Hattie Brings the House Down E-Book

Patrick Gleeson

• Herausgeber: No Exit Press
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 424

Beschreibung

Get ready for a thrilling backstage ride in the world of theatre as seasoned stage manager Hattie embarks on a new production at London's Tavistock pub theatre. Here, the drama doesn't just occur on stage. Troublesome directors and fastidious assistants soon become the least of Hattie's worries as, a week into rehearsals, an actress is found dead backstage on the same day that an extremely valuable theatrical mask goes missing. Hattie begins investigating both mysteries, all the while trying to keep the dysfunctional cast and crew on track for opening night. As she delves deeper into the secrets behind the scenes, her allegiance to her theatre, cast and crew will be tested to destruction. Follow this unconventional detective as she delves into the alluring and exquisitely perilous world of the theatre.

Leseprobe

For Maddie

THE TAVISTOCK THEATRE, IN ASSOCIATION WITH BROWN/LIGHT PRODUCTIONS, PRESENTS:

Love’s Labour’s Lost

By William Shakespeare

CAST

Berowne – Adam Dilloway

Rosaline – Belinda Morley-Smith

King Ferdinand – Emile Velasquez

Jaquenetta – Atlanta Greenwell

[Reg, can you fill in the rest of the cast? Getting all the names lined up in columns is a right pain in the posterior, but apparently it’s ‘house style’ for cast listings here – HH]

CREATIVE

Hashi Hassan – Director

Raven Hiscock – Set & Costume Design

Carrie Lewis – Lighting Design

Regine Kalinina – Assistant Director

[I hope you don’t mind being at the bottom – it’s just a political thing re Carrie – HH]

PRODUCTION

Keith Macaulay – [Can you check whether he wants Producer or Artistic Director here? I’m not giving him both! – HH

P.S. Also, does Robin need/deserve a credit? If so, as *what*?]

CREW

Steve Felton – Production Manager

Moira Macleod – Head of Wardrobe

Laura Harris – Head of Lighting

Miguel Mota – Sound Engineer

Hattie Cocker – Stage Manager

Kiki Bennett – Deputy Stage Manager

Davina Aggarwal – Assistant Stage Manager

[Finally, can you check with Steve – do we really need to list all of the above? On a minimalistic programme like this it sort of diminishes the emphasis if everyone and their dog gets a credit…]

Prologue

Monday, 2 October 2023

There’s an old joke they tell backstage sometimes: the circus has come to town, and everyone lines the streets to watch the parade. It’s colourful and glamorous and glorious, but once all the horses and elephants and clowns have gone past, bystanders see a solitary figure shuffle into view. He’s dressed in rags, carries a bucket and shovel, and he slowly collects up the dung dropped by the animals. As he works he mutters a continual stream of complaints.

‘Work all day, work all night, barely get food to fill my belly, just a pallet to sleep on, blisters on my palms from this splintered old shovel, hole in my bucket, and the smell, oh the smell…’

A well-meaning passer-by, hearing him rant, calls out to him, ‘You know, they’re hiring down at the mill. The work’s easy and the pay’s good. You’d never have to shovel dung again.’

The man looks up and replies, aghast: ‘What? Quit showbiz?’

– From the introduction to The Art and Craft of Stage Management by Donna Fletcher

The Tavistock Theatre was not a grand building. It wasn’t strictly speaking a building at all. Fundamentally it comprised one large, slightly damp room, connected to a couple of smaller, rather damper ones, all tucked behind and above the Tavistock pub. The pub staff and the theatre staff viewed one another with varying levels of disdain, but they were by and large mutually tolerant so long as neither was overly disruptive to the other.

So when Hattie Cocker came to visit Keith Macaulay, artistic director and technically sole employee of the Tavistock, at a little before eleven o’clock in the morning, she knew to walk round to the side entrance in the yard rather than go through the pub and bother the manager, who was doing whatever it is that publicans do on a Monday before their premises open.

Hattie was not a particularly large or heavy-set woman, but she wore an enormous thick coat that hung stiffly around her, rendering her external geometry almost entirely cylindrical. It was a good coat, which over the years had seen her through freezing cold overnight get-outs in Minsk, improbable outdoor performances in the Hebrides, and that one awful dress rehearsal in New York when the aircon was left on full blast in winter (as bizarre union rules meant they weren’t allowed to switch it off themselves, and the in-house technician was on holiday). It was a bit tattered now, but Hattie liked it and trusted it, and besides, new clothes were so depressingly expensive these days.

The side door should, strictly speaking, have been locked, but as usual it had been left on the latch. Hattie slipped through, into the dingy low-ceilinged hallway just inside. There was one door dead ahead leading into the auditorium, and another on the right leading to the dressing rooms. A crumbling staircase on the left led up to the office. The familiar backstage smell of cheap stage paint and badly plumbed drains wafted up to greet her like a drunken uncle at a wedding as she turned and, refusing to acknowledge the twinges in her hip, made her way up the stairs.

Keith, always the fidgety sort, was practically vibrating when Hattie found him. He was doing little circuits through the mess of scripts and bills that littered the office, while his intern Robin – young, rather effete, and frowning nervously – perched on a table edge in the corner.

‘Morning, then,’ offered Hattie, uncertainly.

‘Well, that ended quickly, didn’t it?’ exclaimed Keith abruptly, as he turned to look at her.

‘What did?’

‘The show. The season. The whole blessed theatre. Typical Hashi too, he had to blow the bloody lock off just to make a statement.’

