FInally - The Writer Blogs! 1902 Fanfare, Fireworks, Fuss! Guest Blog 3

Response to Carole’s Blog, Friday 7/12/2012

Ok, this is my first blog response- she may even get me blogging yet although I have tried to explain that since I write for a living the attraction of doing it for fun (and for free) has thus far passed me by. (Editor's Note: That's not what your Mum says about you when you were a kid actually!)

Carole was grumbling last evening that at a meeting she had attended (not to do with Cinderella or the Broadway) the question was raised about how “artists” could relate to “ordinary people” in the community. This ridiculous debate seems predicated on the fact that artists are not ordinary people. I’d agree that many of my fellow artists are not what you might term “normal”, however I think that what is being implied here is some kind of cultural elitism. What a load of rubbish. Working in the arts is a job like any other. You discover a propensity, gather some skills and put it to work. Nobody would call a mechanic or a plumber elitist although their skill, knowledge and ability are far beyond we ordinary people.

I am one of the ordinary people. I grew up on a council estate in Harlow. I had a great time at school but didn’t do any work and left with few qualifications (3 ‘O’ levels and 2 CSE’s). I seemed to have a knack for messing about with words and plugged away whilst doing driving and shop jobs until I found an outlet for it. My lack of education means that I have had to keep learning, although now I call it research.

This brings me to my point. I recently wrote a play called “Müllered” about the first railway murder, which took place in 1864. My research led me to do a lot of reading about “Victorian London” (or as the Victorians called it- “London”) and I came across an account written in 1902 of The Electrophone. Just twenty years after the first telephone line in London it was reported that:

“There is not a leading theatre, concert room or music hall but has the electrophone transmitters- in shape like cigar boxes- installed before the footlights, out of sight of the audience. They are at the Royal Opera, Covent Garden; and in many principal places of worship. A dummy bible in the pulpit bears the Preacher’s words, by means of the N.T.C. telephone lines, to thousands of invalid or crippled listeners in bed or chair in their homes or hospitals.”

From: A Dictionary of Victorian by Lee Jackson. 

So congratulations on being among the first pantomimes to be live streamed and let's pay hommage to a concept that goes back well over a hundred years. On her last birthday Queen Victoria heard two thousand children sing to her from Her Majesties' Theatre in Haymarket whilst she sat in her chair in Windsor castle.

Olly.