but he has certainly not been the last. On the other hand, perhaps, it is not so surprising that the text has tended to cut a swathe through Thespis’s finest. After all, the part of the thane was traditionally a favourite bravura part for actor-managers of the old school, many of whom were often approaching retirement age – from the wrong direction. And it is a taxing part, requiring a lot of effort and shouting, then there’s the make-up and the kilt, and the sword fights, and that crown can weigh a ton… It’s a wonder anyone gets through it, all things considered.
Unruly Nights
The role has also been a graveyard for otherwise reputable actors. Ralph Richardson donned a wig of startling red hair at Stratford in 1952, and made such a poor fist of the part that he later used the experience to extort money out of another actor: “If you don’t give me £5 I’ll have it put about that you were in my Macbeth.”
In 1980 Peter O’Toole’s wonderfully over-the-top grand guignol version united the critics in condemnation like few other productions had. So unintentionally hilarious was the ‘Harry Lauder show’ (as it became known) that it had eager audiences queueing around the block in every town it visited. One night, as Macbeth staggered out of Duncan’s chamber, his hands dripping gore, an ambulance, with perfect timing, suddenly roared past in the road outside, siren blaring.
Almost as many actors have spilt real blood as fake. A Banquo on Broadway nearly had his ear sliced off by the Third Murderer (“He’s too keen that chap”), and in Manchester an actress in a completely different play deliberately spoke a few lines from the banned text in order to prove her total disdain for such a puerile superstition. That night she tripped on stage shattering a wine bottle and had to be rushed to hospital to have three of her fingers sewn back on.
Sound and Fury
Meanwhile, in another branch of the media, the malign influence of Shakespeare’s darkest play has even extended to the TV studios. One producer refused to have the thing mentioned in his hearing, and earnestly continued to put out the show All Our Yesterdays for several problem-free months until someone spitefully reminded him of the source of that title: “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time, and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death…” It comes from Act V, scene 5 of Macbeth.
PS
As far as I can remember – and assembling, Poirot-like, what internal evidence I can glean from the pieces themselves – I deduce that this must have been some kind of musical adaptation of Macbeth set in the fifties with a kind of a film noir vibe. Never saw it of course – nope, not in a single one of the seventeen venues listed on the back of the glossy commemorative programme, with more to come in 1998.
I do know we weren’t given a lot of time to put this one together. I seem to remember Mick the Proscenium production manager and I sat down for five minutes to sketch out the approaches, and since I had no time to refine anything, first thoughts had to be best. I was just happy to have a chance to do something fun and unbuttoned, rather than yet another closely researched snore-fest about the author’s life or something tangentially related to the production. Here was my chance at last to give full rein to my first love, pastiche.
The characterisations must have been based on thumbnail sketches supplied by the production itself: Mystic Reg recalls Mystic Meg, the astrologer who had only recently come to prominence on TV with the launch of the new national Lottery; Farewell, My Trench Coat owes a huge debt to two of my favourite comedy writers – Woody Allen and his short story The Whore of Mensa, and Alan Coren, the brilliant editor of Punch, whose Farewell, My Brownie takes the form of a hard-boiled thriller written from the POV of a Boy Scout; and Terry King Talks Spanners was evidently an attempt to be as crude and suggestive as possible while remaining appropriate to a general audience. (I don’t know about you, but the terms splencher and gubbins were used as euphemisms in our house for the front and back bottoms respectively.)
The sweet and virginal Laura is a bit of a mystery. Sounds to me like she was dumped in there from a different kind of production altogether simply so someone could get to sing ‘Tell Laura I Love Her’; certainly the only female character left in the Macbeth cast list are Lady Macduff and Lady Macbeth’s attendant. (Quiz question – what was the real name of the historical Macbeth’s wife? Answer: Gruoch. And your guess is as good as mine as to how you’re supposed to pronounce it.)
Incidentally, this and The Rocky Horror Show sound like probably the last musicals I would ever want to stir out of the house to go and see in the theatre, as pale imitation fifties-style rock ’n’ roll is way down there on my list of unfavourites along with Country & Western, soul, and punk, the worst of these, by a country mile, being punk.