Sisters, Cousins and Aunts
Being an Account of
The Production in Various Parts of a Victorian Comic Opera

A Surprise
Well, then. So there’s no choice in the matter, is there? You are quite serious about this? Hmm… Could we do a sci-fi version of it? Or set in wartime Casablanca? Nope? Yep – HMS Pinafore was chosen as the school play for 1987, and that was the end of the argument.

Casting Couch
Mr Ferguson (known to all as ‘Massey’, after a famous brand of tractor – funny how nobody can name a famous brand of tractor these days…) let it be known that casting for the principals of The Show would commence, with silken-voiced thespians most kindly invited to audition.

I was highly sceptical of the whole undertaking, and indeed did not turn up to the initial casting sessions, only reluctantly turning up in the language lab to embarrassedly ‘sing’ before Mr. Ferguson & Co. with a bunch of other kids, who, to my mind at least shouldn’t have bothered coming into school. One person, whose name I remember, but will spare the ignominy and humiliation by not broadcasting for all time on the web, was informed he could be in the play, but with the explicit proviso that he NOT sing, nor attempt to sing at any point, no matter how carried away with the moment. (Hint: initials NM.) That was the quality of candidate I was up against. Luckily, I made it through.

Unfortunately, my missing the first casting session meant that all the choice roles had already been assigned. Barry Killeen was Sir Joseph Porter KCB, Colin Lally was Captain Corcoran, David Gibbons played Dick Deadeye (the only bass in town!), and Ger Keady was the boy out of nowhere who had an amazing tenor voice and landed the part of Ralph “Rafe” Rackstraw. I was given the esteemed title of – ahem - ‘common sailor’, along with most of the other reprobates who were just signing up to skip a few history classes.

The major saving-grace, to stop this whole enterprise from descending into a great steaming pile of keel-hauled tack was the introduction of the female cast members from the Presentation Convent around the corner. (Just visible from one of the science labs during winter when there were no leaves on the trees!) We were blessed with a contingent of the Pres’s finest ladies to induce the rabble of Bish 5th years to get ship-shape - as the naval jargon, which was quickly catching on, goes. Of course, the first day the girls turned up in the school, there were many hushed voices and studiously uninterested glances, and very little interaction between the sexes, as each side tried to size up the other. Most likely the girls were not terribly impressed with the talent in Nun’s Island; the ice needed to be broken, but it would take some time…

Of the girls there, Valerie Ennis, Cathy Walsh, and Catriona Tierney (I think?) were chosen, and played Josephine, Buttercup and Cousin Hebe. That completed the major casting slots, and all systems were go.

Practice Makes Perfect
The illustrious surroundings of the school gym provided the inspiring backdrop to many hours of melodic, nay, angelic voices. Well, the girls at least had a lot more experience of choral, or at least vocal, practice than we did, and they certainly sounded a lot more in tune than us. At least they didn’t have choir members standing in enforced silence, unlike our sorry bunch of tuneless, tone-deaf, lugs. Over several weeks, we gradually, and sometimes painfully, sang our way through the classics of Gilbert & Sullivan’s “masterpiece”, tackling scales, harmonies, voice projecting, carrying notes, timing, and all manner of musical whatnots which came as naturally to us as stapling jelly to the ceiling. We got better. Well, a bit better. Veeeerrry slooooooooowly. I’m sure I heard some canine pleading outside.

Not In The Script
There were evening rehearsals too, and in early February at 53ºN, it can be very dark quite early, and so the atmosphere could be markedly different from during the day. No school uniforms and long walks home, sometimes in the same direction as girls from the Pres, and the ice started to melt. Global warming began in 1987.

One night, one of the girls whom I was vaguely aware of, (remember the limited communication between the two camps) came up to me outside the changing rooms, and handed me an envelope. Curious – I wonder what’s in it? A card of some sort… A Valentine’s Card! Jinkies! Up until then Valentine’s Day had been some vague, abstract concept, and had never occurred to ever actually impinge upon my existence. How innocent 16 year olds were back then – Awww! This show was certainly proving to become much more interesting than previously expected.

You Couldn’t Make It Up
Dick Deadeye needed to look mean. Real mean. Yet again, my artistic talents came to the rescue in the form of a make-up pencil, which I’m assuming came from one of the girls? Anyway, every night after donning my own ensemble of cut-off trousers, striped shirt, rogue rouge, and fake earring, I would draw tattoos and scars on David’s arms and face – skulls, anchors, etc. Colin and Barry had a distinctly white makeup on which gave them something of a ghostly pallor – more like Pirates of the Caribbean extras than Portsmouth’s finest. The changing rooms were actually the science labs, one for the boys, and the other, tantalisingly close, for the girls.

The Show Must Go On
Anyway, the first night went off pretty well; no major foul-ups or snafus were apparent – at least not to the audience, most of whom would have been as ignorant of Victorian comic opera as we were. D’Oyly Carte – is that a cake trolley of some kind?

