Roar of the Grease Paint...

Elizabeth of York, feeling a prick (on a rose).

And finally the flood waters did recede, and the people of Somerset did look up at the strange yellow object in the sky and go "ooh-arr" and scratch their heads in bewilderment.  You knew the threat of flooding was now rapidly disappearing as all the TV news crews had buggered off.  When I look back to last year and this same time, we weren't inundated with water, we were instead freezing our collected butts off.  If you think back to the weekend at Knebworth (shudder - I try not to) the temperature for that whole weekend barely rose above freezing.  This same weekend just gone (i.e. 365 days later) and the temperatures were around about 20 degrees.  Funny old world, innit?

And so we begin on Tuesday the 18th March and the King's return to Birchfield Junior School in Yeovil.  My last visit to this school had been the previous January and that was certainly a lot colder - I remember loading the props back into the car after that show with huge great flakes of snow dolloping themselves onto my car windscreen and stubbornly refusing to melt.  I arrived early and was met by the usual group of very friendly teachers, including the wonderful Ally Goff who was her usual infectiously funny and happy self.  This is such a friendly happy school, great atmosphere whenever you go there and this day was no different.  We had a great group of kids as well, loads of laughs and everyone seemed to enjoy the day in the extreme.  The final jousting tournament was an incredibly loud event which virtually tore the roof off the place. It was worth it for the lads as they were finally rewarded with a long needed win.  Our score goes to:

GENTLEMEN 13.5 - 21.5 LADIES

Back out to the car to load it up and go and I am delighted to say there was not a hint of dollopy snow flakes in the air, for which I was very grateful for.

I headed up to Essex on the 23rd, for a week of looking after James as Amanda continued her burgeoning am dram career with her second performance for the Thalians Theatre Group in Basildon.  She was out for most evenings for the final technical and dress rehearsals, and was then performing on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday at the Mirren Studio in the Towngate Theatre.  My first port of call though back in the south east was a return visit to Dulwich College Junior School in South East London.  Again my previous visit last year had included quite prodigious amounts of snow everywhere, appalling traffic and a journey that seemed just slightly shorter than Captain Scott's epic trek to the South Pole.  There was no way I was going to get caught in such terrible traffic this time, so I set off spectacularly early from Basildon... and arrived spectacularly early at the school.  Not a hint of any traffic or bad weather.  Typical.  Once inside I was greeted by the delightful Leiba Sablon, the lovely teacher who booked me last year.  Dulwich College which is Nigel Farage's old school (now there is a claim to fame) is an all boy's school so no results from the very entertaining jousting can be added to the scores as it wouldn't be fair on the ladies.  I do the same for the men when I visit the Maynard School in Exeter.  It was a great day once again at this school.  Great kids, really switched on and with it, and they get all the gags - big time!  So man laughs.  We ripped through to a fantastic jousting finale and then I was on my way back to Basildon.  The traffic out of London was far more what I expected first thing in the morning, slow, bumper to bumper and lots of very bad tempered people refusing to budge an inch.

My main place of residence on Wednesday the 26th was at the "Weston Homes Community Stadium" in Colchester.  This sadly wasn't for some huge outdoor arena style Good King Hal show in front of thousands of adoring fans - nope, I was attending a speed awareness course as I had been photographed in the Royal motor doing 67MPH on the A282 leading onto the Dartford Crossing Bridge back in early January.  So I could either pay the £100 fine and take the three points onto my licence, or I could attend this course and avoid the points.  I naturally went for this option - and promptly picked up a bill for £97.50 to attend. Well, at least I saved myself £2.50.  Not really, after I had bought myself an exorbitantly priced cup of tea in the cafe in the stadium as I waited for the course to begin.  I found it rather sweet that Colchester United had decided to call their stadium cafe "The Hot Shot Cafe".  Surely for the level they play at it should be called "The Scuffed Shot" or "The Toe Ender".  But I can forgive them most things as the waitress had a lovely bottom.  The course was much as I expected - it was presented by two men, one who was so smug as to make Greg Wallace on Masterchef look positively insecure and another old chap who was to technical items what Bernard Manning was to race relations. If he could press a button and make something go wrong he would do it.  The automatic lights went up and down, the electronic blinds went up and down more times than a whore's drawers until they fused, and he was halfway through his part of the presentation when he somehow managed to completely switch off the lap top he was doing his presentation through and we had to sit in a slightly embarrassed silence as he and Captain Smug muttered and pressed buttons until it all came on again.  Well, it was all quite informative, didn't really tell me anything I didn't already knew and it was four hours of my life I won't get back again.

Thursday night was Amanda's opening night in the play.  The Thalians (the am dram group Amanda belongs to) were doing a version of Terry Pratchett's "Going Postal" and Amanda had the part of "Mr Pony" (yes, I know) and she did fantastically well in a superb all round production.  She had worked long and hard on this production, helping out a lot with the costumes, most particularly the very impressive Golem outfit, complete with it's stunning latex mask - anyone who saw the show will know what I am talking about.  Her performance was faultless and James and I really enjoyed it, even though James got very restless towards the end of the first half.  Luckily there were some spare seats at the back of the theatre, so for the second half James and I moved back there and my restless native of a son could stand up, sit down, wriggle and do all the things slightly bored autistic children want to do, without disturbing anybody around us.  It is so great to see Amanda getting into the acting lark - her almost child-like excitement and fixation with the cast and the whole experience reminded me so much of my early days in the business.  I warned her after the final performance she would experience a real downer of post show blues - and she did, bless her.  It was nice to see her in the post performance glow going over and over the photos she had taken of the rehearsals and the cast in general.  Thankfully she is going for the read through of their next production this week, so her fix for this new addiction will get fed again!  Hopefully there will be another production soon in which James can take part as he is as taken with the whole acting lark as Amanda is.  Oh, the roar of the grease paint, the smell of the crowd.... You can't whack it.

