Sir Henry Hackwood announced: ‘“The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba” after Claude Lorrain.’ On went the spotlight, up went the curtain and the sewing ladies were revealed in their positions.
The day I had won the Scripture-knowledge prize at Malvern House, Bramley-on-Sea was but a distant memory, but I was fairly sure King Solomon’s court had not been all-female. And there was no mention in the Book of Kings that the visiting queen bore such a strong resemblance to Mrs Padgett, she of the pans and skillets.
However, there was something only too familiar about the voice that called out, ‘I seen her move! The fat one!’
It was the slurred tenor that had lately sung ‘The Battle Hymn of the Republic’ among the cold frames, and it belonged to footman Hoad.
There is a nice balance to be struck in watering the standees. The more the merrier is my general rule, but when he reaches a certain point of liquidity, your standee demands something with a bit of snap. He needs action. Static seamstresses are not enough.
Hoad’s interruption seemed to open a floodgate. ‘That one looks seasick!’, ‘All hands on deck!’ were two clearly audible comments; they were followed by a burst of ‘What shall we do with the drunken sailor?’ It might have been worse had some unseen hand not rung down the curtain.
As a warm-up for my appearance with Venables, it was about as unpropitious as they go. I heard a female voice whisper ‘good luck’ as Venables and I pushed on from the wings to a rowdy welcome. The idea was that we should carry on for as long as it took them to get rid of King Solomon’s court and set up a Wood near Athens behind the curtain. Two minutes ought to have been ample in my view.
‘I say, I say,’ said Venables, prodding me in the chest with a rolled-up newspaper, ‘what did you make of the barbershop quartet?’
This opener was not in the script, but I’m nothing if not a trouper. ‘I’m tone deaf,’ I said. ‘What did you make of the barbershop quartet?’
‘I thought they hit the top notes pretty well. But it was a darn close shave.’
There are few silences more poignant than the one left for unforthcoming laughter. It was a sound – or absence – that was to become familiar over the next few minutes.
Old Venables, to give him his due, was a hard man to bring down. I suppose when you’ve ‘entertained’, to use the word at its loosest, the soldiery in the cantonments of Chanamasala after a hot day of polo and pig-sticking, the yokels of Melbury-cum-Kingston hold few fears.
We got through the Ladies’ Sewing Circle having him in stitches, the old one about her ladyship’s whereabouts (‘they’re still in the wash’) and something about the Queen of Sheba and Mrs Holloway’s conjuring brother that may have been indecent.
The ribs of the audience remained untickled. If the silence had been any stonier old Etringham could have taken out his little hammer and inspected it for the fossilised remains of B. Wooster. Somehow we got through it; eventually there was a cough from behind the curtain to let us know that the Wood near Athens was ready.
At the first sound of throat-clearing, I was off into the wings to hide my shame; Venables not only lingered but popped back for an uninvited encore. Eventually, even he had to concede that the game was up. All you could say was that the rotten eggs and tomatoes remained in their boxes at the feet of the standees. They were a patient lot – thus far; but no one likes to take home unthrown the market produce he has earmarked for other purposes.
I was watching from the wings as the curtain rose on the Wood near Athens. The Sunday School had provided another backdrop, this one of Greek temples and trees; the set consisted of a couple of potted birch saplings from Melbury Hall and a grassy bank made of papier mâché with an old green velvet curtain on which lay the slumbering form of Titania, queen of the fairies. A piercing whistle from the back of the hall greeted the sight.
On came the rude mechanicals, and with the words ‘Are we all met?’ Lord Etringham, as Bottom, got things under way. On the plus side, you could say that the writer of this scene was more gifted than the author of the crosstalk act that had gone before. On the debit side, was the main actor, Bottom. His voice was not only that of a fellow well past his prime, it was that of an old gentleman looking forward to his bed. King Lear, perhaps, after long exposure on the blasted heath; but Bottom, no.
The audience was quiet at first, but then, for reasons not entirely clear from where I stood, began to laugh.
‘If you think I am come hither as a lion, it were pity of my life,’ said Bottom with about as much bravado as the curate announcing the hymn at evensong.