Prismatic Reflection

Many Happy Returns

................ 21 Years In The Village

    Continuing my look back at Prisoner re-enactments which I have organised and performed in at Prisoner conventions held at Portmeirion.

   We've reached 1997, and what a year it was, kicking of with an indoor scene from ‘It’s Your Funeral’ with my wife Morag, and myself in pyjamas and dressing gown, as Monique arrives to wake No.6 up as she comes to his cottage seeking his help. The scene was so well acted, that one person walked up to me and said that "You are the Prisoner!"

   Again Morag and I organised the human chess match, so no change there, and I organised the crowd for the ‘Free For All’ election re-enactment. But this year there was to be two brand new, never before re-enactments performed at the convention. The first of these actually contained two pieces of action happening at the same time - the Appreciation day scene from ‘It’s Your Funeral.’ The speeches from the balcony, unveiling of the "Achievement" monument, the bomb about to be detonated, and the fight between No.100 and No.6. To be perfectly honest there were so many people taking part in this re-enactment from different parts of the country, that we could not get everyone together at the same time so as to rehearse this re-enactment, and even at Portmeirion we were only able to rehearse it once. But on the day the performances in the re-enactment went perfectly. It had never been done before, and in all probability not since.

   Again we were to take part in the "Touring Village Theatre" the scene on the Belvedere out look as No.6 is listening to his radio and interrupted by No.2 and No.240. Myself and Morag as No.8 and No.6 in a scene from ‘Checkmate.’

   And then there was another new re-enactment, Madame Engadine's party from ‘A B & C.’ This was not organised by Morag and myself, but by one I. Smith, although by all the work Morag and I actually did in helping organise this re-enactment, it seemed that we were doing the majority of the work. I myself had all the script to learn, when others had only their parts to learn, and one performer hadn't even bothered to learn his lines. Oh we did get to rehearse the re-enactment once, but if it had not been for Morag and myself that would never have happened, as her whose re-enactment it was, thought a rehearsal was not needed!!!!!!!!

    For acting in the re-enactment itself I was supposed to have been wearing a microphone, as it was, it was just as well I wasn't. Because he who had not learned his lines was feeding me lines which were never in the script!!!!!! And I had to make my lines fit in, otherwise I would have looked bad, and I wasn't having that. Luckily I made myself heard to the audience, where as the man playing opposite wasn't! Of course myself acting with Morag as "B" in her scene were acting and word perfect, and from the outside as we were told later, looked great. As indeed did the fight scene between No.6, the thug and his two henchmen. I made sure that that fight scene was well choreographed. But I had to tell one of the cast for the fight that he was simply too old. He was the choosing of the re-enactments organiser, but it was left to me to tell the man concerned. What kind of organiser does that? Not a very good one in my book! But acting within the re-enactment it was bloody awful I can tell you. And then when it came to my turning to the mirror, as No.6 does in his dream of ‘A B & C,’ the mirror is on the slant and No.6 straightens it as you will recall. Well I turned to face a mirror which had been blue-tacked onto the wall of the Gloriette, beneath the election balcony {the re-enactment having been performed in the central Piazza of Portmeirion} I couldn't believe what I was looking at. An oval shaped piece of cardboard with tinfoil stuck to it! My god, when I turned away from that mirror, well my blood was up, and if my look could kill....... all the work and effort my wife had put into this re-enactment, and the organiser of which wouldn't even provide anything even closely resembling the mirror in the actual scene of ‘A B & C.’ If we'd have known we would have produced something worthy of the re-enactment. I'm sorry, but I haven't time for people who don't even try, and put themselves first before the re-enactment itself!

   And to top it all off, someone from the audience said that Miss Isobel Smith, who was playing the role of Madame Engadine, that her French accent made the re-enactment!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Morag and I couldn't believe it, an organiser who had done so little for the re-enactment, who simply swanned about in a dress like that of Engadine's........ Morag and I swore never to act with her in any re-enactment again. Oh don't get me wrong, Morag and I were never involved in re-enactments for self gratification, but organised and preformed in re-enactments for the enjoyment of others. But when someone gets the praise and having done so little, and one who is so unprofessional, well those words that "Miss I. Smith's French accent made the re-enactment" - well it wasn't even a very good French accent!

Next time 1998

Be seeing you