Mothering Sunday saw Amanda, James and I joining Cathy and Julian down at their house in Kent for a lovely slap up meal and a bit of champagne sipping.  It was a nice way to round off my week looking after my beloved James.  He can also get back into his performing as I have just had all the dates through for the jousting this summer with the Knights of Royal England.  Fantastic!

One Month - No Blog.

Good King Hal showing utter contrition for his lack of blog for the last month.

A month?  Are you sure?  Strewth.  What have I been doing?  Oh I know, Christmas and Tudor stuff, as any normal despotic post medieval ruler should do.  I really have to cast my mind back to try and remember what the hell I have been doing for the past month.  Some afternoons I have trouble remembering what I did in the morning, so this could be hard work.  So where to begin?  At the very beginning, as Julie Andrews would have warbled, it's a very good place to start...

14th December I had been booked to appear at Chester Town Hall for a corporate evening bash for a company called Kingspan who make wall cladding, apparently.  Well my King's span is pretty big, but I am not sure how much wall I can actually cover without it being a bit painful. I drove up to Chester at lunchtime on the Saturday and booked into a hotel.... oh alright, a Days Inn, on the outskirts of the city.  This plastic hotel was a bit different to most of the others I have used recently as it was really nice!  It had recently been renovated, was very cosy, nicely equipped and had a lovely king size bed that was incredibly comfortable.  The weather was revolting and a pre-cursor of what to expect over Christmas and the new year - a cold howling wind and heavy squally rain showers.  As I didn't know Chester at all and wasn't sure what the parking would be like at the venue I had decided instead to book a taxi to get me there and back.  I had visited Chester once before, but that was in 1981 and I kind of guessed the town might have changed a bit since I was last there.  My taxi arrived bang on time and I was soon being whisked off into the night for my appointment at the Town Hall. My driver was a lovely bloke, a scouser with a lovely thick Liverpudlian accent.  We got to chatting about football and he asked me what team I supported.  When I said Manchester City he briefly took a fierce intake of breath.

"You're lucky you said that, mate" he said.  "If you'd said Manchester United I'd have made you get out and f***ing walk."  Really?  "Oh yeah, if I ever get any of those b***ards in my cab I charge them double."  Ah bless him!  

Chester Town Hall is a marvellous Victorian edifice - a celebration of Gothic architecture and full of grand high ceilings, sweeping staircases, imposing busts (ooh er!) and mock medieval touches here and there.  I was sharing a changing room with all the other artists booked that evening including three jesters, a group of medieval musicians and a fire breather.  They were all lovely and very welcoming and I was soon stationed at the front door ready to welcome the guests as they arrived.  There was a whole load of gorgeous young wenches in elegant dresses, there to be waitresses and staff for the event.  I chatted to them and they were all students working at the University of Liverpool, one of whom was studying ancient music and medieval plainsong.  The guests who first arrived were greeted by two of the jesters on the stairs who were juggling and fire breathing, until they were told to stop fire breathing by a jobs worth from the City Council who claimed the heat and smoke from their activity might set off the fire alarms and sprinklers in the building.  Inside, I was there at the top of the stairs with four of the wenches, and yet another jester who was showing amazing juggling skills with a variety of objects, even heavy glass globes - and all of this over solid stone floors.  A brave man.  The guests began arriving in drips and drabs, but it soon turned into a torrent.  As with most British works bashes, all of the women were dressed amazingly in beautiful fine dresses and gowns, and the men were in a general uniform of fancy shirt, jeans and boots.  One lady who turned up on this cold evening was wearing an outfit that resembled a large, black see-through handkerchief.  She had nothing on underneath and was VERY cold, if you know what I mean.  They were sticking out like chapel hat pegs and you could have struck matches on them.  But at least I had somewhere to hang my hat.  The musicians started and sounded wonderful.  Some medieval music groups I have heard can be very quiet - this lot were like the historical version of The Who - especially their drummer who had what appeared to be a Tudor samba drum and it made an incredibly wonderful booming sound that resounded through the building.  I then had to go upstairs to where the guests drinks reception was being held and process them down to the main hall for their dinner.  The main hall in the building is magnificent with a colossally high ceiling with an impressive hammer beam style roof.  I had a large golden throne to park my Royal derriere on and receive guests as they came in.  I posed for numerous photos, had lots of lovely ladies come and want to sit on my lap - who was I to argue? - and then a few navigation's of the room to see how all the guests were.  I had a quick break to snaffle down some dinner, which was delicious, then it was back into the hall for a grand draw with various prizes for the guests, one last patrol of the hall, and then I was released.  I got changed, wandered outside, found a taxi and began my journey back to my hotel.  This driver was a bit different from my earlier one as he explained in great details about his chronic heart problems that meant he could kick the bucket at any second.  I just prayed he got me back to my hotel first, which he did.  I had a lovely comfortable night in my hotel and then drove back to Somerset early on the Sunday morning.

Tuesday found me at Evercreech in Somerset for my final school appearance of 2013.  Evercreech school was lovely and I was very warmly welcomed by staff and pupils alike, all of whom were a bit end of term crazy and ready for a good time, so who was I to say no?  We had a simply splendid day, so many laughs, great fun with the kids and a truly memorable day.  For the jousting we brought the rest of the school in to watch and this of course increased the sound volume immensely.  As has been the case throughout the year, nothing changed and the ladies romped to a very impressive win.  The score at the end of the year goes to:

GENTLEMEN 9.5 - 14.5 LADIES

It pains me to say it, but the boys look clueless at present.  And so my final professional engagement of the year ended and I looked forward to my Christmas break.

