Somerton Summer Arts Festival 2011

Good King Hal warming up his vocal chords with a few drinky-poos before his latest show. How to make a Good King Hal cocktail: Take one pint of Adnams Broadside, drink it, repeat until floor leaps up and hits you on the head.

For the past few years, quite often when I have happened to drive through the pretty town of Somerton I have noticed signs up declaring that their "Summer Arts Festival" was either, "coming soon" or "was a great success". I have always fancied the idea of appearing at various festivals during the summer, so last autumn I contacted the organisers and offered my services as Henry. They got back in contact and after some discussions it was decided I would do my one man show of "Henry's Horrid History" as part of the Summer Festival 2011. Last night was THE night! The show started at 7.30pm but it was requested that I be at the venue (The Parish Hall) by 6pm. I arrived on time and was even lucky enough to find a parking space right by the front door. The Parish Hall is a nice venue and, at a push, you could probably squeeze about 100 people in, but that would make for a very intimate atmosphere to say the least. For my show they were limiting the amount of seating to 60 people. As it was over 70 tickets were sold and more seating was needed.

The show itself was a great success, the audience laughed and enjoyed all the necessary silly bits, and also enjoyed the slightly more serious historical bits. At the end of the show I got a large and generous round of applause, and then I waited by the front door and thanked everyone who had attended as they left. I also posed for a few photos. I was thanked by all the hard working staff of the festival committee, was given a cheque for my performance and was then on my way home. I stopped for fish and chips en route, which were very welcome as I had not eaten since lunchtime and it was now nearly 9.30pm. So the Somerton Summer Arts Festival was a big success for me, and this was just the opening night. The festival continues for another couple of weeks with lots of diverse and different acts and events to tickle your fancy. Have a look at their website on line and if you're in the area go and see something mind blowing. Including one tribute band called "Two Beatles". Yep, you got it. Two blokes who couldn't find two other blokes, decided that backing discs and a big dollop of imagination would be enough to get them through a Beatles tribute concert without anyone asking too many searching questions about their lack of personnel. Of course if they were going to be totally honest they should impersonate the two remaining Beatles - Paul and Ringo. But an evening of just drumming and bass playing to the tunes of "Octopus's Garden" and "Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da" would be enough to make any true music lover want to chew their own foot off.

Henry's Horrid History is on again today at Barrington Court near Ilminster. Come and say hello!

Edinburgh 1987 and a Lovely Wedding...

Good King Hal, suddenly remembering he left the spare key for the castle at the BACK door, and not under the portcullis. What a twit.

Let me take you back, if I may, to August 1987. I am 20 years old and have just written and produced a show which is going to open at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe on the 16th August. It was a tremendously exciting time in my life, when everything seemed possible and my dreams, such as they were, were not sullied by the disappointments of age or clouded by experience of rejection. I wrote the show with my friend Steve Newman and we were quite genuinely convinced we were going to go to Edinburgh, make vast sums of money, become famous, get given our own BBC TV comedy series and then probably end up on "Whoops Vicar, My Kilts Exploded" or some such other daytime "entertainment" show. Looking back now, nearly 24 years since that time I can't believe we were so naive. Our show called, brilliantly originally "The Revue" quite naturally bombed. When you go to do the Fringe you need something to grab people's attention, whether it be something they already know, or something to intrigue them. Having a show simply called "The Revue" is not going to be noticed by anyone. When you do the Festival Fringe, unless you are someone staggeringly famous already, you share your venue with countless other shows, and we were no exception. On before us each night was a show called "The Ballad of Halo Jones" based on the 2000AD comic strip of the same name. Each and every night they were packed out, purely because people knew the name. We went to see the show one evening. It was total crap. BUT, and let's face it folks, it's a BIG BUT, the show may have been total crap, but they had bums on seats and were making money. We'd come on at 10pm to do our show and there's three drunk students, two deaf old ladies and a small Cairn Terrier called Ernie. If we were lucky. And they never charged for the dog. But I had a thoroughly enjoyable time, possibly the best two weeks of my entire life. I was 20 and I was doing comedy, in Edinburgh, with some very groovy people and I was drinking too much, sitting up all night and it felt really bloody good! And the main reason for all these reminiscences flooding back now, is that from dear old Ebay the other day, I managed to purchase for the princely sum of 99p an original copy of the "Edinburgh Fringe Festival Programme 1987". It was fun flicking through it seeing all the names that at the time were struggling but are now TV stars. I had great difficulty in finding our show, but then, under the banner of the Theatre we were working in (Theatreworks, based at St Paul's & St George's Church Hall in York Place) was our listing. Now, when you place your advert in the programme you have only I think a maximum of 15 words for your placement, so it has to reach out, smash potential ticket purchasers between the eyes and drag them bleeding into the hall by their thousands. So what did Steve and I come up with? I had long forgotten, but there in slightly faded black and white in the Fringe Programme the stark reality of our folly glared out at me. It read: "Busty Norseman, Stig Volvo, has totally surrounded Edinburgh. Seeks medical advice." And we wondered why no one was coming to see us? I'd love to have another bash at Edinburgh, take my Henry's Horrid History Show up there sometime. Who knows, maybe next year...

