sheila | Sburnett

Drac/Dream 1977 – Lethal Injection

The Pip Simmons Theatre Group is just that: it’s a group. They have no theatre and are on the last leg of a six-month European tour. So far: France, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Holland and Germany. Rod, who is Dracula, and Roderic, who is Ridiculous Man are also transport, they take turns driving us in the blue Mercedes van whilst we — Meirave, Dick, Chris, John and I — throw paper pellets at each other and squabble over where to sit. Chris has the best seat in the front because he speaks a bit of French and German — useful when going through the many border crossings. We call him the Carnet Führer.

Roderic transport and Chris carnet Fürer

Roderic is transport and Chris is Carnet Führer.

Each border has to have the carnet stamped. 50 pages duplicated 3 times. One to keep, the other two for the customs officials of the two countries we are leaving and entering. Everything in the van has to be accounted for with a special theatre licence for the gun to prove it isn’t a weapon plus special papers for three doves and Dave the cockerel. We have our passports that Chris takes along with the carnet to the border police. These borders take time, loads of time. Norway/Sweden – Sweden/Denmark – Denmark/Holland – Holland/France – France/Belgium – Belgium/Germany and so on!

If it’s getting late its a race to join the back of a queue of lorries before the border closes. Money has been known to change hands. If we don’t make it in time, we have to find a hotel, stay in a place we don’t want to be, and then start queuing at border control the next day. We sit quietly, best behaviour. It doesn’t take much for border control guards to find an excuse to haul us out the van.

Our van is the small one but size doesn’t matter, this van takes us along perilous icy roads to freezing places, traveling along endless autobahns to hot sunny places and then back again. Everything we own is in this van!

Loading the van: Dave the cockerel and the doves (nearest the doors) who need to be fed and watered; Emil, John, Roderic, Meirave and Dave.

Chris, Emil, Dick, Pete Pip, Roderic, Rod, Olly

Chris, John, Dick, Emil, Pete, Pip, Roderic, Rod and Olly waiting, waiting for theatre to open

We arrive in the afternoon and wait for the theatre to open. Then we unload, choose a dressing room, put the kettle on, set up, do a sound check, iron costumes, set the props, feed the livestock, go for a walk, look around for somewhere to eat, buy a postcard. If it’s Sunday, we stay in the theatre as nowhere is open, EVER.

If it is not Sunday, we go for a walk, visit the town, eat and shop and see what is around the corner, get back a couple of hours before the show, warm up, do hair and make-up — not that there is much of that — check props, change into our costumes, check the stage for nails, holes and uneven surfaces, check exits and entrances and wait for an audience.

Olly and Meirave wait in the wings for something to happen

The tour is coming to an end. The van careers towards Nice and as soon as we see the sea a bottle is opened and passed around. We perform at the Palace Theatre, then a short walk to a small hotel which is a short walk to a pebble beach and a short walk to the hills behind the hotel. The walk from theatre to hotel at night seems to be a reddish light district with the pretty prozzies in white thigh-high boots sending out signals. The boys linger. The tour ends in Avignon, we are bushed.

Olly, Sheila and John, homeward bound, Calais – Dover.

Quarantine laws don’t allow dogs, cats or ferrets into the UK, this includes Dave. Dave has to have a lethal injection and someone has to witness it. That someone is Roderic who is traumatised watching the demise of the 13th member of our group. The border police thoughtlessly carry Dave dead in his cage past us as we wait to get on the ferry. The doves get away scot-free ready to perform another day. Sadly other members of the company are leaving. Goodbye Emil Wolk. Goodbye Meirave Gary. Goodbye Pete Jonfield. A new show, a new team a new experience is on the horizon.

All photos and blog © Sheila Burnett

Drac/Dream 1976/77 – Whores and Lunatics

Two young women walk slowly through thick swirling smoke in time to music, hypnotic music. They stroll past a demented young man hanging high on a cross made of scaffolding and light bulbs. The two young women pass either side without a backward glance but they know that he is wearing a crown of torn flowers, and that his arms are outstretched a dove perched on each hand, he looks stricken as he watches the two women because he knows that they are temptation. They crouch down and start dressing very slowly, shabby laddered stockings, leather brassieres, down-at-heel shoes. The drone of the music continues as they finish dressing.

Doc Suicide, on studded six foot stilts and in a black cloak, makes an entrance while firing a gun. His strides towering over everyone and is tall enough to be face-to-face with the Ridiculous Man strung up high, suffering on his cross. The gun is offered to him, this man is determined to seek the truth, but can end it all now with one bullet. The smoke chugs out, the band plays and one of the young women sings ‘He was Despised’ while the other struts with maracas. The doves fly away as Meirave is singing. I have the maracas, Emil has the gun, Roderic is on the cross. Pete sings lead, Rod backing singer and guitar, John drums. Lighting by Dick Johnson, the vision is all Pip Simmons and it is arguably one of the best songs Chris Jordan ever wrote — CORRUPTION. The vision is dark and we love it.

Backstage photos of Dracula and The Dream of a Ridiculous Man. They could easily be mistaken for the same show. Perfect travelling companion:, crucifixes and doves in both. Dracula — blasphemous, frenzied and provocative; The Dream — joyous, subtle and tender. We embrace both shows equally.

Backstage photo of Dracula and The Dream of a Ridiculous Man. They could easily be mistaken for the same show. Perfect travelling companion:, crucifixes and doves in both. Dracula — blasphemous, frenzied and provocative; The Dream — joyous, subtle and tender. We embrace both shows equally.

Aux Ateliers: Création du Rêve d’un Homme Ridicule
– par le Pip Simmons Group

Pip Simmons is in Lyon and has just performed at the Ateliers its latest creation ‘The Dream of a Ridiculous Man’. After the expressionistic beauty of An Die Musik’s scenes of torture and humiliation, here is a, joyous play, both poetic and burlesque. An ordinary man, awkward and self-conscious in his everyday life, frees himself from his frustrations in a transcendent dream. In a bizarre & exciting way the actor-musicians and singers lead us on an eighty minute journey, always mid-way between sensuality and gentleness, starting with salvation army sermons and ending with astoundingly provocative mystic visions to the sound of rock music. The moral of this subtle, absurd show is that the dreams of our society only result in chaos and confusion.
– Le Figaro 27/4/77

This production has a simplicity which is as fascinating as the invention that animates the evening and only the English could have created it. The French would have politicised the argument, intellectualised the parable, bowdlerised with logic the savage eruption of real life where nothing is ever defined or definitive.
– Libre Belgique, Brussels

Olly waits patiently for the theatre to open.