For Christmas I first drove back to Essex to pick up Amanda and James from Basildon, then on the 23rd we drove down to Wales and a visit to my parents in Newcastle Emlyn.  The weather down was frighteningly horrible - the wind, almost hurricane like in it's ferocity buffeted the car and made driving very difficult.  When we stopped for lunch at Membury Services on the M4, it was almost impossible to walk from the car to the services without being blown over. Finally, as we got down to near the Severn crossing the wind began to abate, the rain stopped, and by the time we reached our turn off at Carmarthen, we even had a clear sky above us.  The fields around Newcastle Emlyn were heavily flooded and the rivers were so submerged you could not make out their true course.  Christmas was a delight, James thoroughly enjoyed himself and everyone had a good time.  I had to have my car looked at because of possible brake problems.  I booked it into Emlyn Motors who promised me it was brake pad problems and wouldn't be too expensive.  Well that obviously means something completely different in Welsh than it does in English as the "not too expensive" brakes cost me nearly £500 with all the new callipers and the work they had to do.   I had felt tremendously smug just before Christmas as I had come through it all with money to spare in my account.  Well that was that p***ed up the wall in 10 seconds flat.  Arse. I drove James and Amanda back to Essex, spent a couple more days with them and then headed back to Somerset.  I spent New Years Eve with my lovely old friend Ali Bessell, and we had a smashing evening watching the movie "World's End", nibbling canapes and sipping proseco.  The evening ended with us watching Jools Holland's Hootenanny on BBC2, which was good fun, apart from groovy new girl guitar band Haim, who sounded like a third rate amateur band bashing out cover versions in your local boozer.  How the hell they have garnered such a reputation so early in their career God alone knows.  Truly awful. 

I had a week's grace to get myself attuned to being back in the real world, but then my first 2014 bookings appeared.  My first show was at the deliciously named Gothic Mede Academy in the town of Arlesy in Bedfordshire.  With a name like that I imagined copious amounts of dry ice, all the teachers with black hair and white painted faces and Bauhaus blaring out of all available speakers (Yes, Corinna, I know, I know...) but it was a fairly normal ordinary school.  The lady who had booked me was incredibly pregnant and looked tremendously uncomfortable throughout the day, poor love, but they were very welcoming and we had a lovely mixed group of years three and four, just under 100 children.  Loads of laughs and fun, and the children all enjoyed watching the film I had made at Hever Castle during the summer.  The jousting was incredibly close, really a tight tight finish, probably closer than anything I had seen in 2013.  But inevitably the ladies stormed through to nick victory.

GENTLEMEN 9.5 - 15.5 LADIES

This is getting embarrassing.  Much as I would have liked to have leapt in the car and head for home, I had to head north instead to Northampton for my next appointment on the following day.  I was back to dear old Travelodge for the night and was delighted to find the hotel I was in was just as lovely as the Days Inn at Chester had been.  Warm, welcoming, comfortable and the all new big king size bed.  Brilliant!  I had a lovely lovely evening and slept like a log.

If I thought the Gothic Mede Academy was a good name yesterday, today I was at the equally wonderfully named Hopping Hill Primary School in Duston, in Northampton.  Today was a fabulous day - a year six group, a rare thing, but they were brilliant. We started off in their classroom for the morning as the hall was out of commission, but we had a fabulous time.  Chris Barnes, the gentleman who had booked me was lovely, but looked about 12 years old - you know you're getting old when teachers could realistically be your children.  A lovely lady went out of her way to look after me at lunchtime, going out to the local shops to get me a sandwich and drink, and she refused any money for them.  What a nice lady. The stocks and the jousting in the hall were a delight and we finished on that rarest of things - a win for the Gentlemen!  But, boy was it close again. We had to go to a jousting penalty shoot out to get a result.

GENTLEMEN 10.5 - 15.5 LADIES

Wow, did the boys team need that.  They were getting left behind again.  I began the long slog back home to Somerset and finally arrived in Crewkerne just after 6pm.  I was hungry and knew there wasn't much at home, so I decided to get fish and chips.  Not from my usual miserable bastards in West Street, but instead I decided to try Tucker's, the new chip shop in East Street, and they were lovely.  Welcoming, chatty, friendly, clean and pleasant - pretty much everything the other place isn't.  So, that's my new chip shop sorted out.  I got back home, stuck on the TV, ate my dinner and promptly fell asleep on the sofa.  Oh, the wild and exciting life of a Henry VIII look-a-like!

My next Henry appearance is next Monday with a return visit to one of my longest standing bookings, at Blundell's Prep School in Tiverton in Devon.  Should be a fun one like it always is.

Better Late Than Never. Apparently.

An apology, earlier...

I know I know.  It's been far too long.  Oh the amount of times I have heard that from a lady.  Actually, I am lying to be honest.  They normally climbed into bed clutching an electron microscope.  But enough of my chequered past, and to be brutal, probably equally chequered future.

I have to cast my weary old mind back to last week and the first gig, which was at the Maynard School in Exeter.  I have been visiting this lovely school for nearly ten years now and I always get to see the same teacher, a lovely lady called Keagh Fry.  The Maynard like me to start a bit later than other schools, so I don't have to be with them until about 10.30am, which suits me down to the ground as it means I can have a bit of a lie in!  It was a cold morning but a nice drive down to Exeter itself.  I was soon in the hall with the ladies (The Maynard is a girls school), but it was a very small group this year, just 14.  We had a fabulous early session, lots of laughs and some great knowledge from the ladies.

Lunch was, as ever, delicious at the Maynard and loads of the dinner staff remembered me from previous years and we had a lot of laughs.  It was good to catch up with Keagh over lunch and hear how her lovely kids Adison and Harley were getting on.  We ripped through a fun afternoon and finished with a good jousting tournament, but of course again, like Maltman's the other day, this being an all girl school, I can't allow the result to add to the year long score.  So next year will be my tenth visit to Maynard School, and I can't wait to see them all again.

