A funny thing happened to me on Tuesday. I was at the theatre, not a particularly funny thing in itself, except that rather than sitting in the audience as usual, I was up on the stage looking out at twelve sets of eyes peering back at me.
And it felt good. Damn good.
It was only a ‘scratch night’ to test out some material that I will use in August when my one-man show ‘Vive le Cricket!’ goes into the Canal Cafe in Little Venice as part of the Camden Fringe but I had been sweating and tormenting about it for some months. You see the last time I was strutting the boards was in early 1988, a three-person show upstairs at the Golden Lion in Holborn.
Shortly after that I began what became a career in sports commentary and journalism, and the theatre as an ambition receded in the rear-view mirror. I have no complaints. I’ve had a fascinating journey and don’t regret a moment of it but I always wondered: “Can I still do it?”
To go on stage is not just about having confidence with public speaking, that was never a problem, it’s about being someone else. I had no idea if I could portray Rex, admittedly a version of myself, let alone pull on the skin and take on the voices of another five characters, each with varying degrees of dodgy French accent.
For years I have pushed away the chance to do this. I insisted that chapter was over and that I could no longer do it. Was no longer capable. I watched my wife Jacqueline on stage and my kids, especially my son who went on to feature in various television shows, but I resolutely refrained from dipping my toe back in those waters.
But a bleary-eyed conversation with an old friend just after New Year changed that. When he suggested we sign up for the Camden Fringe, I had a moment of weakness: “Let’s do it,” I mumbled.
This all goes back six years to 2020 – I think it was a Covid thing – when I knocked out a daft draft short screenplay about an Englishman in Paris who commentates on cricket. In French.
The screenplay was some way from a perfect beast, a series of comic sketches about what goes on in a commentary box.
(Photo: NG Bristow)
I sent it to two people. One of them was the late Dave Crossan, a dear and much missed colleague who had pioneered the notion of French-language cricket commentary, and the other was Nigel Bristow, an old friend who has had a fine career directing film and television. They both reacted kindly:
“Beautiful stuff Barney, ” wrote Dave in an email. “Did make me chuckle as a holiday read and enjoyed the depictions of our co-commentators. Lovely use of fanny and cockwomble and all the cricket terms are present and correct. Chapeau mec.”
Meanwhile Nigel did his best to educate me in cinema: “It’s a real blast! I love the rogues’ gallery of French sports commentators and Rex’s direct translations. I’ll read it again and make some notes, then we should have a chat. Have you seen Christopher Guest’s ‘Best In Show’? The way the chalk and cheese commentators played by Fred Willard and Jim Piddock bounce off each other is an interesting ref.”
Nigel sent me a copy of ‘Best in Show’ which was great and we worked for a while on the screenplay but I don’t think my heart was in it and it went into a drawer.
But Nigel is not one to let things go. Whenever we spoke he would bring it up and egg me on to do a stage version – actually two versions, one in English and one in French for goodness sake. I would laugh and bat it away.
Until January when I realised I no longer had any excuses.
That initial conversation turned into a serious project. I went over to London to discuss the idea, look at some possible venues. The Canal Cafe cracked the nod in part because of its proximity to Lord’s Cricket Ground, the spiritual home of the game. Then we started writing the script. A couple more trips to London followed, Nigel came over to France and we zoomed.
Gradually, through improvisation and story-telling, a script began to emerge. And we started laughing at our creation. Indulgent, perhaps, but a wonderful sign that we were having fun.
Since Jac died in 2019, I have lived a pretty grey life but suddenly, the world took on a different hue: a monochrome existence built around getting through the day was gloriously overwhelmed by a multi-coloured pop and sizzle of ideas, jokes, characters, situations, problem-solving. Nigel had put a stick of dynamite under me and it was the best therapy I could ask for. I have much to thank him for.
We quibbled over the title before settling on ‘Vive le Cricket!’ which says it all. As with the screenplay we look at Rex the commentator and the variety of characters he shares a booth with but it has expanded into his mission to convert the French to cricket. It’s a 50 minute one-man show which I found immensely daunting – even though this one is in English. How the hell could I pull that off? Even when I was an actor I had never taken on a one-man show.
Just learning the lines was giving me nightmares.
First rehearsal I was stiff and self-conscious even with Nigel, who saw quite a bit of me as a young actor, directing. But as the weeks have progressed, the timidity has stepped away and I have discovered that muscle-memory isn’t just about running, it works on stage too. The same goes for learning lines.
“It was ok when I was in my twenties,” I would say. “I’ve no chance in my sixties.”
It was, indeed, slow to begin with but the process became quicker once I remembered that there is no silver bullet. You just have to study. Lock yourself in a room – or out in the garden – and just repeat, repeat, repeat. the more you do it, the easier it becomes. Somehow those lines began to stick.
To go back on stage on Tuesday was a deliverance of sorts but it was, as I keep telling people, only a pre-season friendly. The hard work is still to come. A performance in Paris at the end of July followed by four performances in London in the first week of August. They are the goal; they will be the test.
It’s still a slightly terrifying prospect but by God I’m looking forward to it.
Vive le Cricket! is at the Canal Cafe, Little Venice, London as a part of the Camden Fringe from Monday August 3-5 and then at Richmond Cricket Club on Thursday August 6. All performances 7.30 pm.
@Barney Spender 2026
One Man and His Blog 