The French and Belgians shower us with hospitality. After every first night, we are greeted with warmth and wine and nibbles and bonheur. One fine evening we had consumed so much of this lovely wine backstage, someone had the bright idea to do the show again, inebriated techies let us back in the theatre and did the show again in the dark, how we got away with that isn’t on record. It was a blinder that took days to recover from ………….

I have everyone I care for along with me. Not so easy for those who have loved ones back at home, you can spot the signs: ‘I’ve got no time for you right now, don’t bother me’ .. moody blues settle, touring is still a novelty, we are a young group, silly pranks keep us going when boredom sets in. John and I swap clothes for a day, he looks nice in my dress, Dick writes a message to his girl back home on an entire pack of Rizzla papers. A huge argument then erupts in the van when someone doesn’t want to hear the same music again, sulks all round, Roderic goes straight to his room rather than eat and drink with us, that doesn’t last long, sulks come and go, full blown bad feelings are rare.

Emil Wolk get in, Doc Suicide checking the stage for holes dents or nails

Emil during get in, Doc Suicide checks the stage for holes dents or nails

John and Dick back of van

The best time is doing the show but shows get cancelled, we make the best of it. French food and wine are too good to ignore. Breakfasts are croissants and homemade apricot jam with hot milky coffee while sitting under the apricot trees that provide the jam.

If it’s a travel day, a stop at a ‘routière’ and usually wine and dine in the evening unless its show night. Mobile phones not invented, email not invented, text messages not invented, Insta-Twitter-Facebook not invented. We have letters, postcards and the occasional expensive phone call home. A tour can be 6 months. We have stops along the way. We go home for Christmas. We visit zoos caves and churches, I look forward to buying postcards to send back home. Lucky to travel with a bunch of show off’s who like to be in front of a camera, I have to wait till we get home to see if the photos turn out okay. I have an Olympus trip 35 mm point and shoot, and later Nikon L35 compact. On a long tour, I can take up to 10 rolls of films and once lost 5 spools. I was sick with grief, still am.

Drac 3 and Dream are a wonderful combo to tour side by side. We inhabit these shows and between us inhabit whores, vampires, doctors, bats, professors, lunatics, strippers, little girls, old men, priests, Tahitians, trapezists, shifty tramps and more. Rod has the big black cape in Dracula, Emil has the big black cape in Dream. The band play, the little girl cries, the vampires scream and during the day we load the van drive to the next venue ready to do it again.

The secret of these young Britishers lies in their honesty, their directness and the intensity of their realisations – Telegraf

Photos and Blog © Sheila Burnett

Drac/Dream 1976/77 – The Only Time We Cancelled a show!

March 1977 Harwich to Esjbierg on the over night ferry. How do we entertain ourselves on this long journey? First stop the bar, its going to be a long crossing so John and I decide to join in that evenings dance competition, can we dance ? of course not and when we see the ladies and gents in their finest outfits elegantly showing up and then showing their skills, we get nervous. John is up for Tango and me up for Rock n Roll… Several 3 fingers of whisky later we disgrace ourselves by dragging the poor dance entertainers around the floor, take a bow and then run for cover. Long ferry journeys often end up like this and we have many long ferry journeys.

This is the beginning of the long 3 month tour Drac/Dream, starting in Scandinavia snaking our way through Switzerland, Norway, Denmark, France ending in Nice. We will inhabit both shows for 3 months and then bid them farewell, they are our reason for being here, we unpack whichever show we do that night, do the show, pack it up and off we go to the next venue, sometimes one night sometimes one week, sometimes just driving.

Sheila, Pip, Roderic heading north on the seas to Scandinavia

This tour lasted 3 months zig zagging through Europe one time driving from Stockholm to Nice for one show and then touring north again through France and Germany, sometimes doing Dracula, Sometimes Dream, sometimes alternating both.

Chris, Dick and John, much needed van stretch

I (Lucy Vampire) have a cold, a bad one and have been taking cough mixture with stuff in it (probably morphine) it make me high and dopey. Its first night in Hamburgh, all goes well untill I get out of my coffin to attack Emil (Dr Seward) who has to catch me and hurl me away after a well rehearsed somersault, and then grab me by the hair, a well rehearsed stage trick. I don’t hit my mark and fall on my knees, Emil doesn’t wait for me to grab his wrist (stage trick) so drags me along the stage by my hair, I am furious. Meanwhile Olly (Jonathan Harker) throws a well rehearsed crucifix at Rod (Dracula) who whilst tearing around the stage in flapping bat cape gets kicked in the balls. Rod throws a well rehearsed top hat at Olly which skims his left eye. Emil by now has thrown me over his shoulder and carries me through the audience to a balcony where the band are and I howl with pain and fury. Do the audience think we do this every night ? it goes down well, we never do curtain calls, we leave the stage injured and upset. The upshot of this is Rod has a damaged testicle, Olly has scratched his left cornea and me and Emil are not talking. Rod on doctors orders is told to rest for 2 nights else he won’t be able to have babies. This is the only time in over 10 years we cancelled a show.

This is the one and only time we cancelled!

Emil in Hamburg

Dear Sis, I am sitting in the same cafe ordering the same dinner and writing the same postcard as 1 year and 3 months ago, its a time warp, its like we never did the I.C.A. The audience is so different here in Denmark. We are in this strange High School miles from anywhere doing Dream. The audience are all the kids from this school, they wonder in and out all through the show, giggle at you and offer you sweeties and tobacco, they clap soon as you suggest it and join in and then piss off in the middle of the show if they feel like it. Someone jumped on stage and tried to join in …….totally harmless but unnerving. When we arrived here yesterday they were cat calling Rod Kojac .. hey you Kojak!! we should have known ….

Pip and Dave-Herning High School Denmark

Dave is looked after by Olly who also looks after the Doves. Dave only gets to perform in the Dream whereas the doves perform in both shows. We take it in turns to have the doves in our hotel room and Dave stays with Olly. No animals are harmed in these shows, the are fed an watered and we love them.

Olly backstage with doves

All photos © Sheila Burnett

All seats 50p – Bat out of Hell -1977

It’s Paris. It’s January 1977. It’s my birthday. I’m not yet 30. I’m in this show called the Dream of a Ridiculous Man. Before the show starts I need food so run across the road in costume to the brasserie.