Keith was a small man, with dark, bulging eyes, a crooked smile, and receding hair. He had a certain charisma to him that was perhaps attractive in its own way. ‘Ugly-sexy’, was how someone – Hattie forgot who – had once described him, and the epithet had always stuck in her mind. Of course, that charisma was rather lost when he was in the middle of a panic-driven meltdown.

‘Er… Sorry, I don’t follow,’ Hattie confessed. ‘Which lock?’

Keith waved expansively at the corner of the room. Hattie’s eyes followed the direction of his gesture and alighted on the bright yellow safety cupboard standing, open, in the corner. The one that was compliant with Control Of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) regulations, that was supposed to be used for storing stage pyrotechnics, but that Keith used like a safe and had insisted on keeping the… oh. Oh dear.

‘Right. Just so I’m clear,’ she ventured, ‘are you telling me that something has happened to that… mask?’

‘Happened? Happened? Yes, I think it’s safe to say that something has happened to the mask. Hashi has taken the mask.’

He slumped down into his chair and groaned.

‘A week. We got a week into rehearsals and the wheels fell off. I knew he was prickly but I swear on Derek Jacobi’s codpiece I didn’t know he’d try to take down the whole theatre.’

Hattie considered all this. In the world of theatre, feuds and dramatic gestures were commonplace, but actual, proper, calculated theft was not. The idea of it was repugnant. Theatre people did lots of things that they shouldn’t, but they didn’t steal from one another. Still, it was important not to jump to conclusions.

‘Um,’ she said eventually, ‘now obviously I’m coming at this from the outside, so apologies if it’s a stupid question, but are you sure that it was Hashi, and are you sure that it wasn’t some sort of a misunderstanding?’

‘Look!’ shouted Keith, his voice cracking as he jumped up again and strode over to the cupboard. He scooped up something from the floor next to it and tossed it onto the sprawl of papers on the desk in the middle of the room. It looked like the mangled remains of a padlock that appeared to have been… melted? Dissolved? Perhaps it had been blown apart by an explosive. Whatever the case, it did indeed look like a deliberate act of destruction.

‘And he left a note. A… a receipt. Look!’

Keith pointed at yet another pile of papers, atop which was a sheet of A4, on which was scrawled, in black Sharpie, the words ‘Love’s Labours Repaid’.

‘Pretty clear now, isn’t it? He even forgot the second apostrophe again. Moron.’

Keith resumed his frantic pacing.

‘Well now, let’s not jump to conclusions,’ began Hattie soothingly. ‘If it was someone upset about the pay issue, it could have been—’

‘Who? The twitchy little sound assistant? You? Or, I don’t know, how about the obviously unstable, temperamental prima donna director who’s already explicitly threatened to nick it?’

‘I think he was just making a jo—’

‘Jesus H. Sondheim, I never should have let him anywhere near this place. As soon as he said he wanted to do Love’s Labour’s Lost I should have seen he was completely off his rocker. No one in their right minds would pick a sodding Shakespearean comedy in a theatre like this, especially not given where he’s coming from. And now he’s going to destroy the whole theatre.’

‘That’s a bit of an exaggeration, surely?’

Keith glared at Hattie.

‘Is it? Oh, great, I hadn’t realised. What with being the only person in the world who understands how this house runs and what keeps it ticking, it’s no wonder I misunderstood. Thanks for keeping me informed. For God’s sake, Hattie, I wouldn’t joke about this sort of thing. That mask is vital, vital, to the continued existence of this place.’

‘How?’ asked Hattie, genuinely confused.

‘I don’t… I don’t have time to explain all of this to you. All you need to know is that if I don’t have it in my hand on press night, two weeks from tomorrow, the theatre will fold before your show ends its run. Just remember that: it’s your pay cheque on the line.’

Hattie looked over at Robin, who met her eye and gave an agonised sort of half-shrug. Poor thing, he must have been trapped in this room with a raving Keith all morning. This can’t have been what he signed up for when he applied for work experience at the Tavistock. Hattie decided to stop winding Keith up with more questions, and instead tell him what he wanted to hear. The fact that he had called her instead of big Steve suggested that he was probably hoping for a diplomatic intervention of some sorts, even if he was too agitated at the moment to actually ask.

‘This sounds like the sort of thing that could possibly be fixed with a few quiet words in the right place,’ said Hattie cautiously. ‘Shall I go and have a chat with Hashi and see what he has to say about the whole thing?’

‘Sure, and if you wouldn’t mind telling him to shove his face down a toilet, that would also be great, thanks,’ replied Keith sourly.

‘I think I’ll reserve the right to include or omit that suggestion as I see fit,’ said Hattie, eliciting a small smile from Robin.

Keith ignored her.

‘I just don’t know how we got from kisses and smiles to breaking and entering in the space of a week,’ he said dejectedly.

‘I’m sure we can sort it out,’ Hattie replied encouragingly. She was still choosing to believe that, in the absence of definitive proof to the contrary, Hashi couldn’t possibly have stooped so low as to have stolen the mask. But if I’m wrong, she thought to herself grimly, I’ll make him rue the bloody day…

‘You’re a lifesaver, Hattie. My fixer par excellence.’

‘It’s all part of the job, Keith.’

