Chapter 3
WIBLEY THE IMPRESSARIO
JULY 1937
“Hello Bob,”
Harry Wharton extended a hand to his old school friend Bob Cherry, a good looking vigorous looking man, 6 feet in height, strongly build, flaxen hair and an open, slightly ruddy face. He beamed as he took Wharton’s hand.
“Harry, good to see you. Now where shall we go?”
“Afternoon tea in The Criterion?” referring to the restaurant on the other side of Piccadilly Circus.
They strolled over and took a table in the opulent ground floor café and after they had ordered their teas, Wharton, said, “Everything is more or less settled. I have our travel documents and permits for the continent, so we’re set for Wednesday next week.”
“Good work. I say, is that Wibley over there?”
Wharton turned around and saw a group of 6 huddled round another table. Facing them was a flamboyantly dressed figure in a brown suit, red check waistcoat, a camel-hair coat draped across his shoulders and a broad-brimmed fedora hat on his head. He was taking his leave and said loudly.
“Well, my dears, that’s it for the moment. Charing Cross 8 am on Monday week – rehearsals tomorrow at 10 as usual.”
He got up and was walking towards the exit when he noticed the Greyfriars men.
“Bob, Harry. Fancy seeing you here. I haven’t seen you since we left Greyfriars. Do you mind if I join you?”
And, without waiting for an answer, pulled over a seat from another table and sat down. He gave a cursory farewell to his friends as they filed out past them.
William Wibley had been the most enthusiastic thespian in their form at school, a stalwart of the drama societies with a keenness that bordered on obsession. His over-the-top clothing looked incongruous for someone in his early twenties, but for Wibley it was his badge as an “artist”. When he had settled and ordered a coffee for himself, Bob asked.
“Well now William, what are you doing these days?”
“Acting school, dear boy. The Guildhall School of Music and Drama,”
“And how are you getting on?”
“It’s fabulous,” gushed Wibley waving his arms so that his coat fell off his shoulders and his fedora settled in an even jauntier angle. “There’s real scope for an artist such as myself to express himself amongst like-minded artists. There was little of that at Greyfriars. You have to admit that neither of you two took acting under my direction as seriously as you ought,”
“Guilty my Lord,”
“And what are you two doing?”
“I’m at Cambridge with a view to reading for the bar,” Harry replied.
“Ah! That’s another branch of the acting profession. I’d have been good in court. It’s playacting of a sort, isn’t it?”
“Not all barristers are Marshall Halls,”
“And you, Bob?”
“I’m at medical college, UCL,” was the succinct reply. “Looks as if you planning a campaign over there?”
Wibley smiled, “We’re off on a short tour. A student group playing Macbeth,”
“You, I take it, are Macbeth?”
“Who else?” came the modest reply “I’m also the director, and responsible for just about everything else,”
“You never were much good at delegating, were you?”
“If you want a job done well do it yourself,” said Wibley smugly. “What are your plans for the summer?”
“We’re heading off to Germany next week, a sort of student exchange, for five weeks staying with a family in Nuremburg. As you know, my German’s quite good and Bob has enough to order a beer and wants to improve. So, we decided it would make an interesting trip for the hols,”
Wibley crinkled up his nose “But Germany! Why visit a country with such a regime? Why they control the theatre through an agency the ‘Theatre Chamber’. Artists such as myself have to toe the party line. Brecht had to leave because of the Nazis, if you can credit it,”
Noticing the blank expressions “Berthold Brecht, The Threepenny Opera, Kurt Weill, Weimar. Means nothing to you? You are true philistines, aren’t you?”
“Sorry. You won’t be touring with Macbeth in Germany then? The unfortunate Germans don’t know what they’re missing.”
“Oddly enough, the politically acceptable stuff is so poor that Shakespeare is all right by the Nazis. They maintain he’s German or Aryan or something. Anyhow, he’s OK by Goebbels and that’s what counts now. You’ll see how the arts are supressed. You must have heard of the book burnings and how they treat the visual arts. And this is where you’re going? When?”
“Actually, we were here to finalise our travel details, and we set off Wednesday of next week,”
“Travelling by ferry from Dover, I presume?”
