After Eights

Oxford Playhouse, May 1976

THE AFTER EIGHTS REVUE 

presented by the Experimental Theatre Club

CAST

Rowan Atkinson

Sarah Blair

Richard Benjamin

Anne Briggs

Richard Curtis

Rose de Fable

Piers Fletcher

Matthew Milnes

Robin Seavill

Sue Taylor

Michael Wills

WRITTEN BY

John Albery, Rowan Atkinson, Kathy Bennett, Anne Briggs, Richard Curtis, Iain Moss, Robert Orchard, Andrew Rissik, Robin Seavill, Richard Warren

MUSICAL DIRECTOR

Nick Carr

DESIGNED BY

Simon Greenall, Alan Halliday

DIRECTED BY

Andrew Rissik

If I was better at lying or telling anecdotes I would claim that I was the man who introduced Richard Curtis to Rowan Atkinson. Unfortunately I can’t take the credit since I just happened to be in the same room at the time. It was an early script conference in University College under the auspices of Chemistry don John Albery, who used to write for That Was the Week That Was, and we were working on the Etceteras summer revue, After Eights, destined for the Oxford Playhouse.

I’d worked with Richard before, in the revue Allswellthatendsrock!, so I already knew how funny he could be, but you didn’t need much foresight – or indeed hindsight – to realise Rowan, too, was going to be a star, though few at the time could have predicted quite how world-conquering he would eventually become. All I know is he was instrumental in giving me fifteen minutes of fame I might not otherwise have had.

The first half of the show was meant to end with a gentle little dance number, called Clubmen’s Foot – five of us in big armchairs doing a series of synchronised leg and arm movements like an unconscious, improvised routine to the beat of a grandfather clock. It was meant to build to a lively climax when the cleaner suddenly leaps onto a table, does a few gyrations round her mop, and then strips off her pinny. And we all die of heart attacks or something.

Anyway, it wasn’t working. We couldn’t remember our moves, and it was all dreadfully tame and unfunny. So after a particularly dispiriting rehearsal one afternoon Rowan came up to me and said would I like to try something else which might be a bit more interesting. We didn’t know each other well but I imagine he thought the visuals would work because we were much the same height and build with similar hair. So over the next few days we put together this energetic duet to Free’s ‘All Right Now’ in his room in Queen’s overlooking Teddy Hall (his downstairs neighbour must have wondered what we were up to – unless he saw the show of course). Pansy’s People as we called ourselves, spoofing the dance group Pan’s People from Top of the Pops, got a good reaction from the producers and the rest of the cast, so Clubmen’s Foot was dumped and Pansy’s People is what we ended up using as the first-half closer.

In fact, so popular did the piece become that from the middle of the run, we had to start doing it as an encore at the end of the show. No one had warned me; Thursday night I think it was, after the bows, the cast suddenly all cleared off upstage, ‘All Right Now’ started up again, and Rowan had to stand there waiting for me until I’d worked out what was going on.

That was the night my family were in too. “Nobody told me about the encore,” I bleated afterwards, worried they might think I’d made myself look like a complete amateur. “That was obvious,” they said reassuringly. My mother, in particular, had been most astonished, as the last time she’d seen me, at Easter, I had been my usual dour and non-communicative self, all closed off and over-sensitive, then suddenly here I was jumping all over the stage like a performing flea. I wish I’d said something to warn her. But then again, it’s nice to surprise your folks occasionally, especially when you’re in the company of genius. And I’ve never been that fit since, though I can still remember the moves as if it were yesterday. All right now? Yes thanks. But better then.

(BTW, after the above review appeared in the local paper, Rowan apologised to me because the critic had referred to me as ‘Mr Atkinson’s partner in Pansies’ People’. I thought that was a nice gesture, and typical of the man, if completely unnecessary. Besides, I’ve been called – and spelt – a lot worse since…)

Sue T, RAS, Richard C, Piers F, Matthew M, Anne B, Rowan A

Matthew M, RAS, Richard C, Rowan A

(Look at those crossed arms. The only other thing I have in common with my favourite Beatle, Sir Paul McCartney – apart from the fact that we have both written songs – is that I am out of sync with my colleagues, just as he was out of step on the cover of the Abbey Road album. Second from the left, he too has his [bare] right foot forward, while the others lead with their left. What does it all mean? Pseudo-science might tell you right-arm folders are dominated by their left-hand brain, all feelings and emotions. Other sources suggest that the proportion of left-over-right folders is as high as seven in ten, right-handers being protective of their dominant hand. But I’m right-handed and those precious chord-strumming digits look safe enough to me. All I know is, judging by this hard-man stance, I’m definitely the one you wouldn’t want to mess with. But you would have been wrong then, and you’d be even wronger now.)

Yeah, 1976 was a good year