David “Dick Deadeye” swaggered and cussed, Colin “Cap’n Corcoran” strutted his stuff and inspired deckhands, and Barry “Sir Joseph Porter, KCB” shuffled and crooned in his inimitable breaking-voice style. And the sisters, cousins and aunts giggled and sang. Thankfully, they did so on stage too. Ger Keady’s “Ralph” though was definitely the highlight of the male voices with a fantastic soaring spinto tenor. Soprano Valerie “Josephine” was the girls’ leading soprano.

Bizarrely, for a minor character that had only a couple of spoken lines (as you’d expect from a ‘common sailor’), I was actually on-stage, in front of the audience longer than any other person in the show! Thankfully though it was usually in a supporting role: swabbing the deck, hoisting the mainsail, passing documents to Sir Joseph Porter KCB, and various other naval-type tasks, so the attention was usually focussed on someone else, until…

I Believe I Can Fly
…the most embarrassing moment of the entire escapade for me, was performing the “actions” accompanying the song “A British Tar”. Actions? What actions? Nobody told me I had to do actions! Well, if you had to flap your arms in slow motion, while going up and down the stairs of the deck, in imitation of a seabird (“…as free as a mountain bird…”) you’d be understandably upset too. And to have Neil Mooney and David Browne join my “flock” didn’t make things any better. Hmm. People have been scarred for life having to do less.

Pitch nearly-perfect singing, beautifully flawed acting, nearly unnoticed miscues, almost synchronous timing, stage presence to die for/of – we had it all. Curtain down, rapturous applause, and we were ready for Broadway! Only 3 more nights of this, and our musical careers would be over, and for the sake of humankind, that was probably a good thing. Still, we were having the time of our lives.

Post-Entertainment Entertainment
Every night after the show we would get changed back into our usually, highly fashionable attire. For most, that was grey canvas trousers, white socks, black slip-ons, possibly a jacket with turned up sleeves, or that now rare but once ubiquitous material, denim. Hmm… Luckily I was caught in a bizarre stylistic world of my own, and wore a large grey overcoat, black suede shoes, a shemagh (colloquially known as a PLO scarf), and a brown and orange shirt that was stitched inside out. How could I fail to impress? My partner in crime at the time, David, wore a similar Crombie overcoat, but also a fedora, and so we looked like a pair of slightly misplaced hoods from a film noir gone awry. None could touch us.

Anyway, certain elements of the female cast were at least as equally alluring. Tartan skirts, scrunch-dried hair with dark ribbons, pastel tops, and other unfamiliar accoutrements. (Watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Out to refresh your memory as to how teenagers dressed back then.) The day-glo environs of SuperMacs in Eyre Square supplied the start of many a teenage romance for the Bish lads and Pres girls. Pat Curran and Karl Sherlock seemed to know quite a few of the girls already, and provided several useful introductions. David conducted what could be described as “interviews” with LD and JJ – the speed dating of its time. A few days after getting that Valentine card, the girl who gave it to me (AB) had lost interest, and had gone off somewhere quiet with one of the other guys (no doubt discussing the finer points of arpeggios)! Never mind, I had made the acquaintance of another young lady, and made detailed mental notes a few of others for future reference, so I wasn’t too distraught ;-)

Philip O’Toole
December 2007

Photos in The Bish Bombshell and Sprung Rhythm.

Top Left (partly obscured): Gary Dalton, now in the Metropolitan Police.
Just below: Pat Curran, now an industrial chemist in Boston; Damian Darcy, last time I met him he was a software developer for London Underground.
Bottom Row: Deirdre Lenihan (now Gaughan), from ClareGalway; Kara Tierney (now Walsh), who tried to get me to move back to a job in Galway a few years ago, as she was a recruitment consultant, and now a HR director; Colin Lally; (Unknown, partly obscured, possibly Linda Bohan); Barry Killeen, New York; Ursula Mannion; Patricia Toal (Lillebaek), who now lives in Denmark.


Top Right: David Gibbons, lives in San Francisco, marketing director of sound production equipment company.
Bottom: Neil Mooney, Galway; Gary Dalton (partly obscured); Ger Keady, last time I saw him he was driving a delivery van; David O’Halloran, engineering consultant; Valerie Ennis, Galway; Paul Concannon, now in Chicago; and Philip O’Toole. I wonder what happened to him?

Back Row: Colin Lally, Tom Power, Niall Beatty, David Gibbons.

Front Row: Shane McElwee, Valerie Ennis.

Michelle McGrath's Photos

Notes

• That same year, the Jes put on 'The Pirates of Penzance', another Gilbert & Sullivan opera. Not a patch on our production though! Taylor's Hill (Dominican College) staged 'No, No Nanette'.
• Mr Keenan had a bunch of guys without any artistic aspirations to help with the lighting and electrics for the show.
• I was often sent by Mr Ferguson as a messenger to the Pres to pass communications of various kinds to Ms. Paula Regan, who was in charge of the girls performing in the play. Needless to say, being a teenage boy sent on missions to an all-girls school was an adventure in itself.
• We had a special Bish Disco just for members of the cast and crew, the week after the final production.
• Rumour has it, that a video of this ground-breaking production still exists...