The trouble
with reminiscing is that once you start you never seem able to stop! Delving
into the past again, I've come up with a few more memories, this time
about the Light Show. Please add this to the website at a suitable place
(preferably somewhere near the Black Lion!).
- Robin
_____________________________________
The Light Show was an
"underground revue" of "alternative" poetry readings,
sketches and music, set against a background of changing light
sequences. It was produced as an offshoot of the infamous Black Lion
Enterprises and took place on February 12, 1970 in the school hall.
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In keeping with
the spirit of the Black Lion, all the names of the collaborators were
written in small letters on the back of the programme. They were
(quoting): chris spencer-giles, chris bard, andy neal, robin ward, martin
courtney, martin wood, dave cummins, lindsey bird, kathy russell, alan
hill and brian cariss, plus a rock group called "blend",
consisting of rob, john & roy, "and others.... and others".
By no means all
of this mob were Priceans. Chris Spencer-Giles (whose surname was really
Giles; Spencer was his middle name) and Martin Wood were as far
as I remember friends of Chris Bard and may have been from Bishopsfield.
Rob, John and Roy were also acquaintances of one of us from another school (or
may even have already left), but I haven't a clue where they came from. In any
case Chris Giles wrote a fair amount of the material. Martin Courtney was a
wigged-out character with long woolly hair drafted into the sixth form from
somewhere from 1968 to 1970 and hung out a lot with Dave and Bob
Askew (another friend of mine) - he always gave the impression of being high
on drugs.
At least in my
time, females of the opposite sex were a subject hardly anyone ever
seemed to talk about at Price's, apart from when the sixth form
dance or other external functions were under discussion. So at
first it was a bit of a surprise when Lindsey and Kathy appeared. They turned
out to be the girl friends of two of us conspirators (I think they were
from St. Anne's). They had been roped in to perform a few folk
songs; I can distinctly remember them in their long flowing multicoloured dresses
at the rehearsals trying to project their voices towards the back of the hall.
These
rehearsals, which took place after school, were conducted by Chris Bard
and were, like our Black Lion Editorial Board meetings, rather
undisciplined. Whether or not the first six weeks of 1970 were
particularly cold I cannot recall, but it certainly always seemed
to be freezing in the hall: often we were huddled up in coats
and scarves despite the heat emanating from the stage lighting. A number
of us, myself included, sat around half the time listening to our
record player - which someone had been thoughtful enough to bring along - blaring
out in the background, and seemed to be more interested in discussing the
latest progressive record releases, the album jackets propped up against the
side of the stage. Sometimes other assorted boys (even Mr. Johnson too on
one occasion) dropped in as well out of curiosity to see how we were
progressing (or not).
Lindsey and
Kathy weren't the only ones with voice problems; as I was supposed to read out a number of
Brian's poems and my voice didn't project too well either, I remember the
exasperated Chris standing at the back of the hall in his trailing
moth-eaten scarf continually berating me to "shout a bit
louder". Blend were also always having problems with their
amplifiers and other equipment - either they were deafeningly loud or one
could hardly hear them at all. My worst memory of the whole affair was
falling off the stage during one session when somebody had -
unbeknown to me - removed the steps (in the incessant dazzle of the light
it was sometimes impossible to recognise one's immediate surroundings), and
landing on my right arm, resulting in my having to be carted off to hospital
with a badly swollen finger.
Nevertheless, this
rabble - or most of it - somehow managed to get its act together well enough to
take the stage on February 12th.
The first half
of the programme consisted of items entitled "Experiment One",
"Groperama" (news, views and clues), "Experience III"
(meter readings), "Expression Four" (versetility (sic)) and
"Brief Sanity" interspersed with a folk song and some songs by
Blend. After this came "A Return to the Islands", with the following
remarks: "The entertainment you are about to witness is a total
reflection of the subconscious. Its non-relevance is absolute. รบ-chebin estel
anim. Ins Unbetretene!" (a quotation I supplied from Goethe's
"Faust", translated as "Into the Unknown!").
Exactly what
all these experiments and experiences and the Return to the Islands were -
apart from our poetry readings - I've completely forgotten now, but I remember
being pretty nervous as I read out Brian's poems in the glaring yellow
and blue light. To make things worse the hall was nearly full, but
somehow I got through the ordeal and hoped that Chris's moaning had done
the trick.
Then came an
interval, during which "refreshments may be purchased from the prole-bar
at the left of your mind", as Dave put it in the programme. (Where
Price's boys were frequently dismissed as "morons" or
"cretins" in Black Lion circles, Farehamites were often called
"proles", i.e. "proletarians".) This was followed by
"The Light Show", during which Prof. Lotsoff Vacks (either Chris
Bard or Chris Giles) gave a long lecture on the properties of light; chemical,
physical and metaphysical. The programme concluded with a couple more
"experiments" and folk songs; the last item (13A) was cryptically
entitled "Never Mind ....".
The show was
not only for the benefit of the boys; we had also invited the "proles"
to come along, and they did too, in quite large numbers. To our
surprise and delight, everything seemed to go off smoothly despite
our sometimes sloppy rehearsals, and we were very well received, even
though some of the proles seemed slightly bewildered as to what was actually
happening ....
The whole thing turned
out to be a one-off affair as nobody talked about organising a follow-up,
although, as I had already left Price's and had no further contact with
any of the boys or staff, some event may well have taken place. But
- along with the Black Lion, another success had been chalked up by the
"alternative" crowd ....
consigned to
webspace by robin ward on behalf of black lion enterprises,
15.11.2001