“Jambon beurre, s’il vous plaît.”

I can ask for a ham sandwich in French and the Folies Bergère are just down the road! Very exciting and I’m not yet 30. This photo was taken after the show at the bar across from Théâtre Le Palace, in the Rue du Faubourg Montmartre. This splendid bar full of mirrors and brass décor is called Le Grand Zinc. I have Chanel No 5 for my birthday and our new boy John is with us to celebrate. Pip announces that he was married last week to his beautiful Swedish love Helena, so double celebrations. The waiter takes the photo.

Sheila, John, Rod, Dick and Pip in the Grand Zinc.

Paris, yes Paris! We return with The Dream which we perform each evening. Sad to say goodbye to Ben Bazell, big hello to John Altman who we met on tour last year at Leicester Haymarket. John had spent his Christmas learning the songs and the script and is raring to go. We need to build an audience. An Die Musik is history for us, but not the Parisian audience who aren’t particularly interested in our new show at first. We manage to get full houses by the end of our 3 week run and The Dream becomes our new super star show, happily knocking An Die Musik from its pedestal.

We rehearse a new Dracula by day and perform The Dream by night. Tempers fray, its hard work, we are looking for new Drac characters. I go to the Paris flea market to find a new costume; a naughty white bodice and pearl choker with a flouncy skirt and tight belt. Meirave does similar. Roderick as Van Helsing has decided to be crippled with a club foot. Joan Oliver, wife of Peter Oliver, and our administrator has to carry a heavy built-up false boot from London. The usual fights erupt from Dr Seward – Emil and his fly-eating Maniac – Pete. But… there are new songs, new words, new attitude: the re-birth of Dracula.

“Like boxers at the height of their form, the Pip Simmons Group have acquired a strength and extraordinary command that explode in The Dream of a Ridiculous Man.”
– Le Monde

Pete, John, Sheila, Mierave, Olly, Rod in rehearsals

Pete, John, Sheila, Meirave, Olly and Rod recording a promo for Ridiculous Man.

Roderic with his new love.

How Roderic finds the time to buy a lovely old French car is a miracle. Here he washes his new love in front of our digs, Hotel Corona. Paris is close enough for him to be able to drive it home to London before we start our Drac/Dream 77 tour of the UK and Europe as more rehearsals are needed in London to polish and hone Drac 3.

Ben has given us all a leaving present, he made us individual cassette tapes to help us on our future touring. This is hours of listening time, and will save squabbles about what to play in the van; for instance, we don’t all like Jackson Brown. My tape has YES on one side and the theme from the Railway Children on the other. These tapes will be kept in the van with newspapers, books, maps, sweets, Rizla papers, cigarettes and a well-thumbed Routiers, the truckers guide book for eating in France.

Pete-Renfiel and Rod-Dracula take an afternoon kip

Pete (Renfield) and Rod (Dracula) grab an afternoon kip.

Roll up! Roll up ladies and Gentlemen! All seats 50p at the Glasgow Citizens Theatre. We are happy to present an all singing, all screaming Dracula by the one and only Pip Simmons Theatre Group! Put your hands together for Dracula 3!

This is the first night, our premier with our first audience. We are in a tableau behind an iron safety curtain on the stage of the infamous Citizens Theatre. John our new drummer boy whispers I’m f****** nervous as the iron curtain slowly grinds it’s way up. Miraeve and I, the show girls, prance into position and present our superhero, Dracula, who, like a bat out of hell, hurls his way from the back of the auditorium – bald head, fishnets, bat cape – on to the stage. Off we go with our Drac 3 cabaret.

Our Glasgow audience are fantastic and as noisy as us. Much fake blood was spat, much screaming and snarling as we romped home, cheered on by this fantastic crowd. Drac 3 in its 3rd incarnation is the best and is exactly 90 minutes long with no interval. John! John! John! The girls called at the stage door. They begged me to get some drum sticks from John. This is a first!! Never had groupies before. John broke a few spare sticks over his knee and I handed them out to the girls… Then we found out the van had been broken into and all of our travelling tapes had been nicked… This is the beginning of our Drac/Dream 5 month tour – March 1977.

The Citizens Theatre – Glasgow March 1977.

“Lord Provost Peter McCann seems to think that only “sick minded weirdos” will go to see the group – an uncharitable view of the good people of Glasgow who turned up last night, and wait a minute, the audience didn’t stab or mug anyone at all. It might be of interest to our would be censors to hear that no one walked out and the company were warmly applauded. My advice to Mr McGann and his fellow protestors is to relax. The Pip Simmons Theatre Group will go away soon. Will the violence and social deprivation in Glasgow do the same?”
– Robert Jeffrey – Evening Times 15.5.77

All photos and blog ©Sheila Burnett.

Topless Shock on School Trip

Summer 1976 Dracula and Dream team head up north doing both shows at each venue. This is what a certain Mr Ray Smithson, Headmaster of Baysgarth Comprehensive school had to say :

Topless Shock on School Trip

A classic Russian play chosen for a school trip shocked teachers and parents. A coach load of boys and girls from 13 to 16 saw explicit sex scenes and a topless actress who mingled with the audience. And now Mr Ray Smithson, Headmaster of Baysgarth Comprehensive School, Humberside, has written to Sheffield’s Crucible Theatre to complain that no warning was given. He said yesterday that the choice of play, Dostoevski’s The Dream of the Ridiculous Man, by Pip Simmons Theatre – had had his full approval group had a good reputation and there was nothing to suggest this production contains explicit sex scenes. The theatre was well aware that this was a school booking and should have warned us, but Mr Arnold Elliman general manager of the Crucible said that the theatre had taken all possible precautions to protect young children.

Robert Turner, Daily Mail 17/11/76

Ben, Meirave and Sheila backstage, somewhere up North – The Dream of The Ridiculous Man – Drac/ Dream uk Tour.

