Reading List

Yesterday I went to Hay with some fabulous friends, and added around 10 volumes to my reading pile. Below is the pile of books I haven't read yet, including all the new ones I got

The majority bought yesterday are Hollywood related and include books on Liza Minnelli, Esther Williams, Mae West, Mary Pickford and more - I may well be some time reading this lot - but where shall I start?

British Bombshell

So, as you know I love movies especially old movies and old movie stars, there is one movie star that I am interested in that I can actually remember and that is Diana Dors who died in 1984 when I was nearly 10.

I can remember her in the Two Ronnies, and the Prince Charming video, though older and larger she was still beautiful and glamourous and so blonde.

My Dad is even luckier, her met her once, back in the 50's when she was performing in Weston, he said she was lovely so kind and down to earth and friendly, but he did not like her husband Denis Hamilton, I will not post the words he used to describe him - and his feelings for Denis were based on one meeting so how she put up with him is a mystery.

I have one of the Diana Dors Biographies to read and am hoping I might find more books on her (and other stars) on Monday when I go book hunting with my fiends in Hay on Wye

Gorgeous Glamour 

 A dramatic role for Diana as a condemned woman

 Some early Diana films are on this boxset along with the The Blonde Bombshell bio starring Keeley Hawes and Amanda Redman

This is Naomi, she is the only Diana Dors lookalike in the world - isn't she stunning?

HTS the end

Well I'm sitting here typing this while I wait for an ebay auction to end, really I just want to go to bed as I am coming down with a cold - but here are the last of the HTS shots.

Round and Round the Garden by Alan Ayckbourn

Below - some of my headshots

I have realised that I missed a show I did called Just for Laughs - I will share those with you another time

Hertfordshire Theatre School 1995

Ah HTS was a blast

 Places

 The Orestia

Deathtrap

Interestingly Newport Playgoers are staging a production of Deathtrap in January - I'm not in it but will be working backstage on sound

1994

Below: Every spring we would do a themed show of sings, some would be form Musicals, some would be pop and rock songs, the theme in 1994 was Directions, so songs from Miss Saigon and Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat were performed along side a comedy version of Tammy Wynette's Stand By Your Man.

And A Little Love Besides - by Allan Plater -this was performed in the studio

Drama School

In 1993 I was lucky enough to go to drama school, for three years I trained at Hertfordshire Theatre School in Hitchin Hertfordshire,

under the direction of Kirk Foster, John Gardiner (Dracula Spectacular and Dazzle) and Anne-Marie Lewis-Thomas, the truth is those three years were the happiest years of my life and the things I learned there have stayed with me through the years.

 Above as Beryl from A talk in the Park by Alan Ayckboourn - we only did a scene from this but I remember how exciting it was.

Below, various costumes and characters in Second From Last in the Sack Race by Michael Birch

From the Roaring 20's to Outer Space!

Today we continue the tour of my scrapbooks and the plays I was in that have led me gently to the Dolman and Newport Playgoers.

So there were 2 more shows before I ran off to drama school in Hertfordshire.

 In Alan Parker's Bugsy Malone I ended up playing 2 parts - both men due to the shortage of male actors, this was fins by me as I got to shoot myself in the face with custard as one of the hoodlums in Fat Sam's gang and got to sing So you want to be a boxer as Cagey Joe - I still have my copy of the script signed by the case and crew.

In one of the more embarrassing of my theatrical exploits I wore a bin bag and a scull cap painted yellow in Big Zoo, one of those shows devised by the cast - In this story the Dozers blast their way across the universe laying waste to every planet in their wake. On their way they meet the peaceful Trashers and a revolution led by yours truly takes place.