“Yes,”
“Ah then you’re in luck,”
“Are we?”
“Yes, we’re opening my Macbeth on that Thursday in Rainchester for three afternoons,”
“Where?”
“Rainchester, Kent. One of the Medway towns, you must have heard of it, it’s only 40 miles from London,”
“Does it have a theatre?”
“No, it doesn’t. We’ll be performing in the middle of the main street.” Wibley replied with heavy sarcasm, “Of course, it has you ass. Mind you,” he added, “It is outdoors which makes it resemble an ancient Greek theatre. You could call in on the way to the coast,”
Wharton replied slowly, “Unfortunately that doesn’t work for us. It’s not the way we intended to travel,”
“You’re going by train, aren’t you? It’s only, at worst, a slight inconvenience to head to the ferry via the Medway.”
“Hem!!”
“You won’t regret it” said Wibley optimistically.
Harry Wharton looked at Bob who said, “I suppose we could change how we travel to Dover”
“Well, that’s settled then. See you on Wednesday week. Show starts at 4 so call in before three and I’ll meet you. You won’t regret it,” He repeated as he stood up and swept out of the restaurant.
After he had left, Wharton turned on his friend.
“What did you say that for? You’re just too soft for your own good.”
“I didn’t say we would go did I,”
“Not in so many words perhaps, but he now assumes we’re coming and I suppose we are obliged,”
“It could be a laugh,”
“You always look on the bright side, don’t you, Bob?”
The following Thursday Bob and Harry alighted at Rainchester Rail Station and, leaving their cases at the left luggage office, walked into the centre of town to have a bite of lunch. The theatre was situated a short distance away on the seafront promenade.
Rainchester situated on the south bank of the Thames Estuary, was originally an unassuming fishing village, a staging post for traffic both by road and water, heading to East Kent and Isle of Thanet. It had a brief burst of prosperity when the railway reached it from London, where it paused briefly. It became a resort town for the Londoners from the East End, for day excursions, at weekends and longer holidays during the summer. The railway moved on and the brighter resorts of Margate and Ramsgate with their golden sands and more developed infrastructure eclipsing the more modest attractions and the poor estuarine beach of Rainchester. During the brief period of prosperity, the town fathers built the open air theatre that the two men now approached. It had enjoyed the prosperous early Victorian years, fell into disrepair until the 1920s when it was restored to its old glory.
After an excellent lunch they arrived shortly after three o’clock to be greeted at the entrance with a large gaudy poster with the legend.
WILLIAM WIBLEY’s
MACBETH
By William Shakespeare
Wibley’s name dominated with Shakespeare relegated to minor billing with the first and second lines twice the size of the third. The theatre was, as Wibley said, outdoors. A raised platform formed the stage with a canopy and two rooms at the side for the cast and props. The auditorium was uncovered and comprised a flat semi-circular area immediately in front of the stage behind which, in the same shape, were concrete seats and steps. To the right-hand side was a bar and a standing area. Wibley greeted them.
“Hello chaps. You’re nice and early. Good. Just in time for one of you to help.”
“What do you mean?”
He explained.
“We’re short an actor to play a lot of the smaller parts, the third witch, Birnam Wood, etcetera. Neither of you are up to much as actors but, needs must and there aren’t too many lines for you to remember. Now which of you volunteers, or would you prefer to share it out?”
It seemed that the third witch took an instant dislike to Rainchester, to the cheap digs or just possibly Wibley’s imperious manner, and had taken the train back to London. Wharton replied on behalf of both of them.
“You put it so nicely, what can we possibly say? No!”
“Come on, chaps, you’ll be able to boast in years to come you were in an early Wibley production,”
“What an honour but sorry we’re happy to be spectators, thanks,”
“I rather think you might have done the decent thing and pitched in. Stand by the old school and all that,”
“Nice try,” replied Bob “But I’m afraid it’s still sorry old man. Now we’re off to get a cup of tea or something stronger. Break a leg,”
Wibley snorted and turned away.
