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Mr Bugsby and the Coaling Jetty

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You could see the world from Greenwich Marsh.

Before 1800 most of Greenwich Marsh was let to commercial interests by corporate land owners. It had a management board – their earliest preserved minute books are from the 1630s – who employed a bailiff and staff.

Over on the west bank was a Government owned gunpowder depot, otherwise there was a few huts and barns. And that was it.

However lonely and isolated we might think the area was then – it was very directly in touch with the rest of the world in a way few other places could be. It is surrounded on three sides by the Thames where a constant procession of shops and barges made their way up to London, and down river, going about ever possible sort of business.

Right opposite is Blackwall – where numerous voyages began and ended – and where the Pilgrim Fathers left to kick start America.

Across the river was the Blackwall depot of the East India Company – and anyone standing near the future site of the coaling jetty in 1800 would have seen great East Indianmen – ships at anchor and the tideway.

We need a leap of imagination to understand what they were like – these vast hi tech vessels had gone out to plunder the world, and founded an empire. To the people in the lands to which they had travelled they must have seemed like something from another world and they brought the riches of the world back to the Thames.

All around were shipyards where great warships were built – along with commercial vessels of all sorts, large and small. To the observer from the site of the coaling jetty – Busgby’s Hole – all of it was an everyday site.

This is an extract froma new book called ‘Mr Bugsby and the Coaling Jetty’ by Dr Mary Mills. It is available from East Greenwich Pleasaunce cafe, the Pilot Inn, Greenwich Communication Centre and Greenwich Peninsula Ecology Centre.

Nick Raynsford: The effect of the CSR on housing

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Housing is an issue with which I have been closely involved for almost all my working life, in the course of which I have seen a number of ups and downs. But at no time in the past 4 decades can I recall a bleaker outlook for people looking for a new home or a solution to their housing problem.

We have just come through the most serious recession in my lifetime.  Housing inevitably was badly affected.  Private housebuilding in England fell from just over 150,000 new starts in 2007 to just 60,000 in 2009.  This clearly had a serious impact, but things would have been far worse had the then Labour Government not taken a series of bold measures to counter the downturn.  As a result of the fiscal stimulus and more specific policies targeted at the housing market, repossessions which had been forecast to rise to similar levels to those seen in the recession of the early 1990s peaked at half that level; and because of investment through the Homes and Communities Agency in schemes such as Kickstart, the National Affordable Housing programme and Homebuy Direct, social and affordable housing programmes were maintained and confidence began to return to the market.  In the early months of this year, housebuilders were reporting month on month improvements in house sales and in the output of new homes.  It appeared that we had turned the corner.

Then came the General Election and the formation of the coalition government.  Since then a series of ill-considered, uncoordinated, untested and frankly irresponsible policy announcements and cuts have destroyed the prospects of recovery, brought the housing market to the verge of a double-dip recession and spread alarm and concern around almost every sector of the community in need of better housing.

Confidence in the private housebuilding industry has been severely damaged over the past 5 months by ill-thought out changes to the planning regime, a continuing mortgage famine, fears about rising levels of unemployment, and severe cuts to the Homes and Communities Agency budget that had been supporting many new housing and regeneration schemes.

The Times reported last week (20th October) that Bellway, Britain’s sixth largest housebuilder had “delivered what one analyst described as an ‘unremittingly bleak’ assessment of the housing market”.

“The Newcastle-based company said that while it had enjoyed a strong spring selling season consumer confidence had ‘slowly ebbed away’ after the general election and subsequent media discussion of how the government planned to tackle Britain’s budget deficit.”

The Daily Telegraph also reported last week (22 October) the Bank of England warning that home prices are likely to remain static or decline in 2011 as home loans become harder to secure after the spending cuts.

“The warning (it commented) will add to growing fears about the fragility of the housing market after values dropped last month by the biggest monthly amount ever recorded”.

The Guardian also reported last week that:

“Britain’s struggling housebuilding industry is ‘bewildered’ by the Government plan to radically change the finances of council houses, as experts warn the measures could have ‘a devastating impact’ on the future supply of social housing’”.

Now one might expect that Ministers, confronted with such dire evidence of the negative impact their policies have had over the past 6 months would now be reconsidering some of their impetuous early decisions and their harsh cuts package.  One certainly might expect Liberal Democrat Ministers to be wondering why they have lashed themselves to the mast of a Tory ship which is heading directly onto the rocks, steered by a demented helmsman, while the captain appears blithely unaware of the immediate perils they face, fixing his gaze instead on some distant coastline and imaginary sunlit uplands.

However instead of changing course, Ministers continue to press ahead on their doomed journey, ignoring all the evidence of impending disaster, and pinning their hopes on the so called ‘Housing bonus’ incentive which is as about as unconvincing as the imagined sunlit uplands.

