Goode For a Giggle

JACKIE GOODE supplies the run down on her Goode for a Giggle company and her activities as an actor

Mission Statement

Goode For A Giggle started in 2002. I had worked on a very part-time basis with another Murder Mystery company in Inverness, but the owner (Martin Carr) left Scotland and asked if I wanted to carry on where he left off.

So I approached RACE and did a Business Plan, got Business Start-Up funding, and followed up 3 enquiries that Martin gave me before he left.

One of these contacts was the organiser of the Centenary Celebrations for Hugh Miller, in Cromarty House in Cromarty. This was our first event, which was a great success, and really gave me the confidence to carry on.

Another of these contacts was Julia Garrison at the Craigdarroch Lodge Hotel in Contin, and since 2002 we have been entertaining people there on most Saturdays for all sorts of occasions – Birthdays, Hen Nights, Staff Nights Out, you name it.

We have also done lots of nights for local organisations, charities, companies and hotels in around the Highlands, Grampian and Perthshire.
 I have a small team of talented witty actors, a lot of whom are HNC/HND Drama students from Inverness, and together we have now entertained a few thousand people in and around the Highlands and Grampian.

I am so appreciative of their collective input in making Goode For A Giggle – my present team are Julie McLennan, Greg Geddes, Calum Urquart, Jean Martin, Heather Hastings, Amanda Chisholm and Kirsten Stoling.

We have such a great time working together; we have so many laughs with each other and the audiences. Unfortunately due to the lack of acting-related employment in the Highlands, the students usually leave the area at the end of their courses to either further their education or find work.

As an actor I have worked with some companies in the Highlands. In 2002 I did “Elsie and Norms’ Macbeth” by John Christopher-Wood with Roadrunner Theatre Company, where I played Norm, an older man who re-writes Macbeth, since “that Willie Shakespeare cannae rhyme”.

Norm himself pens some stunning lines – “Is this a knife I see before my hand, or have my eyes gone funny, it might be swollen glands”… we did a Highland tour of ‘Elsie and Norm’s Macbeth’ which went down really well in the seven or eight venues we went to. We rehearsed in my front room and Ally MacLeod’s spare bedroom, with no funding, and pootered about in Ally’s 2-door Citroen.

I learnt so much from Ally – she had lots of experience in all aspects of theatre and was one of the founding members of Visible Fictions Theatre Company.

In 2004, again with Roadrunner, we did ‘The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband’ by Debbie Issit – I played the scorned first wife Hilary, whose husband Kenneth (Jack Wright) had left her for a younger specimen, Laura (Becky McDonald, and second time around, Julie MacLennan).

We toured this for two weeks around the Highlands during the summer and then – by popular demand! – in October where we drove south to the dizzy heights of North Edinburgh Arts Centre and … Moffat.

A funny thing happened in Edinburgh – on our way down the A9, one of us read in The Herald that ‘The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband’ was being performed that night at North Edinburgh Arts Centre, starring Elaine. C. Smith and Andy Gray.

Ms .Smith and Mr. Gray had coincidentally being doing the play a few weeks earlier, and The Herald assumed it was their production. Needless to say we were a wee bit worried that the audience would turn up expecting to see Elaine and Andy, but we needn’t have been concerned – the word hadn’t got quite gotten round and nobody mentioned it. We we had the grand audience total of 27!

With ‘Arts in Motion’ I did a piece of theatre called ‘State of the Art’ in 2005, in which I played ‘Rose Peppers’, a stand-up comedian who was not very happy with the state of her art. Dave Smith, John McGeoch, the writer John Harvey and Eric Le Tessier Lavigne all contributed to the direction of my character – an experience which was confusing but absolutely delightful!

I also work occasionally with Cragrats – a Training company in Yorkshire who use actors and Forum Theatre to deliver training sessions to schools and large national companies around Britain.

Current Production or Work-in-Progress

Last year I started working with Right-Lines Productions as Winnie Grant, maker of ‘Illicit – the Aroma in the Gloamin’ – a one-woman, one-hour show, done in the style of a business presentation about a woman who makes whisky perfume.

Euan Martin and Dave Smith were commissioned by Highlands and Islands Enterprise to write a piece of theatre about women in business. It has been a great experience – Euan writes and does all the administration, Dave writes and directed the show, and did most of the technical wizardry along with Andy Blake and Callum McKay from Arts in Motion.

Dave actually saw daylight for a couple of weeks during rehearsals, as he can spend a lot of time on his own, in the dark, fiddling with knobs, buttons and big-bottomed hard drives. He is also the most quietly witty man I have ever met. You think you’ve made a joke and Dave always tops it – thanks to him I created the comedy cop Vixen of Dock Green.

‘Illicit’ is now being performed for corporate and public events in and around the Highlands and Grampian. Some folk just don’t know to take the show though – at the end of one show for the Speyside Whisky Festival, held in Rothes Football Social Club, one older man was overheard saying to his wife, “Aye, she wis awfy guid, but ah dinnae think she’ll sell muckle o’ ‘at perfume’. His wife none-to-gently scolded him by saying – “She wisnae reel, George. It wis a’ a joke!”  (Only this week, I’ve had a potential offer to take the show to Slovenia to perform for women entrepreneurs……wey, hey!)

Fantasy Theatre

As an actor, I would love the chance to work with companies such as Dundee Rep or National Theatre of Scotland or the Traverse, doing something as powerful and dramatic as ‘Black Watch’. I saw the play in Dingwall and was completely blown away by it. The wonderful movement, the horror, the singing, the acting, lighting and the pool table!

