A BIG ROB SHAPED HOLE

If you are regular reader of our News and Directors Notes page, or you follow us on Facebook you will know that we lost a member of the Company recently. Rob may not have been active with us over the past couple of years but he was, and will always be, a Nut. And he certainly had an impact! So come with me as I take you on a tour of Rob's characters and hopefully illustrate to you just what a unique and special human being he was. 

​​Rob was a member of Gerald's previous theatre company - 'I Can't Believe We're Not Better' - who had disbanded, and after a break Rob decided it was time to get his acting boots out of storage, so he started stalking us. His words, not mine! He would come to watch us rehearse, quiet and unassuming, and would leave straight after, I later found out due to crippling shyness. He eventually bit the bullet and joined us, again quietly watching, working out if, and where, he would fit with us. Then one day, out of nowhere he jumped out of his seat, clung to the imaginary side of the Blue Pixie and Suzanne Jennifer was born! It was our first foray into comedy and that suited Rob. Suzanne Jennifer was the unexpected visitor on the Blue Pixie, a decommissioned Routemaster bus floating around in space with a ragtag group of passengers bound for who knows where, and he knew about the Whales! Think Red Dwarf with a touch of Nuts. It was brilliantly bonkers, and it was performed at the LP Cafe and The Pump House Theatre in Watford. So he was straight in at the deep end!

Rob couldn't believe how quickly we had embraced him. He told me that it had took him so long to join us because he didn't think he was good enough. Let me tell you, he blew us all away immediately with his sense of fun, his chaotic energy (in the best way possible) and the imagination of a creative genius. But I'll leave Rob to tell you how he felt.....have a watch of the video....

So we decided to keep him ! Obviously!!

Rob had taught himself to play the guitar and wrote his own songs, the above being one of many he wrote for the Company. Rob's first 'serious' role was to create the underscore for Little Cuts, possibly our most emotive and controversial piece to date, primarily dealing with self harm. He was given no instruction except to 'play what feels right for the scene'. And he nailed it! He had the ability to get into the head of the characters, to feel what they were feeling and to transfer that onto the strings of his guitar. We were invited to perform Little Cuts for Sir Mark Rylance at the Harold Pinter Theatre in London which was a highlight for us all, but Rob had to sit right next to him throughout the performance, strumming away. He played it cool, took it in his stride, then once safely back at home he relayed just how surreal the experience had been for him. In his mind, he was not worthy. But he was, truly. 

Outside The Harold Pinter pre - performance

With the man himself.....and Sir Mark!

Cheeky McD's. Spot Rob being Rob. (bottom left)

Next up was 'Fragments' in which Rob played two charcters; Trevor the Aussie farmer who leaves his family to join the Foreign Legion and find himself/lose himself, and a Victorian Music Hall Compere who introduces damaged and heartbroken Lily Baker to the stage. If you've never seen a guy in a cowboy hat doing the Haka then you've missed a treat! 

Berko Live

Doing the Haka in a cowboy hat!

All aboard the party bus. Mind that cow!

My character was Lily Baker and I needed a song that summed her up in a few lines, it needed to be Victorian music hall in style and a bit cheeky. Rob immediately knew the perfect song - 'Howd You Like To Spoon With Me', sung most notably by Angela Lansbury. I didn't think I could pull it off but Rob spent time with me, going over the lyrics time after time until I remembered them, adding a little dance and laughing his head off as I squirmed with embarrassment, giving the song the Lily Baker touch of sauciness with painful vulnerability . Rob also wrote two more songs for her, 'You Tickle My Fancy'  which was used in Fragments, and 'What's To Become Of Me' both of which I have recorded and saved.  She remains my favourite character. And I could not have created her without Rob. I want to share the lyrics with you so that you can appreciate his writing talent and how he got to the core of the character:

You Tickle My Fancy
Oh you tickle my fancy, yes you made a start
You tickle my toes, you tickle behind me knees
You really ruffle me up, if you please
Oh you first caught my eye cos you were dapper and smart
But most of all, you tickled my heart.

Oh you tickle my fancy, yes you made a start,
You tickle my ankles, you tickle my elbows too,
What comes next.... I'll leave it up to you!
Oh you tickle my fancy, yes you made a start
You tickle my Derby Kelly with your Brighton Sands
What comes next.....I think you understand

Oh you first caught my eye cos you were dapper and smart
But most of all you tickled my heart
Oh you first caught my eye, cos you were dapper and smart
But most of all.....
You.....broke. My. Heart.
         