The scheme has been promised as the panacea for the housing market for the last 6 months or more.  In the summer, the Housing Minister promised anxious housebuilders that it would be launched before the summer recess.  Then we were told all would be revealed in the autumn.  Now we are promised a consultation in November.  Yet all the while, confidence is draining away from the housing market.

And there remain huge question marks over the scheme and how the supposed panacea will work.  Will it as originally claimed, apply to all new homes granted planning consent, or only to net additions to the housing stock?  If the latter how will that incentivise regeneration and brownfield developments where because of the need to demolish existing substandard dwellings, no net increase in the stock is likely for many years.

How many homes will the scheme generate – and how will this compare with the 160,000 homes for which plans have already been ditched since the general election, and the further 120,000 – 140,000 which could be lost in the coming year, according to the report from Tetlow King planning for the National Housing Federation?

And what will be the impact, in terms of cuts to local authorities, of funding the scheme?  Which authorities will gain and which lose?

Given all the questions and doubts that have been raised from all quarters about this scheme, why has it not been trialled or piloted, to test whether there is any realistic prospect of it delivering the benefits which the Minister for Housing constantly assures us it will bring?  How can the Government claim to believe in evidence-based policy-making, while having not a shred of empirical evidence to support the case for the Housing Bonus Incentive Scheme?

As if the damage caused by their harsh Housing Benefit Cuts and their maladroit destabilising of the housing market was not enough, this Government has also embarked, in clear breach of Conservative election pledges, on dismantling the whole basis of social housing in England.

Being able to enjoy security in one’s own home is an asset which almost all of us in this House take for granted.  So do the great majority of the population.  The old adage ‘An Englishman’s home is his castle’ reflects a deep-seated belief that a secure home is a bedrock of a decent society.  So why is it that Coalition politicians who take it for granted that they should enjoy the benefit of security, should so lightly – with no manifesto commitment or mention in the Coalition agreement – move to take away that precious security from a whole group of our fellow citizens, who arguably need security more than anyone?

The only credible argument advanced by those who advocate the policy is that it will ‘free up’ social housing, so making more homes available to those in need.  But any serious analysis of the Government’s proposals shows very clearly, first that it will not have this effect, quite the contrary it will discourage mobility, and second that if it did have the intended effect, this would have disastrous social consequences.  Let’s take them in turn.

If existing tenants are not to lose their security, but new lettings will be on a new basis, without traditional security of tenure and at 80% of market rents, what will be the consequence?  Obviously existing tenants who might have considered moving to a small home, so releasing larger accommodation to those in need, will have second thoughts if the result is a loss of security and a rent increase.  So the policy would have the opposite effect of that intended.

Worse still would be the consequence of using the new insecure tenancies to require tenants to move on if their income increased or if they were judged to have enjoyed sufficient time in social housing.  What chance is there of creating mixed and balanced communities rather than ghettos of deprivation, if anyone who gets on, is told they have to leave.  If only the poor and the unemployed can occupy social housing, this is a recipe for residualisation and a total disincentive to aspiration.

So the whole concept is flawed in principle, and it would have catastrophic effects in practice.  How would people on low incomes be able to cope with a near market rent for supposedly social housing.  In the SE10 postal district at the heart of my constituency, average market rents are estimated at £380 a week. 80% of that would involve a rent level of over £300 a week for a supposedly social letting. No one in low-paid work could consider such a tenancy, unless they were to have most of the costs met by Housing Benefit.  And if they did, I can already see the double whammy of some sanctimonious Minister calling for further Housing Benefit cuts or caps on the grounds that people on benefit should not be able to live in such expensive areas.

So who will occupy any homes that are built on this basis.  Some may go, perfectly properly, to people in what is often described as the ‘intermediate’ market.  One of the more encouraging trends in recent years has been the development of mixed tenure communities with opportunities for people to occupy housing on a range of different terms – social renting, intermediate renting, market renting, low cost home ownership and outright ownership.  The whole point of such diversity is to provide for a range of needs and people in different economic circumstances.  So it makes a lot of sense to provide intermediate renting solutions as part of mixed developments.  But it makes no sense to substitute intermediate rent for social renting options, available to those on low incomes.  If in Greenwich, where social rents for council and housing association tenancies are currently in the £80-£110 a week range, all new lettings involved their substitution by lettings at 80% of market rents, the poor would lose out, and even so the scheme would probably fail, because low cost home ownership would provide a more attractive proposition to those able to pay a rent in excess of £300 a week.

In its 5 months in office the Coalition Government has already has a disastrous impact on housing in this country. The recovery from recession has been stalled, housebuilding is in crisis, social housing is facing a death warrant, private renting is being undermined by Housing Benefit cuts, hundreds of thousands of tenants are fearful as to how they can continue to afford their rent, many many more are under the threat of having to move or facing the bleak prospect of homelessness.  It is difficult to think of a more inept and deplorable record in such a short period of time.  One can only hope that Ministers will come to their senses and recognize that this is no way to run housing policy.  Our country and our people deserve better.