We didn’t know it at the time but the sweet nice looking skinny boy groupie called John who I met in the lift at Leicester Haymarket was to become a buddy for years to come. He and I would one day be the two parts of a pantomime horse. How did this happen? He was an Assistant Stage Manager at the Haymarket and because we didn’t need much help, he had the chance to watch the shows amd appreciate them every evening and then hang out with us after the show.Welcome John Altman who was later to become Eastenders Nick Cotton. His best-selling book ‘In the Nick of Time: John Altman’s autobiography tells all ! This is what he remembers:

I was only there for a few months when this incredible theatre company arrived called Pip Simmons Theatre Group, never heard of them but I was completely blown away. They were partly a rock band and by that time my interest in music had been cemented. Visually, I had seen nothing like it in the theatre before, they did an incredible version of Dracula. Two girls came on naked and then got dressed to strip music, there was blood everywhere, sex, white doves …. it was a pageant of truly exciting theatre, I watched agog every single night. They were self-sufficient so there wasn’t a lot to do for them, I jammed with the band on drums and drank with them after the show. Pip worked under cover; he never wanted to let anyone know who he was, it was underground fringe alternative rock theatre.

taken from John Altman’s autobiography ‘In The Nick of Time’

Why the nudity? Why this mischief on stage? Pip Simmons Theatre Group had no philosophy when it was formed. Never did have any philosophy, just a lack of respect for the written words of the genuflected Pinter, Wesker, Bennet, Osborne, etc. This is the year of Punk! anything goes: the underground press OZ & Ink cock a snook at established press; Sex Pistols to the established music industry with ‘Anarchy in the UK’ we see posters of a topless queen; a restless generation find ingenius ways to create disorder, hippies are out, punk is in, anything goes and if you wanted to stand on a stage doing a reverse strip, we didn’t have the Lord Chamberlain to ban it. What we the group had in common was a hooligan attitude and and a deep commitment needed for a Pip Simmons production.

Nicholas de Jongh – Arts Guardian 1976

There I was in the usual darkness. What they have created and perfected in their years of nomadic life is a kind of musical theatre – its distinctive marks are disciplined aggression and wildness. There has been no other group which has chosen to suggest the nasty, violent fury of the times with such physical gut and power, no other group group which has also managed a form of wistful music gentleness as in definitely Dream of a Ridiculous man. For here they are lambasted by criticism, yet for the first time in Britain, playing in a major non-fringe theatre. It gives them, I suppose, a dangerous respectability.

Chris Jordan (Voice of God) and Rodric Leigh (van Helsing) Backstage Dracula

We ended 1976 with Dracula at the Royal Court LDN and I swear, standing on that stage was not like standing on any other stage encountered on our tour. Narrow, deep rake, look up and you see the boxes, the stalls, the circle, the gods. The Theatre breaths & creaks, we are merely passing by, the ghosts of past performances linger in the woodwork and so here we arrive to do Dracula 2. We have been preparing for this, a London audience, not to be taken lightly. ….. Drac 2 not to everyone’s liking in the press, but we survive and they had a field day with the reviews.

Herbert Kretzmer 1976

Tolling Bells, howling dogs, creaking coffins, a spider eating lunatic and the screams of the undead are just a few of the ingredients of the Court’s Christmas attraction. In this brainstorming version of the travelling Pip Simmons Theatre Group’s spine – chilling panto, they hurl themselves with religeouse fervencey of a black mass congregation.Blood by the Gallon gushes from the wounds and mouths of the victims, and screams and smoke issue freely from the murkey stage.

We all have our names on the dressing room doors. Pete has a star on his door and makes sure we all know about it.

Pete’s dressing room, The Royal Court, we all have our name on the door, Pete makes sure we all know he has a star on his.

Steve Grant Time Out 17.12.76

……. Dracula’s presence merely releases the various urges of an assortment of scientists, poets, heroines and heroes who loose their trousers and nighties as the mood takes them. The music by Chris Jordan (doubling the voice of God) is a knockout.There is a bit too much Mel Brooks for my liking, but this said,PS are the most visually exciting group in Britain and we should be proud of them and this madly erotic,madly inventive and madly mad showpiece.

I sneak out in the interval, with a coat thrown over my nighty to take this photo dodging the traffick in the bitter winter freezing cold.

Topless shock on School trip-1976 year of the Punk

The Royal Court, London 1976 – ‘Welcome to my house’

Blog and photos © Sheila Burnett

Tolling bells, howling dogs, creaking coffins

I am a vampire lying in a coffin with the lid down wearing vampire nighty and stage blood, a gloopy combination of glycerine and cochineal. It is the interval of Dracula 2. I hear the audience return, shuffling and mumbling; no one knows I’m here, all they see is a coffin on the stage. We have resurrected Dracula to be a companion show to tour with The Dream of the Ridiculous Man. This is York at York Arts Centre, a traverse space seating 200. The seats, some of them old pews are close together. York Arts Centre are really game and ring the old church bell 13 times before each performance to herald the arrival of Dracula!

Rod Beddall-Dracula – Silverthorne Rd – London Summer 1976

It’s a matinee. We have an audience of school boys, 16-year-olds on a trip to the theatre. I lie in this coffin undetected for about 10 minutes. I am the undead, I have been staked through the heart, a fully formed vampire about to leap out of the coffin screaming for blood. I wait for my cue and when everyone is settled, I leap from my coffin howling.

To my horror and their delight I over step my mark, and in my torn vampire nighty find myself face-to-face jumping in to the laps of a row of schoolboys from a catholic public school. I can see the whites of there wide innocent eyes; they can’t believe their luck and after the show, in the caffe bar, I am surrounded by eager schoolboys who want to know more about Bram Stoker.

Sheila & Chris backstage – Dracula – Drac/Dream tour

Row back to Silverthorne Rd, Battersea, rehearsals Summer 1976. Prepping a new tour a new show. We rehearse Mahagony… no good! Billy Bud, no good ! The Hunting of the Snark no good ! nothing works. Rowan leaves, Meirave Gary arrives and steps seamlessly into Rowan’s shoes. Dracula 1 the first show that us, the newly formed Pip Simmons Group did Rotterdam 1974 is resurrected. Welcome Drac 2 a no frills version that can travel with The Dream. A skip full of costumes is brought out of storage. Rod’s studded, petrified cod piece still in one piece. Rod shaves his head and struts his stuff in fishnets. Out come the swooshy cloaks and the vampire see-through nightgowns for the girlies, the straitjacket for Pete, the lunatic Renfield, and anything else that can be brushed down and reused.

Emil (Dr Seward) improvise more and more ingenious ways to piss each off as Emil becomes a bug-eyed Dr Strangelove and Pete a balmy fly-eating bozo.

