Familar feel to canoe couple play’s plot

Jul 17 2010 by David Whetstone, The Journal

A CANOE is washed up on a North East beach but it’s not quite what you think. Ring any bells? David Whetstone talks to Mike Yeaman about his new play.

THE latest new play being produced at the Customs House in South Shields, South Tyneside, has this unbeatable disclaimer: “Any similarity to persons living or pretending to be dead is purely coincidental.”

To which my cynical reply has to be: “Yeah, right!”

The play is called Canoeing For Beginners and, according to the publicity material, it “looks at Beryl and Frank who have hatched a plan for a stress-free retirement in the sun.

“It’s dead simple – it just involves Frank’s canoe being washed up on the beach and a dodgy insurance claim.”

Now there are some real-life events which transcend the normal news agenda. Far from being history repeating itself over and over again, their sheer novelty makes them the stuff of recreational chit-chat.

And it may well strike you that the persons living or pretending to be dead which most closely resemble the fictional Beryl and Frank are the Darwins, John and Anne, who are both currently serving lengthy prison sentences.

Before they became guests of Her Majesty, the Darwins elicited from a rapt public the full gamut of human responses, from sympathy to anger via disbelief, amusement and open-mouthed astonishment.

John Darwin, from Hartlepool, a former teacher and prison officer, was missing, presumed dead, after his canoe turned up in the sea. It looked like a tragic end to a life.

Then, five years later, the “dead” man turned up, alive and well.

An intricate scam started to unravel and Anne Darwin, John’s wife, was implicated.

Their sons, it emerged, were wholly innocent, having been led to believe that their father was dead.

Some real-life events, you might think, are beyond fiction. But the case of the Darwins has already spawned a novel and a BBC dramatisation – and now comes this Customs House play by Mike Yeaman. It is Mike’s second play. His first, Lucky Numbers, won the People’s Play Award in 2008 and was also performed at the Customs House last year.

Customs House executive director Ray Spencer describes it as “a hilarious comedy that quite rightly became a smash hit”.

All this augured well for his next venture, demonstrating a deft hand in negotiating that awkward territory on which comedy and tragedy collide.

In short, an elderly lady suffering the onset of dementia wins the lottery but won’t reveal to her folks the whereabouts of her winning ticket until they agree to dance to her tune for a while.

On the phone, Mike reiterates that funny disclaimer but it’s clear he knows the peculiarities of the Darwin case as well as anybody. Of Canoeing For Beginners, he says: “It’s basically the same story but the real Darwin story dragged on for a couple of years whereas this is concentrated in a few days and there are some other quite fundamental changes.

“In the real story, the Darwins had two sons whereas here they have a son and a daughter, and they go to Cuba, not Panama (the planned sunshine destination of the couple from Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool).”

Mike points out that his drama is set in South Shields rather than further down the North East coast, largely to strike more of a chord with the local Customs House audience.

I think we can take it that fiction and fact in this instance are hardly worlds apart and that “purely coincidental” might be pushing it a little.

But Canoeing For Beginners is no less appealing for that.

“It’s a comedy – a kind of a black comedy, a farce almost,” explains Mike.

“But it’s really looking at what happens when you tell your kids that their dad is dead, which is what the Darwins did.

“This is not an attempt to tell their story and it’s not a serious drama, although there is probably a serious drama you could do about it.

“I would say it’s an absurd black comedy but the problem with trying to write a comedy about it is that you keep coming back to the fact that this is a couple who think it was perfectly OK, and in their interests and their kids’ interests, to say to their kids, ‘Your dad’s dead’, and then, somewhere along the line, say, ‘Actually, he’s all right’.”

As with most plays, there was the germ of an idea which moved further away from the original point of inspiration as it developed.

Mike says he was struck by the absurdity of the real-life tale, seeing elements of Whitehall farce and surrealism.

A sense of “heightened reality” will bring all this to the fore in his new play, he hopes.

Mike says he didn’t read all the newspaper articles about the Darwin case and neither did he see the BBC dramatisation, Canoe Man, which had the couple played by Bernard Hill and Saskia Reeves.

But clearly he revelled in the challenge of trying to present his fictional Taylors as people worthy of some initial audience sympathy despite their rather despicable duping of their own children, who are called Keith and Carol.

Rehearsals for the play started this week and it opens on July 31.

Time will tell if Mike has pulled off his Lucky Numbers success second time around, but Canoeing For Beginners would seem to have everything in its favour.

Three of the cast who were in Lucky Numbers are back again with Pat Dunn, who was Nana in the first play, cast as Beryl Taylor, Laura Norton playing daughter Carol and Chris Connel doubling up as a Newcastle detective and a Cuban police officer. The play is set partly in the Taylors’ South Tyneside home and partly on the Caribbean island.

Frank Taylor is played by David Whitaker who, like Chris, will be off to New York shortly with another very successful play, The Pitmen Painters.

Completing the quintet is Gary Kitching, best known as a member of comedy group The Suggestibles, who will be making his Customs House debut as Keith Taylor.

The director is Helen Ferguson, who is directing her first full-length play.

“She was recommended by quite a few people, including Jackie (Fielding, who directed Lucky Numbers).”

As for Mike, who lives in Stannington, Northumberland, he is happy to describe himself as a professional writer.

“I have done Radio 4 series and some bits of TV,” he says.

“And since Lucky Numbers was on at the Customs House it has been done in New Zealand and has just finished a really good run in Liverpool.

“That has generated a lot of momentum and there are plans to tour it.”

Canoeing For Beginners was written for the Customs House which is one of the country’s most dedicated supporters of new writing for the stage.

For the record, both John and Anne Darwin were imprisoned for more than six years after hearings at Teesside Crown Court.

I am in no position to tell you what happens to Frank and Beryl Taylor, but there is one way you can find out.

Canoeing For Beginners will have its world premiere at the Customs House on July 31 and runs until August 7.

For tickets, call the box office on 0191 454 1234 or visit www.customeshouse.co.uk