I was there when an actor died on set during a live performance of a TV play.
I was working as an announcer with Associated British Corporation otherwise known as ABC Television soon after it began broadcasting from Didsbury studios in Greater Manchester. One day, in the canteen, grabbing a quick lunch, I found myself sitting opposite Gareth Davies, a friend from the days when we had been drama students together at London’s Central School of Speech and Drama. I have good reason to remember our conversation. I’d asked him how he was, not expecting a serious reply, but that’s what I got. He told me that he had to be careful not to over exert himself. By rights, he said, he should not be taking part in a live performance with all its stresses and strains but he needed the money. Looking back, I now realise that this had been the last ordinary conversation he was to have. For the rest of the day he was busily involved with preparing for a performance that evening that was part of the very popular ABC Armchair Theatre series.
The play was set in wartime Britain. The characters were sheltering in an underground station in London while an air raid was going on above them. Every now and then a loud explosion would denote bombing getting nearer and nearer. A large bang, accompanied by smoke and dust ushered in the first commercial break, leaving the audience to wonder what had happened to the wounded and dying – one of whom was the character played by Gareth.
A minute into the commercial break with everything going well, we, in the control room were shocked to get the news that Gareth, had over played his part, and suffered a real heart attack, and was now dying where he had been hastily laid - behind the scenery. He died shortly after in his dressing room. Because he had had lines to say once the second part of the play began, the director and actors, fuelled by copious amounts of adrenalin had gone into over-drive and were re-writing the script to cope with the sudden loss of an important character….
Years went by. Sometime in the middle 1970s Marianne and I were half way through a two month theatre tour of Britain in which we had booked to perform at the old ABC Studio’s that in the meantime had been adapted to accommodate a drama college. By then ABC had merged with another company and the building had been taken over by the local polytechnic.
Students who were there to greet us told us that recently one of the friends had been frightened by a ghost somewhere on a flight of stairs s going down to the green room, the actors' rest place. At first we did not take what they said very seriously. But I remembered the sudden death that had happened exactly where we were then standing and told them the story. It was the first they'd heard of it. Some of them were very anxious not to meet this spectre – I wondered why: Gareth would frighten no one, it was not his style.
And here I think I must bring in the influence of having lived on an island off the west coast of Scotland where there is, or was when I lived there, a lingering belief in the ‘wee folk’, fairies, the giant, Fionn mac Cumhail, that is, if translated into fluent English, Fynn Macool; kelpies, ghosties, and things that go bump in the night. Marianne and I decided to err on the side of caution with regard to the uncanny and do what we could to allay the students’ fears which were very real. They were, after all students of the drama. Keeping them well away, we duly descended the staircase and entered the green room, where, feeling very self-conscious, and rather silly, we talked to the air, the empty air.
We suggested to the invisible ‘ghost’ that it might be held to this earth because it was in a state of confusion about the manner of its arrival in its present state: was the death real or was it acted. I explained what had happened in the hope that it would help. Just because we didn’t believe in what we did didn’t mean the ghost wasn’t real – or so we told ourselves.
I have hardly thought about this event for many years until yesterday when there was mention of Didsbury studios, and it all came rushing back to me. Gareth was a very good actor, and as a mature student at Central had given a fine performance of Tartuffe in the play of the same name by Moliere. He was kind, humorous and clever, I remember him with affection.
I wonder if his ghost haunts the flats that now stand where the old cinema building once weaved its spell over the people of Didsbury. May I suggest if Gareth is looking over my shoulder as I write that he might turn his attention to the people who allowed the old building to be destroyed - they should have had more sense and had it listed.
For more information:
http://www.manchestermovies.com/capitol-building-didsbury.shtml
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