My next bookings were the beginning of the next week where the Monday and Tuesday was to find me in Cheltenham in Gloucestershire.  Monday I was due at Dean Close Prep School and the Tuesday I was at St Mark's Junior School.  I drove up to Cheltenham on the Sunday and had booked myself into a Travelodge.  Now from those who have read this blog over the years, both of you, you will know my feelings towards Travelodge.  The different levels of quality in this hotel chain is enough to give you the "Trip Adviser Bends".  I have gone from a freezing cold crap splattered shack near Knebworth, to a brand spanking new comfortable plush set up at New Brighton.  Now, here at Cheltenham I was to move up to a new level of niceness. The new Cheltenham Travelodge was lovely.  A king size bed, plasma screen telly, clean, tidy, warm and with a working elevator.  What was not to like?  I arrived on the Sunday and after settling in, went downstairs to the Harvester Restaurant that was there.  I ordered a steak and some new potatoes.  New potatoes were off, so I had mashed potatoes instead.  When my plate came up, it was roughly the same size as a satellite dish, with a small round piece of steak, a bit like an ice hockey puck, skulking at one end, a small blob of mashed potato in the middle, and a rather depressed looking grilled tomato slowly disintegrating at the other end.  Haute cuisine.  I think I would have been better off going to the Kentucky Fried Chicken drive through next door.  Having said that, the wine was nice and the waitress rather pretty, very friendly and attentive.  I slept very well.

Monday at Dean Close was a good one.  Jon Harris who books me was as ever, very attentive, friendly and well organised.  We started the day in the Oaksey Common Room, as you do, moved briefly outside for the jousting, then back for the finale of the day, the stocks back in the Oaksey Room.  It was a lovely day all round and as we had an extended session for the jousting, we got everyone to have a go, timing them to see who the fastest 12 were, and then having a big final between the three fastest boys and the three fastest ladies.  Despite what the original timings had shown us, it was the gentlemen who sailed off with the win in the big final, much to the annoyance of the ladies.  Our score clicks over to:

GENTLEMEN 8.5 - 11.5 LADIES

So a bit closer again.  It would be most interesting to see what occurred at St Mark's School on the Tuesday. Stay tuned...

I got whisked out to dinner on the Monday night, picked up from outside the hotel by Justine Cotterill, a friend of Zarrina Bull's and a lady I have pranced around with at Sudeley Castle from time to time. It was down to Justine that I was going to St Mark's School in the first place as her son goes to the school and is doing the Tudors, so she introduced me, bless her!   For the meal,  I was under the impression it was going to be me and all of Justine's family, but as it was it was just me and Justine, so a big thank you to her husband and kids for the loan of their wife/mum!  We went into the centre of Cheltenham and to a very agreeable curry house.  One lovely curry later and I was back at the hotel, sitting on the bed looking like a ginger Buddha.

I set my alarm for about 6.30am the next morning so that I could get up early and rush around slowly, as my Mother often says.  Ooh!  Did you notice the pause in my typing there?  An advert came on TV with Fearne Cotton in it and I had to smash my foot through the screen and then grind the plastic debris to dust.  But I feel better now.  Anyway, back to me supposedly getting up early on the Tuesday, well sadly I slept right through my alarm and only got woken up with a text from Justine letting me know how much she'd enjoyed the meal the night before - at about 7.45am.  ARGH!  I had promised the school I would be with them just after 8am.  I hurriedly got ready, but it was lucky that I was just round the corner from St Mark's - less than a mile to be honest.  Well, we had a lovely time at the school - it was a fantastic place, really nice teachers, groovy kids and a lovely hall.  Not sure if it was because I was enjoying myself so much or if they had drugged my tea, but the day seemed to absolutely shoot past.  The jousting finished with a roar as the ladies stormed back to a famous victory, simply destroying the boys team in the final.

GENTLEMEN 8.5 - 12.5 LADIES

And so the drive home began, and it wasn't a bad one and I was home and hosed by 5.30pm.  And after a couple of days at leisure listening to England being ripped to shreds in the second test (oh the shame... being bowled out by Mitchell Johnson, a man with all the subtlety of a commode and the accuracy of an American air strike), and then I was off up to Essex on the Friday to see Amanda and James in another production of their version of "A Christmas Carol", this time at St Nicholas' Church, Laindon, a very atmospheric venue.  It was great to see them both enjoying themselves and getting so much out of performing on stage.  Here's to their next production - a version of Terry Pratchett's "Going Postal".  What a marvellous delivery.

Hampton Court? No I just sat down too quickly...

Good King Hal having a quick pas de deux.  The filthy beast.

I had waited a long time to do a gig at Hampton Court Palace.  It was one of those venues that just never seemed possible.  OK it is a closed shop to re-enactors.  You have to be top top chums with the company Past Pleasures and be prepared to work for their starvation wages most of the time.  I speak with some experience on this matter as I had auditioned for Past Pleasures some years back and was horrified by the paltry sum they offered me to work for them.  "Think of the kudos of working at Hampton Court!" Their boss had said.  Yes, think of my bank balance, I replied.  And so it seemed it would never happen.  But then the most unlikely of white-charger-riding-heroes swept out of the sunset.  BP are probably better known for crashing oil tankers on to rocks in Alaska or making obscene amounts of profit every year, but their Indirect Procurement Department (no, me neither.  Not a scooby.) had booked me to attend their "Town Hall" meeting day, which just happened to be at Hampton Court Palace.  I had asked along Sarah Morris, lovely Tudor Lady and top author on the subject, to join me as Queen for the day.  She was happy to oblige.  

I had booked at hotel right next to Hampton Court and drove up on the Sunday night as I thought it might be nice and quiet.  WRONG.  WRONG WRONG WRONG.  This was the Sunday night after a half term holiday.  The A303 was packed tighter than Robert Plant's spandex pants at an early 70's Led Zepp concert.  I spent a good hour sitting in the darkness that should have been Stonehenge, surrounded by huge 4x4 vehicles packed full of sour faced little school age f*ckers with i-Pads, playing Minecraft, or Candy Crush Saga, or watching Miley Cyrus do something really outrageous like write a decent song by herself and leave her pants on for once.  That would be nice.

