John North: Taking the Mikado

MORE microbiologist than wandering minstrel, Gary Winn has written the Geordie Mikado. "It'll be like a musical Auf Wiedersehen Pet," he says.

With £500 from Northern Arts but virtually no other financial help, he has now booked the Gala Theatre in Durham for a five night run next February - and with a matinee for good measure.

Taking the Mikado? It's true, every word - and with ten months still to go, the first fliers went out this week. He needs to sell 1,000 tickets by the end of June in order to go ahead. Any profits will go to charity.

The Gilbert and Sullivan original, said to be the world's most performed theatre musical, is out of copyright. In the past the libretto has been jazzed up, swung round, even made into a ballet.

The song Three Little Maids From School Are We - Three Bonny Lasses From The Toon in the new production - has been recorded by artistes as diverse as Dame Joan Sutherland and Ella Fitzgerald. Even Alvin and the Chipmunks have had their Mikado moments.

Gary's version keeps the music and the characters but moves words and setting from Far East to North-East and with polyglot phrases like "Hoyyerhammerowerhere." Sounds Japanese, he says, but really it's pure Geordie.

"Every line has been reworked. There are new scenes, new jokes, Geordie humour."

Gilbert and Sullivan? "I'm afraid they'd turn in their graves, but for many people their operas are no longer relevant and, to be honest, no longer funny. This production will be less elitist and particularly appeal to young people. It's an attempt to make it enjoyable again"

Both 51-year-old Gary and his wife Julie, 40, have principal parts in Darlington Amateur Operatic Society's production of the Barry Manilow opera Copacabana, at the Civic Theatre from April 30-May 10.

None of the region's operatic societies, however, has been willing to risk staging his show themselves. Gary insists he doesn't blame them.

"The Darlington show alone is costing around £70,000 to put on. All the societies are struggling for funding and you have to do popular shows like Oklahoma and Carousel, which people know. I just haven't been able to persuade anyone, so I'm having to do it myself."

Never a singer, he joined Chester-le-Street operatic society in the 1970s as a scene painter.

The oriental expression, giving it Tokyo as they say, has been singing away in his head for several years.

Though the Japanese names will remain the same, Nanki-Poo plays cornet in the Titipu Colliery band and Ko-ko is no longer Lord High Executioner but a tub filler.

The action, seven scenes as opposed to the original two, is set in the North-East in the teddy boy era of the 1950s. "I wanted Showaddywaddy type people to give it colour, the Geordies have too many flat caps," says Gary, who lives in Bishop Auckland and works at Bishop Auckland and Darlington hospitals.

Though the production is planned for the Gala Theatre, Durham City Council turned down funding because Gary lives in the Wear Valley area and Wear Valley council refused him because the production is in Durham.

"I've virtually given up hope of sponsorship now but I've put so much work into it, even the hours writing letters, that I'm determined it will work," he says.

If successful he hopes to encourage other loose adaptations - "a sci-fi Pirates of Penzance, perhaps."

Undeterred, he has put together a production team, holds auditions in early June and has a Gilbert and Sullivan buff for a musical director who, happily, thinks the idea's wonderful.

Winn some, lose some, Gary hopes the rest of the North-East will agree.

l The Geordie Mikado is at the Gala Theatre, Durham from February 10-14 2004. Tickets £10, concessions £8, box office 0191-332-4041. Gary is on (01388) 458119.

BRIAN Myers, Willington councillor and Gary Winn's father-in-law, was awarded the MBE in the New Year honours list.

The award, richly deserved, was for community service. Had it been for talking the hind legs off a cuddy, Brian might also have qualified.

At any rate, he's now been to the investiture, bought the video - £90 from the royal household - and enjoyed a longer than expected chat with Prince Charles about the night that Sunnybrow Methodist chapel burned down.

Before the ceremony, recipients are briefed on protocol. When the prince's hand is extended, they are expected to shake it, defer and move on.

As the palace video reveals, however, the heir's right arm was extended three times before the prince got a word in edgeways.

MORE upcoming entertainment, the bowler hatted braves who perpetuate the memory of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy plan a march through Bishop Auckland to mark the unveiling of the latest Laurel plaque in the town.

Stan, of course, spent several years in Bishop Auckland, where his father managed the Eden Theatre, and (like most of the best people) attended King James I Grammar School

Already there are plaques at the school, on the site of the former theatre, at St Anne's church - where Stan was baptised - and in Princes Street, where the family lived.

The latest is in Waldron Street, nearby, where Stan also spent some time living with relatives. His niece, it's hoped, will be able to attend.

The proceedings, organised by the Bishop Auckland based Sons of the Desert tent of the Laurel and Hardy Appreciation Society, are on June 14, two days before Stan's birthday. The thinner one of the incomparable duo would have been 113.

ALAN Crosskill, well known for his humorous books and talks on the ambulance service, seeks publicity for Stokesley Rotary Club's fund raising efforts finally to eradicate polio.

In 1986, Stokesley Rotarians raised £3,500 for the World Health Organisation's "Polio Plus" campaign by hoofing from Berwick back to Stokesley. From May 10, averaging 17 miles a day, they plan the return journey.

"Polio has now been banished from many countries. This is the final push," says Alan.

Rotary Clubs along the coastal route are offering accommodation and fund raising support. Further details from Stokesley Rotary Club president Ken Whimster on (01642) 710196.

AFTER Peter Murphy's bit of bus spotting a few weeks back, several other readers have reported seeing Lockey's buses - once familiar between Bishop Auckland and Evenwood - still in service on Malta.

None was more moved by the sight than Pat Taylor from Aycliffe Village, a former Bishop Auckland Girls Grammar School pupil (A-level Latin!) who tracked down the buses' new owner to Valetta.

Fred Lockey was her dad.

LAST week's note on the passing of Adrian Cairns, the first voice heard in Tyne Tees Television and for five years the new station's senior presenter, reminded Les Wilson in Guisborough that the mellifluously toned Cairns also presented Star Parade which once, he insists, featured Frank Sinatra. On Tyne Tees? Anyone else remember it?

...and finally - since car registrations were briefly on the column's plate last week - Tom Cockeram from Barwick-in-Elmet, near Leeds is reminded of the John Bull Rubber Company in Leicester which owned the registration A1 and guaranteed - it's probably a long time ago - that any tyre ordered before 4pm would be delivered to the nearest railway station the following day.

"They did it," says Tom. "They really were A1."

The busiest car round his way, he adds, has the registration 1DLE - there is also, of course, an Idle Workmen's Club near Bradford - whilst Peter Crawforth in Chilton is also driven to West Yorkshire reminiscences.

The Bradford Telegraph and Argus, he recalls, once reported that Leeds City police officers had refused to drive their allocation of new cars because each had the registration MUG. About face, they were quickly re-allocated.