Before Jolly Good Productions
Before concentrating on the entertainment that Hazel and I could provide ourselves, we traded as Spectacular Events. In those days we could put together much larger packages, combining our own entertainment with other professional performers and attractions.
Kew Gardens became one of the best examples of that side of the business. I was contacted after Spectacular Events was found through the Showman's Show directory. I met the organiser in her office at Kew and was asked to devise the entertainment for an evening family picnic event after the Gardens had closed to the general public.
I was given considerable freedom to put the programme together, subject of course to the practical requirements of working in such an important site. The result was not simply a collection of acts: it was a coordinated evening of entertainment spread around the lawn in front of the Temperate House.
The Friends Family Picnic Party
We returned for around five consecutive years. The precise mix of performers changed from year to year, but the format remained broadly similar: families brought their picnics, settled on the lawn and could move between shows, activities and walkabout entertainment throughout the evening.
An original programme survives from Friday 12 August 2005. It is particularly useful because it shows just how much was happening. The programme credits the entertainment to Spectacular Events and lists face painters, clown shows, parachute games, jugglers, clowns and characters, bubble making, Punch & Judy, stilt-walkers and a circus workshop.
Producing the whole programme
My job was to organise the entertainment, book the performers and make sure the different elements fitted together. Spectacular Events engaged and paid the acts, and we used a dependable group of entertainers who knew how to work with family audiences.
The 2005 programme began at 6pm with a welcome from Chuckle the Clown — me — together with Hazel and several of the other performers and characters. There were two Punch & Judy shows, a main performance arena, circus acts, a puppet show, walkabout characters and balloon modelling. Hazel ran bubble making and parachute games, while the circus workshop included skills such as plate spinning, juggling and stilt walking.
Face painting was a major part of the evening too. We would bring a substantial team of painters — around eight to ten on some years — because demand was enormous. The 2005 programme even warned visitors that timed tickets were limited and would go quickly.
From organiser to performer
Although I was producing the entertainment, I certainly wasn't standing at the side with a clipboard all evening. I brought the PA, welcomed the families, compèred, performed Punch & Judy and mixed and mingled as Chuckle the Clown. Hazel had her own responsibilities with the activities and face painting operation.
Other performers changed from year to year. The surviving 2005 programme names acts including Gingerbread Circus, Ian and Friends Puppet Show, Mr Pineapple Head and the Sunshine Clowns, as well as Bozo and Zizi running the circus workshop. Throughout the evening there were also clowns, characters, balloon twisters and stilt walkers circulating among the families.
A grand finale
The evening was designed to build towards a finish rather than simply stop when the individual acts had completed their sets. At 8.30pm the performers and families came together for a grand finale. I remembered us finishing together with the audience, although after all these years I could no longer remember exactly what we did. Finding the programme confirmed the finale and the time without us having to rely on memory.
By 9pm the Gardens were closing and the families headed home. For the entertainers, of course, the evening wasn't quite over. There were theatres, props, PA equipment, costumes and all the other paraphernalia of a large entertainment programme still to pack away.
The year Kew forgot about us
One year we discovered that packing up could be more adventurous than performing.
By the time everything was loaded it was dark — and the staff had apparently forgotten that the entertainment team was still inside. We set off in the vehicles and promptly became completely lost on the tracks through the wooded parts of the Gardens.
Eventually we found our way to the exit. Unfortunately, the gate was locked.
After several increasingly desperate telephone calls we managed to contact security, who came out and opened the gates for us. We can laugh about it now. At the time, with a long journey home ahead of us, the prospect of spending the night locked inside Kew Gardens wasn't quite so amusing!
A very different part of our story
The Kew events belong to the Spectacular Events chapter of our working life, when Hazel and I were organising much larger packages as well as performing ourselves. Eventually the amount of equipment, transport, staffing and logistics involved became more than we wanted to carry, so we streamlined the business and concentrated on the entertainment we could provide personally as Jolly Good Productions.
But the experience never disappeared. Putting together events such as Kew taught us a great deal about audiences, performers, timing and the countless practical details that make an entertainment programme work. Those lessons are still part of Jolly Good Productions today.