Cast in the play ‘Between Mouthfuls’ including Pat Yesin.
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Early in 2019, we started planning another evening of one act plays and this was very exciting as Jess and Richard Moore had written one themselves, The Complaint, set in an old people’s home. Keith Lambert wanted to direct Between the Mouthfuls, which the players had done before, a comic piece concerning two couples out to dinner at a posh restaurant. And Suzie was keen to experiment with improvisation, where the actors would begin a play and then ask the audience for suggestions as to how it should continue. The result was Whiz.
Kym Dyer, Steve Allen and Susi Izzard in ‘Whiz -improvisation’ 2019
Cast in the play ‘Between Mouthfulls’ 2019
After the initial read through, Jess and Richard cast me as Vera, a rather bossy resident of the old people’s home, constantly complaining about everything. Linda Wilmot was the long-suffering manager of the home, doing her best to keep everybody happy and harmonious. We performed these in the Community Centre using very minimal staging in March. As before, though, I didn’t get to see much of the other plays. The Complaint was on first and we didn’t hang about once we were finished! Straight to the pub, usually.
Once this was out of the way, we were able to concentrate on our major production for the year, The Order of Love. This was a retelling of Mozart’s The Magic Flute set in a dystopian future where civilisation was falling apart and could only be saved by the power of love. It was written by Richard Lamming and John Bessant with a full musical score. We had a memorable session up at Humber Farm when they explained the concept and their plans for staging this very challenging and ambitious piece of musical theatre. Some of us were mystified by the plot but all of us were very excited to be part of the project. John Patton would direct the actors while Richard would work on the musical direction, which included recruiting a sizeable band.
Poster foar Bishopsteignton Players play ‘The Order of Love’
Bishopsteignton Players Play ‘Order of Love’
Having originally been cast as part of the chorus of Elders, John Patton later asked me to be one of the Whims, strange characters who appeared from time to time to encourage the hero and keep him on track. Liz Allen would be the other Whim, a bit like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. We had a special very catchy theme tune that played whenever we were about to appear, and we worked out a routine of robotic movements and used high pitched child-like voices. The whole cast rehearsed for months sometimes at Humber Farm sometimes at the Cockhaven and sometimes at the Methodist Church. At each rehearsal, the script would have been further cut to make it more manageable. Simultaneously, the band expanded to include trombonists and saxophonists. Peter and Marilyn worked their magic on our set and props while Yvonne and Linda created amazing costumes for us.
Tweedledum and Tweedledee in the Play ‘Order of Love’
Cast in the Play ‘Order of Love’ 2019
We performed the show at Humber Farm in October 2019 and it went well although space backstage was limited and our changing room was the disabled toilet, a shared space with audience members during the interval. Special effects were stunning. At the end, the hero and heroine, bravely descend into the unknown with swirling lights and smoke. At the dress rehearsal, the smoke machine worked so well that the smoke billowed out into the hall, setting off the smoke alarm. The cast emerged coughing and spluttering to hear John and Richard’s performance notes amidst the smoke-laden gloom.
Tom Churchward and Mabel Smith in the Play ‘Order of Love’ 2019
Bishopsteignton Players Play ‘The Order of Love’ 2019
Audiences enjoyed it, though many found the storyline baffling. There were some terrific performances from Tom Churchward and Mabel Smith as well as Becks Jones and Roger Gallagher. Mabel and Becky Gallagher stole the show with their enchanting duet. And Steve Allen’s lecherous villain will stay long in the memory. It was certainly an amazing experience for all of us.
Bishopsteignton Players Play ‘Mummers’ 2020
A Bishopsteignton tradition was the annual mummers’ play, often performed outdoors or inside the pub if wet. I’d seen them several times, but the tradition seemed to have fallen into disuse. However, a group of us from the Players resolved to revive the tradition. One blustery evening in mid-December therefore, Liz Mac came over to my house and between us we rewrote the Apple Play, adding some new apple varieties such as American Mother and including references to chlorinated chicken with a Yankee Fowl. A few days later, we met again with the other Players to incorporate their suggestions and we finalised the script and ran it past Becky, Mabel and Imogen, Mabel’s sister, who all liked it. We had our first rehearsal at Derek Greatorex’s on 30th December. And we actually performed it on 4th January as part of the village wassailing festivities. A group of Morris Men performed at the Old Commercial and then we wassailed, pouring ale over the roots of the pear tree in the car park. Afterwards, we all walked down to the Ring of Bells to perform our Apple play. The pub was packed and the audience unruly – could they have been drinking? – and James Day arrived in full panto dame regalia to be our MC. It was a great success anyway.