The theatre filled up nicely as 4 o’clock approached. Rainchester still attracted a modest number of holidaymakers. The Rainchester council, for it was a municipal theatre, varied their acts between music hall performers, many of whom subsequently went on to greater fame, and cultural performances which is where Wibley came in. He was cheap; indeed, his group was playing for expenses only, which appealed to the parsimonious councillors. It may have been a tribute to Wibley, Shakespeare or lack of alternative entertainment that the theatre was about half full, perhaps 150 persons, by the time the performance was due to start. Several older, spectators had brought deck chairs and spread themselves around the flat concourse in front of the stage. Others came and sat around Bob and Harry on the concrete seating and a third group, younger, gathered in the area of the bar. They were in raucous form and were settling in for a few pints of beer and hoping for an afternoon’s entertainment, either from the performers or, if not, from their own resources. Many were under the delusion that this was a “Wibley” show with Wibley being a comic or some such turn. It surprised them to see the set comprising a silhouette of Dunsinane castle and wooden Birnam trees waiting to attack Macbeth in the final act.
At 4pm Wibley, elaborately dressed as a mediaeval Scottish King, with full beard and regalia emerged to give a totally superfluous speech of welcome received differently by the various sections of the audience. The deckchair brigade ignored it talking amongst themselves, those seated tried to make out what he was saying and those at the bar heckled “Get on with it”, “Your slips showing darling etc” until Wibley admitted defeat and retreated and the play got underway.
The opening lines
“When shall we three meet again?
In thunder lightning or in rain”
Were delivered by the first witch to the only other witch on stage to ribald laughter. The drinkers settled in, creating a hubbub over which the play struggled to be heard. Those seated in their deckchairs made themselves comfortable. Some had brought knitting with them, others dozed off quietly and whilst others displayed an interest with the cast with loud comments such as.
“Look at ’im. Aren’t his legs skinny?”
Wibley dominated the stage in those scenes featuring Macbeth and others in which he didn’t. He retreated only to the rear of the stage, in order to deliver the lines of the missing actor, just out of view. When the three witches assembled in a later scene he shouted out, the lines of the third witch.
“Double, double toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble,”
“Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf
Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf……” etc
in a squeaky voice to the delight of the beer drinkers, some of whom gave him a loud cheer and others heckled in an imitation of Wibley’s falsetto.
When Lady Macbeth gave her poignant lines signifying deep mental torment,
“Out out damned spot.”
Raucous hound dog imitations accompanied her.
Bob and Harry could see the Thames Estuary behind the stage and observed, as often happens, that a sea mist had formed and was making its way towards the theatre. By the time Macbeth was told of Banquo’s murder it had rolled onto the stage. At the banquet scene it was so thick that only those directly in front of the stage could see what was happening. For the rest of the audience the players were lost from view. Wibley compensated by raising the volume of delivery to a higher and louder pitch.
“There the grown serpent lies, the worm that fled
Hath nature that in time will venom breed,”
He roared to shouts of “Speak up”, “We can’t hear you” from the bar.
By contrast, the weak voice of the actress playing Lady Macbeth limped out from the fog.
“My Royal Lord
You do not give the cheer,
Was mostly lost.
“What’s that, darling?” came from the bar.
Wibley continued
“Go prick thy face (Laughter) and over red-thy fear
Thou lily livered boy. What soldiers patch”
“Ouch!”
The unintentional ouch was as a result of Wibley stumbling over a tree. There was a pause and “damn” could be heard in Wibley’s normal voice. More laughter. Macbeth continued.
“Death of thy soul ……..”
The play struggled on amidst the swirling fog and diminishing audience. Cold, obscurity of the plot and stage persuaded many to leave. The fog lifted almost as quickly as it had arrived and had disappeared by the time Birnam Wood made its clunky way to Dunsinane, heralding the end for Macbeth. Wibley and his cast then emerged for their final bow to desultory applause.
“Plebs. Disaster,” was Wibley’s verdict “I blame you, Harry Wharton,”
“What? How come?”
“We were short an actor throughout. You heard the response to the opening. Even I found it hard to recover the audience when I came on. And what of the other characters. I couldn’t fill in for everyone,”
“Well, we’re sorry. But we wouldn’t have missed it for anything!”
“Philistines!”