Cliff Bruce

Father of Rebecca and Ben.

I did get involved in one or two plays at secondary school and then in my first job, the company had a dramatic society. I somehow got cast as the queer (is one allowed to say that?) chef in The Amorous Prawn, without attending an audition!! I suppose the real laugh is that Bridget took her parents along to see the young man she was keen on in a play! I was too innocent to appreciate the significance of being a queer chef at the time.

Then came a move to a village in Essex, where I was one of the founder members of a village dramatic society, rehearsing in a very damp corrugated iron hut and performing in an equally primitive village hall.

One of our first plays involved the explaining to some Russian tourists how cricket was played. The jokes were pretty juvenile "the batsman’s in until he’s out, then he comes in and the next batsman goes out, and he’s in until he’s out as well" etc. But it did provide me with my best ad lib ever. We were, of course, wildly overloading the electrical supply and midway through this scene we had total darkness, in which I produced the line "and sometimes, bad light stops play!"

And so, with very little by way of fallow intervals, I came to join ODS in the winter of 1973/4, where, as well as directing or taking part in most productions, I have occupied most of the official positions, including being treasurer, with Yvonne as auditor. I only mention this because the roles were reversed at some stage and I tried to audit Yvonne’s accounts. I had to ask Yvonne to explain the bookkeeping to me!

Last updated 28th August 2001.

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