Richard Berry Interview: A Typical Day at the Theatre Royal Stage Door
Title
Richard Berry Interview: A Typical Day at the Theatre Royal Stage Door
Date
12 September 2017
Description
Oral history interview with Richard 'Dick' Berry, Stage Door Keeper at the Theatre Royal for nineteen years from 1992 to 2011.
What's the story?
Richard Berry, known simply as ‘Dick’ by all staff, artists and visitors was a long-serving Stage Door Keeper from 1992 to 2011.
Born in Nottingham in 1946, Dick had a few jobs prior to working at the Theatre Royal, including a long stint as a milkman.
Dick always had a friendly welcome for all visitors and his jokes and sense of humour were notorious. This is still very much evident in these interviews.
In this interview Dick talks about a typical working day at the Theatre Royal Stage Door:
Typical day: Wake up - Get in, first in. The mail used to come to the Stage Door, so we’d check all the mail. If there was a fit-up to be liaising with the Company Managers or the Tour Managers or whatever to sort all the dressing rooms out. Mostly Mondays were the busy days because shows came in for the Theatre. So we’d liaise with him. He’d be sorting dressing rooms out. I’d be sorting the keys out for the dressing rooms and then we’d just wait for the artists to come in. There wasn’t a lot to it. Maybe I’ve simplified it, I don’t know, but I’d always find it so easy. Why would you want to leave? That was, sort of, a day. It was just standing round waiting for people to come in, watch the shows. I used to go and try to watch a show, well a song from a show, if I could. “Chicago” was “All That Jazz”. “Blood Brothers” was the main song at the end.
Born in Nottingham in 1946, Dick had a few jobs prior to working at the Theatre Royal, including a long stint as a milkman.
Dick always had a friendly welcome for all visitors and his jokes and sense of humour were notorious. This is still very much evident in these interviews.
In this interview Dick talks about a typical working day at the Theatre Royal Stage Door:
Typical day: Wake up - Get in, first in. The mail used to come to the Stage Door, so we’d check all the mail. If there was a fit-up to be liaising with the Company Managers or the Tour Managers or whatever to sort all the dressing rooms out. Mostly Mondays were the busy days because shows came in for the Theatre. So we’d liaise with him. He’d be sorting dressing rooms out. I’d be sorting the keys out for the dressing rooms and then we’d just wait for the artists to come in. There wasn’t a lot to it. Maybe I’ve simplified it, I don’t know, but I’d always find it so easy. Why would you want to leave? That was, sort of, a day. It was just standing round waiting for people to come in, watch the shows. I used to go and try to watch a show, well a song from a show, if I could. “Chicago” was “All That Jazz”. “Blood Brothers” was the main song at the end.
Type
Oral interview
Location of item
Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall Nottingham
Rights
Theatre Royal & Royal Concert Hall Nottingham
Contributor
Interviewers: Diane Jones & Jennifer Sherwood
Transcriber: David Chilton
Transcriber: David Chilton