I got to the King's Arms Hotel and met up with Sarah.  I nearly managed to embarrass myself early on by using the loo in my room, then deciding to wash my hands, I turned on the tap and was hammered in the crotch with a tsunami-like explosion of water which made me look like I had lost complete control of my bodily functions.  The next five minutes were spent in my room with the hair dryer trying to remove the offending stain marks.  We had a lovely dinner - I had  a wild mushroom and truffle risotto, with Parmesan shavings, and a pint of Hall and Woodhouse Badger ale.  Smashing.  I slept like a baby on a small bed that made alarming farting noises every time I moved.

Sarah and I had breakfast and then made our way round to Hampton Court.  We were in the Garden Room round the back of the Palace and were warmly reminded not to wander round the front should we upset any of the Past Pleasures slaves.... I mean actors.  It was generally a fun day - mostly me introducing the speakers, some of whom were funny and inspiring and others, such as their IT bod who needed beheading after only two minutes but insisted on giving his full.....well, I don't know how long.  It honestly felt like a lifetime.  Wonderful.  We'd had to get changed into our clobber in the cafe next door to where we were, so that involved us both going into the small gents and ladies to get our gear on properly.  I had finished when I got the call from the ladies that Sarah needed me in there to lace her in.  Now any top student of doubles entendres or any just voyeuristic tendencies, should have had a look in at that point.  We had Sarah, semi robed in her Tudor gowns, leaning on her hands bent over the sink in the ladies, as I stood close up behind her, two cords of cloth in hand, with her shouting out:  "DO ME UP MIKE!  AND DO IT HARD!"  Ooh er!  People don't realise how much I suffer in this job - here I was with Sarah Morris, who lets face it folks, is drop dead gorgeous, half undressed in Tudor undies, while I have to physically and forcefully lace her into her body hugging bodice.  What I did, I did in the name of Tudor Historical accuracy.  But I did have to have a cigarette afterwards.
Well BP treated us like Royalty, how else?  They fed and watered us splendidly, we took part in the whole day, helping out with the team quizzes and with me introducing all the speakers and posing for photos with most of the delegates.  We finished at about 4.30pm and Sarah and I were away just after 5pm.  The roads down to the M25 were horrendous, but the actual London orbital generally quiet.  I was soon at Amanda's house to see her and James, but they were out rehearsing their new play, but more of that later!
On the Wednesday I was up in Norfolk, in Norwich for a first appearance at Lionwood School.  I had been recommended by one of the teachers who had previously witnessed me doing my "thing" at Falcon Junior some years ago.  Lionwood was a brilliant school - great fun, some really cool teachers and cracking kids.  They had no idea I was coming, the children that is!  And their surprise on my first appearance was very edifying.  The joust came down to a very closely fought final, which was finally won by a very good Ladies team.  Our score goes to:

GENTLEMEN 7.5 - 10.5 LADIES

Once more daylight appears between them, what can the gents do?  It is funny how the ladies just keep on winning.  That's life I suppose.
On the Thursday evening I was at the Mirren Studio in the Towngate Theatre in Basildon to watch The Thalians Theatre Group and their production of Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol".  My lovely son James was in it as a street urchin, and also the little lad who Scrooge gets to go and get the turkey at the end of the play.  And Amanda was cast as one of the old crones who strips Scrooge's flat after his death.  They were both absolutely brilliant, the whole cast was.  You had to keep reminding yourself it was an amateur production.  But it was truly wonderful, great sets, lovely costumes, great actors and a genuinely creepy Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come.  Amanda and James are truly bitten by the bug and have both put their names forward for the next production - a version of Terry Pratchett's "Going Postal".  I'm ordering my tickets already.

Norwich in the South East? Norfolk in chance.

Jane Seymour, bursting into tears when the blindfold falls off and she finally see's her new husband...

So with the dust barely settling on the Holy Family School in Benfleet, his Royal Sagaciousness was up at the crack of dawn and out of the front door of Amanda's house and on the road to Norfolk.  I had mentioned to some friends that I was in the South East for the week for shows in Benfleet, Norwich and Wickford, for which my friends had snorted and said, since when was Norwich in the South East?  Well, when you live in Somerset, everything to the east of London appears to be the South East.  Sort of... Depends on which way you face and where you start from.  Oh shut up.  I don't care.  I knew what I meant.  And anyway, it wasn't even in Norwich, I was returning to Martham on the outskirts of Great Yarmouth.  Yes, Great Yarmouth, or how I still refer to it - AAARGH!!!  Not my favourite place on Earth.  I am not a big fan of seaside resorts, and let me tell you, Great Yarmouth is THE last resort.  Anyway, it doesn't matter as I was in Martham, which is a lovely little area and nothing to do with Great Yarmouth at all.  Norfolk has this reputation for having a population full of people dressed in smocks throwing turnips at old ladies that they think are witches, to paraphrase Charlie Brooker, but the children and staff at Martham are always really on the ball, and this year was no different.  It was a big group as ever, well over 100 children, but we had a fantastic time, great response and loads of laughs from all the children and staff.  It's a long drive to Martham, but days like this make it worth it.  The jousting was deafening, unsurprising considering the size of the group, and ended in a massively important win for the Ladies!  And so the score clicks over to:

GENTLEMEN 7.5 - 8.5 LADIES

So the ladies strike back after a good recent series of wins for the gentlemen.  

I got home to Amanda's place and had lots of cuddles from my lovely son, James.  Always makes the day worthwhile when that happens.  The following day, the Thursday, luckily I was much closer to Amanda's place with a return visit to Wickford School in Essex.  Wickford is a lovely school, and is always a delight to come along to. Yet another warm welcome and yet another group of fabulous kids.  All the teachers were great fun as usual, except for one very dour Welsh male teacher who spent the entire day with his arms folded, a resigned look upon his face somewhere between pain and utter disinterest.  This was a challenge, and so during the afternoon stocks session when my shows get incredibly silly, I kept haranguing him and dragging him into my routines.  But I'll give the old leek muncher his due, he resolutely refused to raise a smile for the entire day.  I was for once, defeated. Diolch yn fawr, as they say in some of the more refined sheep shearing parlours in upper Gwent.  I prefer O leiaf yn ceisio gwenu, rydych yn ddiflas git Cymru.  But please yourself I say.