Hattie went downstairs and decided to poke her head into the auditorium before she left. It looked much as she’d last seen it the previous week, the seating blocks laid out in a traditional proscenium arch format (which was just a fancy way of saying that all the audience chairs were at one end of the room, and the stage was at the other). Onstage were a few flimsy bits of scenery left behind from a young am-dram company’s production, which had just finished its run. The theatre was looking no grubbier than normal, although a certain level of shabbiness was unavoidable in a place like that. The walls and floor had had so many coats of paint applied over the years that every surface was slightly warped in shape, and every so often an inch-thick chunk of various strata of coloured emulsion had crumbled away, only to be hastily painted over again, leaving pockmarks all over. It really was incredible, Hattie thought – not for the first time – how such an unprepossessing little room could, with the right lights, the right sounds, and the right bodies onstage, be so transportive, so transformative.

While she was here she decided it would be worth quickly re-familiarising herself with the layout backstage. She’d done at least one show here, long ago, but they all blended into one in the memory. Was this the one with the loo with the noisy flush that you couldn’t use during a performance? No, that was that place in Stratford. Wasn’t it?

She swung herself up onto the stage. Ah yes, here we go. No room for a prompt desk back here, so the deputy stage manager would have to cue the show from behind the audience, alongside the sound and lighting board operators. While there were wing spaces on both sides of the stage, they weren’t connected, not unless you took a good metre off the size of the already poky performance space by hanging a big cloth curtain at the back to create a corridor.

There was a table for props in the stage right wing, that is, the left-hand side of the stage when viewed from the auditorium. The exit to the dressing rooms was stage left. Walking through that door, and noting how much it creaked when pushed – it would have to be propped open during the show, then – she found herself in the men’s dressing room, which was a polite name for what was a slightly wider-than-normal corridor. At the far end of the room was another door. That must lead to the women’s dressing room, which in turn presumably had a doorway through to the hallway by the side entrance.

Ah yes, this was the place that didn’t have a backstage loo at all, which meant that if an actor was caught short during a show they’d have to hop out from the side, run round to the front of the building, and use the toilets in the pub. Which, depending on their costume, could be something of a hassle. Well, it was just one more thing to think about. Hattie made a mental note about the number of chairs that could fit in the men’s dressing room, and then made her way through into the women’s.

In this last room, the first thing she noticed was that the lights around one of the mirrors had been left on, illuminating on the desk in front of them a large, mostly empty bottle of brandy, accompanied by a mostly full glass. The second thing she noticed was another glass, this one cracked, in the outstretched hand of Atlanta Greenwell, who was lying on the floor, very unambiguously dead.

Act One

1

Monday, 25 September 2023 – one week earlier

‘The stage manager,’ Hattie began uncomfortably, ‘is the calm at the eye of the storm. We are the quiet voice of reason amid the squabbling and screaming. We are the solid foundations upon which every stage production is built.’

She paused a moment. Donna had left behind comprehensive notes, and Hattie had hoped she could get through her first session by reading the pre-prepared welcoming remarks more or less verbatim. But the words weren’t her words, and they sounded ridiculous coming out of her mouth. So she put down her note cards, took a deep breath and tried again.

‘Look, it’s a tough job, and if I’m honest I don’t really know why we do it. We don’t get our names up in lights, we don’t take a bow, and we never get the appreciation we deserve. But I’ll tell you something: I’ve been in this industry for not far shy of forty years, and in that time I have never even considered doing anything else. If you’re a theatre person you’re a theatre person, it’s that simple.’

Hattie was in the small performance studio at the Arrowsmith Conservatory of Dramatic Arts, addressing the new intake of the two-year stage management and technical theatre diploma course. Of the dozen-odd students clustered in the front seats of the auditorium, two were scribbling notes furiously. The rest were less engaged. One was doodling on her hand, a couple were playing with their phones, and one overweight, scruffy man, well, man-in-waiting – late teenager, perhaps? – was staring slack-jawed straight up at the ceiling. Hattie hoped he was inspecting the lighting rig, and not just catatonic.

One of the keener students had a copy of Donna Fletcher’s The Art and Craft of Stage Management on his lap. Hattie eyed it suspiciously. She didn’t believe for a moment that any of the important stuff about being an SM could be learned from a book, and she was secretly unconvinced that it could be taught in a classroom either, but Donna, Hattie’s predecessor as stage management tutor at ACDA, had written the damn thing, and it was no wonder that some of these students would have read it. Hattie just prayed she’d get through the term without being interrupted by a sanctimonious youngster complaining: ‘But the book says…’

Hattie had never been a teacher in any formal sense, but since she’d had to stop touring she was low on employment options, and when Donna had quit halfway through the summer term she’d managed to snag the gig as an interim replacement while they looked for a permanent successor. Now, at the start of the new academic year, she was tasked with turning these newbies into disciplined, capable entrants into the industry. After having had a look at them, this was feeling like a more and more daunting responsibility.

Today was mostly about introductions, though. These fresh-faced first years were still finding their feet, and the last thing they needed was an overload of information. So Hattie tried to keep it general. Make it seem fun, emphasise that it’s hard work, start building up trust, that was what mattered.

‘The thing you need to realise is that as much as anything, the job of a stage manager is to step in when things go wrong. And things do go wrong. Props get lost, scenery falls over, you name it. And that awful cliché about how “the show must go on”… well, it’s only a cliché because it’s true. Once the curtain has gone up, your job is to do everything in your power to keep the performance going. I had an actor collapse backstage, and once we’d called the ambulance we got the understudy into costume and half the audience never even noticed. I did a show once where there was a power cut, and we lit the whole of the second half with the crew’s head torches, and it got a standing ovation.’

