There are a few copies of MEANDERINGS still available
at the end of Talks; from ATWP on Amazon,
or by post direct from
ATWP-Arundel,
12 Lewis Lane, Ford, Arundel, West Sussex BN18 0TY
Price £5.00 (plus £2.00 p+p)
Please make cheques payable to ATWP.
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INTRODUCTION
In the summer of 1966, shortly after England’s football team had won the World Cup, I teamed up with theatre colleague David Sculpher to convert an old BBC Radio vehicle into a comfortable ‘camper-van’. Together with a couple of young ladies we set out to drive across Europe: no particular route planned; no timetable. Florence and Venice, of course, and an unforgettable night at the Opera in the Amphitheatre at Verona. Then down the full length of what was then Yugoslavia, heading for Greece. Visas required at the border, but few problems after that. Whenever we produced our football at the various Yugoslav camp sites we were quickly surrounded by youngsters eager to practice their fluent English; “Bobbee Charlton; Bobbee Moore: Nobbee Stiles”.
Passing through the southern border controls into Greece we immediately discovered what we really should have known, that the Yugoslav dinar had no value outside of that country. We simply turned around, drove back through the border control to the nearest camp site, and blew the lot on an excellent meal and a few drinks. We also acquired a cat, but maybe more about that later.
Into Greece, and heading towards Athens, we stopped off at a little village fete. Nothing special: like village fetes anywhere in the world there were a few small fairground rides; an arena, and various stalls and sideshows. Except that, just near the entrance, this village fete had a man playing a tambourine. The man was not very tall; certainly not young, casually dressed, thinning hair - uncovered because his cap was on the ground in front of him. A cap filling with coins from an audience enjoying the performance of a man who sang a little, and danced a little, and smiled a lot, and played his tambourine as though he was entertaining the gods on Olympus. A man clearly at peace with the world.
David and I had each recently finished contracts with opera companies: David at Sadlers Wells; me with Scottish Opera. Our performances involved several pantechnicons crammed with scenery and costumes and lighting and musical instruments: a huge payroll of singers, musicians, administrators, wardrobe staff and technicians; overnight journeys from one city to another to large venues with up-to-date technical equipment, dressing rooms, staff, publicity and box office. All this merely to stage a musical entertainment. And yet here was an elderly man entertaining people, making a living, with just a tambourine and a cloth cap. I asked myself what I could do to that degree of self-contained professionalism? Was there no one ability in which I could challenge all competition; could touch an individual level of seeming perfection? Apparently nothing, although, understanding life backwards, I can point to that village fete experience as the start of a career spent subconsciously ‘searching for my own tambourine’.
According to William Hazlett (1778-1830) in his essay On the Knowledge of Character there is nothing that helps a man in his conduct through life more than a knowledge of his own characteristic weaknesses; and nothing tends to the success of man’s talents than knowing the limits of his faculties, which he then concentrates on some practical object. “One man can do but one thing: universal pretensions end in nothing” he wrote. Hazlitt considered there were those who have, for want of this self-knowledge, gone strangely out of their way in their search for this ‘practical object’, and others who had never found it at all despite a lifetime of searching.
Hazlitt also observed that authors in general over-rate the extent and value of posthumous fame: a depressing thought for an author commencing a new book in his eighty-first year. Fortunately the book will have a happy ending: I did find my ‘practical object’; my ‘tambourine’, admittedly rather late in life, and only after having gone strangely out of my way in far too many different directions and, indeed, in many different countries. That search is the ‘clothes-line’ on which I shall peg some memories (not all of them mine) together with personal experiences from the past eighty years. My apologies if you have come across some of these anecdotes in previous publications, but their relevance to the theme of this, possibly my final, book encouraged one last airing.
FURTHER DETAILS FROM ATWP-Arundel
12 LEWIS LANE, FORD, ARUNDEL, BN18N 0TY
01903 954248 or 07752 616634
I have read your “Meanderings” with a good deal of pleasure. You have certainly led an interesting life and the way you spliced this with a delightful drift down the Charente is nothing short of masterful.
I suppose that, with your background, splicing links between people, places and chronology might have been a given. However, I particularly enjoyed your skill in weaving disparate subjects together with the unruffled ease of a gently flowing river. Brilliant!
Chris Davies: New Milton Probus
SEARCHING FOR MY TAMBOURINE should be of particular interest to those working in, or training for the theatre, as well as regular theatre-goers who enjoy a bit of backstage gossip.
As with MEANDERINGS, the book is available direct from ATWP; online via Amazon, and also on sale at the end of Talks and Presentations.
It is also available through a few selected and arts-specific Bookshops.
Please contact us for details of your nearest supplier.
The Second Edition retails at £9.50 (plus £2.00 p&p)
ISBN: 978-0-9934431-7-6
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Thank you so much for sending the Society for Theatre Research a copy of Searching for My Tambourine.
It was a very kind thought but we no longer have a library. This has made me the lucky recipient and I couldn't resist diving into it straight away and found myself reading away when I should have been getting on with other urgent business! I've enjoyed it greatly.
Howard Loxton.
The book is full of anecdotes about the theatre, often focussing on G B Shaw and his contemporaries, and clearly echoing the strong influence that Shaw had on Brian’s career, first as a technician, then in theatre management and eventually writing and producing his own plays. Love of the theatre exudes from every page: a ‘dip-into’ anthology that would enhance any bookshelf.
THE SHAVIAN: Magazine of the Shaw Society. (www.shawsociety.org.uk)
Brian’s quest for his metaphysical ‘tambourine’ provides an engaging mix of memoir, quotation and theatre history.
Mary Dimond: West Dartmoor U3A.
I want to say how much I liked your book: not only interesting, but full of both food for thought and glimpses of a fascinating career.
Gerard Hocmard: France Grande Bretagne Association.
Fascinating book; I really did enjoy it.
I have a great interest in theatre history, and found it informative and interesting
John Case; Director, Rye Arts Festival
I am delighted and relieved to tell you that I enjoyed it very much.
Khalid Tyabji; New Delhi.
Delightful - and very easy to dip into.
Adrian Noble
Despite all the coronavirus problems and fewer ‘live’ performances than anticipated SEARCHING FOR MY TAMBOURINE was well-received. Sales justified a reprint, but we went further than that and have published a Revised Second Edition. Larger pictures (as requested by some readers) and - since the book is basically about the theatre - a more ‘theatrical’ cover.
Available now..
A potential gift for those theatre-loving relatives....?
SEARCHING FOR
MY TAMBOURINE
REPUBLISHED IN A SECOND EDITION
