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equipment were loaded into the theatre through here.
     
    For whatever reason Trevor was not stage manager. I was also missing from the previous production and assumed to have lost interest so a new face was drafted in. I can’t remember his name but he was a colleague of Roy Follett in the Bank’s Marketing Department which was on the third floor of Lombard Street .
     
    Very close to the date of the performance I remember being accosted by Roy in the banking hall who asked if I would step in and help out. As I have mentioned the City is like a village. It may have cost Roy a pint at lunchtime but he was one of the warmest, friendliest and humorous men I have ever met. It was hard to turn him down especially as the drinks were on him which as the years rolled on, they usually were. He had pockets as deep as his friendship.
     
    The new stage manager had never work ed in a theatre in any form or even been backstage so was understandably nervous about the role. I felt perhaps I should have been given the job instead but a promise is a promise. As these things usually do, it all turned out quite well.
     
    Each show had four performances from Wednesday to Saturday evenings. For the pantomime Dick Whittington we also ran a Saturday afternoon matinee and it would have been no problem to have continued the run of Grease for at least another week. However this was the future.
     
    The week of the show followed the same pattern. The theatre was hired from Sunday morning to Saturday night. On Sunday all the sets, props and costumes were delivered by the hire companies and arranged as they would be needed during the week. The cast tried on their costumes for the first time and whilst they paraded on stage and adjustments organised by the wardrobe team, the stage crew arranged the lighting and set the back drops and curtains on the respective battens.
     
    In reality everyone wanted priority. As is so common , those with leading parts in the show just get on with it but those with ‘walk-ons’ or a few lines at most made all the fuss. It was always the same people who needed to be assured that although they only had a small part they were nevertheless a very important part of the team .
     
    Monday night is supposed to be the ‘technical rehearsal’ when the lighting can be set. The stage manager will get the cast to stand on stage whilst the lights are moved or a coloured gel attached and the right effect obtained. It gives the stage crew time to get accustomed to putting up and striking the scenery, moving furniture about and generally working as a team.
     
    In practice this never happens. The director always wants a quick run through, the MD is angry with the sound system and the cast think that being used as statues whilst the lighting rig is being fine tuned or the scenery moved around to a better position is just simply below them.
     
    Eventually we all settle on a sort of compromise and at the end of the evening the director, stage manager and technicians will compare notes and hopefully get it right on Tuesday.
     
    Tuesday night is dress rehearsal. If anything goes wrong it goes wrong. You do not stop, the action continues. Hopefully nothing too serious goes wrong because you have no more time to put it right. We all have to work the next day and even if we had the time off the Club would have to pay the musicians another full days fee.
     
    Wednesday night is first night. There are more performances on Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings. After the final curtain on Saturday s everything happens in reverse and the stage is cleared out of the stage door and on to the waiting vans from the hire companies.
     
    I turned up at the Golden Lane on Sunday morning in my black T-shirt, black jeans and black shoes and found an almost empty stage. This did not seem quite right having seen the chaos that accompanied us at the Westminster Theatre.
     
    It was not quite an empty stag e. On the floor was an extremely long black