Nathan Thompson and the wooden nutmeg

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In the 1860s the Thames ‘constituted the greatest shipbuilding area in the world’.  There were shipyards all up and down the river. However the Greenwich peninsula stands out being shipyard free until one manufacturer came there with a big idea.

As well as big ships there was always a need for the small craft that kept the whole system running with as many designs as purposes.  But this was someone who wanted to build boats, thousands of them, all the same. Boats had been made up and down the river for millennia – but never ones like this!

The National Company for Boat Building by Machinery had been set up by Nathan Thompson. He came from New York where Nathan had been a marine engineer. He said his system had taken him nineteen years to perfect and had been examined in New York by the United States Navy Department, He showed that it would take one man, working ten hours a day, eleven days and three hours to do it.  Within four years Thompson had come to England.

Thompson was the subject of an article by P. Barry in ‘Dockyard Economy and Naval Power’ who had visited Thompson’s works. He praised Thompson’s machinery as ‘practical  ….expeditious and economical’ but also drew to the manufacture of wooden nutmegs in New England. His English readers may not have known that in America Connecticut is known the ‘Nutmeg State’ and that a wooden nutmeg refers to a native of that state whose intentions are dishonest.

Thompson had a number of backers – chief of them Colonel Sykes, MP, Chairman of the East India Company. He produced a booklet consisting of letters of recommendation for his process which had been obtained following their visits to a demonstration works near Victoria Park in Old Ford, Hackney.  So the Company prospectus included references from an astonishing number of people including the Dukes of Cambridge and Sutherland and to an assortment of shipbuilders and industrialists. Whether any of them ordered any boats from him isn’t known.  The letters are however, like the boats, mainly identical to each other.

The idea was to produce a large number of identical small boats, made by a series of machines.  Thompson claimed that 25,000 new small boats were needed every year in Britain and he thought that he could supply a quarter of these.

Boats made to a system would be useful for all sorts of things.  Space was taken up by boats on the decks of ships – they could carry more if they could be quickly assembled and disassembled. Duplicate parts could be supplied and repairs thus done without any difficulty. Thompson’s boats, it was said, ‘go together like a bedstead’.  Landing craft could be stowed into a single transporter and then put together when time for the invasion arrived. Boats could also be packed up for overland journeys.

His system depended on a series of machines – fourteen in all and all steam driven.  The boats, which had to be all the same, moved through the system from one to another and were built up round a central ‘assembling form’ which, held everything together and in the right place.  It was however calculated that labour costs for each boat made would be less than a quarter than those made by conventional means. The cheapness of boats produced by this method would mean that new boats could be bought by fisherman and others without access to large amounts of capital.  Boats could be made very quickly – within hours of the order.

Once the company had been floated it was decided to set up the permanent factory in Greenwich and the site at Horseshoe Breach was leased from Morden College, Thompson set about making the Breach fit for shipbuilding by building a causeway and putting a boom across the bay itself.  They then faced the river wall with stone.  New buildings on site were to be proper brick built structures by agreement with Morden College.

Unfortunately they went out of business in their first year.

Philip Banbury, writing in the 1970s, pointed out that Thompson did not mention that all the boats had to be the same and that there was little hope of persuading customers to buy so many of a standard type .  Banbury estimated that boats needed on the Thames was ‘perhaps 300 of over a dozen types and sizes’. small boats were usually very specialist and had evolved for a wide range of tasks and conditions. Small local boatbuilders had marginal capital costs whereas Thompson’s machinery required a large investment.

I don’t know what happened to Thompson.  In his report to the US Navy Department he said that he had taken out patents in: the United States, England, France, Russia Belgium, Holland, Sweden, Denmark, Austria, Sardinia, Turkey and Spain.   Perhaps he went off and tried to make his system of boats pay somewhere else.  perhaps somewhere in the world he was successful and perhaps somewhere there is a memorial to him.  Perhaps, if he really was a ‘wooden nutmeg’ some of the capital he raised went with him and who knows what he did and where he went.

Some of the information used in this article came from Mystic Seaport Museum in Connecticut.  They wrote and said they were hurt at my description of the ‘wooden nutmeg’  – he was in fact they said ‘a snake oil merchant’.

