Many years ago, I worked as an actor and director at the Curtain Theatre, which is beside the City of London. Every year, I joined the cast of the Christmas show, which was presented to hundreds of London school children.
The first show was a baptism of fire. I discovered that I had to fly during the production. I had never flown before, so I was uneasy when approaching this part of the show. Luckily for me, the section of flying was fairly short and centred around an under-the-sea section. Flying in a theatre is done by a company called Flying by Foy, and sure enough, one day they bowled up with the harness. It was time to step in and lift off. It was every bit as troubling as I thought it would be. You could somersault in mid-air, but unless you were properly balanced, it would lurch to one side, and then you would be swinging.
I had to stand at the side of the stage so that while I was speaking, two lines would be secretly attached. Then I had to suddenly throw myself up in the air and dive into the “water” below. Of course, it was a typical stage floor about 10 feet beneath me with no water at all, along with plenty of lighting effects. When you are in the air, you can’t help the thoughts that crowd into your mind. Has he attached the lines properly? Is he going to drop the hoist? I got through it, but there was always a part of me that expected to come crashing down onto the floor.
I had another incident during the run. I travelled by Tube into London every day, and one day the train left the station and then stopped in the tunnel. And waited. At first, you think it won’t be long and we’ll be moving again. Not so on this morning – it waited for an hour and then crawled slowly into the next station.
I had to make a quick decision. I climbed the escalators, ran all the way back to the previous station and found my parked car. I was able to phone ahead as I drove into London while the theatre kept 400 excited schoolchildren in their seats. Eventually, I arrived and they found a place for my car. I dashed to the dressing room to grab my costume and made my way to the stage to start the first lines of the show. I could hear the chatter of the audience, and somehow, I got my breath back and made my way through it, including the flying sequence.
It taught me some valuable things – allow more time than you think, and perhaps never get in a flying harness again. And I’ve pretty well lived by that.
