should be a success. As history has shown, there is nothing so powerful as a common enemy to bring private vendettas to an end, and this unifying force was provided by Clarice Blaine.
She had spoken at public meetings, she had written letters to the local press, she had asked questions at the sessions of the Chardle District Council, she had repeated those questions at meetings of the local rate-payers’ association and she had lobbied the local church dignitories.
The results were that the literary, dramatic and operatic society closed ranks and that the general public bought tickets for all three performances of the opera in the lively anticipation that they were going to attend something in the nature of a cross between the Folies Bergeres, a strip-show of unusual daring, a Babylonian orgy and the less presentable aspects of a witches’ sabbath.
‘The tickets have never gone so well as early as this,’ said an exultant Ernest Farrow, as members clustered round him to ask for more to sell.
‘Clarice Blaine ought to go in for advertising,’ said Laura to Dame Beatrice. ‘However, I’ve managed to snaffle a couple of dockets in the front row for the third night. If nobody needs prompting during the Thursday and Friday performances, I’ve told Denbigh I shall sit in front with you on the Saturday when my part is over.’
‘William Caxton came here while you were at this evening’s rehearsal,’ said Dame Beatrice, ‘and asked where he should take the posters he has printed.’
‘I suppose Denbigh had better have them. If Caxton has made as good a job of them as he did of the tickets, Denbigh will be glad to have them stuck up outside the town hall.’
‘Mrs Blaine has written briefly but politely to thank me for the pageant posters. I gather that we are unlikely, however, to have her company at the town hall.’
‘We certainly shan’t. She’s been gunning for weeks to get the opera boycotted if not actually outlawed. The result is that we look like being booked solid for all three performances. In fact, I believe we could run for a week if we liked. Sweet are the uses of the English resolve to see smut where none is intended or, for the matter of that, provided. Our
‘And the music?’
‘Denbigh has borrowed freely from Frederic Austin, he says, and the result is a lively, tuneful romp. I don’t think whatever the audience expects, that anybody will be disappointed with the songs.’
The disappointment, when it came, was to Cyril Wincott. The school of which this handsome Macheath was such an ornament had acquired a trampoline and two or three of the younger members of staff were agog to try it out. Unfortunately, after school closed on the evening of the third rehearsal at the College, at which the full college orchestra and chorus, as well as the principals, were to be present, Cyril, taking a bet that he would soar higher in the air than the others, won his bet, but landed on the edge of the trampoline, fell awkwardly and broke his right leg.
Denbigh, at the College rehearsal, received the news with resignation. He was not unduly distressed. At this stage of the rehearsals everybody knew all the dialogue and all the songs, and he thought that to replace Cyril with one of the others would be far from impossible.
There was no lack of claimants for the part. Denbigh, anxious to show no bias, asked these to sing a duet with Sybil, the Polly Peachum. Privately he was determined not to move James Hunty, who was shaping up well in the part of Polly’s father, and he was equally determined not to allow Hamilton Haynings’s foghorn voice (well enough in the part of the jailor Lockit) to ruin Macheath’s solos or the duets with Sybil.
Having given these two and the youthful Geoffrey Channing and Robert Eames their chance and having even tried out the diffident Ernest Farrow in the part, he shook his head regretfully and said, ‘I don’t quite think so, you know. I really think I had better let my top music student, who has had some experience, conduct the orchestra and I’ll take the part myself.’
At this the silence which had fallen on the disappointed contestants was broken by Rodney Crashaw. He had heard of Cyril’s accident and had decided to present himself at the rehearsal openly instead of in the clandestine manner he had previously employed. He came up to the front of the platform and said, with carefully simulated diffidence:
‘I think the players, if not the orchestra, would be less than happy were you not to wield the conductor’s baton, Dr Denbigh. I wonder whether, before you come to a final decision, you would allow me to try a duet with Miss Gartner.’
‘So long as the duet is confined to the stage and no private rehearsals are permitted,’ muttered Sybil to Laura, as they waited in the wings.
‘Would you mind trying over
‘Righto,’ Sybil replied. ‘Anything to oblige.’ But at the conclusion of the duet she said, ‘I’d be quite happy with that.’
‘So would I,’ said Denbigh. ‘Right. Let’s have the Beggar and the Player on stage and try a complete run- through.’
The college orchestra was already tuning up and the college ‘extras’ in the persons of Macheath’s gang, the ladies of the town and the other minor roles which the students were to fill, were ready and waiting when there were ‘noises off’ and, to everybody’s astonishment, Mrs Blaine turned up with Caxton in tow and seated herself, with him beside her, near the back of the room.
‘I want to be sure that the dialogue is
‘Pardon me, Mrs Blaine,’ said Denbigh crisply, ‘but I can allow no interference with my rehearsal. You are welcome to sit and listen, of course, but the only interruptions will come from me, if you please. I am sure you understand. Beginners ready?’
The Beggar and the Player took the stage, the Player called upon the orchestra to ‘play away the overture’ and the rehearsal, with James Hunty, Laura, young Tom Blaine (whose voice had broken to a light, immature, but rather attractive tenor), Sybil as Polly and the saturnine bearded Crashaw as Macheath, got off to a flourishing start.
Philip Denbigh allowed the whole act to run its course, praised the players, took them all through it again,