Review: The Laramie Project, Greenwich Theatre

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‘The Laramie Project’ is the result of an imaginative collaboration between Wild Oats Productions and the Greenwich Theatre; it is a moving and challenging piece of drama. The play is a piece of ‘verbatim theatre’ that draws its script from eyewitness accounts of an actual event. This style of theatre can be effective and affecting, and so it proves on this occasion. The actors forensically dissect the circumstances around the brutal murder of Matthew Shepard, and in the process unpick the small town community of Laramie, Wyoming (population 26687), revealing frightening attitudes towards its gay community. The depth of the tragic subject matter might frighten a potential audience off, but the production has an engaging lightness of touch and a keen sense of the human comedy from which hope eventually emerges.

The eight members of the ensemble play an extraordinary range of characters, changing role from moment to moment, adopting elements of costume that become key to identifying their characters. Islamic feminists, pastors, bar tenders and doctors emerge from the narrative to give their take on the events before they fade into the background of the story. Director Joseph C. Walsh succeeds in organising the staging effectively, leaving the audience in no doubt as to where their focus should lie. He also uses theatrical trickery to great effect, pulling us into the story and making the connection between the actor and the audience more intense.

The play successfully relies on the talents of the actors’ characterisations to maintain the pace of the narrative. Throughout there is a tremendous sense of energy on stage and the actors’ commitment to telling Matthew Shepard’s story is apparent, so much so that it almost becomes a mission. It would be difficult not to be deeply moved by the speech that Francis Adams makes, in the role of Shepard’s father, when addressing a court on the question of the death penalty. For a play that is largely based on words there are many highly charged visual images, not least the simple opening image where chairs create the fence where the crime took place, with simple coat pegs loaded with costumes echoing the three crosses of the crucifixion. My only significant reservation about this production is in relation to the decision to have two intervals instead of one, which seemed to unnecessarily disrupt the flow of the piece as we were approaching the finely tuned conclusion.

As the evening developed, another piece of verbatim theatre, by the Tricycle Theatre about the murder of Stephen Lawrence, sprang to mind. We have our own hate crimes closer to home and ‘The Laramie Project’ is an important piece of work because, for all its focus on small town America, there are universal truths in this play that give it a direct relevance to our local community.

The Laramie Project, Tue 21 – Sat 25 September 2010
Contact Greenwich Theatre for tickets.

Saturday Night at Greenwich Comedy Festival

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“I like women comedians better – I think they have to work harder,” said my plus-one. And so it proved at the Greenwich Comedy Festival, at least on Saturday night.  Held in the grounds of the Old Royal Naval College the event is in its second year, although “much, much bigger,” according to the organisers.

Last year only saw one tent and one bar. This year there was a Spiegel Tent, a 1,200-seat Big Top, a cabaret lounge and a handful of places to buy upscale burgers and chips or posh pies (everything £5, more or less). Beer was £3.80.

Notably, the event really did have a festival vibe. It felt friendly and fun, like a mini Edinburgh Festival. And it was busy – the tents were packed and the queues for the Spiegel Tent snaked through the trees. Time was festival-flexible too – Shappi Khorsandi, the British-Iranian comic started almost an hour late, but no one seemed to mind.

Inside, Shappi swore she’d only planned a 20-minute set, not the hour we’d paid for (£15 – festival prices). She was always like that, she said, one reason why her husband and she were getting a divorce; he was a neat freak. That set the tone, because despite the previous week’s rolling-news coverage of Koran-burning threats, she largely stayed away from many of the topics – Iran, Islam, the burqa etc – that made her name.

She could have gone there if she wanted to, you felt, but the one mention of the Koran-burners sent such an obvious chill through the audience that who knows how she would have got out of it. Anyway, she said, she’d been too absorbed getting a divorce, and having a child, to pay attention to politics for at least a year. All, that is, except one funny foray into the world of Andrew Neil, Kirsty from Location, Location, Location, and the infamous ‘BBC barge’ party on the Thames on election night in May. All libellous, I’m sure, so not for repetition here, but suffice to say Kirsty came off worst. It was good to see, and she had the audience in her palm for the full hour.


Inside the Big Top

Afterwards, we flooded out of the Spiegel Tent and into the Big Top to catch Jenny Éclair’s set. She is well known from TV, although I hadn’t seen her live. It makes such a difference – she works hard, has brilliant, original material, and brought the house down with her stories of life as a menopausal mother of adult-teenagers.

By chance, sitting next to me was the woman from Greenwich Council who’d come to check the festival’s health and safety. She was all praise for the organisers, and rightly so – they’d done a good job.

Next came Stewart Lee, whose set failed to match Jenny Éclair’s, or indeed Rufus Hound Daniel Kitson, the night’s compere. Never mind, half of us got him, the rest were too chilled to worry.

All up a great night, and by all reports a good festival (it was a week long). The only fear is word gets out and next year it’s bigger, more expensive and loses the magic. But Saturday evening, it managed it to a T.

From Laramie, With Love: Greenwich Director Joe Walsh

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‘Emotionally searing’ The Laramie Project talked to 200 townspeople following Matthew Shepard’s torture and murder in 1998.

