‘What might have been and what has been...

Point to one end, which is always present.’  TS Eliot. 

I am writing this chapter on what would have been my first day of shows - Hereford Steampunk Festival - Summer 2020.  If only I’d had a 20:20 vision of the truth of what has been. 

How I already miss the face to face.  So much of my life I have avoided the call of the small screen which, apart maybe from the fame it might have brought, I have always eschewed. I have always said quite honestly that the reason I love what I do grows from the personal closeup immediacy of live performance. Immediate responses from people fashion the detail and nuance of my shows, whether a fully choreographed performance that I have presented in the same order every weekend, every season for forty-five years or a brand new micro-closeup routine for one or two children, presented impromptu at the end of a long day.

And all now gone perhaps never to return without prior sanitisation, a safe six feet and the issues, for me at least, of age and immunity. The government saying it will be a long time before older people will be allowed out in polite society without masks and rubber gloves. 

But it’s probably too soon to know the truth of what time future might be.  There are many things none of us want back.  Or maybe we dread them coming back and we’re not quite sure how to stop the inevitable.  Maybe it isn’t inevitable.  These many moments of isolation must have taught us what is important and though no-one would swap a virtual hug even for the memory of a real one, the things we have learned will stay with us forever.

As for me, I am learning very fast.  I have put the stage up in the workshop and have recorded ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uO0MKPENfPQ) - the first (I hope of many) short ‘divertissements’, which I am calling ‘an autobiography in performance’.  Of course there will be magic and manipulation, merriment and mayhem.  There will also be moments of meaning.  Well, maybe meaning.  Enough of the alliteration and on with the show.  Learning this new craft is taking up my every waking moment, well, almost every.  I baked bread today for the first time in many, many years.  And wow how delicious it was, warm with best butter and homemade rhubarb and ginger jam bought last year at the West Show in Guernsey and tasting of pre-covid sunshine and optimism.

I have also discovered an old cabinet treadle Singer sewing machine in a forgotten cupboard here at my workshop.  A little internet research found that it was made on the exact same month and year of my birth. (October 1949, if you didn’t know).  Parts are still available and I am thrilled to report it is now oiled and up and running and I sewed the new curtains for the front of my lorry with it.  The lorry is resplendent with all manner of new accoutrements, far too many to list and I am loving living in it in my yard in the peaceful Cheshire sunshine.  Life is a joy.

And so it will go on.  Watch out for more blogs than of late and links to my collaborative Facebook shows with Greg Chapman (search Facebook for him and Felicity his lovely, sanguine, reflective wife) and my solo efforts which will be not so much show (you need a live audience in front of you for that and let’s not pretend anything over the internet is live)… not so much a show, but a reflection of a life spent in live performance of one kind or another.  I have many ideas and if you have any requests for things you have seen me do live and for real in front of your very eyes, please do let me know through the usual channels.  I’m not a great purveyor of social media but I do respond more or less immediately to emails (david@mralexander.co.uk) and I love hearing from you.

All the best from a road, safely more than six feet away, from you,

Mr Alexander