I would say it’s the most powerful play I’ve ever seen, especially the soldiers reading and signing their letters from home – I had tears streaming down my face.

But I realise that is probably a fantasy, as I don’t have much formal training – half an HNC in Acting and Performance! I didn’t finish the course because I had a chance to do “Elsie and Norm’s Macbeth”, had our three year old son to look after (with the help of my fantastic husband, Ian, who assists tremendously in all aspects of what I do – from childcare to making props and an ear to bend – “Is this funny?”), and I had just started the Murder Mystery business, so the course had to take a back seat.

I don’t have an agent and trying to find someone to take you on is difficult. I am thinking of it, though, as it is one way of branching out. But even then I know it can be difficult to get work – if you don’t have RSAMD or the name of a well-known college or university in your CV, a lot of people won’t give you a second glance, understandable to a point.

Anyway, I feel incredibly lucky to have had the opportunities I’ve had, which has enabled me to make some sort of living in the Highlands. I’ve learnt a lot from people along the way – Ally MacLeod, Dave Smith, Euan Martin, John McGeoch, Brian Gorman and Scottish comedian Paul Sneddon, who I worked with in doing a short comedy character as part of the HI~Arts Laughing Matters Comedy Mentoring Project, which culminated in a few wee slots at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2005.

Golden Moment

With Goode For A Giggle – our first Murder Mystery at the Centenary Celebrations of Hugh Millar in Cromarty House in Cromarty. It went really well – lots of smiling happy faces, great atmosphere and location, laughing in all the right places, and great feedback at the end.

My personal best moment has been as a participant in the Northern Connections project, working with some of my fellow HITN members and members from Vasterbotten Theatre Company and Profilteatern Theatre Company in Sweden. We met up in Ullapool, then four months later, in Sweden.

I was asked by Profilteatern to perform a Murder Mystery with some of their cast as entertainment for the Scots and Swedes whilst in Sweden. I flew over a few days prior to the rest of the Scottish group arriving and rehearsed with Profilteatern.

It was fantastic fun and to have the chance to work with another experienced company was amazing. I still hope that a large collaborative production will happen with the two Swedish companies and the HITN members in 2008, funding dependant.

And Not So Golden Moment

With Goode For A Giggle – we’ve not had too many bad moments, but we’ve had drunken abusive hecklers, I’ve been groped by various men and women, we’ve been offered to go to London for a “private party” for some ex-cons who sold helicopters, been asked to accompany guests to their bedrooms after the shows, and had the offer of money to be “entertainers” on a Stag Night bus to Edinburgh.

I said no to those offers, but in hind sight maybe they would have been quite lucrative?!

Our only real worst moment was when I forgot the caps for the starting pistol – no big bang finale as the victim croaks it, so he did a lot more screaming, and we had to change tack during the interrogation and mention “That silencer – you seen it? Must have fallen off the gun…….can’t find it anywhere……seems to be missing………” 

And we’ve put up with a few grumpy hotel staff and owners – who should be named and shamed here, but I’ll save their reputations! We’ve had cramped, leaking, smelly laundries to get changed in, a tiny room full of broken chairs and tables which nobody had even bothered to move for us so we spent half an hour of our set-up time shifting everything out, being charged for glasses of tap water, etc … not exactly A Hundred Thousand Welcomes.

My own personal worse moments were at a local Festival doing ‘Illicit’. The first was forgetting where I was in the middle of a monologue – I do a lot of miming phones etc so the technician (Brian Gorman) played the phone ringing effect to try to help me remember where I was in the story but I still couldn’t think what the line was so I picked up my imaginary phone and said – “Sorry I’m too busy to talk right now! Bye!”

Then I looked at my left hand – I knew there was a gesture with my left hand that linked one speech to another. Then it clicked where I was – relief!!! Doing a show by yourself does have its pitfalls – there are no other actors to help you out.
The second moment was in the same show – the prop mobile phone had not been placed on the stage and I really needed it, else that part of the show wouldn’t work, so there was a moment during the play where the audience were being entertained by a short film, so I dashed back-stage and saw a young band waiting to go on after me.

In hushed desperate whispers I said “Please help!! I need a phone, now, can I borrow one till the end of the show!!!” A guitarist passed me his and said “There’s no credit in it” and I replied “That’s fine ‘cos it’s only my mother calling me!”

Highland Theatre – Is There Such A Thing, and If So, What Is It?

Yes, there is. I get exasperated when people say there is no such thing as Highland theatre. Highland Theatre doesn’t have to mean dressing in sackcloth and ashes, harping on about the Clearances, the English and how the Scots have been badly treated. That all happened a long time ago, it’s time to move on.

Yes, that historical element is important and has its place, but Highland theatre, for me, is producing work that everyone can enjoy – whether it’s animation, black comedy, puppets, musical theatre or multi- media theatrical installations.

Times are changing – there is a larger population in the Highlands and there is an increase in audience numbers attending performances I have been involved in and as an audience member myself.

There is now a big group of individuals and small companies producing work, whether it’s acting, directing, writing, dance and physical theatre, composing, technical/video media, and not forgetting the promoters of venues.

Look at the success of Right Lines, Dogstar, Arts in Motion, Ardross Hall, Strathpeffer Pavilion, to name just a few. We just need more recognition – but that’s slowly happening – so watch our collective space …

© Jackie Goode, 2007