Joseph C Walsh is the young Greenwich director behind the “searing” Laramie Project coming to Greenwich Theatre later this month. Based on the life and brutal 1998 murder of US student Matthew Shepard, the play’s subject matter – prejudice and homophobia – is still, as illustrated by Greenwich’s very own recent , a hot topic. Greenwich.co.uk spoke to Joe to find out more.

Joe, you’re bringing the Laramie Project to Greenwich Theatre – your local theatre – later this month. What’s the play about?

It examines a small town’s reaction to the murder of 21-year-old University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard in 1998. The original writers of the play travelled to Laramie six times in the 18-months after Shepard’s death and conducted over 200 interviews with people in the community.

Those interviews paint a fascinating, sometime funny, incredibly moving and insightful portrait of a town struggling with its own identity and international media scrutiny.

So every word in the play is ‘real’?

Yes. It’s completely based on interviews with the people of Laramie as well as journal entries and court documents. The play does an incredible job structuring this into a satisfying theatrical event.

You’ve produced it before haven’t you? What’s the history behind the show?

It was premiered in Denver, Colorado in February 2000 and then in New York in May 2000. Since then it’s become one of the most produced plays in the USA and has received productions worldwide including two major London productions. Our production is the first major London outing for the show since 2005.

And what’s your relationship with the show?

It started in 2000 when I saw the original Off-Broadway Production. To this day it is one of the most powerful, memorable and special experiences I have ever had in the theatre. It became a goal of mine way back then to direct the show and try to share it with as many people as possible.

Last year we presented it at The Space in Mudchute and revived it as part of the Dublin International Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival. We’re thrilled to bring it to Greenwich Theatre – my home theatre.

It’s been described as a ‘must-see’ and ’emotionally searing’. Why emotionally searing?

Because the audience is aware that every word said on stage came from a real person. The town of Laramie is shown warts and all, and we as an audience are asked to come to our own conclusions about the people and the incidents presented.

The subject matter itself is hugely emotive, and the play is so well structured that the audience becomes completely wrapped up in the story-telling.


Joe Walsh in action in West Side Story. Photo: Mat Roberts / Facebook

Tell us about yourself. You’re from the States but live in Greenwich…

I’m originally from a city called Lynn just outside Boston. I grew up performing and in my teens began directing. Theatre has always been a part of my life. I grew up in a political family and although I didn’t follow directly in their footsteps I feel that my interest in projects like The Laramie Project comes from that background.

Is where you are from anything like Laramie? Are you from Smallsville USA?

Lynn is a fairly big city, so no. But I think what is amazing about The Laramie Project is that I do see some of where I grew up in it and the people I knew. I think the themes and concerns expressed by the townspeople are universal.

How did you end up in London and Greenwich?

I moved here eight years ago to do my Master’s Degree in Directing. I’ve lived in and around Greenwich the whole time.

And now you work fulltime as a director?

At the moment I split my time between freelance directing and education. I’m the musical theatre director in residence for Plumstead Manor, and previously was the head of musical theatre for Greenwich Theatre.

As a director, I’ve directed half-a-dozen UK premieres, a couple of Irish premieres, an acclaimed Irish tour of The King and I and a London revival of The Anniversary. In the West End I served as resident director on When Harry Met Sally and Coyote on a Fence.

What’s Laramie like now?

The company returned to Laramie for the 10th Anniversary of Matthew Shepard’s death to see how the town had changed. It seems that many people feel that Matthew’s death opened a dialogue that changed people’s opinions about sexuality. Others think nothing has changed and there are some who try to excuse the entire incident as a robbery gone wrong.

Matthew’s father said, “Matt’s beating, hospitalization and funeral focused worldwide attention on hate. Good is coming out of evil. People have said enough is enough.”

I suppose one of the messages from the play is that prejudice and bigotry happens anywhere, and can have dreadful consequences. What do you think then when you see something like the News Shopper letter row, in your own big-city back yard?

Well, it’s people like Mrs Fitzsimon’s that make me so proud of the work we are doing with this play. Mrs Fitzsimon is perfectly welcome to her beliefs and opinions, however, it does concern me that this letter may be read by some as a reason to commit violence against members of the gay community – marginalisation and judgement of a minority group plant the seeds of violence.

I would very much like to share The Laramie Project with Mrs Fitzsimon and hear her opinions on the Matthew Shepard case. I will try to get in touch with the News Shopper and offer her free tickets to the show.

Are you a campaigner at heart? Is that why you’ve brought this play to the stage?

Yes, I think I am. I was brought up in a political family and have always been drawn to theatre with a social conscience. I love the theatre. I love all genre of theatre, and I do think that at the heart of anything you can find a message to share.