Another fabulous jousting tournament in the afternoon culminated in a stunningly easy win for the ladies, again!  This is much more like last year!  Our score goes on to:

GENTLEMEN 7.5 - 9.5 LADIES

So daylight once more splits the two teams.  And this is our score as we moved into the half term period of this scholastic year.  Any thoughts of an evening of rest was soon scuppered as I was asked to go along with Amanda and James and see their latest rehearsal for the play they are appearing in - Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol".  James is playing the street urchin that Scrooge encourages to go and buy the big turkey for the Cratchitt family at the end of the play.  He has learnt his lines brilliantly, and just needs to slow down his delivery a bit and he will be a big star.  Amanda is playing an old hag who pilfers Scrooge's belongings after he has died.  I refuse to mention the words "type" and "casting" at this juncture as I rather like my cobblers where they are at the moment.  All in all, the play itself looks like it is going to be a stunner, and speaking of stunners, so is the lady playing the Ghost of Christmas Past.  I must go to the first performance and sit in the front row.

Half term saw James and I head down to Wales for a few days in the pouring wind and rain that appeared to be Newcastle Emlyn and my parents house.  To be honest some of the weather forecasts we got at the start of the week were a tad biblical, but the plague of locusts and boils did miss us on the whole and we had a lovely few days away.

Next stop for the King - an appearance at Hampton Court Palace on Monday doing a corporate event for BP.  My first Hampton Court show - I can't wait!  Watch this space for more.

Hartland and the Holy Family

Good King Hal clutching Natalie Dormer and very
shortly going blind...

I had been doing a lot of rushing around lately, and when I finally sat down in my office and looked at the up and coming shows I had to do, I was delighted to see that all that was left for the end of this week was a half day at a school in Devon.  I had enquired of the school roughly where in Devon they were, and was delighted again to hear the word "north".  Super, surely they would only be in Axminster or somewhere close by like that.  About 36 hours before I was due to be at the school I decided it would probably be prudent to actually have a butchers at the maps and see where this place was.  Ah.  It wasn't Axminster.  It wasn't Tiverton.  It was a bit further than that.  It was in Hartland, near Bideford - next stop Nova Scotia.  It wasn't a long way, it was a sodding long way.  It was about 100 miles door to door, so I ended up having to leave in the wee small hours and hack off down the M5 and then cut off on the road to, and then past Tiverton and all points west.  It is a lovely road, but by God it's a slow road.  There aren't many passing places and when you're stuck behind a lorry, you are well a truly stuck behind a lorry.  But I got to the school just after 8am and was very warmly welcomed.  The kids were lovely and the teachers charming, and the morning just seemed to zip past.  It was such a pity it was just the morning, just a half day.  We finished just before midday with a rip roaring jousting tournament which was won by a very competent Gents team, which does their annual score the power of good. It now makes it:

GENTLEMEN 6.5 - 7.5 LADIES

As close as it has been for a long long time.

My drive back to Somerset was lovely, through late autumn sunshine, but the early start and excessive driving was starting to get to me and I could feel myself getting dangerously tired.  I am old enough, and wise enough to recognise these warning signs now, and so I pulled off the main road, parked up and had a little snooze in my car - only about half an hour, but it made all the difference and I felt refreshed and ready for action and continued the drive home.

After a very nice weekend of not doing a hell of a lot - OK I went round a few charity shops, but that was the limit of heart racing excitement - I was off on the Sunday evening for a drive back to Essex and a few days with Amanda and James.  As ever it was so nice to see my little boy when I got there, even though he was spark asleep and snoring like a good un on my arrival, but he looked so angelic!  I had the Monday at leisure in the sparkling metropolis of Basildon before getting up relatively early on the Tuesday for a trip to a new school for me again, the delightfully named Holy Family Catholic School in South Benfleet in Essex.  It's funny, I am always slightly wary of going into Catholic schools, simply because of Henry's track record, but I am always rewarded with a warm welcome and usually some fabulous kids.  And today was no different.  Some of the loveliest teachers I have met in a long time, really they could not do enough for me which was very sweet of them.  The kids were great as well, only about 30 of them, but full of beans and much fun.  We had such a good morning, and an equally entertaining afternoon.  The jousting crowd was boosted by all of years 3, 4 and 6 joining the year 5 I was already with, so the hall was packed to the rafters with very excited children.  The first ladies semi final was a scruffy affair, with one team in particular going out of their way to seemingly smash most of my jousting kit to pieces.  But the final was of high quality as ever, and deafeningly loud with such a big crowd, and culminated in a win for the Gents again!

GENTLEMEN 7.5 - 7.5 LADIES

And so we are back where we started.  But well done to the Gents who have fought right back this year and could perhaps take the lead mid year for the first time ever!  Let's see what happens tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow I am off up and early in the wee small hours again for a return visit to Martham Junior School near Great Yarmouth in Norfolk.  So wish me dry conditions, an empty road and pleasant kids - mind you, they're usually brilliant at Martham, so I am hoping that will continue.  Night night!

Billericay Dicky and the Tudor Revels

An early version of the Tiller Girls.  Not a raging success.

After all the ridiculous hammering up and down the M4, it was nice to spend a couple of slightly more restful days in Essex with my ex wife Amanda and my lovely son, James.  They have both been offered roles in an am dram production of "A Christmas Carol", with Amanda playing one of the old crones who sells off all of Scrooge's wares after he has died in the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come bit (and I refuse to make any comments about type casting, really), and James is playing the little boy that Scrooge asks to go and buy a turkey for Bob Cratchitt on Christmas morning.  I helped them with a couple of read-throughs before their latest rehearsal, and they were both near word perfect already!  James is going to be a star, I can tell, and his Mum isn't too shabby in the acting stakes either!