She was getting more attention from the students now, and beginning to feel she was getting into the swing of things. Stories, that’s what they needed. Tell them facts about what it’s like and they’ll be bored, but spin them a yarn and you’ll take them with you. Stories were what theatre was all about, after all.

But then a gawky-looking, very blond young man stuck his hand up, and, without waiting for any kind of acknowledgement, called out, ‘Um, Miss, this morning the Principal was talking to us, and he said we were never allowed to say… you know. The thing we’re not allowed to say. Is that true?’

‘Um…’ said Hattie, as much surprised at being addressed as ‘Miss’ as anything else. ‘First of all, call me Hattie. Second of all… well, I mean, I don’t know which thing you mean if you don’t… say it.’

‘He was talking about saying “no”,’ explained a woman in the front row, evidently amused by Hattie’s confusion. ‘He was saying we should try never to say no to a director. He said that when he used to direct shows he banned the crew from saying it. Which seemed a bit… I mean, really? It made it sound like we’re basically their servants.’

Hattie, relieved, smiled.

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she replied. ‘That’s the trick. When the director asks you for something, if it’s doable you say “yes”, and if not you say, “I’ll see what I can do”.’

That got a couple of smiles.

‘You want to help them whenever you can, but you’ve got to be careful what you promise, you see,’ Hattie continued. ‘I once worked on a show where the director wanted a revolving swimming pool onstage…’

Having made it back to the land of anecdotes, she carried on storytelling for the rest of the session, delighting in the looks of surprise, fear and occasionally disgust she managed to elicit from the more attentive members of her audience. However, a few of the students, most notably the large, scruffy young man and the gawky blond, remained completely unengaged. Ah well, Hattie thought. She was never going to win them all over straight away.

Her allotted time drew to a close, and she started to finish up.

‘Now, you won’t see very much of me for the next few weeks. We’ve got a few classes together here and there, but I think your construction, lighting and sound classes will be keeping you busy for most of the next month. But from early October I’ll be back full time, and we’ll start stage management in earnest. I’ll look forward to working more with you then!’

There was an awkward silence while the less engaged students slowly noticed that the class was over and this was their cue to leave, so Hattie decided to lead by example, packing up her notes and, with a last smile at her audience, making her way out into the halls of ACDA’s teaching complex.

She was nearly at the main entrance when she heard a husky cough behind her.

‘Do you remember September when we were just fools in love…’ crooned a slightly wobbly baritone voice.

Hattie stopped and rolled her eyes, but she allowed herself a slight smile as she did so.

‘Hello, Rod,’ she called out.

‘Harriet Mildred Cocker, you are a vision, an oasis for the soul in the desert of modern life.’

Back when she had been young and fit, while Hattie hadn’t really thought much about her looks, she’d generally been quietly confident that she scrubbed up pretty well. Or at least would scrub up well if she ever had the time to scrub up at all. Now, with her face a little weathered, her hair greying, and cruel time having done its general thing, she never wasted a moment worrying about what other people thought about her appearance, scrubbed or otherwise.

But no one is completely immune to flattery.

Shaking her head in good-natured exasperation, she turned to face the Senior Sound Tutor. Older than her, with a well-groomed grey beard to add edges to a ruddy face that would otherwise be lost in a mass of neck and jowl, Rod always gave the impression of someone making a half-hearted attempt to pretend he wasn’t actually a wizard. He had a penchant for broad-brimmed hats, and a small silver earring in one ear. It was rumoured among the students that he had been living in his VW camper in the ACDA car park for the last thirty years, and while that wasn’t, strictly speaking, true, it nevertheless captured quite well the overall impression that Rod gave off. Hattie, who had known him since the late eighties, reckoned that what he really was was a silly old bugger who got away with far more than he should. But she liked him anyway.

‘Shouldn’t you be settling down for your morning nap?’ she asked, drily.

Rod drew himself up in mock shock.

‘I will have you know that I never do so crass a thing as sleep,’ he replied haughtily, then his voice softened. ‘I do, however, have a fondness for a cup of tea and a Hobnob, if you would care to join me.’

‘Sorry,’ replied Hattie. ‘I’ve got to hotfoot it to Pimlico for a first read-through.’

Rod frowned.

‘You’ve got a gig?’

‘Just a quick one, squeezed in before my timetable properly kicks off here. It’s a Shakespeare, at the Tavistock.’

‘Any good?’

‘Don’t know yet. We’ll find out today. Oh, Miguel’s on sound, and I’ve got Davina working for me.’

Rod looked blankly.

‘You know… they graduated in the summer. Davina, the highly strung one, and Miguel, the… quiet one.’

Recognition dawned.

‘Ah… yes. Well, do send Davina my regards. Miguel too, of course.’

‘Of course. See you later.’

‘Oh, I do hope so,’ said Rod, waggling his eyebrows. ‘Until next time, my queen.’

Hattie, with a smile, waved a dismissive hand at him, and turned to leave the building.

She had arranged to meet Davina at the rehearsal venue, so she was a little surprised to nearly stumble over her seated form as she turned out of ACDA’s main entrance onto the pavement. Small and birdlike, Davina always had a slightly crumpled air about her, which belied her energetic and emotionally intense personality. The impression Hattie had formed when tutoring her in her final term as a stage management student back in the summer was that she worked phenomenally hard, but she risked being slightly too intellectual in her approach. It often happened with the ones who’d done an academic degree first, Hattie reflected. They got so caught up in ideas and opinions that sometimes they struggled to put their heads down and get things done.