Can theatre really change the way people think? Or is it usually a case of preaching to the converted?

I think great art can change the way people think. When I saw the original production of The Laramie Project there were older women sitting in front of me. At the interval one said she wasn’t enjoying it and wanted to leave. The other convinced her to stay. By the end the one who wanted to leave had to be helped out of the theatre by her friend because she was so moved. It had a profound impact.

Living in a place as seemingly open as London it is very easy to forget that people have fought hard and some have lost their lives in order to open up a dialogue about sexuality and all forms of equality.

I know your local is the Rose and Crown, next door to the Greenwich Theatre… what are your other local haunts / top tips?

Well, there is obviously our gorgeous park, lovely beer gardens and of course Greenwich Theatre and Picture House. I can also guarantee that the Organic Café has the best breakfast in London.

And what’s next for you? And the Laramie Project?

As I said, we’re keen to bring The Laramie Project to a wider audience. We’d love to take it on tour and find a home for a longer run in London. We’re also developing a very exciting schools project for the show, and are hoping to present The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later at Greenwich Theatre in October. Personally I’ve just begun writing a new musical and am going to be touring Germany with a theatre company.

Thanks Joe. That’s enough from us. Plug your play in 25 words or less.

The Laramie Project is an important, entertaining and moving piece of theatre. It will open your mind and make you think about yourself and your community. It is a special piece of theatre that will resonate with everyone, and leave you contemplative and inspired. Oh, that’s 44!

The Laramie Project, Greenwich Theatre
Tuesday 21 September – Saturday 25 September 2010
Greenwich Theatre Box Office: www.greenwichtheatre.org.uk / 020 8858 7755

Theatre Review: Twelfth Night, Greenwich Park

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After six years, and twelve productions, Rainbow Theatre’s summer visits to Greenwich have become a welcome regular fixture.  Always genial, witty and committed to presenting Shakespeare’s plays as uncomplicated narratives, their latest offering, Twelfth Night, in the Observatory Gardens, is no exception.

It is a feature of director Nicolas Young’s productions that he engages with the audience at the earliest possible opportunity.  On this occasion Ross Muir and Peter Goode, as Sir Andrew Aguecheek and Sir Toby Belch, made a beeline for the children I was with and gave a very good comedy double act explaining their roles in the story.  After that the ten year old could hardly look at the double-act on stage without giggling, and he wasn’t helped by their bawdy gesturing either.

The style of Twelfth Night was entertainingly exaggerated; with Andre James Storey’s Orsino taking the laurels for his extraordinarily energetic lovelorn duke.  His performance was big enough, and grand enough, to fill the whole of Greenwich Park with unrequited love – appropriately he was almost Olympian in the scale of his supposed adoration of Olivia.   Although this resulted in an unequal match when his real love for a wryly-witty Viola was revealed, it somehow didn’t matter.  The practical logistics of how the marriage might develop were neither here nor there; it just seemed like a good idea at the time.

The sub-plot rivalled the main action for audience interest, but Matt Salisbury’s Sebastian and twin sibling Emily Bennett’s Viola managed to hold their own against a comic tidal wave emanating from Countess Olivia’s kinsmen.  Malvolio stands and falls by the foolery that surrounds him, and Mark Lascelles produced a convincing comic reaction to the nonsense around him.  In particular his cross gartering scene was tremendously funny – and worrying, as he adopted a series of shockingly awful poses echoing the covers of men’s magazines.   Nicolas Young produced a fine comic scene in the garden that rivalled both the recent productions in the West End for comic value.

There is something consistently good-hearted about Rainbow Theatre’s productions; they are pitched to exactly the right level for the venue and the audience.  As the audience were doused with regular showers during the play I wondered how Barry Stevenson’s Feste would deal with his closing song, ‘the rain it raineth very day’.   The answer was that, spontaneously and pleasingly, the audience joined in to accompany him.

A Celebration for Stephen

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The life of Greenwich Theatre’s front-of-house photographer will be celebrated on 1 August.

Stephen Moreton-Prichard Gallery

Barbara Windsor in Sing a Rude Song, 1970

Stephen Moreton-Prichard was the Greenwich Theatre’s front-of-house photographer for 15 years. During that time he photographed some true greats – some already well established, some, relative unknowns destined for stardom.

Now, his life is to be celebrated with a special one-off show at Greenwich Theatre. A Celebration for Stephen will bring together artists, professionals, colleagues and friends in a special performance for one night only on 1 August. Stephen died earlier this year after a long struggle with Alzheimer’s, and all the proceeds will go to the Alzheimer’s Society.

Stephen took up professional photography in 1960 after a career in the Army. He spent the next 38 years working in film for numerous clients. Buildings were a speciality, as were product shots for publications like Which?, in the days when magazines contracted professionals, instead of, as now, relying on PR digital handouts.

