Tricky vicar

LIFE is always stranger than fiction and none was stranger than the Reverend Harold Davidson who was defrocked by the church for immoral behaviour after setting up a mission to save Soho prostitutes and was later killed by a lion in Skegness.

Although a film, The Missionary, written by and starring Michael Palin, bore similarities to the story in 1982, the true events of the great scandal of the Thirties have lain unexplored until now.

Producer/actor Mira Dovreni, of the Penny Dreadful company, brings this saucy tale to life with the no holds barred title of The Missionary’s Position. And she has thrown herself into recreating the sleazy world of Soho quite literally when the world premiere tour arrives at Stanley’s Lamplight Arts Centre on May 15.

“We are a historical theatre company so what we’re doing is presenting the world as it was then. I am a feminist, but it isn’t about not ever showing a breast or anything like that. It’s about having some kind of power in the world that you live in. I run a theatre company and have a lovely family and, for me, it’s about operating at the fullest extent of your powers not getting your bits out,” she says about stripping off to pose for realistic publicity shots.

“Just because you have prostitutes on stage doesn’t give this a sexist theme. London was full of girls at that time who had come in search of work, but couldn’t find any. The theory is that the vicar was trying to help them, but, do you know what, the whole cast has, on one day, believed he did it but, the next, say ‘no he didn’t’,” she says.

The company has used transcripts of the trial to offer the audience both sides of the argument about the man tarnished as the original dirty vicar after 200 people gave evidence, but just one girl accused him of misbehaviour.

“You think it’s a music hall show, but then you realise all the acts are the evidence and this man is on trial for his life as a churchman. So people can make their own minds up,”

Dovreni says.

“The company’s brief is to explore the stories of the famously forgotten who lived odd lives. There are novels and loads of films but nobody does theatre about these people.

Because his life was like a bit of a musical hall show – he’d been a comic actor before he became a rector – and he could tap dance and dressed like a woman for his comic monologues, we decided to turn it into a music hall piece.

“Someone from his home town of Stiffkey said it would be the perfect way to portray his life,” she says.

Oddities of the cigar-smoking Rev Davidson include him being late for everything and ending up cycling down the church aisle at the last moment to begin services. His life was ended by a toothless lion, called Freddie, in front of a live audience.

“Poor bloke. During a show dubbed Daniel And The Lions I Proved My Innocence, he trod on the tail of one of the lions, who was quite old and had had his teeth removed. The lion got hold of him and gummed him to death. You couldn’t make it up… which is the slogan of our music hall theme,” she says.

Dovreni’s own view on the rector’s guilt is: “If he didn’t do anything, then he was flipping stupid. He showed a boil on his bum to two girls at 2am, but he was so naïve he could have been innocent.”

■ Originally the first date on the tour was Darlington Arts Centre this week but Dovreni explains: “That had to be cancelled because the director (Mick Barnfather) had a gallstone operation.”

■ The Missionary’s Position runs on May 15 at the Lamplight Arts Centre, Front Street, Stanley, DH9 0NA.

Performance at 8pm. Box Office: 01207-218899