I think it would have been in 1969 or 1970 that I was driving in Edinburgh's New Town during the Festival and saw an elderly couple looking stranded beside an obviously damaged car on Queen Street. So I pulled over and asked if I could help. It turned out they were American tourists, passing through Edinburgh en route to somewhere further north when they had been involved in a traffic accident in their hired car. Their car was being taken away for repair but they had not planned to be in Edinburgh that night and so had made no arrangements for somewhere to stay. And as it was Festival time, there wasn't a spare room to be had. So I invited them to stay at the family's home where I was still living. My parents were away on holiday, so there was plenty of room. It must have been a bit strange for this couple to trust a complete stranger but eventually we all drove back home and they stayed the night and all went charmingly.
Their name was Conway, and I'm sorry to say that I never kept in touch with them afterwards. I would love to have found out what they really thought was going on - were they worried about being kidnapped, or ending up in a drug den, or what? I guess now I will never know.
Wednesday 23 July 2008
Sunday 6 July 2008
Taste of Italy
When I worked as Head of Design at the National Gallery in London in the 1980s we staged a small exhibition comparing two works by Canaletto and Guardi, both views of the Piazza San Marco in Venice. As usual I arranged for large sign-written boards to be produced to promote this exhibition, which were made up in sections and then mounted on the front facade of the gallery. On the day of the exhibition itself I was called out to see the boards being put in place, only to realise that the signwriters had missed out a crucial "A" between two sections, and the National Gallery was now proudly advertising the PIZZA San Marco to the tourists in Trafalgar Square. Ah, what memories...
Saturday 5 July 2008
One act, one scene
At school there was a tradition that the junior boys performed, during the winter term, one-act plays, usually supposed to be comedy, for the school. And so, aged about 13, I found myself involved in a humorous play called In The Dentist's Waiting Room. My part was not large or central; it involved appearing on two occasions, in the first and last scenes, speaking a few lines which moved the plot forward in some fashion, and then exiting again.
Unfortunately, the occasion overcame me. I made my first entrance, in the first scene, and spoke my lines clearly. They were, however, my lines for the final scene. The rest of the cast, rehearsed to a Pavlovian level of response, followed on from my lines and completed the final scene. The curtains closed to a surprised silence from the audience. The play, which was supposed to last fifteen minutes, had taken four. And it had had no discernible plot. And it was not remotely funny.
Noone said anything afterwards. My excuse is that the two lines were very similar - I swear.
Unfortunately, the occasion overcame me. I made my first entrance, in the first scene, and spoke my lines clearly. They were, however, my lines for the final scene. The rest of the cast, rehearsed to a Pavlovian level of response, followed on from my lines and completed the final scene. The curtains closed to a surprised silence from the audience. The play, which was supposed to last fifteen minutes, had taken four. And it had had no discernible plot. And it was not remotely funny.
Noone said anything afterwards. My excuse is that the two lines were very similar - I swear.
Friday 4 July 2008
Orienteering
In 1973, I guess, I was working at the Edinburgh Film Festival for the summer, and one of the films launched there was The Wicker Man. This was a fairly weird movie by any standards, and has since become a cult, valued in retrospect much more than its lukewam reviews and limited box-office at the time would have suggested. There was a press screening one day, attended by one of the actors in the film, Lindsay Kemp, who had a 'character' part as a Scottish innkeeper (if I remember). Lindsay was one of the features of the Edinburgh cultural scene, leading a mime troupe that I had first seen perform at the Richard Demarco Gallery in 1968.
After the screening several of the EIFF team went out to a nearby pub for a drink with Lindsay, together with Jack Birkett (Orlando) and others of Lindsay's group. In the chat, someone asked Lindsay, who was about as camp as they come, how he knew he was gay. 'Well', replied Lindsay, 'it's very simple. Women don't give me erections.' Now, I'm sure there are all sorts of experts in sexual orientation who would say it's a lot more complicated than that, but to me that was about as useful a test of which way one was swinging as any deeper psychological study. On this simple premise, I was able back then and since to confirm that I was in a different -er - camp from Lindsay.
After the screening several of the EIFF team went out to a nearby pub for a drink with Lindsay, together with Jack Birkett (Orlando) and others of Lindsay's group. In the chat, someone asked Lindsay, who was about as camp as they come, how he knew he was gay. 'Well', replied Lindsay, 'it's very simple. Women don't give me erections.' Now, I'm sure there are all sorts of experts in sexual orientation who would say it's a lot more complicated than that, but to me that was about as useful a test of which way one was swinging as any deeper psychological study. On this simple premise, I was able back then and since to confirm that I was in a different -er - camp from Lindsay.
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