Back to now, I was asked some time ago by a lovely couple called Corinne and David to be master of ceremonies at their wedding reception at Dillington House near Ilminster. I was delighted to oblige and last Saturday the day came. The weather could honestly not have been better, bright and sunny, but not too hot with a slight breeze to help Corinne looked stunning in her dress and David and all his ushers and male family members looked very dashing dressed in fine kilts and waistcoats. It was a magical day with a super mixture of the two families, one from Somerset and the other from Ballymena in Northern Ireland. I was on duty so to speak from about 12 noon to 7pm, and can honestly say it was one of the nicest weddings I have been to anyway, and was fun to work at!

Next Henry appearance is on Thursday this week at Green Rock School in Walsall, followed by my appearance at the Somerton Summer Arts Festival on the Friday evening. I am then at Barrington Court on Saturday for another outing of the Henry's Horrid History Show.

Somerton Infants

Good King Hal on his way home from the stock exchange. (Geddit???)

I never ever do infant school visits as most of the Key Stage 1 pupils just won't get the talky bits I do as Henry. However, I was contacted by Somerton Infants a while back, I explained my situation with being a talky show, but the teachers insisted they wanted Henry VIII at their school! So I worked out a day for the little 'uns with as little of the lengthy wordy sections as possible. I drove up to this delightful Somerset town through fantastic spring sunshine - it seems to have been a long time coming, but it was welcome anyway. I wasn't due to start at the school until about 11am anyway, so it was a nice lie in and lazy-ish morning for me. The drive up was great only partially spoilt by what seemed to be a larger than normal amount of road-kill about. Wherever I went there was squashed this, flattened that - all just about intact enough to see what they had originally been in the first place. It sent my strange mind wandering. How about a children's TV show and series of books all about these mangled remains? We could have great fun thinking up characters names! Splatty Squirrel! Phlattened Pheasant! Bloaty Badger! Hammered Hedgehog! Exploded Rook! Crunched Crow! Oh the fun! Imagine what the jigsaws would be like?

But enough of this repulsiveness. The school itself was a delight - very bright and friendly, lovely teachers (the single dark haired lady in particular got my vote!) and very, VERY excitable young children! I did a walk around first to the classrooms, meeting each of the years as I went. Some of the questions in these early sections were hilarious - one little girl wanted to know if the costume I was wearing was the sort of thing Henry wore when he went to a "bank account" (sic). It suddenly dawned on me that she meant "banquet" - how sweet. I finished the morning session with a talk in the hall, taking little snippets here and there from my normal talk. I ended up with some music and the children seemed to really enjoy it.

Lunch was yummy again - more pasta and bolognese sauce as I got the other day from Noremarsh Junior. This was equally tasty and very filling. The afternoon was spent with yet another jousting tournament. Some of the really little ones struggled with the lance and horse, but they soldiered on, mostly with huge grins spread across their faces! And guess what? The ladies won AGAIN! Unbelievable. The score now goes to:

GENTLEMEN 20 - 26 LADIES

It really is as one sided as Spurs' lame efforts in the Champions League against Real Madrid last night (snigger, snigger). All that and a nice drive home through beautiful Somerset countryside, in bright sunshine and with a cheque in my pocket from the school. Marvellous. Tomorrow I am off to Wales to pick up my father for our "Stranraer Sojourn!" Keep reading this blog in the next few days to find out what happened.