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Member's Memoirs

I joined Sefton Theatre Company in about late '81 or early '82 and had various tiny walk-on parts in Pat Foulds' production of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town". It was a desperately grim winter, and I think I saw Ranulph Feinnes turning back as I was on the way to one rehearsal, through the wind and the snow. As Pat reminded us, there are no small parts, only small actors.
I stuck at it, and had part one of the joint-acme of my career when I was given the part of Dennis in the 1982 production of Willie Russell's "One For The Road", which was recently reprised by STC. Why anyone should think of casting me as a rebellious lunatic who vandalised his own home and leapt over furniture, I'll never know, but I'll always be grateful to Gwen Storey that she did. Up until quite recently, people still used to say, "Weren't you 'Dennis' in…?". For that production, we had artwork done by none other
than local celebrity cartoonist, Bill Tidy. Sadly, someone buggered off with the original drawing before I could get hold of it, and I didn't keep my copy of a poster that I had signed by all the crew at the time. (Someone must know where that original drawing still is.) Paint was sprayed, tables smashed and John Denver L.P.s scattered everywhere. And that was just the after-show party.
The other peak in my acting career came when one Terry Kerr, known resident of these parts ("What's he doing in these parts? - he must have a bad agent") got together with me one evening in 1989 and said, "Isn't it a pity that no-one realises Woody Allen wrote plays before he went on to movies - it would be great to do "Play It Again, Sam". Later only that same evening, it seemed quiet a reasonable proposition that we go ahead and do the play. Just how, was something we would sort out later.
It turned out that the late lamented Southport Garrick Players offered to pick up the bill for the production, but leave us to do exactly what we wanted. They must have been out of their minds! What we got was help from several people who, naturally also had connections with Sefton (indeed, everyone seemed to swap around between one company and another, and lots of great productions were put on.)
Sorting through some old papers last week-end, I came across the "Programme" for that show. I know it was under the banner of another company, but many of the names were of Seffy stalwarts. The play was a
smash hit (even the attendants had to stand outside - maybe it's worth another look.) I am enclosing scanned copies of that original handbill (once bitten, twice shy) with its autographs of the great and the good.
A few days later that same month, I got married (and it was my birthday too.) It was the best month of my life.
To all the people in the acting fraternity, who do this insane thing of wanting to get up in public, while sometimes in mortal terror, and run the risk of making fools of themselves, thank you, both for the shows, and for all the fun I had being involved in a few of them.

Best wishes,

Peter Bird.

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