MYSTIC Meg passed away earlier this year, but thankfully Magic May is on hand to fill the gap and keep people glued to her crystal ball.
People like Mrs Cameron, not a foolish woman - although she makes the mistake of talking too much, giving too much away - and our fortune teller, Madam Emadura, aka Lizzy from the Glens of Gormley, aka May McFetteridge, aka John Lineman, takes advantage and impresses the gullible client.
What does the future hold for Mrs Cameron, played by Olivia Nash? I won’t tell you: all is revealed in A Happy Medium, which opened in Strabane last Thursday, was at Theatre at the Mill over the weekend and is now steadily making its way towards five days at Belfast's Grand Opera House from Tuesday. Then, it’s off round the country again to theatres in Derry, Omagh, Armagh, Ballymena and Enniskillen.
I spent an afternoon with Olivia on the eve of the opening night in Strabane and she admitted to a few butterflies, but it’s obvious that this professional woman knows deep down it will be all right on the night: after all, she’s been treading the boards for the last 60 years. Before that, in her hometown of Larne, her training ground was on the amateur stage with the local drama circle.
“We took part in all the festivals and we’d pray to get through to the Grand Opera House, that was the dream,” Olivia tells me.
The dream came true when at 18, Olivia won best actress when appearing in My Flesh My Blood. In the next post, she received two letters - one from James Young and the other from Hibby Wilmot, both inviting her to meet with a view to joining their companies.
“I chose to go with Jimmy at the Group Theatre and I learned from him everything I know today: stage craft, recognising that each night is the first time for the audience and they deserve the best.
"If a play was getting a bit tired he’d immediately call a rehearsal to pick up the pace."
Perfecting Her Craft
“The most important lesson I learned from him was timing, very important when it comes to acting, and he was the master.
"He’d a great way of coping with hecklers. Saturday night, second house was the worst, but if members of the audience became disruptive he would slowly cross his hands in front of his tummy and gradually drop his voice until it was a whisper, then just his lips moved, no sound.
"His timing was perfect. Of course, the audience got annoyed and told the rowdies to pipe down. I don’t think you could do it today, there’d be a riot!”
Usually, there’s an announcement from the management that photographs or recordings are forbidden, but it’s often ignored, and if it’s distracting for those on stage it’s equally infuriating for those in the audience: so many annoyances.
One theatre-goer told me she was sitting in front of a woman who’d already seen the show and insisted on loudly telling her friend the outcome of the tense play.
I watched Jesus Christ Superstar in London and two Cockney women were sitting behind me. In the interval, the conversation was riveting.
“Who’s the woman in white?”
Her exasperated friend: “That’s Mary Magdalene, Jesus’s friend.”
Nonplussed, the next question was: “So what happens in the end?”
Is there a theatre etiquette? Like me, Olivia feels it’s a mistake to allow alcoholic drinks into the auditorium. I’d also ban mobile phones, cameras and smart watches that glow in the dark. And food. I was at the cinema one afternoon, not many people there, when two women came in with a complete Chinese carryout!
Another problem is block booking for corporate events, when people fail to turn up or prefer to stay in the bar, resulting in empty seats while genuine punters have been unable to get tickets.
But it’s rare that a show will be stopped because of disruption, as happened recently in Manchester during the musical Bodyguard. Let's hope for better luck when the cast bring the show to the Grand Opera House in September!
Olivia has graced stages not only in Ireland and the UK, but also America and Canada. Although she’s thought of as a comedian thanks to her incarnation as Ma in the popular BBC series Give My Head Peace, she is in fact a respected character actress who was awarded an MBE for services to theatre and charity, most notably the Hospice movement.
Embracing The Role
Ask Olivia to name her favourite play and she becomes emotional. In Brian Friel’s The Loves of Cass Maguire, she played Cass, an Irish woman who emigrates to America, works her fingers to the bone to send money home to her family only to be rejected when she returns to Ireland after 52 years away.
“I was 35 when I played her, she was 70 and I realised I walked too well for her age. So I bought what were called 'sneakers' in those days, cut the toes out and bound my legs with crepe bandages and that slowed me down and made for more awkward movement.”
It’s that attention to detail which makes a great actress. She quotes lines from the play and suddenly becomes Cass.
“She ended up in a home and I still wonder how she’s getting on: she became a real person to me.”
It’s a busy time for the cast and crew, including Thomas Lappin, Antoinette Morelli and Sarah Lyle and director Roy Heayberd, and it will be a happy time for audiences all over the country - a good old belly laugh is the best medicine.
Through dramas like the ‘Billy’ plays, commercials like Fred, There's No Bread, sitcom work like Give My Head Peace and now A Happy Medium, Olivia Nash continues to make her mark. This was demonstrated recently when a 10-year-old shouted after her, ‘Hey Ma, where’s the bread?’
She laughs: "Just about sums up my career!”
:: Touring details at davidhullpromotions.com/event/31/happy-medium
