Chapter 8. Demolition Man
One of the major difficulties for Genesis was finding suitable material to present. By the time of spring 1977, Genesis, even including the period it had been Metropolitan, had been around barely 18 months, but it had already presented four different production, one of them twice ('Hair'), the other three self-penned ('Stag', 'Peterloo' and 'And Afterwards At'), had performed in Altrincham, Bury, Salford and Swinton, and was regularly rehearsing in Stretford, Urmston, Salford and Whitefield. We were also partying really hard! And yet, even with all this energy, and even after such a relatively short period of time, it was already becoming difficult to find the right material for our productions. We couldn't be expected to keep generating new work, yet there wasn't much else around that seemed right, that fitted who we were.
Going right back to Robert Bromley's original reasons behind setting up Metropolitan, the aim had been clear: to create an alternative to the usual pattern of localised amateur dramatic and operatic societies, which would attract younger people and would perform alternative, more experimental rock musicals. Rock musical was a fairly new term back then. I think that it was probably spawned by 'Hair', but that show was soon followed by the likes of 'Jesus Christ Superstar', 'Godspell' and 'Evita'. But none of these was available at that time for non-professional companies, and even though Genesis had successfully broken the mould of the amateur theatre scene in the north-west and had very quickly developed a reputation for our own very particular way of working, we were, in the strictest sense, still amateurs, although we baulked at that description and all the baggage that came with it. We only ever referred to ourselves as Genesis Theatre, and we were modelled more along the lines of a community co-operative. That extended itself to the way we selected what we would do. Anyone could put forward an idea – though admittedly that was more likely to be Chris or me – but everyone had to buy into it, if it was going to be successful. Mike Shaft, who by this time, I think, was regularly hosting and presenting his own programmes on Piccadilly Radio, was particularly adept at gauging the public mood and knowing what would be right for us to do.
And so it was that Mike was instrumental in bringing his influence and expertise to bear in persuading me to go with what had been Arthur Dutton's suggestion – that we should look at a little known, made for television musical, 'Demolition Man'.
(Prior to that – though I may have got my chronology wrong here – I had suggested an adaptation of the Lindsay Anderson film, 'O Lucky Man', which had starred Malcolm McDowell (of 'Clockwork Orange' fame) and which was in itself a kind of stand-alone sequel to the better known 'If'. Equally revolutionary and political in its aims, however, 'O Lucky Man' was, I thought, the perfect vehicle for Genesis. It is a surreal, picaresque road movie in which the central character, Travis, goes on a kind of odyssey around contemporary England, having encounters with financiers, mad scientists, corrupt politicians, secret nuclear power plants, prisons, seedy lodging houses, city skyscrapers – in a kind of modern day 'Pilgrim's Progress', with a bitingly sharp and funny script and a Brechtian-style commentary delivered by Alan Price's smart musical score. John Howarth, a great friend of Norman & Bez, though not himself an active member of Genesis, was a BBC cameraman and he knew Michael Medwin, the script writer, and he was able to get us a copy and begin to negotiate the rights. But as it turned out, the rest of Genesis did not share my enthusiasm for this idea – in fact I seem to recall they hated it – so it was quickly - and in my view, but my view only, sadly – dropped).
It was at this point that Arthur came up with 'Demolition Man'. It tells the slight, but very charming story of a young man working on a demolition site who finds a stash of old coins that turn out to be worth a fortune, enabling him to leave his job, move into much more elevated circles, meet different types of people, hook up with a very classy girl friend, travel round the world, only to find himself gullibly being cheated out of part of his money, or giving it away to people he feels need it more than he does. He is very much an innocent abroad, a kind of Candide figure, who returns at the end back to where he started, working on the demolition site, his fortune gone, but his integrity intact.
The music was a mixture of soul and R&B and it provided, in the central role of Jimmy, the perfect vehicle for Louis. At the same time Arthur had found out about a new Summer Festival that was to take place at the relatively recently opened Royal Exchange Theatre in the St. Ann's Square in the centre of Manchester. The Royal Exchange was born out of Theatre 69, a new theatre company formed to offer an alternative home for contemporary versions of both classics and new writing away from London, and was a determined attempt to bring a particularly northern sensibility and aesthetic to its identity. Originally based at Contact Theatre it moved to its new premises in The Royal Exchange in the mid seventies, driven by the actors Tom Courtenay and James Maxwell, under the joint artistic direction of Michael Elliott and Braham Murray. What's more, it was defiantly in the round and as it opened it was the heart and pulse of Manchester's cultural life, very quickly establishing a deserved national reputation, which it holds still to this day.
It is a wonderful building, though not to everyone's tastes. At the time it opened it resembled a kind of lunar module that had just landed in the centre of the former Cotton Exchange. It seats 800 people, yet no-one is more than 30 feet away from the action, and so it feels incredibly intimate. Amanda and I were regular attenders there, going to plays, concerts, talks, and we loved it.