But she meant well, and she normally got there in the end, and when she had confessed to Hattie that she was having trouble finding work since leaving ACDA, Hattie had sympathised, had a quiet word with Steve, the production manager on the new Tavistock show, and got her in as assistant stage manager. It would be fun to work with her on a real production, Hattie assured herself. Or at least, if it wasn’t exactly fun, helping Davina navigate her first steps in the industry would be a Good Thing To Do, and Hattie could take pleasure in that.

‘Hello,’ said Davina, scrambling to her feet. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I thought I’d try to catch you here because I was in the area anyway and, and…’

She broke off and gave a rather large, wet sniff, and, it seemed to Hattie, appeared to be fighting to hold back tears.

‘Oh, now… it’s OK, my love,’ Hattie said uncertainly. ‘Do you need a moment?’

‘No,’ said Davina miserably. ‘I’m sorry, it’s nothing, it’s stupid, I just… I’ve just been dumped, that’s all.’

‘Oh my darling,’ said Hattie sympathetically, although she noted, disappointed in herself, that she’d had to suppress a minor urge to sigh. Of course Davina was an emotional wreck, in the middle of a traumatic life experience. She had undergone many such crises even during the half of a term that Hattie had known her. None of it was ever her fault, of course, but… she did seem to get significantly more than her fair share of personal drama. In that respect she was rather more like an actor than a stage manager.

‘Do you need to take some time out? It’s not the end of the world if you miss the read-through.’

‘No! No, I’d really like to be there. And I’d just be kicking round by myself otherwise,’ Davina sniffed. ‘I’m fine. I’ll be fine, especially if I can have you with me. I just need to get it together.’

Hattie put an arm round her shoulders and gave her a squeeze, then steered her gently in the direction of the tube station. They walked in silence for a few moments, then Davina blurted out: ‘It wouldn’t be so bad, but he never even ended it with me, he just started seeing someone else while I was out of town, and then he acted almost surprised that I was upset when I found out. I mean talk about gaslighting! And I’d put in so much work to make it happen, and I even did the most disgusting… but now he’s not even… I mean he’s not even being discreet about it like he was with me.’

Alarm bells started sounding in Hattie’s head.

‘When you say you were discreet… do you mean there was a reason you weren’t supposed t—’

‘Oh God,’ Davina gasped, horrified. ‘I’ve already put my foot in it. I can’t… Well, I can’t say more, but… look, it wasn’t exactly appropriate for him to be seeing… well, either me or my replacement.’

Oh dear. That explained why Davina had been at ACDA this morning. Hattie remembered noticing last term that she had been making eyes at Shane, the admittedly rather handsome construction tutor. He was much older than her, and married, but… well, it wouldn’t be the first time a student and a staff member had had a dalliance at ACDA. It sounded like it wasn’t the last time either. How disappointing. She’d hoped Shane would have known better.

‘Well, it sounds to me like you’re probably better off out of it then,’ she suggested gently. ‘Which isn’t to say it’s not going to hurt for now, but hopefully it’ll make it easier to move on in the long run.’

‘You’re right,’ said Davina, without much conviction.

‘Anyway, if you’re sure you’re going to be all right for now…’

‘Yeah, I’ll be fine. Thank you.’

‘Then we should talk about the show,’ said Hattie, hoping that talking shop would help Davina buck up. ‘You’ve read the script?’

‘Yep,’ Davina.

‘And what did you take away from it?’

‘Well,’ said Davina eagerly, ‘I think it’s really all about the tensions between the emotional and the intellectual, as experienced in different social strata. You see very clear parallels between the narratives that occur on each social layer: King Ferdinand and the Princess represent symbolic love, Berowne and Rosaline have the passionate love, and so on. I know it’s billed as a light comedy, but I think there’s a lot of serious social commentary in there…’

Hattie sighed gently and cut in before Davina could get into full swing: ‘Do you remember what we talked about last year? About different hats?’

‘Oh,’ said Davina, deflating. ‘Yes. Sorry, I’ve got my arts graduate hat on, don’t I?’

‘Yes. And so what happens when you take that off, and put your stage management hat on?’

Davina frowned.

‘Well… OK, so there’s not much in the way of props mentioned in the script. There are a few bits of paper, but other than that it’s going to be up to the director’s vision. So we can’t really start propping until we get some input from him.’

‘True,’ said Hattie. ‘Anything else?’

‘Well… oh! Quick-change. Act five scene two. To get the lords out of their Muscovite disguises. So we’ll need to see what the costumes are like to work out how much help the actors will need backstage.’

‘Good spot!’ praised Hattie, and Davina beamed. ‘The stage manager hat fits you very well, you know.’

They had now arrived at the tube station, and once through the barriers they made their way down to the platform to wait for a train. Hattie stole a sidelong glance at her protégé. She was looking perkier already. That was the thing about Davina: she seemed to change her mood with the wind. It made her a bit of a liability, but it was hard not to be fond of her, Hattie thought as the train arrived.

2

The four technical roles that are the most often confused by outsiders are the production manager (PM), stage manager (SM), deputy stage manager (DSM) and assistant stage manager (ASM). To keep things simple:

The PM is the boss.

The SM is a sort of shepherd/bureaucrat/therapist who answers to the PM.

The DSM is the SM’s spy in the rehearsal room.

And the ASM is, in the nicest possible way, the SM’s general dogsbody.

