TAFFY'S THEATRE GROUP

It was meant as a trip out, a break from serious swotting for "O" Levels, yeah right.
The Shakespearian set text for our English Lit in 1966 was Twelfth Night.
We were taken by coach to see it performed at faraway Stratford-Upon-Avon.
An eager gang of lusty Northern schoolboys looking for a forbidden liaison.
Having some time on our own we hired a boat and we went a-rowing on the river.
Spying a group of what looked like private school toffs we had a message to deliver.
So we set course and headed straight towards them, a look of terror on their faces.
"Sorry chaps we tried but we couldn't stop," we said with our best counterfeit airs and graces.
They made their way to the bank and chambered out. "A tribe of uncouth peasants" they called us.
We took our boat back, rejoined Taffy who said, "right boys is there something we should discuss?"
"Don't think so sir, like what sir?" We said in unison. "Like a capsized boat," Taffy said.
"Yes we did see that sir. Don't know what happened," we said and he believed us, the bone head.

Into the theatre we went and, for us, the play could have stopped at Act 1, Scene 3.
What we would have given to have been Sir Andrew Aguecheek and been as lucky as he.
Invited by Maria to "bring your hand to the buttery bar and let it drink."
For all us heathens it was like Carry on Shakespeare, know what I mean, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.
The play ended for us then and there so we either sat there bored through the rest or we fell asleep.
An image was in our heads, one we didn't want to let go, one we wanted to keep.

And so to two weeks later a schoolboys' night out at the theatre in Manchester.
Taffy thought it advisable to bring back up so he invited Uncle Fester.
We made our own way there on the bus and couldn't resist going into Tommy Duck's.
Knickers on the ceiling, banknotes behind the bar, not exactly what you'd call deluxe.
Not sure what to do we watched how it was done. We looked older than our 15 years.
"A pint of your best," we said and I quickly realised I wouldn't be one for beers.
The theatre we were headed for certainly lived up to its name on the outside
but sadly the interior was stuck in the past like some jilted Victorian bride.
It smelled of Grandma Jackson's house, daylight was an unwelcome visitor, however
playing on the archaic, crackling music system was "Strawberry Fields Forever."
We were here to see a play I had started to read but had abandoned early on.
"Six Characters in Search of an Author" I felt tonight would be like a marathon.
But in the cast was the most stunning actress I, or any of us, had ever seen.
Suddenly the evening turned into something else, became almost damascene.
I found myself drifting off into a world where she seemed to be speaking just to me.
I was a bubbling geyser of emotions. Soon they would go beyond mere fantasy.