Prickly moment as Spike did runner

Elaine Mullett’s father and grandfather were both stage managers at Wolverhampton’s Grand Theatre. She talks to Cathy Spencer.
The audience’s chanting of “Why are we waiting” rings in Thomas Milton’s ears as he frantically hammers on Spike Milligan’s dressing room door.

The comedian is refusing to show his face for his one-man show and, as Thomas runs to peer through the stage curtains, he can see members of the agitated audience at Wolverhampton’s Grand Theatre demanding a refund.

Suddenly, Milligan’s dressing room door flies open, and the nimble comic dashes out onto the cobbled street at the back of the theatre, with make-up artists, electricians, carpenters and lighting technicians hot on his heels. He doesn’t get far before someone stops him, and after a few minutes they manage to talk the nervous comedian round.

Inside, the audience sit back in their seats as the lights dim, and the large doors at the back of the theatre open to reveal a street cleaner, complete with a broom, flat cap and jacket, coming in off the street.

The audience look at each other with puzzled faces until they spot that the street cleaner is none other than Spike Milligan.”My father needed a stiff brandy after that episode in the 1960s - and the audience had no idea of the commotion that had happened backstage,” says Elaine Mullett, whose father Thomas Milton was stage manager at the theatre.

“Spike Milligan was very eccentric, and he hated autograph hunters - we used to have to shoo them away from the back door.

“There are some real prima donnas in the world of theatre, and you usually find that the comedians that are really funny on stage are moody and quiet off-stage.

“However, there were some lovely ones too such as Dick Emery, Roy Hood and Little and Large.”

From 1909, Elaine’s grandfather Thomas William worked as stage manager at the Grand and was followed by her father Thomas Milton. Before her father died in 2005, Elaine got him to write some notes about his life at the theatre.

And she still has a wonderful collection of photographs from behind he scenes.

“He says he first started going to the theatre in 1924 when he was just six-years-old,” says Elaine, aged 48, from Goldthorne Hill.”While he was still at school, he worked one of the spotlights, known as carbon arcs, which were then situated at the back of the balcony - there were only benches in the balcony in those days. People were packed in, often with 200 people standing, and he had to work among the audience.

“However, the General Strike, and the talking pictures meant theatres began to fall on hard times. In the 1930s, things became so bad that the Grand Theatre closed for about three months.

“But one of the most fortunate things that happened to the Grand was when Leon Salberg agreed to put in a repertory company, which was to last many years. This was the turning point for the Grand Theatre, and soon the theatre was doing solid repertory companies with just a break for the pantomime.” Elaine says her father had to be a jack-of-all-trades when he worked at the theatre.

“At just nine-years-old, he was Tannoying the audience to let them know they had five minutes to drink up before the performance began. His whole childhood was spent at the Grand Theatre, and he worked up from apprentice electrician at the age of 14 to stage manager in 1940.

“My father and grandfather were known affectionately as Young Tom and Old Tom - my dad didn’t have the confidence to go on stag , although I remember when he was a corpse in an Agatha Christie play. Also, he played the saxophone, and so often went into the orchestra. Sometimes actors would board with us in our home in Goldthorne Hill, and I remember stars such as Peggy Mount and Leonard Rossiter, who was really funny, staying for a few nights.”

Elaine says the staff at the theatre formed a cricket team called The Reptiles.

“The theatre was part of their lives and the whole family would get involved,” she says. “You didn’t see your parents if you didn’t become part of the theatre.

“They were some wonderful days and, if you pardon the pun, we had some grand times at the Grand Theatre.”