True to its original vision of being a home for regional theatre across the north-west, The Exchange decided to hold a Summer Festival, inviting amateur and community groups to submit proposals to present work at it. 1977 was its launch, and Arthur applied on Genesis' behalf. We were subsequently invited to an interview, then included in the final programme, and so we were on, all primed and ready to start with rehearsals for 'Demolition Man', with an amazingly prestigious venue to perform it at. What I think appealed to The Exchange about our proposal – in addition to our growing reputation, the fact that we were still mostly young people involved, and that we were a mixed race group – was that we weren't simply bringing back and reviving a previous production (as the majority of the other companies were doing), but that we were attempting to create something bespoke and particular to The Exchange.
So began a long and very happy association with The Exchange and its Summer Festival, with 'Demolition Man' being the first of 5 productions we presented there.
Although I had been initially rather lukewarm about it as a piece, I can honestly say now that preparing 'Demolition Man' stands out now as one of the happiest rehearsal times I have ever spent. Maybe it was because it was summer, (and we sometimes rehearsed outdoors in Summerseat near to where Mary Clark worked); maybe it was because we had a sudden influx of new members who all added such zest and vitality to the company; maybe it was because as a core group Genesis was now so comfortable working together, with a genuinely exciting creative buzz in the room; maybe it was because it was such a happy story – I don't know, but I do know we had an enormous amount of fun.
We also had to work out just how to present a musical in the round. I had directed plays in the round before, but not a musical, and it presented its own particular set of challenges – just as it did musically, which Chris deals with in detail in his entry. But we tried the various scenes out in all kinds of different configurations, trying to get it right, so that the audience, wherever they were sitting, would be constantly fed with interesting images and relationships. It was a particular challenge to Lynda Burton* who, I thought, did her finest work for Genesis in this production. All her work was excellent, but with 'Demolition Man' she truly found her choreographic voice, I felt, and really rose to the particular challenge of presenting dance routines, which are traditionally 'front-on', in the round, and she succeeded magnificently.
(*Lynda is currently, as I write this, extremely ill, and our thoughts go out to her and her husband Cliff).
One particular fine moment in the show that I recall occurred at the start of the 2nd half, when we were introduced to the woman who is to be Jimmy's classy girl friend, whom we meet for the first time in a very up-market casino, where she is the glamorous croupier. She sings a song whose title I can't now remember (it had something to do with “midnight” in it) and it really suited Mary's rich, expressive mezzo voice. During the song, which was all lit in blues with a smoky haze, we observed various encounters around the night club played out in a series of tiny danced vignettes. One of these involved a solo by Amanda, part of which Lynda encouraged her to improvise. At this point, Chris had recruited a new sax player to the band – I think he was called Alan – and he was a terrific musician. (He later joined the National Jazz College in Leeds). He too improvised a sax solo to go with Amanda's dance solo, and the two of them played off each other so subtly and beautifully.
Arthur demonstrated yet more entrepreneurial expertise by getting the show sponsored by a number of businesses in various imaginative ways. Knowing that our limited resources would never stretch to include the kind of clothes that Louis and Mary would need to wear as they moved in ever rising echelons of society, he managed to get really exclusive clothes shops to 'donate' costumes in return for advertising in the Exchange foyer. Louis particularly looked fabulous. This was 1977, you must remember, the period of 'Shaft', 'Superfly', and that whole 'blaxploitation' genre of movies, and Louis looked as though he had just stepped off the set of a Michael Jackson video, such as 'Smooth Criminal'. Arthur also managed to get us access to a really flash car (like a Ferrari, or something) that Louis would drive into the space. Unfortunately, however, although we could have the car, we couldn't get it up the stone steps that led into the Exchange Building! At the last minute, Lynda came up with this great idea of having dancing girls dressed in dungarees, carrying spanners and wrenches, pushing Louis into the centre of the space on a basic chassis, which they then proceeded to 'assemble'. It was a really witty spoof on the typical garage mechanics calendars and it brought the house down.
Performing at The Exchange as part of the Summer Festival brought with it its own specific set of challenges, not the least of which was having to squeeze the get-in, the sound check, the lighting rig, the tech, and the dress run all into a single day, allowing sufficient time for the house to be got ready for the performance that same evening. With a rock musical this was a tall order, but we had prepared very carefully for this. Chris kept an amazingly cool head during a quite stressful sound check, remaining true to his principles and insisting on every last detail, and really earning the respect of the initially wary Exchange technicians.
(This stood us in fantastic stead for future years, because with 'Demolition Man' we learned how the theatre worked and how to make optimum use of the limited amount of preparation time we had at our disposal).
The dress run was full of hiccups, but nothing that couldn't be easily put right and learned from, and just before we opened, I felt excited and quietly confident that we had a good show. The band kicked in with a really sharp, tight sound, ably supported by Mike Cheeseman and Ali Davis as backing singers, all of them wearing denim jackets and hard hats – they became affectionately known as The Demolition Band – and yes, they did resemble refugees from Village People, something they wholeheartedly embraced!
The audience really warmed to the show's simple message and the commitment and talent of the cast, and at the end they gave us a standing ovation and began dancing in the aisles. It was completely uplifting and life-affirming. My only regret was that we only got to do 'Demolition Man' the once – at the time there weren't any other venues who could have staged it – but I believe that Chris captured some of the music in rehearsals, including a glorious version of one of the songs improvised spontaneously in reggae – not performed this way in the show – with Louis singing in an outrageous Jamaican accent.
As I said, a very happy show...