Programme for the Mummers’ Play -Bishopsteignton Apple Play
Bishopsteignton Players Play ‘Mummers’ 2020
2020
Of course, we were unaware then that our lives were about to be changed forever by the world-wide coronavirus pandemic which struck in 2020. The government announced the lockdown in March 2020 which meant that we were all confined to our homes, only to go out for half an hour a day, and not to meet up with anyone or stand closer than 2 metres from anybody else. Everything shut down – no schools, no pubs, no restaurants, no travelling. Only 10 people at a time allowed in the supermarket, the rest queueing outside. It was exciting at first – remember clapping for the NHS? But we were all beginning to go stir crazy. Then John Patton suggested setting up a zoom group to read plays. This was a lifeline. We read The Hound of the Baskervilles, ‘a wonderfully barking spoof’ based on Conan Doyle’s long story adapted by Steven Canny and John Nicholson and started to think about how we could perform this once the lockdown was over.
Poster to advertise the play ‘Hound of the Baskervilles’ performed by Bishopsteignton Players in 2020.
Pat Yesin in the play ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ 2020
It was lovely to be in touch with all the old friends again. I had been cast as the villainous butterfly collector, Dr Stapleton and John Patton originally saw this as a female role. But I increasingly thought it made more sense if I played it as a man. And John agreed. I did some more thinking about Stapleton; in the Sherlock Holmes story it says he grew up in Brazil so I thought it might be fun to do a Brazilian accent. John agreed to this too. So, I did some research. But in the end my Brazilian accent morphed into a kind of Latin American one, strongly influenced by Manuel from Fawlty Towers!
Steve, JOhn, Derek, Kym in the Play ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ 2020
John Bessant and Derek Greatorox in the Play ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ 2020
We all began to tire of merely reading the script through however, so it was a great relief when the government announced a slight relaxation of the rules so that we were able to meet in groups of six as long as this was outdoors. This meant we could meet up and hold proper rehearsals in John Bessant’s garden, six characters at a time. And we performed the show in the garden at Ciao Nan in August. We had to divide up the audience into cells of at most 6 people, we could not offer a bar or indeed distribute programmes and people had to be escorted to and from the loo. Backstage, strict distancing had to be observed too. But we were able to carry out three performances like this. I gave my character a handlebar moustache and wore a pith helmet and swished a butterfly net.
Audience during Covid Restrictions watching the play ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ 2020.
The weather was not kind however. The cast took to hanging umbrellas from the ropes holding the scenery flats in place. On the first night, we had a heavy shower during Act 1 where Dr Watson (John Bessant) and Sir Henry Baskerville (Steve Allen) had a play fight which involved rolling on the ground which was soaking wet while rain continued to fall. And in the denouement Dr Stapleton (me) had to sink into Grimpen mire which really was awash with several inches of rain! Some less stalwart members of the audience didn’t stay the course. We do expect a lot from our devoted supporters!
But we were lucky to do it when we did for days later lockdown was imposed again.
That year we also had a village festival, held a bit later than usual because of the coronavirus restrictions, and we were able to perform the play again for this. Unfortunately, neither Steve Allen nor Kym Dyer were able to reprise their roles as Baskerville and Cecile. But Tom Churchward and his lovely wife, Sasha, gamely agreed to take over their roles, and did so with great success. And during this production, I learned a very important thing; the efficacy of double-sided tape to keep my false moustache in place!
Cast in the Play ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ 2020
This article highlights Pat’s reminiscences from 2019- 2020
and will be continued in Part Six – starting in July 2021 performing Two for the Show, so watch out for the next article.
This article was assembled by Dawn Rogers and the Bishopsteignton Heritage Hub team.