He worked from a studio on the top floor of a rambling four-story house on the borders of Blackheath and Lewisham, where he and his wife Celia moved to in the late 1960s.

But it was theatre, and in particular Greenwich Theatre, where Stephen’s creativity was allowed to flourish. His natural eye gave him the artistic flair, and his professionalism delivered the shot.

When Greenwich Theatre was reopened in 1969 publicity photos were needed and Stephen was asked to provide them. It was the start of a working relationship that lasted until 1984.

Over those 15 years he photographed many productions, and many rising stars. Barbara Windsor dressed as a pearly queen in 1970 stands out, a dramatic looking Mia Farrow in 1973, Glenda Jackson dressed as a maid in 1974, a young Nicholas Lyndhurst in 1974, Penelope Keith, Felicity Kendal, Kenneth Branagh, and a 21-year-old Rupert Everett – destined for Hollywood – were all captured by his lens.

The show on 1 August is being produced by Stephen’s wife Celia and a night of rare variety is to be expected – founder of the well-regarded Centenary Company, Celia is well known in local theatre circles as a minor impresario.

She has drawn together friends, professionals, colleagues and locals who have something to give by way of tribute. Expect choral music, foot-stomping music hall numbers, calypso, Gilbert and Sullivan, Welsh folk, Purcell, Mahler, William Byrd, Satie, Mozart and spoken tributes. An exhibition of Stephen’s photographs will also be on display.

Tickets are £15, with all proceeds going to the charity – the theatre has donated itself free for the evening, and many of the professional performers have waived their fee.

Many locals who knew Stephen will be there, while others are flying in from as far afield as Australia for the performance.

“Expect much laughter,” Celia told Greenwich.co.uk, “and just one or two tears.”

Show: A Celebration for Stephen
Date and time: Sunday 1 August 2010, 7.30 pm
Box Office: www.greenwichtheatre.org.uk

Stephen Moreton-Prichard Gallery
Rupert Everett in Another Country, 1981

Stephen Moreton-Prichard Gallery
Kenneth Branagh in Francis, 1983

Stephen Moreton-Prichard Gallery
Nicholas Lyndhurst in Harding’s Luck, 1974

Stephen Moreton-Prichard Gallery
Penelope Keith and Felicity Kendal in Norman Conquests, 1974

Stephen Moreton-Prichard Gallery
Glenda Jackson and Susannah York in The Maids, 1974

Stephen Moreton-Prichard Gallery
Joy Parker, Gwen Watford and Mia Farrow in Three Sisters, 1973

Review: 3rd Ring Out, Greenwich Park

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3rd Ring Out - Greenwich Park

“This is a test. For the next nine hundred words, this is a test of the Emergency Publishing system. This is only a review.”

If you heard those words on the telly or radio, you would be both annoyed and scared. Annoyed because of the inconvenience at missing a key scene and scared because the attention signal could mean the end of life as we know it.

In Zoë Svendsen’s play, 3rd Ring Out: Rehearsing Our Future, we act those decisions in the manner of the Choose Your Own Adventure books you might have had as a kid. It starts off as with a somewhat patronising look at the view of Greenwich and Docklands from The Observatory. While it’s patronising for someone who lives here, it literally sets the scene, which takes place in a converted freight container.

After the health and safety briefing, the play starts with an audio montage of news reports of apocalyptic environmental destruction. The play, set over a period of 22 years from 2010-2033 has its first act set the scene by having the audience vote electronically for decisions. One being that a local businessman has made a killing in the stock exchange and has decided to invest in a green business venture. These are an ecosphere, an urban beach and Greening the cities with foliage atop the buildings.

The actresses who host the play take the roles of architectural consultants, cabinet advisors and civil servants whenever a decision has to be made. The decisions are made electronically with the use of a three button keypad and you vote on each one.

A key decision is that you’ve got to decide about the flood defences for London and the coast of England and Wales. One actress asked us: “How does it feel to spend £45m?” Basically, in doing so, you have to juggle priorities. Flood defences or NHS, for instance. By Act two, this is unfinished, being over time and over budget.

Act Two is where things really get interesting. The theatre turns into a local emergency command post, where the audience has to decide what to do when there is a major incident: a heat wave in 2033.

With a map on the table, you responded toincidents by putting plastic figures on it to denote what’s happening. At this point, Augusto Boal’s theory of the spectator becoming a “spect-actor” comes in. The audience reacts to what they see by voting on the decision or moving the action by moving the plastic figures to quell riots and fight fires in a strip of land that included Greenwich, Docklands and the old East End.

Playing the role of being in charge of public order, I had to move police and army to designated areas, or where I think they could do best work. All the while, I couldn’t help notice that it had a somewhat cold war feel to it. It felt like I was the chief executive of Sheffield City Council in the Brechtian drama, Threads. Either that or Doctor Strangelove’s funniest line: “Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here. This is the War room.”

