The Theatre Question Amnesty Thread

I have reason to remember Oxo crisps very well. As a child of 4 or 5 in the late 1950s my parents kept a pub on the Derbys/Notts border, an area that would now be called D.H.Lawrence Country. Picture if you will young tmesis sat on his favourite improvised stool, an inverted Smiths Crisp tin. Yes unbelievable then the individual packets of crisps did not come in a cardboard box but a very pleasingly decorated tin made by Metalbox. The pub was called The Greyhound Inn and I have extremely vivid and fond memories of my childhood there. There I would be sat on my tin, packet of salted Smiths crisps in one hand and a bottle of Vimto, with straw (even though I lived in the same village as Dennis Skinner we had standards then and it was considered vulgar to drink straight from the bottle.) The crisps would thrillingly have inside them a scrunched up bit of blue waxed paper containing the salt. I remember the brewery later on supplying us with a new type of crisp called Golden Wonder which had much more garish packaging and, how cutting edge, came in cardboard box. They pioneered the exotic flavours including Oxo.
Later on, when I started school, I would come home with my friend Peter and, the pub being closed, we would enjoy a game of darts or dominoes in the tap-room. This we would accompany with a naughty 1/4 pint of mild (we enjoyed the sweetness of mild more than bitter.) All you CAMRA fans might like to know that this was obviously real ale since that was all there was; people knew no other as vile keg beer was still a few years away.

I remember during a Primary School "Creative Writing" lesson we had to write about favourite foods. And I wrote about Worcestershire Sauce. Thinking back that was probably a very odd thing for the teacher to read a like 10 year old loving but hey ho.

Yorkshire Sauce anyone? Pickled fruit based rather than the fishy Worcester variety. There are, of course, Yorkshire Sauce crisps!

yorkshirecrisps.co.uk/products/crisps/hendersons-yorkshire-sauce

I used to love the crisps with the little packet of salt in the bag. Sometimes you’d find two bags of salt- it was almost like finding that extra sticker in your Batman stickers packet! Walkers still make these crisps. They’re called Salt’n’Shake.

But better than these were Burtons Ready Salted Potato Puffs. Heaven! You could get them in the bakers after school. I can remember my mum buying me a bag to take to school next morning for my tuck. You had to put your tuck on the teacher’s desk after she had written your name on it with her Magic Marker.

I don’t know what I loved best: the potato puffs or the smell of her Magic Marker...

A true local delicacy. No one in Sheffield (the origin of this) calls it Yorkshire Sauce. It’s called Henderson’s, Hendo’s or just “relish”. I suppose the crisp manufacturers have called it Yorkshire Sauce to put it in some kind of context. There is absolutely nothing like it on chips, a meat pie or a bowl of stew. 

You can get it on amazon now, which makes me feel very uncomfortable! 

I’ve never seen a Yorkshire fishcake outside of Sheffield either. Flaked fish between two slices from a large potato, battered and deep fried. It’s your fish and your chips all in one gobfull. They do them in a butty at the Crucible Corner.

I have a question,

When there is an equity exchange between the American and British equities do the actors have to be in the same show on both sides of the pond? For example, on Broadway most of the Cursed Child leads are on an exchange right now so, is there the same number of Americans right now in the West End Production? Or, a few years back when Jennifer Dinoia came over for Wicked did a British actor come in and do the Broadway production?

Having sat in the AFGAN cafe you can see the flys through the side entrances etc, so I think the stage is at the same level as the show floor. At a guess, the Playhouse stalls were raked down to the stage, meaning the entrances into the auditorium from the foyer the same height as the stage. They simply built an antirake (a floor the replicates the slope but going the other way) to create a flat playing space. Stages aren't usually something one can remove, but haven't seen A Christmas Carol to comment on that. Other houses like Southwark or the Young Vic tend to build stages out of steel deck (like this: scenerysolutions.co.uk/newsite/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/4x4deck.jpg ) when needed, and store them stacked/tipped on their sides when not. 

Just to add to the equity arrangements- that's my understanding of it too, it's an overall total across the year, which it's presumably someone's job in Equity to be monitoring.

I assume that there's some kind of parity regulation on size/length of productions etc but it doesn't have to be an exact science of 'like for like'.

I don't know- I always assumed it was across the board (the Broadway Unions being pretty powerful beasts and all). So for example if we drop Ian McKellan down on Broadway then we have to take an American in return, and vice versa regardless of how expensive that actor is. 

But someone more well-versed in Equity regulations would have to answer because that's just my assumptions. 

As I was in Hull earlier today I had one!