Emil (Dr Seward) improvise more and more ingenious ways to piss each off as Emil becomes a bug-eyed Dr Strangelove and Pete ( Renfield) a balmy fly-eating bozo. Rehearsals Silverthorne Rd, Summer 1976

Drac 2 is honed, songs re-learned, new coffin made, The Dream of the Ridiculous Man re-rehearsed, Tai Chi practiced with Meirave The doves get to play both shows, Dave the Cockerel, just the one. Two months rehearsal and we are ready to go. A well-oiled machine of nine actors, one director, one lighting designer, Joan Oliver (admin) one customised Mercedes van and the Volvo. I look after costume (one skip) Meirave (props in another skip) Ollie (doves and cockerel) Chris (all things electrical) Emil (all of his contraptions used in both shows) Rod and Rod load and unload the van, everyone looks after their own equipment and every able bodied member of the company helps lug skips, boxes, sets and livestock from van to stage, stage to van. The UK tour begins

Rod & Rod transport team

continued on :

Topless Shock on School Trip

All photos and blog © Sheila Burnett.

Oslo or bust ……… 1975 melts in to 1976

‘Keep on Smiling …….

The days and dates begin to merge. I carry a diary with me; I look at it frequently. I buy a road atlas of Europe so I know where we are going, what border we are crossing, what country we are in. It’s getting colder, we are on the way to Oslo. This is a long journey driving from Denmark. Many ferries; a cold, cold, long, dark journey. It begins to snow, we are now off the autobahn, we are on a mountain road. How does Rod know the way? No Satnav … he just hunkers down and drives and drives.

It’s very quiet in the cabin, unusual! Someone is usually larking about. Vision is nil, the windscreen wipers thunk, thunk, thunk the snow away as it piles up on the windscreen. Rod’s knuckles are white clutching the steering wheel. I’m sitting next to him, concentration is visceral.

I hear a tiny mumbling coming from someone, it’s Chris. Is he praying? It’s the only sound in the cab apart from the windscreen wipers. Chris is very quietly saying some verse. I think we are all going to die, and can feel my heart almost stop. Is that a deer ? No it’s an elk. Rod swerves and navigates the entire crew, the entire sets of 2 shows, a cockerel and 3 doves. Nobody dies. We get there, we arrive in Oslo. It’s late, it’s dark, it’s cold. We need a drink, the hotel is closed for drink. Not a sip.. No food, nothing till breakfast. We go to our rooms. I hug the radiator and wait until breakfast.

Chris in the Gustav Vigeland Sculpture Park, Oslo.

‘Keep on smiling, keep on smiling, keep on smiling until you burst. The times that you’ve had can’t have been so bad that those to come can’t be ten times worse. Don’t keep whining about a silver lining; It’s enough that you’re clothed and fed. So make your mind up: you’re going to wind up underground so keep on smiling until you’re dead’

The Dream of the Ridiculous Man opens with Chris Jordan’s music – ‘Among the audience, English tramps wander around silently, they have a shifty look about them, a menacing smile on the lips suggesting they are about to ask for charity, on a screen, we see the face of a terrified young man, gentle music is playing, a girl in an old raincoat too big, waits at the front’ (an extract from unknown review) and we, the company, do our Tai Chi movements in our tatty raincoats, singing ‘its hard to be the only one who knows the truth …….’

Oh the joy of doing this show. Meanwhile our sister show, An die Musik, is forever there as we alternate both shows on the 1975-76 tour. Pip drives separately with Dick Johnson our lighting man and one other. These are our venues, we manage to get home for Christmas 1975 and then continue the tour till May 1976.

United Kingdom: Oval House, ICA, Nuffield Theatre Southampton, Brum Studio Birmingham, Haymarket Leicester, Gulbenkian Theatre Newcastle, Crucible Sheffield, Leeds University, Gardner Centre Brighton, York Arts Centre, Exeter Northcott, University of Bradford, Bingley College, Bristol University, Lancaster University, Rochdale, University of Warwick, Norwich, Canterbury, Oxford, Nottingham University, Winchester, Cheltenham, Sunderland, Warrington, Leamington, Chapter Arts Cardiff, Glasgow Citizens. France: Nancy, Paris, Nice, Avignon, Bordeaux, Cannes, Aix-en-Provence, Caen, Amiens, Nevers, Grenoble, Macon, Tours, Sceaux, Dijon, Douai, Mulhouse, Thonon-les-Bains, Lyons, Aurillac, Chartres, Chambéry, Béziers, Bourges, Grasse, Lille, Mende, Privas. Italy: Milan, Rome. Germany: Hamburg, Munich, Bonn, Cologne. Belgium: Brussels, Antwerp. Holland: Mickery Theatre Amsterdam, Piccolo Theater Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht, Groningen, Enschede, Tilburg, Eindhoven, Apeldoorn, Nijmegen, Leiden, Haarlem, Dordrecht. Sweden: Stockholm, Östersund. Denmark: Holstebro, Copenhagen, Herning, Louisiana, Viborg, Odense, Aalborg, Tastrup, Aarhus, Kolding, Hillerod. Norway: Stavanger, Oslo.

The travel arrangements worked okay most of the time, except Ben remembers this.

It’s breakfast time on the day of departure from Munich. We have two vehicles, it is my turn to ride with Pip! At the end of breks I go upstairs to my room to get my stuff and when I come down the bus is gone – no probs, so I sit and wait for Pip to appear. It is about fifteen minutes before I realise that Pip has left too! So, here I am in Munich, some decades before the advent of mobile phones, with no way of letting anyone know where I am and no way of knowing where everyone else is headed. All I know is that they’re going to Paris, but I have no idea which theatre or which hotel. I have enough money (just) to get to Paris, but what to do then?

I look at a map and see that they must cross into France just outside Strasbourg. I grab my bag and hotfoot to the Hauptbahnof. Single to Strasbourg please! I’ve already lost a bit of time by the time the train leaves, but reckon I should just be able to head them off at the pass! On arrival at Strasbourg, I jump into a cab ‘a la frontiere – vite, s’il vous plait’. The cabbie obliges – just as well. As we pull up at the crossing, the tour van miraculously appears. Grab bag, run towards van and get on. ‘Oh hi Ben, where’s Pip’ is the underwhelming reaction. Where indeed? Turns out that both parties thought I was with the other one. Later, I mentioned to Pip that he’d left me in Munich – I think he replied with a grunt.