– From The Art and Craft of Stage Management by Donna Fletcher, Chapter 1: Roles and Responsibilities

St Eustace’s Hall in Pimlico was a much sought after rehearsal space. Which is to say that it was cramped, cold, damp and smelly, and therefore, given its central location, refreshingly affordable. Most theatre companies in London operated on a shoe-string budget, and a well-situated, reasonably-priced rehearsal room that was large enough to accommodate a decent-sized cast was hard to come by. Hashi Hassan’s season-opener at the Tavistock was no exception financially, and big Steve Felton, the bald, tattooed production manager, had scored an early victory in managing to secure St Eustace’s for the entire rehearsal period.

Hattie and Davina got there a little early, but they weren’t the first to arrive. Kiki, the deputy stage manager, had turned up before them, ostensibly to mark out the dimensions of the Tavistock stage in chalk on the floor. Hattie knew that her ulterior motive was to get in early to nab the most comfortable chair and least wobbly table and set them up in the nook next to the heater as her base for the weeks ahead.

Kiki and Hattie had worked together a few times in the past. Kiki was a short, taciturn woman with frizzy auburn hair and round, ruddy cheeks, whose innate shyness meant she came across as a little cold sometimes. But she knew her job well, and was a safe pair of hands who could be relied upon to keep her head.

Hattie made introductions, but Davina was looking a little bit emotional again, and Kiki didn’t make much effort to be welcoming, so the conversation sputtered out pretty quickly. To avoid things getting awkward, Hattie gave Davina £20 from petty cash and directions to the nearest corner shop, to buy milk, sugar, teabags, instant coffee and enough biscuits to keep the company chirpy for the next few hours.

Then she and Kiki set about putting out a big circle of plastic stacking chairs.

‘Seen Nick recently?’ asked Kiki.

Hattie rolled her eyes.

‘Hardly. He’s been touring pretty much non-stop since March. Got a text on our anniversary.’

‘Miss him?’

‘Well… sometimes. It’s funny, when I was travelling too I didn’t mind that I hardly saw him. But now I’m not touring myself’ – she patted her right hip absent-mindedly – ‘I do sometimes miss him. But then I remember how he snores and the feeling passes. How’s Miranda?’

‘Same old, same old,’ replied Kiki noncommittally.

Davina returned, and they set up a refreshment table, raiding the kitchenette for mugs and a kettle. Hattie had Davina laying everything out neatly when a very beautiful young woman wandered in, wearing a headscarf, a lot of eye make-up, what appeared to be fleece pyjamas, and a blank expression.

‘Er… yeah…’ she said vaguely, to no one in particular, looking both disappointed and expectant.

Kiki and Hattie exchanged a look.

‘Hello,’ said Hattie, as warmly as she could. She was pretty sure she recognised the face from the list of cast headshots. ‘Belinda, is it?’

The woman raised her eyebrows and nodded silently.

‘Don’t worry, you’re in the right place, you’re just the first to arrive. Make yourself comfortable, and—’

‘Oh great!’ said Belinda, her eyes lighting up as she saw the drinks table. She turned to Davina.

‘Can I have a mint tea? Two sugars.’

‘Oh, er…’ stammered Davina.

‘I’m afraid we only have bog-standard tea and instant coffee,’ said Hattie firmly, ‘but you’re very welcome to help yourself to either. And do take a biscuit.’

Bloody actors. Always assuming everyone else was their own personal servant. You had to establish some boundaries early on or they’d walk all over you.

‘Do these have gluten in them?’ asked Belinda, again to no one in particular, pointing at the biscuits.

‘Um… I think they… yes, they do, sorry,’ said Davina, flushing. ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t think of that. I can probably—’

‘Oh no, no, it’s fine,’ replied Belinda airily. ‘I’m not… I mean, it’s fine. I’ll just…’

She picked up a biscuit, and plonked herself down in a chair in the corner, nibbling at it while she played with her phone. Kiki and Hattie exchanged another look. Belinda was going to be one of those actors.

The second arrival came hot on the heels of the first.

‘Darlings!’ boomed a voice from the doorway, and Hattie turned to see another very beautiful woman, this one perhaps in her fifties, wrapped in a large fur stole and striking an exaggerated pose with one arm floating upwards, and the opposite hip thrust out to the side. Hattie, unsure exactly how to react to this unnecessarily showy entrance, realised she was staring rather awkwardly at the newcomer. Which, she pondered, was perhaps the intent behind the posture in the first place.

‘Oh, hello,’ said Belinda, looking up.

‘Ah, yes!’ cried the woman, holding up a finger to her temple. ‘Now, don’t tell me, don’t tell me, I’ve memorised this… Belinda!’

She snapped her fingers and beamed. She had the sort of voice that belonged on 1950s BBC radio.

‘Call me Bums,’ replied Belinda cheerfully.

‘Oh God, really?’ asked the new arrival, making a face.

‘Everybody does. It’s my initials. Belinda Ursula Morley-Smith.’

‘Bums it is then,’ the woman replied, swiftly recovering her composure. ‘Glorious. How do you do? Atlanta Greenwell.’

Belinda, or rather Bums, stood as Atlanta crossed to her, and they exchanged air kisses.

‘I love your… thing,’ said Bums, pointing at the stole. ‘I wish I could afford something like that.’

‘Oh darling, one should never buy fur. It’s unbearably cruel and rather tacky. No, I’m of the opinion that furs should only be worn if they were given as a gift, or if they’ve been in the family for generations. Don’t you agree?’

Without waiting for a reply, the older woman turned to the SM team.

‘Now, you must be the lovely stage managers, is that right? Let’s see, let’s see, you must be Davina, and Kiki, and Hattie… Oh! Harriet! Goodness, when I saw your name on the sheet I didn’t realise it was you! My love, my love, how are you?’