The Friday morning had me returning to one of my favourite schools in Essex - South Green Junior in Billericay.  I was warmly welcomed as ever by the lovely staff, and had another pleasant experience shortly before I was due to start my show by the appearance of my dear old friend Kevin Rowley!  He runs a company called Comprehensive Piano Services, and one of his jobs is to look after the servicing and tuning of all the pianos in the state schools of Essex and beyond.  He was there to re-fit a pedal on South Green's upright which had come off at high speed during a particularly violent interpretation of Grieg's Piano Concerto.  This is of course completely made up, I have no idea how the pedal came off, but off it was, and Kevin was the man for the job.  We had a little chat, but just as we really got cracking the children arrived for their morning and Kevin had to shoot off.  Well we had a great day with the children - tremendous fun, full of laughs and much noise.  Lunch was as ever served by the charming lady at South Green who does the food there - what a nice person she is! And then we were back for a mad afternoon, culminating in a very loud joust which the boys managed to win.  So our score clicks over to the slightly surreal score of:

GENTLEMEN 3.5 - 5.5 LADIES

I packed my stuff away and headed back to Amanda's house.  I offered to take James out to dinner that evening with his Mum, anywhere that he wanted.  The choice was his.  The Ivy?  Claridges?  The Fat Duck?  Nope.  He chose - Pizza Hut, as ever.

I was up early the next morning for the drive from Essex down to Southampton and my appearance at the event called "Meet the Ancestors" run by a local historical group in Southampton called The Tudor Revels.  I was bound to get the coffee one.  I was due to give another outing to my "Henry's Horrid History" show. I set off round the M25 in high spirits, but it was bound not to last.  Warnings began being broadcast on the radio stating that the M25 was shut in both directions by the M23 due to a massive pile up and traffic was at a standstill.  I plumbed in a detour route on my sat nav, but the stupid machine kept trying to take me back to the M25.  Anyway, I ended up cutting right across country in grey lowering weather, with pretty much everybody else appearing to try the same thing as I got held up in ever slower traffic jams on what I would imagine are normally quite charming A roads.  Arundel looked nice, if gridlocked, and I made a note to pop back and visit sometime when I wasn't in a hurry.  In the end a two hour drive from Basildon to Southampton ended taking nearly 4 hours.  I had been given directions to a nearby primary school to the venue where performers could park their cars in safety.  I arrived at the school two hours late to find the gates securely locked and not a sign of any one in sight.  I drove round to the little Tudor side street where the event was taking, nearly wiping out the town crier and the wise woman on the bonnet of my Mazda.  One of the organisers popped over to the car park and let me in, which was very sweet of her.  I had told lots of my old Skandia friends that I was appearing in Southampton (Skandia Life being a company I worked for in Southampton between 1998 and 2003 - just in case you haven't read past blog entries), and I was delighted to see some familiar faces!  First off there was Camilla Kennedy, who I hadn't seen since I left Skandia, then there was Kathryn Lee, up until this point the only person from my Skandia days to see me perform as Henry as she, her mum and her daughter came out to Barrington Court one weekend a couple of years ago to see me, which was really sweet of her!  And then there was the lovely Tracie Callaway-Sayce, her husband and two kids, again, someone I had not seen since 2003.  You can see the four of us all together in the Tiller Girl pose in the photo above.  We are, left to right, Camilla, Kathryn, Some old Tudor ruin, and Tracie.  Then I bumped into the gorgeous Sarah Morris, who was there at the show giving a talk about her books and signing copies.  Great to see her again.  Such a lovely lovely lady.  Well I was doing my show in St Julien's Chapel (not Sandy's) and we were packed out!  Staff on the doors were turning people away which was a shame for them, but most gratifying.  The show went down a storm - I chose Camilla to play Anne Boleyn and took great delight in chopping her head off - only pretend of course.  When I finally finished the show and went outside all three ladies were waiting to see me, and I was roundly hugged and congratulated.  Then along came dear old Graham Orris (Or Goff as we know him!), again late of Skandia, with his wife and children - they had been one of the groups who had arrived too late to gain access to the show.  Poor lad.  After some lovely goodbyes from the Skandia crew, I walked back to the car park with Sarah Morris, had a cuddle and goodbye from her, which was very nice, and then began the long slog back to Somerset.  The drive back was fine and I finished  the evening with a nice bottle of wine and some lovely memories of seeing such lovely old friends again.

About the most exciting things that have happened this week have been getting my car MOT'd, which amazingly it passed (!!!!!!) and then getting some of my costume repaired by the sainted Judy Hares in Martock.  Back on the road again this week with visits to Bromsgrove and Preston.  Thank God for that MOT.

Two Hever Weekends



Ronseal.  Just don't try this at home.

If it's a weekend in August then it must be time for some jousting at Hever Castle in Kent.  As usual a fun weekend was had with the Knights of Royal England, and it was as ever a delight to have Michelle Coda with me as Anne Boleyn.  We love doing the shows and despite moaning about how long it takes, we really enjoy our walk back from the jousting arena to the Castle.  We get stopped virtually ever two or three paces for photos with groups ranging from family groups with loads of children, to hen parties and bewildered looking Chinese tourists.  We also tot up how many times we get asked if we are hot in our costumes.  To save you time, everyone who might come to see us joust, yes we are hot.  Very very very hot.

James, my lovely son, is always at my side as the King's herald, but on the first of the two weekends, on the Sunday, his Mum Mandy came along and accompanied us after the show back to Somerset for a few days.  Somerset was where James was born back in 2002 and I always enjoy taking him for visits to his old haunts, keeping the memories alive for him.  We had a lovely time over the three days they were down, none more so than when we took James down to West Bay in Dorset, where the TV series "Broadchurch" with David Tennant was filmed and he enjoyed himself immensely catching crabs (steady) down at the harbour.  His patience, not good at the best of times, was tested severely.  We recommended that he should put his net in, leave it for at least five minutes before checking it.  His net was barely in the water for more than 30 seconds before he was hauling it out and cursing his bad luck without a crab in sight.  We finally persuaded him to leave the net in slightly longer and he promptly pulled out a crab of Brobdingnagian proportions, much to the chagrin of the other children similarly fishing around him.  The rest of his catches didn't really live up to that opening promise, but he thoroughly enjoyed himself.  We crowned a fine morning with fish and chips from the wrapper while sitting on the front.  Lovely.