Ben – Backstage The Dream

The unending hospitality continues. An Die Musik, this show never fails to make generous folk want to look after us. The entire group is invited to the mountain house of a Belgium Millionaire, a friend of the theatre. I have goat cheese for the first time. Goat cheese wrapped in vine leaves. The wine runs freely only I have a boil on my bum and cystitis. I am on antibiotics and firmly told no alcohol … a bummer, but Pete found something nice in the van for me. Whilst everyone else drinks the drink, I smoke the smoke. You may be thinking it is the life of Riley, dining al fresco, but touring is physically demanding, and these diversions are welcome. At home the company played to 100-200 seat venues and here in Europe to 500-1000 seat venues. Europe appear to appreciate this hybrid experimental/political theatre and the company was embraced.

Al fresco picnic, mountain home of a millionaire.

Sheila and Pete.

Rowan remembers touring as a juxtaposition of squalor and luxury.

We passed by stunning places in our claustrophobic customised Mercedes van filled with smoke and hangovers (only the alpha males allowed to drive). We ate in the greasiest of cafes, huddled into an infinity of hostelries, slunk into the darkest of dives after hours and stayed in some quite nice hotels. When Ben Bazell was there with his guide book he ensured our journeys were broken with enlightenment and culture – Is that how we ended up on Lake Como? I’d forgotten I’d ever been there. I remember though staying in an unusually comfortable hotel in Switzerland where we were brought breakfast in bed – maybe they didn’t want a scruffy crew like us in the dining room. I had a room to myself overlooking a lake and the coffee was the best ever.

Rowan – Lake Como.

Even though we have many venues, we sometimes have a week to travel. So Roderic who speaks fluent French is in charge of Les Routiers the lunchtime stop to refresh when in France. Chris speaks a bit of German although no goat cheese wrapped in vine leaves in Germany. A takometer is fitted in to the cabin so driving is limited to the hours takometer allows. The van finds plenty to occupy en route the occasional zoo, cave, seaside or lake.

Rod and Rod look after the touring machine.

I, being wardrobe mistress, have to find a launderette. We have loads of those in the UK and can usually find one somewhere in Europe; and joy of joys, the occasional theatre offers this service, only I don’t usually find out till too late.

In Oslo, not only is a bottle of whisky £100 but no laundrettes, none. The hotel says we have a laundering service, I reluctantly hand over a rancid bag of An die Musik costumes. Can’t even call them costumes, they are rags. The rags are returned beautifully laundered, each bandage (yes bandage in plural, many bandages) all lovingly pressed with a little tag with the name of the establishment. My Anne Frank dress has never looked lovelier, the little white collar starched and pressed and as for the boys grubby long johns full of holes, all carefully pressed and folded. What must have they thought of this strange tribe of English people who wear such rags. The bill was phenomenal, the price of a washing machine.

Much needed van stop, Chris and Roderic.

I can say please and thank you in most languages. I speak French. I can say, hello, goodbye, good morning good night, another wine please, another beer please, another Croque Monsieur please and how much is that please, which I think is pretty good.

Sgeila dressed to the nines to visit the Peking Opera-Paris 1976

Sheila dressed to the nines for a visit to La Scala Milan.

And so 1975 melts in to 1976. The tour continues, we drive, unload, do show, load van, hotel, sleep, have days off, sometimes weeks when a show falls through, have some great food and some awful food, get bored, read books, explore cities, towns and whatever comes our way. We get used to the border crossings as Chris, affectionately called the carnet führer, collects our passports and then spends ages in customs explaining why we have a cockerel dove and a gun (prop) in the back of the van. Sometimes we are waved through, sometimes we are suspiciously inspected and patrolled and searched. We do our last An Die Musik. We have performed this extraordinary show 159 times, and now we say goodbye to it in an old converted cinema housed in a shopping centre somewhere in the Danish suburbs.

No celebrations just goodbye.

All photos © Sheila Burnett

The Mickery Theatre-Amsterdam : An Attitude, Not a Place!

Next stop: The Mickery, Amsterdam, an old cinema converted into a black box theatre renowned for presenting obscure, profound international avant-garde theatre under its noted director, Ritsaert ten Cate.

I swear the Mickery was in a different time zone. It had its own magazine and its own doctor, its own Alsation Tromp (named after a brand of Dutch gin) and production photographers Maria Austria and later Bob Van Danzig who were able like magic to conjure up photos taken in the darkest and most challenging of theatre lighting.

The Mickery also had its own special fragrance, a mixture of canals, beer and strong shag. Strong shag the roll up tobacco of choice, it hung in the air and whatever time of day you arrived, you could still smell the smoke from the night before. Everyone smoked, maybe Emil didn’t smoke. There were two Pinball machines at the back of the dark bar; it was always dark at the Mickery.

We watched and performed more theatre here than anywhere. ‘The Mickery was not a place, but an attitude’ and so it was here An Die Musik arrived, a show that commemorated the 30th anniversary of the liberation of Holland. The house of Anne Frank was nearby … we had an audience, but then we always did at the Mickery.

Pieter Mickery Barman, open all day plus freshly squeezed orange juice on demand

Pieter: Mickery barman, open all day with freshly squeezed orange juice on demand.

Flashback: My first time in Amsterdam, first time at the Mickery and first time I met Pip Simmons. The show is Dave and Goliath by Nice Pussy.

Nice Pussy was formed by two former members of PSTG Chris Jordan and Warren Hooper plus newcomer Rod Beddall. I was girl Friday of the group, I did costume, props, sound and bought chicken giblets every day for Rod. Rod a butcher’s son had no problem with raw meat, it packed a punch on stage and on this occasion represented roadkill. This chemistry with meat came in very useful in the future Pip Simmons Theatre Group.

It was a matinee; not many people showed up. I was upstairs in the wide dark Mickery lighting booth doing the sound and Pip arrived unannounced, put his finger to mouth shush. So this is Pip: hair, mustachio, ciggie, big white afghan coat, red Merc parked outside!

The boys didn’t know he was in and I guess he’s come to see to see if Rod would make a good Dracula. Chris Jordan writer of all PSTG music and founder member of PSTG had suggested Rod as Dracula for the forming of the new group. That’s how it happened back in the day. This bloke Rod is big, bald, plays all instruments, can sing and eat raw chicken giblets. He got the job!

Rod Beddall, Chris Jordan, Warren Hooper

I have two husbands in this photo

Flash forward to 1976: An Die Musik, a show that is as difficult to watch as it is to do.

