Bye bye Bagshot, Bagshot goodbye

Bay City Rollers earworm at no extra cost – Music Ed

Earlier this month we closed the doors on Bagshot House for the final time. Inspector Pratt has investigated his last case there, although he can’t really claim to have solved any of them; Miss Maple has finished her knitting; and the current “incumbetants” of the house can be left in peace. Apart from the sprites. And the sprouts.

If you missed our production of Death By Fatal Murder you won’t know how the Inspector Pratt trilogy ended. Even so, just in case anyone from the wider interweb happens to stumble across this blog (one person did so once, and I hear that the therapy sessions are ongoing) I’m not going to include any plot spoilers here.

We welcomed a new actor to our ranks for this production as Ray tackled the role of Wing Commander Roger ‘Stiffy’ Allwright. Although new to us, Ray has done plenty of acting in the past and we were delighted to benefit from his considerable acting chops this time round.

We also welcomed Dan back to the stage for the first time in many a long year. A regular of our Sound & Lighting team for some time now, it has been quite a while since Dan last trod the boards. After trawling through the extensive BaCStage archives, we traced his previous appearance back to Virtue Triumphant in 2016.

We started our rehearsals of DBFM back in the late summer. Mid-way through our rehearsals we had the gas disconnected from the Old Day School. It was a mercy killing. One of the two gas fires hadn’t worked in years, and the other one had become rather better at creating a worrying smell of gas in the yard outside than generating any heat inside. Paying a standing charge for gas we couldn’t use was a luxury we couldn’t afford, so it had to go.

No sooner had the gas been disconnected, and with perfect comedy timing, the weather threw a cold snap at us. Temperatures barely reached 0 for a couple of weeks or so. We turned up for rehearsals in our hats, coats, scarves and gloves, rehearsed in our hats, coats, scarves and gloves, and nipped outside between scenes to warm up a bit.

We also upheld the time-honoured theatrical tradition of a rehearsal where anything that could go wrong, went wrong. It’s the origin of the expression “it’ll be alright on the night”, dontcha know. I’m not talking about an early rehearsal where no-one knows what to say, where to stand, or why they agreed to join this strange group of people and take part in this nonsense in the first place, but rather a dress-rehearsal where everything should be nailed on, smoothed down and running like clockwork. So it was that during our final rehearsal we managed to miss no fewer than six pages of the final scene. If we had had (had hadded? – bad grammer Ed) an audience that evening they might have found out who the, er, perpetuator, was, but not had any idea of their motive or why most of the surviving characters were there in the first place. They would not, for example have know that [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] were [REDACTED], that [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] were not [REDACTED], that [REDACTED] was [REDACTED]’s [REDACTED] or that [REDACTED] was [REDACTED]’s [REDACTED], not to mention that [REDACTED] and [REDACTED] had been [REDACTED] (that’s enough now – no-spoilers Ed). Of course it was all deliberate really; we just wanted Denise in her capacity as continuity person to feel like a needed and valued member of the team. When it came to show nights it was indeed “Allwright on the night”, so if you saw the show and went home confused I’m afraid I can’t help you there.

Instead of plot spoilers, here are some sneaky peaks at how we brought Bagshot House to life one final time.

“Nick left detailed instructions: First, take four pieces of string and cut them to 9 and 13/16ths inches. Then, using a double-inverted welder’s bow-legged munter hitch knot – “
“…or, we could just use these ratchet straps”

Mrs Morgan? Blodwyn? Can you hear me?

“Pull my finger”

Miss Maple takes a brief nap between lines

“A gentleman would give up his seat for a lady, wouldn’t you agree Squadron Leader?”

At least one person knows the script. Shame he won’t be on-stage…

…then again, maybe he will be.

“That’s fine for rehearsals, but we can’t have a script roadie on-stage on the night”

“Stop laughing, it’s meant to be a comedy”

We might need some more actors – we appear to have broken these ones.

“We’d like to offer you the part”

“That’s very good Gordon, but do you think you can learn all the lines for the part of ‘dead body’?”

Dan’s camera-shy hair stylist gets his decidedly non-police-regulation hair under control…

…before the addition of Beatles wig and make-up.

Don’t handlebar moustaches normally point downwards?

More sprites! But are they Brussels sprites?

The ghost of Mildred Bagshot.

That’s all for today, and indeed this year. Happy new year, dear reader, and we will see you in 2023!