Mystified in Bristol........
By PTP aka Ruth

“It will only take us an hour and a half,” quoth Lieutenant A.F.Kennedy (Ted) Bear RN hopefully, as he peered over the dashboard, heading for Bristol last Saturday. PTP was driving, LittlePal was navigating (hopefully not up the Nile!) and a very jet-lagged BlueSpringsBelle tried to keep her eyes open, having only arrived on the plane from Atlanta the night before…

Well Mr. Ted was absolutely right. We set off at 9.30 am, and were in Bristol just after eleven o’clock… and that was where the trouble began…

Bristol, you see, is not a sensible town. It has not, like most English towns, been elegantly laid out on a Roman grid system, with smart little blocks and easy access to ring-roads and by-passes… It is a jig-saw puzzle of momentous proportions…gridlock city.…a highway nightmare… a traffic graveyard…

“We’ll never get into the City Centre…” LittlePal said grimly, as we gingerly negotiated the crazy maze of approach roads…

Five times we tried, getting further and further away from the Bristol Old Vic every time…

The last time we tried it, we almost ended up back on the motorway heading for Cornwall… Which at any other time, the assembled company would have relished, but today they had better things to do than ride the rip…

We were going to see Jamie play Prince Hal in ‘Henry IV’… A more entertaining prospect than almost any we could think of…

Well we took another wrong turning… It was the suddenness of it you see… We knew we were doing it, but we couldn’t stop ourselves…

Another problem with Bristol is the fact that there are hardly any street signs, which, given that the entire place is one big one-way system, rather counts against the possibly of arriving anywhere in the city centre on time… or even the following Tuesday…

So Mr. Ted was near to despair, and was ready to hide under his old, brown blanket, when a kind denizen of the town steered us in the right direction, informing us that in fact we were only a few hundred yards from our Travel Lodge, and if we took the right route we would be there in seconds…

LittlePal began to smile again, Archie Ted peeped out from his blanket, and after only two more wrong turns, and another twenty minutes’ hard driving, we found our way into the gaping maw of the underground car park.

Checking in and getting ready occupied our minds enough to hold panic at bay, but we did have to get the paper bag ready for BlueSpringsBelle when we reminded her that advance publicity about her visit - (Articles in the local press and Jamie’s interview on Bristol Radio) - made it almost certain Jamie would come to the stage door to meet us. BSB was bearing gifts, a personal gift of golf balls for him, and also a joint housewarming present from a group of his fans in the States and England, and she was keen to deliver them in person. (Yes, Beth, we know… a sacred duty…!!! Right…!)

Mr. Ted was bemused by the care we took over our appearance that day… You would think, he commented, that Jamie Bamber was something special…

Well, a cab with a very friendly driver took us straight to the theatre, and Mr. Ted and Beth left a message at the desk that we were there, and would be by the stage door if he would like to come and meet us as he had promised…

We had long missed the theatre tour, but were in nice time to take our seats for the matinee of Henry IV – which is Jamie’s first ever stage play…

And will have to wait for a separate review, since it deserves one all to itself…

Jamie was M*A*G*N*I*F*I*C*E*N*T…….!!!

No other word to describe the consummate performance he gave us in this play… The lad has come of age… This was utterly breathtaking…

PTP will return with a full review in another post…

Meanwhile as the play ends, beaming with delight at this dramatic feast, Mr. Ted and his party repair to the stage door, and the doorman phones the delectable Mr. Bamber…

We hear his voice on the other end of the phone…WE HEAR HIS VOICE… FOR REAL…!! OHMYGOD!!!

He won’t be long, the doorman tells us… He’s just getting cleaned up. Well the last we saw of him he was wet with sweat, his hair dripping onto his armour, his lovely face smeared with fake blood and designer dirt… Whilst we would have been happy to greet him in that state, he had obviously thought it best to shower and change…

Then, only a very few minutes later, the inner door opens, and a still-damp, tousled head appears around it, smiling warmly.

The shock this generates in our little company could light up Las Vegas for a week…

In common with most young actors, Jamie looks different out of costume. He is slighter than he looks on screen or onstage (Yes, we did say ‘slighter’!! – Beth says he has lost weight since she met him in Longnor) – and he seems smaller, younger and infinitely approachable…

He is wearing a light shirt, frayed blue jeans and tan boots. No jacket, since the evening is quite warm for October - the last of the English Indian Summer...

He looks heartstoppingly beautiful…

He checks with the doorman for a suitable place to go for refreshments, and we are steered to the local pub, the Llandoger Trow. This is an incredible old Inn, said to be Robert Louis Stevenson’s model for the Admiral Benbow in ‘Treasure Island’. It was built around 1660, and is full of nauticalia, cosy nooks and pleasant corners in which to enjoy the atmosphere and the company!

