Last night at the Bull on Beverley Road was the last performance of Aubrey’s Tour of the Four Corners of Hull. Emlyn, a truck driver from Ebbw Vale in Wales happened to be at the Sportsman: “I have been coming to Hull for over 20 years and I have never learned so much about the City AND had such a good night out anywhere in the UK!”
This was history bottom up; how events and the famous had an impact on each of the pubs visited: the founder of the SAS and honorary Bedouin Wilfred Thesiger at Rayners; Bowie at the Polar Bear; philosopher Wittgenstein at the sportsman and Charles 1st at the Bull on Beverley Road.
Aubrey was played by Stan Heywood who gave a tour de force and plans to enter Mastermind with the history of Hull as a topic; Cass Patton was the juke box and the Singing Nun; Dan Ash was a lost white Russian and raffle salesman; Lily Barr, a tarot card reader and Walt Lees was the magician. Applause rings out stll!
Each pub had a different story to tell and the craic was mightier still with the Hillbilly Troupe performing 40 different songs across the four nights. Barry Cundill opened up with his superb local songs and the Street Urchins joined us at the Polar Bear. Not forgetting Nahro Zagros – who gave us one of the most memorable violin solos at Rayners. Rob Bell wrote the script, working with Stan and Ian Winter on how best to make Aubrey tick.
The Four Corners Tour was sponsored by the Freedom Festival who saw this as an opportunity to open up Freedom across the City – MANY THANKS. Burnsy backed us all the way on the radio and the Hull Daily Mail gave us terrific coverage. David Murden filmed each performance and Darren Rogers of OccularArt took some superb photos and designed the T shirt.
Above all, each venue was packed and many followed the trawl across the city. This was a good night out with plenty of the craic and the songs before the sacking of our pubs took hold. There were raffles and dominoes; we voted to refuse King Charles entry to the City at the Bull; there were tearful moments in recalling 1968 at Rayners and, Aubrey's market stall banter was a tour de force. Remembering Jack Harrison VC in each pub was a poignant moment and THT have been asked to tour the pubs with a First World War playlet in coming months. THT are thinking about it.
Aubrey and the Hillbilly Troupe have been asked to return to the pubs and do some more and there is an idea to stage Aubrey’s Prayer as the story of Aubrey’s life and his attempt to turn back the tides of blind progress to give us back our market stall banter; the pub craic and the hidden histories of our town.
Many, many thanks to all who came along!!! And Aubrey hopes that he passed the audition!
www.thehistorytroupe.org
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