There were lines and scenes that I felt were reminiscent of certain comedies, but denuded of humour to show the effect of climate change on our emotions. One character, Mick Fletcher, the businessman in act 1 said: “I didn’t get where I am today by refusing a challenge”, a line straight out of an apocalyptic Reggie Perrin.

One character on screen in act one, a seventeen year old girl orders an emergency kit from a home shopping channel. The dialogue of this seemed like an Unnovations skit from Charlie Brooker, but without the humour.

The best dramatic device used was the Tower of London collapsing due to subsidence, with the ravens escaping. With such bleak symbolism of London’s decline, it serves to make this play more challenging to our assumptions about permanence and what we cherish as people. In one of the news montages, certain quotes leap out: “I was wrong, says climate sceptic.”

Things go from bad to worse when the heat wave gives way to a thunderstorm that smashes its way through roofs and 20 cm pours of rain down Maze Hill. The decisions shifted form one extreme to another, as the weather changed. We even had to respond to an incident on Canvey Island from a vote on paper when the systems went down. The reaction of the spect-actors was to evacuate the command post.

Being a choose your own adventure, the plot, like the future, isn’t fixed and you influence how others act as a spect-actor yourself. The play ended, raising questions about herd conformity and group think (for me, at least). Why do decisions get made in the way they do? Why are decisions made in groups and why do people vote in the same way? Reading a leaflet given to me, it confirmed what I suspected: the play was inspired by cold war era exercises on what would happen if the Russians dropped the bomb on Greenwich. Interestingly, these container theatres were right outside the statue of James Wolfe in Greenwich Park, which is right across the road from the Old Royal Naval College (Now my alma mater, University of Greenwich) and was a possible key target in my area, along with Woolwich Barracks.

“That concludes this test of the Emergency Publishing system.”

3rd Ring Out was in Greenwich as part of the Greenwich & Docklands International Festival. Visit http://www.3rdringout.com/ for details of future performances.

“Schools united for change in Greenwich”

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South London Citizens have contributed this article about the work they are doing with local schools in Greenwich.

Over the past year or so, children and parents from three Greenwich primary schools in membership of South London Citizens have been working together to address issues of street safety.

When a 10-year old child from St Joseph’s Primary School tells you that he doesn’t feel safe walking from his home to his local leisure centre (which is only five minutes away), when a child from Halstow Primary School tells you that she can’t go and visit her friend in the evening even though she only lives a few streets away from her, when a child from St Alfege with St Peter’s Primary School tells you he is worried about going to secondary school next year as waiting for the bus with lots of other children can often be intimidating, members of South London Citizens in Greenwich get together and act.

Since a first meeting in May 2009 where twenty-five parents and children got together to think about safety in their local area, a lot has happened. Discussions between schools have taken place, research has been carried out to identify problems which have then been refined into specific issues, and actions have developed to make things better. The CitySafe campaign – a community-led campaign that addresses issues of street safety and which builds positive relationships between schools, the police, and local neighbours – has been involving scores of like-minded citizens who believe in a world where people work together.

If you look at what you can find between St Alfege with St Peter’s, St Joseph’s, and Halstow primary schools, what do you find? Lots of shops is the answer!

Groups of children and parents decided, therefore, to approach the hundred or so shopkeepers that work on Trafalgar Road and the portion of Woolwich Road that goes to the East Greenwich Library and asked them to work with South London Citizens to make the area safer. But what do you ask shopkeepers in order to make the area safer? Two main things:

  1. You get them to pledge to report 100% of crime and anti-social behaviour
  2. You get them to offer their premises as a place of haven for anyone in danger

Out of the hundred or so shops approached, about sixty agreed to join the CitySafe campaign. The local schools are building teams of children and parents who will visit the shops on a regular basis to review if and how the campaign is making things better.

In the past few days, sixty parents and children, joined by police officers, went to visit shops and got some great feedback. Some shopkeepers on Trafalgar Road, for instance, are pleased to report that police officers have been visiting the shops more regularly. Some young people have also been using the shops when they have not been feeling too safe. As the shops were visited, flowers were given to the shopkeepers by children as a sign of gratitude.

It is clear that things are not going to change overnight, but all the members of South London Citizens involved in this work in Greenwich agree that if you know you know and are ready to support your neighbours, your street becomes safer. This is the simple message the CitySafe campaign is spreading in the streets of Greenwich!

See a couple of videos about the CitySafe campaign across London and in Greenwich: www.southlondoncitizens.org.uk/citysafe and www.southlondoncitizens.org.uk/greenwich.

For more details on London Citizens and community organising, see a video on the Citizens UK blog: www.citizensukblog.org.