Hattie smiled and nodded, and said she was very well thanks. Truthfully, while she dimly recognised Atlanta, she couldn’t just now recall when they’d worked together before. There were just so many of these actors and actresses…

Davina, clearly awestruck by this charismatic woman, breathlessly offered her drinks and snacks.

‘That’s quite all right, quite all right, I’ve brought my own!’ replied Atlanta, pulling out a stainless-steel flask from her bag and brandishing it enthusiastically. ‘Camomile tea. It’s the only thing I can drink if I want to keep my voice… you know… tip-top. Well, that and brandy. But I don’t think, for a first read-through, that would be quite de rigeur. If I could just trouble you for a cup…’

Over the next few minutes, more cast and crew members filtered in. Miguel, the young sound assistant, greeted Davina and Hattie warmly if a little awkwardly. He had been in Davina’s class at ACDA, graduating the previous summer. He was a strange little man. Despite always being superficially friendly, his constant awkwardness prevented him from making many real friends. But he didn’t seem too fussed about it. He was happiest when he could be tucked away in a corner fiddling with something. He was the sort of person whose ideal job would involve being handed a bucket of broken sound cables and asked to spend an afternoon fixing them one by one. Which was quite fortunate really, given the career path he was headed down. Hattie felt affectionate towards him in a sort of pastoral sense, but couldn’t say that she liked him, exactly.

Then big Steve sauntered up, and greeted Hattie with his standard ‘Ey-up?’. Hattie gave a friendly nod in return. They’d toured together several times in the past, and had a good sense of each other’s working styles. He looked like a thug and had a real temper when provoked, and it was generally understood that his first career had been as an enforcer for a north London criminal gang. It was rumoured that his nickname at one time was ‘Kneecaps’, and no one had ever dared ask him exactly why. But broadly speaking, if you treated him with respect he’d reciprocate, and when in doubt you could sweeten him up by buying him a Guinness and a packet of pork scratchings and asking how Arsenal were doing.

In too came the rest of the crew. Some familiar faces were first: Carrie and Laura – the lighting designer and head of lighting respectively – entered together, but were too busy bickering to acknowledge anyone.

‘… “monthly in arrears” means you get paid after the end of each calendar month, not at the end,’ said Carrie, sounding somewhat exasperated.

‘Sure, but then why did he say we’d be paid on Friday?’ responded Laura, sounding equally frustrated.

‘Right, right, and like I say, it’s not that I’m saying I don’t believe you. Like, I believe that that’s what you believe you heard.’

‘You can argue about what you believe as much as you like, but if I don’t get some money at the end of the week there’ll be hell to pay, because I was very upfront about—’

‘That’s just… oh bloody hell.’

Carrie had stopped, mid-sentence, and was staring across the room. The object of her attention, who was quite oblivious to it, was Atlanta.

‘Never mind,’ finished Carrie quietly. ‘Let’s just get on with it.’

They made their way over to the drinks table and furnished themselves with instant coffees, Carrie shooting suspicious glances at Atlanta all the while.

Then came Moira, the dour, sour-faced head of wardrobe whose undisguised loathing of almost all actors and directors made her choice of career a surprising one. She had had some sort of accident or illness years ago, the details of which she never disclosed, but ever since walked very slowly, with an awkward hobbling limp. She used this as an excuse to stay in the quiet of her studio whenever possible. Hattie and she had crossed paths, but never really got to know one another.

The only person Hattie hadn’t come across before was Raven, the scenery and costume designer. She was a small woman, dressed entirely in black, with spiky, peroxide blond hair and a silver hoop through her septum. She gave some small smiles when she first walked in, then quickly sat down and occupied herself with her phone.

It was a slightly bigger team than one would normally hire for a show at a low-budget venue like the Tavistock, but Hashi, the director, had been insistent, and Keith was only too happy to oblige. This was to be a big production, launching the first new season at the Tavistock after the death of its chairwoman and principal patron, Dame Joan Haygarth. Questions were already being raised as to whether the playhouse was a viable venue without her, as it had been seen by many as her personal passion project in the past, with resident artistic director Keith really just her pawn. So in response Keith had brought in Hashi Hassan, fresh from a critically acclaimed show that had transferred to the National, to prove that the Tavistock could still stage contemporary, relevant theatre without Dame Joan at the helm. Quite why they had chosen a light Shakespearean comedy as their tent-pole production was a mystery to Hattie, though.

The director himself arrived a few minutes late, in a flustered whirl.

‘Sorry, sorry, everyone,’ he called as he manoeuvred two large carryalls through the narrow doorway, his phone still clasped to his ear as he impatiently dismissed whoever was on the other end, and managed to drop his loose-leaf script with his other hand. Davina scrambled to pick it up for him, but was beaten to it by the tall, blond, energetic-looking girl who emerged from behind Hashi. That must be Regine, the assistant director. They seemed to get younger every year.

Oblivious to the clear-up operation behind him, Hashi did a round of greetings, offering elaborate air kisses to the designers, big friendly waves to the cast, and only slightly forced smiles to the crew. He was a petite, beautiful man, delicate of feature, elegant of dress and flamboyant of gesture.