Jamie told us he had about an hour to spare before he had to go back to see his director about a few technical details. (The performance we saw was actually one of the previews, and although it appeared perfect, apparently still had some technical tweaking to be done. )

So Jamie shared a few (non-alcoholic!) drinks with us. He didn’t want to eat, or drink anything stronger than orange and lemonade, as he confessed it wouldn’t do him any good for the evening performance…

Beth already knew Jamie from Longnor, and written correspondence, so she was not surprised at his kindness and modesty, but PTP and LP were warmed by his grace and charm. Jamie and Mr. Ted got along famously (there will be a picture to prove it, if the photo comes out okay!), having much to discuss in the matter of Hornblower and fictional depictions of the Royal Nayvay… Jamie was charmed by Mr. Ted, saying he’d never seen such a fine bear!!

Much of our conversation was professional, concerning his various roles and motivations, the productions he’s been involved in and the ups and downs of an actor’s life… Again, this will have to be a separate post, as some of the things he said are well worth passing on…

Some had best remain unpublished…!

He was asked to sign a copy of the HHUK2002 fanzine for LP, and he wanted to know whether she had drawn the artwork for the cover… “You’ve flattered us!” he said, laughing. “We don’t look like that!”

“Oh, you DO!!” she replied fervently… “Believe me, you do!!”

He was bowled over by the gifts. As well as those Beth had brought, PTP and LP presented him with a bear sporting a sash which read “Jump!! You’ll be alright!”. Mr. Ted Bear thought his colleague should display these words, since they were the first that Jamie ever said in a professional production – and would no doubt stand him in good stead again for his first ever stage role…

Jamie accepted his bounty with somewhat bewildered thanks, and seemed inordinately touched by the gestures of goodwill from his admirers. There’s a constant undercurrent of puzzlement, nay, mystification, in this lovely young man that he should have fans at all… Is he not just a jobbing actor, selling his wares in the marketplace like any other?? Though he would never say it in words for fear of inviting forced compliments, he seems to be thinking what on earth should make him any different from any other man or woman on the stage…?

Oh, Jamie, you will only know if you stand where WE are!! And if you think like WE do…! And it aint gonna happen, baby…!

We didn’t even try to explain it to him, for fear of terminally embarrassing him! How DO you explain to someone how they have touched your heart…how you love to watch their every expression on the stage or screen…how you adore the sound of their voice… how much you admire their skill and professionalism… how you rejoice in their work, and how they light up your world for the brief time you have the privilege of seeing them there?

How do you do that, with their dramatic blue eyes only feet away, and their earnest face alive with interest in life, the universe and everything…

For Jamie is not only sweet and delightful… he is a seriously gifted actor, and a very intelligent young man… and a total joy to talk to…

Mr. Archie (Ted) Bear, being a bear of discernment, was most impressed… This Jamie Bamber IS something special, he admitted with a ted grin…

(PTP had an amazing fanfic moment at this point - Suddenly the writer in her had a wave of vibes that she was sitting in a 17th Century pub full of nautical memorabilia - with Archie Kennedy...! Now PTP doesn't often blur the character with the actor, and it didn't last more than a few seconds, but what inspiration!! What a total mindblower!!)

After an hour and fifteen minutes we began to worry that he was going to be late, and we reminded him about his director, but he still stayed to chat, appearing to actually be enjoying the break from the theatre… We began to worry eventually, and asked if we could take some quick photos, for fear he would have to rush off suddenly…

Then indeed he did get a text message from the director… We don’t know what it said, but it was probably something to the effect of “Get your sorry @rse back over to the theatre, Bamber, or we’ll give your understudy his big break in Part II!!”

Nevertheless, he resisted the urge to rush off, and was cheerful and gracious to the last, hanging the latch on our behalf with a true sense of mutiny! What a sweetie!! (I just hope he doesn’t confess!!!)

It’s very hard to express how it feels to have had an experience like that… To be in the presence of your icon, your hero… and to know that he’s a nice young man with impeccable manners (and pleasant shower-gel! – ya hear that, ladies??), easy grace and a deeply kind heart…

After he had gone back at a trot to placate his waiting director, we followed more sedately, each of us aware that something very special had taken place that afternoon in the Llandoger Trow… If nothing else our faith in human nature was reinforced. But there was more to it than that. We each had a wonderful sense of affirmation that the trust we had in this young man was justified. He is worthy of our admiration.

We had a final, sweet moment in store... As the evening performance ended some three hours later, with rapturous applause from the full house, we got to our feet, unable to help showing him the depth of our joy in his triumph, and determined to give him support and congratulation. He caught our eye and gave us a warm, grateful smile, clapping his steel gauntlets together gently in appreciation. He made us feel very, very special, as he does all his fans...

He is a star…

And if we told him so… he would laugh…!

PTP

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