We are lucky to have the unending hospitality from people who understand and sympathise with the play. During the big freeze of 1976, we are invited to go ice skating by the Mickery Administrator, Otto. We have ice skating boots, are fed and warm and then off we go skating on the Prinsengacht Canal.

Rod, Emil, Rowan & Sheila

Ben Bazell, a former Rocky in the Rocky Horror Picture Show remembers…

“I remember this very well. Tim was just two years old, having spent his birthday travelling from Paris, past Brussels and on to A’dam. Catherine and Tim had been with us for about five weeks. One memory from this time was that the group – despite our public persona were so kind and indulgent. Not everyone’s idea of fun to have a toddler along on tour, I’m sure. Tim really enjoyed their company at the breakfast table and we got the occasional offer from group members to take him out in his sturdy Silver Cross pushchair. On this day I think you and Rod and Dick had agreed to take Tim out on a little jaunt to give Catherine and me a bit of a break. Looking at the picture reminds me too of how cold it was. It seemed everyone had some skates somewhere…”

Ben, Rod, Cathy, Richard and Tim in the pram outside the Museum Hotel

Rudi Engelander, theatre critic, dramaturg & friend of the Mickery, born in the Netherlands, who had the idea for An Die Musik which Pip based the show on.

An extract from an interview:

“The Nature of collaboration within the Pip Simmons Theatre Group. Pip – he never directed in the sense of do this or that – he gave great responsibility to the actors to fill in in whatever they were doing… and he would look at the total picture and the pacing. But actors have always had a great independence in this work. Scripts emerged – I mean both production and script emerged, [it] was developed, while going along really. He was the final arbiter of everything there of course – the theatre group was called Pip Simmons Theatre Group, as simple as that …. And everybody enjoyed it because they knew that working with him they would have a great time and would probably make some work that’s worthwhile performing.”

PIP SIMMONS THEATRE GROUP ARCHIVE PHOTOS © SHEILA BURNETT DRACULA REHEARSALS SAGMOLENDRIFT & VOORSCHOTERLAAN ROTTERDAM - AUGUST 1974 PIP SIMMONS RUDI ENGELANDER

Pip Simmons and Rudi Engelander.

Sunday Times Review 1975 “….a show within a show, ostensibly a musical entertainment taking place in a concentration camp. The concert party consisting of prisoners performing under the threatening baton of a Nazi guard begins with a short ‘operetta’ entitled ‘The Dream of Anne Frank’. The final image imprints itself indelibly, the doomed musicians seem to sit on the clouds like The Heavenly host in a Giotto painting. Hatred has been purged. Simmons here surpasses Grotowski.”

We do 159 performances of An Die Musik, the last being May 1976 somewhere in Denmark.

A Stage stormed! l’horreur!

It was bound to happen. Pip predicted it might happen, It happened in Paris. We were headlined Concert classique à Dachau par le Pip Simmons Theatre Group de Londres, Schubert,Liszt,Beethovan au pays de l’horreur

The show is sold out for a week, every seat is taken. The play starts as the audience arrive, Rod in his stripes plays the accordion whilst our audience take to their seats. We start the first act of An Die Musik, a dumb show melodrama, a caricature of Jewish life around the family table. I represent Anne Frank and Emil is my Dad, Roderic is Mum and Pete is the brother. Olly in Nazi uniform serves us doves to eat whilst doing wicked things to me. This all takes place whilst the concentration camp orchestra, Chris, Rod, Rowan & Ben play a haunting operetta: No More! No More! No More! The sound of an air raid siren marks the end of Part 1 and as the siren screams we leave the stage and return for Part 2. Pete is now the Nazi guard and all of us are in our raggedy uniforms with the yellow star.

The lights come on, shocking and bright after the darkness of Part 1 and this is when the stage is stormed. A strategy had been talked about in case this should ever happen, we only had to do it this once. Pete ordered us all to stand in a line, and then ordered us off the stage which we did in complete silence. Emil and I dashed up to the rafters looking down on the stage to see what was going on. We watched as about 20 angry students rant and rave in French on the stage below us, we found out what it was all about later.

Olly Rod & Pete

Ian Brown, artistic Director-West Yorkshire Playhouse was in the audience that night & he wrote ………

During this performance, the stage was stormed by what I presume was a radical anti-fascist group who thought the play was about glorified fascism. There were about 15 of them and had some violent arguments onstage with the management before the audience was ushered out.Sometimes when you see radical things onstage, you do wonder whether anyone will stand up and say, “ actually, I’ve had enough of this, you should be ashamed of yourselves” Odd thing about this protest, It actually felt quite fascist! Its a very strange sensation when real life meets theatre. I was very mindful of the actors who were milling in the foyer with us.

Anna Furse-Professor of Theatre also in the audience remembers …..

The show left an indelible mark on me. It continues to make me reflect on the ethics of representation, what we ask people to look at and why – the basis of the whole protest in Paris in fact. I go to the Recamier to see Pip Simmons Theatre Group, minutes in protestors throw paper on stage and rush it, shouting to the audience to stop the performance. People start fighting. Three rows ahead an elderly man is hit and I hear him call out: but I’m Jewish. I was there!” The safety curtain comes down. Show cancelled. We are reimbursed & invited back a few days later where I join the post show gathering, down in some dark place. (This is the theatre bar which is in the basement )

The stage looks like this after every show before being re-set

The stage looks like this before being re-set

Pip and Pete

Jenny Topper at that time the artistic Director of Hampstead Theatre chose An Die Music for Dramatic Moments: 26 for the Art/theatre Guardian 1996:

With a devastating lack of sentimentality, the company explored the fate of those inmates of a nameless concentration camp who, having been made the fools and play-things of the SS, were finally forced to play themselves to their deaths. I remember the rigorous selflessness of the actors (as near to self abasement as you would dare to go) and their austere dignity as naked and playing their instruments, they entered the gas chamber.I remember the hopeless beauty of the music-Schubert & Beethoven & the emotional and ethical challenges the piece presented to its audience.

Later on in the tour, larking around backstage

Photos taken backstage of our slowly disintegrating outfits. I had 2 dresses and alternated them, the stripes were interchangeable.

Another night in Paris, Emil is ill, he can’t do the show and has to stay in bed, doctors orders. Me panic, what can I do without Emil, he is my Dad, he leads I follow, my world is with my Dad and I will be on my own. We all have our little chairs with sawn off legs for the first half, the dumb show. Pip puts a photo of Emil on the table where Dad is supposed to sit and talks me through it. This is the night it happens, I suddenly get it. I am on my own, no one to rely on, I am am free to roam the stage like an eerie dark forest. Roderic (Mum) reaches out to bring me back to my little chair and I stay in this magic place for 90 minutes. Pip pinches my cheek after the show and says Muzzeltoff and Emil is really pissed off that we have done one of our best without him.