We met up with Sue English and Ian Weston from Portals to the Past who were having a little holiday in Somerset.  We had a fine dinner with them at the Duke of York Pub in Shepton Beauchamp, which was just like the old days.  The next day we headed back to the south east so we could prepare for yet more jousting at Hever Castle.  We were lucky with the weather again and the shows seemed to be getting better and better.

And so this week I am down at (you guessed it) Hever Castle filming a quick promo video for them, then on the Friday and Saturday I am back at H***r C****e (fill in the blanks yourself) for more jousting before then heading up to Essex to visit Castle Hedingham for the Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday for the final two jousting days of the season.  It has been terrific fun, hard work and I can't wait till next season.

That Was One Hell of a Week That Was Part Three

My son James, with the new Conservative Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for some posh place in the south east.4

Disneyland! Paris! What, little old me? Who'd have thought it. After our previous day with the family in Kent, on the Monday morning my brother-in-law Julian drove Amanda, James and I down to Ashford and the international train station there. We were to spend three nights and four days at the resort in Paris and James, being six years old, was rather excited. Almost as excited as Amanda and I really.

Our opening experiences of Eurostar were not the most favourable. For a start you had to get about 600 passengers down to the platform and the train via one rather small lift. We are then all waiting to board our train when an officious French lady clutching a clipboard informs us that all the baggage racks on these coaches were full already and we would have to put all our suitcases in the baggage coach. She sprints off down the platform with us tottering after her, some of us pulling cases the size of steamer trunks. Our cases are literally flung into a storage area and we walk back up the platform to our coach. Imagine our slight sense of humour failure when we get into our coach and find all of the baggage racks completely empty. We hammer through the tunnel and then down over the bland flat lands of north France. Just outside the station for Disneyland we are held up for about ten minutes because of a "security alert". Eventually we are in the station and begin trying to find which coach has our suitcases in it. Myself and some other chaps find our coach and have to virtually break into it to get to the cases. We then have to queue up for the Disneyland Express service which involves them taking our cases off us, we go straight to the fun park and our cases are then taken onto our hotel so we will find our stuff when we get there.

The park and everything in it are just as you would expect. Fun, fun, fun and capitalism run wild. There are hundreds of little shops, but it soon dawns on you that they all sell exactly the same stuff as each other. Some of the rides are particularly brilliant - Pirates of the Caribbean was great fun, the Star Wars "Star Tours" was mind blowing, and we had great delight in doing the Buzz Lightyear Lazer Blast game every single day!

Late afternoon on the first day we book into the hotel. The charming lady on the reception asks if we will be using the minibar - I have been warned off minibars for years past, and I was right to follow my instincts. In the minibar a tiny tube of Pringles crisps were 5 Euros. 5 EUROS? That's about £4.50. For a couple of the nights we ate in the Inventions Restaurant in the Hotel and their evening buffet was amazing. Langoustines, huge pacific prawns, medallions of beef in a sour cream sauce, beef bourguinon, scallop terrine, all wonderful high quality food, but as they had to cater for children there was even fun stuff like spaghetti and meat balls and even breaded chicken shapes and funny faces potato wedges. We did get stung on the first night. We were on a half-board option, so all our evening meals were paid for, however our drinks were extra. On this first night I ordered Amanda two glasses of house white wine and me two glasses of house red wine. These four glasses of wine cost me 36 Euros. On our second night we went to see the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show in the Disney Village - great fun, very touristy and very silly. But we all enjoyed it, even James who was delighted to receive a free stetson hat during the show which he could keep.

We had a fabulous, exhausting time and really only became completely saccharined out on the final afternoon. For me the funniest thing to see for the whole week was a family group we would see occasionally with lots of young children, a mum and dad, and a sallow faced miserable teenager, defiantly wearing a series of Slipknot t-shirts and desperately trying to remain looking cool while all the other members of his family are wearing Mickey Mouse ears.

James had his photo taken with Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Pluto, Goofy, Tigger, Ee-Aw, Balloo and a host of other Disney characters. He had all sorts of stuff bought for him and went on all the rides he could ever possibly want. He is a very lucky boy!

We got the train back to Ashford and Julian picked us up again. We were all exhausted, but it was a magical experience. But my week wasn't over yet....

Little Parndon, Harlow

I have had the pleasure of visiting Little Parndon School in Harlow every years since 2005, so this year was my 5th annual visit. It is always a pleasure to visit this school as everyone there is very welcoming and kind, the children are all fun, chatty and intelligent, and the day always seems to be fun and well received.

It was only a small year group this time around, about 40+ children, but all in superb costumes, particularly one little lad who looked like a leprechaun! One of the teachers was a little embarrassed as she had just noticed that her own Tudor costume was somewhat... ahem...immodest, as it was almost completely see-through and gave a very good idea of her underwear selection for the day. She borrowed a pair of football shorts from one of the male teachers to spare her blushes. Mind you, it was a pair of Spurs shorts which I would have thought was embarrassment enough. Another of the ladies in attendance was an absolute spitting image of Billie Piper from her Rose Tyler exploits in Doctor Who. She was chosen by the kids to go in the stocks later - I urged her to run off to the TARDIS as it would be safer.

The jousting was a deafening experience and was won by a very fine Gents team. On finishing I drove over to my parent's house in Mountnessing for what could be one of the last times (they are hopefully on the verge of a long desired move down to Wales) and Amanda and James were there, as was my sister Cathy, her husband Julian, and their dogs Sam and Muffy. I drove home to Somerset after dinner. Today I have been in to see the Doctor again as my Cellulitus is still playing me up. Perhaps it will make me hobble about like a real Henry VIIIth! I am all for authenticity, but this is ridiculous.