Aberdeen Tivoli backstage: a callboy recalls
April 2009
Eric Martin on stage in 1944: “Stage hands wore everyday clothes. As a callboy I wore a sports jacket and flannels – I was greatly relieved I did not have to wear a pageboy’s uniform!”
by Eric Martin
I was a young building trade apprentice, just 15, when a friend told me there was a job as an evening callboy at the Tivoli Theatre – the previous callboy had left to be a trawler deckhand. I went for an interview with the stage manager, who explained the job.
Each evening I would have to be at the Tivoli at 6pm. My first duty would be to knock on all the dressing room doors calling out, “Half an hour, please”. Fifteen minutes later I had to call again, and so on, until five minutes before the orchestra played the opening overture, I’ll See You in My Dreams. Then I would call out, “Overture and beginners please”.
I was given a notebook and pencil, and told to stand off-stage under a large clock and note the time each act went on stage and its length. Any artist who overran was cut back, as the auditorium had to be empty by 10 o’clock. That was on a Monday night. Other evenings I could stand offstage by the electrician’s switchboard and run any errands that cropped up.
Before starting as a callboy I had never seen a variety show. My very first glimpse was of two soubrettes dressed in flimsy gauze costumes. The stage was a dark mauve and they danced in the white beams of the spotlight to the strains of Mood Indigo. Then the mood changed, the stage was fully lit and the dancers started a cheerful tap routine to the tune, When You Take the ‘A’ Train. The stage darkened and the spotlight flickered on the dancers to much applause.
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday nights were not too busy, but on Thursday, Friday and Saturday the theatre was packed. The long queues were controlled by a commissionaire wearing a wine frock-coat with brass buttons, and a cheesecutter hat bearing the word ‘Tivoli’. He kept the crowds in order as they were often quite merry, especially for the second show of the evening.
The Tivoli doors would open, and the audience for the cheap seats would charge up the stone stairs to get a good view of the far-away stage. The usherettes, who wore wine skirts and short, cutaway jackets, carried torches to show patrons to the more expensive seats. At the interval, when the electrician was showing advertising slides, the usherettes carried trays held with shoulder straps and sold ice cream blocks wrapped in greaseproof paper.
Stage hands wore everyday clothes. As a callboy I wore a sports jacket and flannels – I was greatly relieved I did not have to wear a pageboy’s uniform!
The Gods – cheapest seats in town
The theatre had two balconies, and there were two boxes holding six people at either side of the stage – the most expensive seats in the house. The Gods were the cheapest seats, wooden benches set at a steep angle high up and far from the stage.
As it turned out the lad I replaced just hated fishing and came to see if he could get his old job back. He was told ‘nothing doing’ as I was enjoying the job at 12/- weekly, plus tips.
Each week I saw the same show 12 times and when things were quiet I would disappear up to see my chum, Bob, who worked the spotlights. Bob perched in a wee cubicle with a a wall hole for the beam of light to pass through, surrounded by notes and coloured celluloid squares for fitting in the lenses.
The stage manager contacted Bob by means of an old-fashioned voice tube; he would blow into a pipe with a whistle at the end of it to get Bob’s attention, then would give instructions.
The spotlights were in the rafters and Bob could open a small hatch and look down at the people sitting in The Gods. On one occasion I bet him that he could not hit the drummer’s cymbals with his pea shooter. I didn’t think he would try it with a live show going on. The singer was performing Bonnie Mary of Argyll, when the cymbal rang out! I can still picture the drummer’s face as he looked up to the box above him to see if someone had dropped a sweetie. Bob also caused a fight one interval by pluffing a pea at two members of the audience in the Gods and they blamed each other. One night he bet me that I would not crawl over the beams and joists to look down through the ceiling centrepiece where the big ventilation extractor fan was. I did it, of course. Luckily I had a good head for heights, as the front stall seats were 80 feet below.
On Friday evenings I had to take the artists to get their pay from the general manager’s office in the upper circle in the house front. The artists called this ‘the night the ghost walks’ as they wore their stage clothes and makeup, but with mufflers and dressing robes. They were terribly shy about going through public areas to reach the manager’s office – through the public bar, up past the audience to the upper circle balcony.
On Saturday after the second house when artists were finished for the week, I collected their music and band parts from the orchestra pit. When I handed these back, I usually got a tip – from five shilling to a pound note – which greatly helped my call boy’s salary of 12 bob.
Drunks could be a nuisance on Saturdays. When Reene Houston was singing, a drunk kept shouting for her to sing Bonnie Mary of Argyll, which she finally did to get him to shut up.