Occasionally this show takes its toll on us, thankfully never all at the same time, I had people come up to me after the show when it had been my turn to hang naked from the trapeze only to say ‘I hate you for doing that’ you shrug it off because I didn’t hate me for doing it, the trapeze exercise was random, someone different each night, it looked worst than it was, a dramatic devise that never fails to shock, not uncommon in the 70’s. We do this show 159 times, sometimes it is so brilliant but sometimes in a matinée and a small audience, the exposure is cruel, you never know which way it’s going to go, sometimes we do a routine performance just to get through it, we all know how to do this.

Ben Bazell-backstage

The Tour Continues: Stars and Fire

We continue to kick Dream in to shape.

Me and Rowan do our corruption strip which looks great as the smoke machine pumps away with Dick Johnson’s brilliant lighting. Rowan sings ‘He was Despised’ like a choir boy, whilst I exit stage left at 100 miles per hour to jump out of my fishnets and change into the star costume which has been set earlier backstage. I cover myself in baby oil and glitter, light a sparkler, (no strict fire regulations back in the day) meanwhile the backstage techies like to look on whilst this all takes place…

I dash round the entire theatre having made sure earlier that no doors will be locked so I can make an entrance from back of auditorium. I rush headlong through the audience towards the stage with sparkler on fire, whilst Rowan sings ‘I see a star’ Olly is waiting for me on stage with Dave the cockeral to lift me on to the trapeze. This it’s done & dusted in about 3 mins, and coincides with the doves being let free and (hopefully!) landing on Roderic.

Sheila backstage with tutu

We do both shows, An Die Musik & The Dream. An Die Musik still packs a punch where ever we go, you love it or you hate it. We all stay in same B & B usually for a week. Occasionally the owner will ask if he can come and see the show. So the owner and his wife turn up to see An Die Musik thinking they are going to see a proper play with words and acting. We all got our notes next morning as he served us breakfast and we all sniggered in to our eggs and bacon. This man did NOT like this show, and as for you, he said pointing at me ….. you look better with your clothes ON ! …… That has to be the worst review I ever did have. He was right but he didn’t have to tell me.

An Die Musik is equivocally my most terrifying theatrical experience – Robert Cushman 1975

The boys play football in Sheffield, this is Pete

If more than 2 members of the company are reading the same book, you can bet your life its because it may be the next show (we have to prepare for next year!) Here Ben and Rod are both reading Billy Bud in the back of the van, so Roderic must be driving. So Billy Bud is on the agenda. Ben would make a beautiful Bud, after all he has just finished playing Rocky in the Rocky Horror Show. Both Rod and Ben have the gift of being able to blow, strum or bang any instrument and make it sound good. Rowan and Pete on vocals, Chris moog and piano & Emil on gun (prop). Me, Roderic and Olly make other noises. Olly is Peter Oliver, ‘father of the fringe’, founder of The Oval House and good at playing the frail old man even though he was only 40 and fitter than the rest of us.

Ben Bazell, Rod Beddall back of the touring van reading Billy Bud

Roderick was born to play the Ridiculous Man with his silly grin and bambi eyes, he gets good reviews. We practice our Tai Chi to make it perfect, we practice the songs and we all love doing ‘Corruption’ I tripped over the coffin last night, the coffin turns up in most of the shows, this one is covered in tin foil to make it shimmer.

Peter Ansorge: review: Plays and Players, Oval House 1976 …The Ridiculous Man ( Roderic Leigh ) is saved by a vision of Paradise just at the moment he is contemplating suicide. Leigh complete with nightcap and a terrorised gaze, confronts death in the murderous shape of a gigantic Emil Wolk on stilts-who ragingly insists that both actor and audience face complete dispare and self destruction with a traumatic Nietzshean drive and panache. Leigh eventually crucifies himself against a meccano cross with a smile of delighted doomed glee. Chris Jordan’s score is conceived as nothing less than a complete rock opera, it contributes a major part to the success of the piece …….

Robert Cushman : review: The Observer 1975 .. In the middle of the dream, blending wit and enchantment, is the most idyllic tableau to be found on the London stage: a Polynesian paradise, represented by palm, bare breasted girls, a couple of doves, a fruit vendor & zany but harmonious additions, an old man knitting in a deck chair and a live chicken. The scene of course is created only to be destroyed would be fair enough except that the cynicism is cranked up in excess of the situation.

Roderic and Rowan-Bourge Cathedral

And now we pack the van and off to Europe

Drac/Dream 1977 – Lethal Injection

Drac/Dream 1976/77 – Whores and Lunatics

Aux Ateliers: Création du Rêve d’un Homme Ridicule
– par le Pip Simmons Group

Drac/Dream 1976/77 – The Only Time We Cancelled a show!

This is the one and only time we cancelled!

All seats 50p – Bat out of Hell -1977

Roll up! Roll up ladies and Gentlemen! All seats 50p at the Glasgow Citizens Theatre. We are happy to present an all singing, all screaming Dracula by the one and only Pip Simmons Theatre Group! Put your hands together for Dracula 3!

Topless Shock on School Trip

Tolling bells, howling dogs, creaking coffins

Oslo or bust ……… 1975 melts in to 1976

‘Keep on Smiling …….

The Mickery Theatre-Amsterdam : An Attitude, Not a Place!

Next stop: The Mickery, Amsterdam, an old cinema converted into a black box theatre renowned for presenting obscure, profound international avant-garde theatre under its noted director, Ritsaert ten Cate.

Flashback: My first time in Amsterdam, first time at the Mickery and first time I met Pip Simmons. The show is Dave and Goliath by Nice Pussy.

Flash forward to 1976: An Die Musik, a show that is as difficult to watch as it is to do.

Ben Bazell, a former Rocky in the Rocky Horror Picture Show remembers…

Rudi Engelander, theatre critic, dramaturg & friend of the Mickery, born in the Netherlands, who had the idea for An Die Musik which Pip based the show on.

We do 159 performances of An Die Musik, the last being May 1976 somewhere in Denmark.

A Stage stormed! l’horreur!

The Tour Continues: Stars and Fire

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