‘Terrible, isn’t it? A director who turns up late to his own read-through. Fire that man! Regine, you can take it from here. No, no, not really, I’m joking, my love, no need to look so eager. I’m not quite that easy to supplant. OK, first things first, I’m going to need a proper coffee. There are some things I absolutely cannot live without, and real coffee is about five of them. Now, I do hate to be an entitled little whatsit, but there’s a charming Portuguese cafe next to the tube station. Could someone lovely possibly nip out and fetch me a double macchiato?’

He pulled out a battered leather wallet and extracted a fiver, which he waved around the room hopefully. One of the actors hopped up from his seat.

‘I can go!’ he said brightly. Adam, that was his name. He was playing Berowne, the male lead.

Hattie shook her head. The thing about being a stage manager was that, while it wasn’t your job to let actors walk all over you, it sort of was your job to let directors do it. There was a hierarchy after all. Actors and techies were adjacent but separate, but the creative team and producers were very definitely above. And catering to a director’s fussy caffeine requirements was the sort of task best delegated to…

‘Davina, can you handle that?’ she asked.

Davina beamed, happy to be useful. She took the note from Hashi’s hand and scampered away before the eager Adam could get close.

‘Right,’ said Hashi, brightly, and arranging himself in the last empty seat. ‘So. Love’s Labour’s Lost. Now, you may or may not know about my work, but broadly speaking my métier, as it were, is, sort of, hyper-naturalistic slice-of-life character studies. So in some ways, the more stylised form of Shakespeare is a bit of a departure for me, which is I think why Keith challenged me to do it. Is Keith here, by the way? No? Oh. Anyway, I think this is going to be a great opportunity to experiment, and bring a more collaborative energy to the piece than I’d normally use. And with that in mind, I’ve deliberately tried not to come in here with a predetermined interpretation of the play. I want to discover the meaning as we go along. So for that reason we’re doing it as a black box: no set, and pretty minimal costume, so Raven hasn’t had much to do, have you, my love? Probably we’ll need some fur coats and fake moustaches for that bit with the Muscovites, but not much more. Against that, I want to play with soundscapes to give us a lot of dynamic freedom in terms of the mise en scène, and that will help us create a really original audio-visual language with which to tell this story. Does that sound… does that sound good?’

There was a chorus of ‘Yeah’s and ‘Wow’s from the actors, and enthusiastic nods. But Hattie caught Steve’s eye, and his cynical smirk told another story: the director had more or less just acknowledged that he had no idea how to approach staging a Shakespeare, and hadn’t bothered to think about it in advance. That had left no time to design and build any scenery, and reliance on telling the story through abstract soundscapes and collaborative experimentation would be fine as a fallback if it wasn’t completely at odds with the director’s own self-professed directorial style. Not that it was remotely Hattie’s or Steve’s place to comment on such things, but this was not a promising start.

However, Hashi was putting a different gloss on it, and the cast didn’t seem to be complaining. Best not to rock the boat.

Hashi handed over to Raven to talk about the production design, which, there being no scenery and minimal props and costumes, didn’t amount to much. A few minutes later Davina reappeared, clutching a coffee in one hand, and a big cylinder of rolled-up paper in the other. Her eyes were red again: perhaps she’d taken advantage of her time alone to have another little cry. She scuttled over to Hashi and handed both to him.

‘I bumped into Keith’s intern just now; he gave me this to give to you,’ she explained.

‘Hold on,’ said Hashi, downing most of his macchiato in a single enormous slurp. He closed his eyes, swallowed, sighed contentedly, re-opened his eyes, then turned his attention to the cylinder. Upon removal of the rubber band that secured it, it turned out to be an A3 poster for the show, with a Post-it note on it saying:

Just got these from the printers – Keith.

Hashi held up the poster, which was cooed over admiringly by the assembled company. Stark and simple, it had the words Love’s Labours Lost in big white sans-serif capitals on a black background, and not much else.

‘Good,’ said Hashi. ‘Solid. Impactful. Crisp. That’ll do.’

‘Yeah,’ agreed Raven.

‘Oh, that’s interesting,’ said Davina to Regine. ‘Was that a stylistic thing? To only use one apostrophe?’

Regine’s eyes widened and her mouth opened into a tight little ‘o’. Hattie, overhearing, flicked her eyes over to Steve, who already had his phone out.

‘Hm?’ said Hashi.

‘Uh… I think there’s a… typo,’ murmured Regine. ‘Um… “Labour’s” should have an apostrophe.’

Like a light switching off, Hashi’s face darkened abruptly.

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ he snapped. ‘That wretched little man. What kind of theatre doesn’t proofread its own posters?’

‘Hi, Keith, just wanted to give you a quick, heads-up,’ Steve was saying softly into his phone. ‘There’s a small typo on the posters, just a missing apostrophe, give me a bell and we can talk about reprinting costs.’

‘I mean, look at it!’ Hashi continued, building up a head of steam. ‘The poster is literally just three words, and one of them is spelled wrong. I have never worked somewhere that was this unprofessional. Not in London, not in New York, certainly not in Copenhagen, Jesus, they’d take your head off if you did something like this there. And this whole piece was his idea anyway! UUUGGGHH!’

He cast his face up to the ceiling, flung his arms down and outwards and shook them back and forth while exhaling noisily. There was an awkward silence, until he brought his gaze back upon the cast.

‘Sorry,’ he said, teeth gritted. ‘We’re five minutes in and already you’re seeing me having a hissy fit. This is not going to do wonders for your morale or my reputation, is it? Tell you what, let’s all have a rousing chorus of “fuck off, Hashi”, shall we? Ready, one, two three…’

‘Fuck off, Hashi,’ murmured a couple of the actors, uncertainly.