10 skimpily-dressed chorus girls
The theatre was large and empty during the day, with little heating, but as stage shows commenced the lights and audience made it warm. One cold night I called 10 skimpily-dressed chorus girls too early and they stood shivering offstage waiting for their cue.
The head chorus girl said, “What will we do to him?” Without warning they grabbed me and pulled my head into their luxurious bosoms and planted big, fat, greasy lipstick kisses on my forehead before they tapped their way onto their musical routine on stage. I ran down to Lizzie the wardrobe mistress’s room to get myself cleaned up.
The chorus girls’ dressing room was at the top of two flights of stairs and when they had a quick change, I had to help them fix the domes on their costumes, which for a 15-year-old was quite an eyeful! I will always remember the sound of 10 pairs of tap shoes clattering down those stairs.
My job as a call boy was not always limited to the theatre. Once I was sent to theatrical digs in a Spa Street tenement to fetch an elderly Chinese acrobat who hadn’t turned up. I raced up the stairs and knocked on the door asking if he was in. The landlady replied, “He’s been drinking all day and won’t get up”.
I said he was wanted at the Tivoli, so she filled a large jug with cold water and flung it over his head. Spluttering and cursing he rose from the bed. She shouted, “Ye’ve gotta ging doon tae the Tiv wi him.” Staggering, he dressed and we headed back, with me guiding him all the way to the backstage door where the acrobatic troupe took him and dressed him just in time to perform their first display, a pyramid.
My Chinaman, the mainstay of this structure, just collapsed. The whole gang came tumbling down and were sprawling about the stage. The stage manager brought down the curtains. For the second house the Chinese acrobats went on without their mainstay, who was still incapable. My Chinaman jointly led the troupe with an old Chinese lady, and when they all dressed up in their silk kaftans and makeup, you could not tell young from old.
When the stage manager heard I was going to Edinburgh for a week’s holiday, he asked if I would take a small delivery to the Kings Theatre. The item was a very scarce electric bulb that he had carefully packed in a cardboard box. So I guarded this package very carefully on the train journey. I went to the stage entrance and the doorkeeper accepted my precious cargo, but I received no invitation to see the show. I was really peeved.
During my time at the Tivoli many well known bands played: Oscar Rabin, Maurice Winnick, Ronnie Monroe and the Zuider Zee Accordion Band.
Once when I was standing behind the double bass and drums enjoying the music, the bass player leaned back, still playing, and said, “Say kid, get this bottle filled with brandy,” and gave me a pound note. I went over to the Lorne Bar and got the brandy and 12 bob change. When I gave him the bottle he drank the lot, still playing, and said, “Keep the change, kid”. A whole week’s wages!
Charlie Kunz, the wizard pianist
Charlie Kunz was a wizard pianist, a quiet, small man who was meticulous about the positioning of his piano onstage; he helped five stagehands push it to his exact spot. George Shearing, the famous blind pianist, appeared when he was only about 20 – long before he became world famous. Stefan Grappelli the jazz violinist had newly started touring British music halls, having escaped the fall of France. One night I came to work sporting a black eye, having walked into a door during the blackout. When he saw me he said, “Ah zo, you ‘ave been fighting wiz ze girl frien again?”.
Many famous Scots comedians and singers played the shows: Jack Radcliffe, Will Fyfe, Tommy Morgan, Jack Anthony, Alec Finlay, Robert Wilson, Renee Houston and Helen Kennedy. Even English comics made it to Aberdeen: Stainless Stephens, Frank Randle, G. H. Elliot, Bransby Williams, Hetty King and many more. Joe Kerr the cartoonist invited audience members to come on stage where he had a large easel; he did caricatures of them which they got to take home.
The Three Renowns Comedy Acrobats were two gentlemen dressed in white collar, tie and tails – very tall, thin and dignified. They were accompanied by a slim, blonde lady elegantly dressed in a white satin gown. The two men took hold of her ankles and wrists and spun her round like a skipping rope
The Geddes Brothers wore ginger wigs, green jerseys and colourful kilts. One brother was smart, the other not so bright. On a table they had lots of musical instruments – hand bells, whistles and horns – on which they played popular Scottish melodies, with the ‘clever’ brother frowning at his brother for attempting to pick up the wrong instrument.
The Two Rossinis husband and wife act did a spectacular trapeze display, high above the stage, the man all bare chest and muscled, his wife in a bikini. The auditorium was darkened and a white spotlight beam followed them as they climbed a rope ladder to reach the trapeze, high above the stage. As they swung, he slid his legs down suddenly until they were both hanging by his ankles on the trapeze. This manoeuvre fairly made the audience gasp!
There was a a monkey called Mae West, who performed a tight wire balancing act dressed in a pink sequinned frock and umbrella. She hopped onto the wire and walked to and fro, giving huge toothy grins.
