HUMPTY DUMPTY
By George Holmes (copyright)
At school we had a boy named Harrison. We were always called by our last names. I don’t know his first name but Harrison was fat, jolly, round in face and vivacious. We dubbed him Egg. Of course in the school play of ALICE IN WONDERLAND (where I played Alice-it was all boys), Egg was Humpty Dumpty and his fall off the wall was so convincing and realistic that the audience composed of his fellow students, already somewhat delirious at being able to miss lessons, persuaded Egg to do the fall twice.
The next year he was in charge of his house’s play. We had four houses at our school. I was in Walpole (as in Horace, a local) and we did THE MONKEY’S PAW by W.W. Jacobs. It was considered a success. Egg of Garrick house (as in David, also a local) was director, producer and chief actor in a drama THE MILK BOTTLE involving a crucial scene where the Inspector (Egg) solved the crime by finding a note sticking out of a milk bottle on the table on the stage. Unfortunately, the note somehow or other got pushed inside the bottle. My friend Rowse who was in the play with Egg said that Egg whispered to him out of the corner of his mouth: carry on as if nothing has happened. This proved difficult to do as the unraveling of the story involved reading the note. So the denouement was somewhat confusing to the audience as he tried to read the rolled up note inside the milk bottle, rather like a gypsy reading her crystal ball. The audience by this time was helpless with laughter, the noise of which was augmented by a fireplace pinned somewhat carelessly on to a curtain on stage left, falling down face forward on to the stage with a resounding crash. Egg’s house won the competition for the funniest drama ever seen and Egg was given a silver cup, not an eggcup I hasten to add.
Since that time Egg has become a famous politician, made even more celebrated by his marriage to Sadie Lavere, the movie actress. He often reminisces about his theatrical debut and credits it with giving him confidence in public speaking, (not to mention in public deception but I don’t say that). He’s a good egg..
Sunday, July 12, 2009