What's To Become of Me
Walking down the streets I go, wondering if I'll ever know
What's to become of me
I'm searching far and I'm searching wide
But the answer always seems to hide
What's to become of me
I hide to escape but now I'm finding 
That I can't escape from hiding
What's to become of me
I'm climbing mountains, I'm scaling walls
Hoping that I'll never fall
What's to become of me
I'm trying to find who I want to be
But the last thing I want to be is like me
What's to become of me
I'm only happy when I'm someone else
Cos it really hurts to be myself
What's to become of me
What's to become of me
​What's to become of me.
​

Rob also supported Sarah in her singing career - she told me 'From the the moment I met Rob I knew he was a special man. He was kind, caring and had a gentle soul. He was a massive supporter of my singing and always wanted me to do more with it. Rob was one of a kind, you could tell him anything and he would do his best to help you out with his wisdom and knowledge, but he would always put a joke in there too. Sometimes good, sometimes really really bad, but that was Rob. He is an inspiration to me,  friend and someone I will never forget'. 

Rob also joined us in two Ghost Walks for 'Spirit of the Old Town' in Old Hemel and he had the time of his life, as did we all, creating scary Halloween stories to bring to life and scare the pants off the public! 

Looking menacing. And very cool !!

Fright night a la Nuts

Boo!

Rob was initially with us when we started improvising 'Sleeping Dogs' after lockdown. He created the character of Ted, the dodgy lodger who is up to no good. Sadly Rob's health was deteriorating and he felt unable to continue, much to his distress. And ours. But as a Company we always say that our own health comes first and we support each other in whatever decisions we make. Rob had told me many times that he'd never been happier in his life than when he was with Nuts and it was incredibly difficult for him to leave us. In fact, he could never say the actual words....he just didn't come back. 

So, we have had a massive Rob shaped hole for a while now. But, knowing that his talent, his passion for all things creative, his endless imagination has gone is difficult to take on board as reality. He wasn't just a cast member. He was an important part of all our lives, individually, outside of Nuts. 

Lyanne says ' ​Rob was always there with a never ending supply of weird and wonderful props (apologies to the cupboard at Colne House) and a dad joke or 10. When I started my journey into makeup and special effects he was always there to let me try out whatever weird design I had come up with and spent hours with me in the Natural History Museum so I could take pictures for references. He also helped me make my first ever makeup trolley by supplying me with a frame and wheels of a shopping trolley he had found in a skip. Speaking of weird and wonderful it was always fun to see what gifts Rob had for us at the annual Nutsmas.....all were very much a Rob kind of gift, including a very lovely snow globe with the logo at the time and a heart on the backside....which turned out that the heart was also on Rob's backside.
I will forever miss your strumming along on a guitar, endless dad jokes, boundless creativity, pulling us through all the charity shops at the end of a rehearsal and most importantly I will forever miss you.'

special effects model for Lyanne

Lyanne's first trolley as made by Rob

​If you have ever seen May Contain Nuts perform, or have attended our workshops, you will know that we are not just colleagues. Or even just friends. We are a family. And Rob was very much at our centre. He was quiet, shy and humble. Gentle and kind. Patient and encouraging. He had a mind jam packed with random facts and interesting trivia and he would have us in fits of giggles every week during rehearsal. And he was the master of the terrible dad joke, and delivered them in a way that made them hilarious, mostly because of the wry smile he had while telling them. He was a collector of 'stuff', he loved a shopping trolley and had a thing for tea trolleys - in fact he had 2, maybe even 3 in the store cupboard that he'd wheel out full of props that we'd mess about with even if they had no place in the piece we were working on. He loved a hat, a particular favourite being the big purple sombrero in the picture below. He loved to dress up, and to make Gerald dress up! Rob had decided that whenever Gerald was over a minute late to rehearsal he'd have to dress up, so Gerald grew to love the pink tutu! There can't be a charity shop in the whole of Watford, even North London, that Rob hadn't been in. Every week he'd come in with the purchase of the day, which may have seemed random but he always had a plan! And he was a master skip diver too and would create all manner of things with whatever bounty he discovered. And he'd bring in his latest invention to amaze us all with, with the joy of a small child and a smile that matched. It was infectious. 

​
I could genuinely talk about Rob til the cows come home and I'd never do him justice. He was truly one of a kind. Someone who made his way into your heart without trying and set up camp. And that's where he still lives. In every performance, every laugh, and every charity shop and skip. 

We miss you Rob. But you are with us eternally. 

The last word will go to Liz, which I think sums Rob up perfectly:

'There were so many facets to Rob’s personality.  One I was particularly impressed with was his acceptance of other people - I never heard him say a bad word about anyone.  His ability to ‘liberate’ items was impressive; cups, Christmas crackers and large rolls of tape come to mind.

I’m including a poem which I hope will give an idea of the man I knew.

​To Rob with my love
Liz

‘Generosity’

Generosity is not about
how much I have in my wallet or pocket
or bank account
but it is about
how much I have
in the hoard of my heart

by David Gate

Written by Kerry, with help from Lyanne, Liz and Sarah on behalf of Gerald and May Contain Nuts Theatre Company.