During wartime circuses could not travel from town to town, so many artists worked at variety theatres. There were saxophone-playing clowns with springy ginger hair, red noses, baggy trousers and large boots; Vic Duncan’s collie dogs – sometimes dressed up, or mystifying the audience by doing sums – the dunce dog getting the greatest cheer from the audience when he got a question right.
Marjorie Chipperfield, the ringmaster
There was even a circus ring with Marjorie Chipperfield as ringmaster, resplendent in a white blouse and jodhpurs, scarlet waistcoat, black riding boots and top hat. Six piebald ponies trotted into the ring wearing large feather plumes. At a crack of the whip they ran nose to tail until commanded to turn around; they pranced and sidestepped, wheeled and cavorted in unison. The orchestra played in time to the horses footwork, or was it the other way round? The ponies were stabled for a week at the Tivoli, their only exercise being in the circus ring. The backstage door was 15 feet above street level and the ponies were led up a ramp into the building.
When magic acts were onstage, stagehands were not allowed to stand in the wings. I used to go up to the flies, a narrow balcony at the side of the stage where scenery and backdrops were hauled up and down. From there I had a good view and saw how many tricks were done.
Superstition was rife. The phrase said to actors going onstage, ‘Break a leg’, originates from acts getting lots of encores, the stagehands continually hauling the curtain ropes until the strain breaks the pegs, or cleats, that hold them.
Artists had long days to fill as they only appeared in the evening, so some would go salmon fishing on Deeside; others went out to Kingseat Naval Hospital at Newmachar and entertained patients there.
I was an air cadet, and when our meetings changed to a Wednesday night I was allowed to get a replacement, provided I showed them what to do. I asked my pal Raymond, who was delighted as he got to see a show and was paid two bob as well. One night I called to him, “Tell Jordan that’s time”. Unfortunately Mr Jordan, the musical director, heard me. Speak about outrage! Dressed in white tie and tails he charged up the stairs, bristling with anger and bawled, “Jordan? Who’s Jordan? In future,” he trumpeted, “you call me sir!” and he stamped back to the orchestra pits. When the stagehands heard this they nicknamed him Sir Jordan.
The young stagehands were recruited from the Aberdeen School of Navigation, all strong, hefty young lads. Their job was to manhandle heavy canvas-framed scenery flats, held upright by metal stanchions and weights; to push heavyweight lights between the curtains and be quick scene changers between acts. In summer the stage crew would go up to the slated roof to get a gulp of fresh air as the foul, smokey air gushed upwards out of the auditorium ventilators. Everybody smoked in those days.
Sometimes stagehands would help out in crowd scenes. At the end of one act Jack Radcliffe said to his stage wife, “I know you have a lover”. He held up a gun saying, “Come out, come out, where ever you are,” and the stagehands walked on stage with arms held high in surrender, then blackout! Another time Alec Finlay was on stage as a laird when he called for his butler. A heavy thud, thud, is heard at the back of the stage, and a very tall figure appeared. “You called, Sir?” It was me wearing a bowler hat and moustache and a very long coat covering the tall stagehand whose shoulders I was sitting on.
Stagehands and callboys were also used as plants in the audience for some acts. One comedy act piano player used to ask the audience to call out a name, then he would play a tune with the name in it. If the response was poor, the head stagehand and I would go to the back stalls and call out names the pianist had given us.
Generally speaking Aberdeen audiences were very appreciative. I only twice heard coins being thrown down from the Gods, a grave insult indeed.
I had great difficulty getting an autograph book because of the paper shortage, but I finally succeeded through my aunts who ran a small grocers shop; their paper was supplied by Helmriches in Belmont Street. I kept my autograph book, which contains many signatures of the artists who appeared.
It was with great sadness after two most enjoyable years that I had to give up, as my day job required all my attention.
Many years later, curiosity led me to an open day at the Tivoli. I was dismayed to see the shabby state of the building, but I hope that the endeavours of the Tivoli Trust can restore the theatre to its full glory.
The Tivoli Trust is still attempting to purchase and renovate the Tivoli as a new mid-scale venue, which Aberdeen desperately needs, and as a Museum of Scottish Theatre and Variety, which will be unique in Scotland. The building is rapidly deteriorating, but the trust is in negotiations with Tony Donald, the owner, but has been unable to agree a price.
Eric Martin is an Aberdonian, brought up in the Rosemount area. Trained as a painter/decorator and worked with his father as Martin & Cook. Taught drawing and design. Wrote ‘Backstage’ for the Toulmin Writing Competition, 2008.
This is an article from the April 2009 edition of Leopard Magazine. To read much more like this every month, see our subscription details.