Post by Lucy of Ravenscar on Oct 15, 2014 10:38:08 GMT
Convention Review of Albion ‘96
A Robin of Sherwood convention with guests Mark Ryan and Terry Walsh
Date: 25th - 26th May 1996
Venue: Periquito Hotel, Kettering, Northants
By: Lucy of Ravenscar
I arrived at the convention with a friend on the Saturday morning, extremely pleased that we had found the place as the name on the front of the hotel and the name it is known by were completely different. This seemed to cause problems for a lot of people, including Mark Ryan.
The convention was very small, with about 40 attendees and just one event room. The organisers had been very unlucky with guests, as they kept having to cancel due to having work. However, the guests they did have were great, and all their funny stories and anecdotes really made my weekend. It was also very enjoyable meeting some of the attendees, especially those of you who are members of Nothing’s Forgotten.
The organisers had several videos lined up for us to watch, including the blooper reels. We started the day by watching the one for the first series. If you have never seen them, they are very funny and well put together, with the Sheriff frequently breaking into song at opportune moments, and plenty of farting horses!
Terry Walsh was first up on stage. He had recently been in Moscow working as the safety officer for the film of The Saint. He didn’t think much of the film, saying it looked too much like Batman, although the stunts were very impressive. He told us horror stories about Moscow, which is expensive and has a very high crime rate, and which was also very cold when he was there.
He then told us how he had got into the stunt business and went through some of the films he had worked on, including An American Werewolf in London, where he got to do a really impressive crash in the centre of London, and The Omen, where he was the stand in for a woman who was attacked by dogs. He explained how difficult it was to get them to look realistic and aggressive, the only way he could do it was by pretending to attack their owner while she screamed. In the end they would attack viciously on command, but only when he was wearing a dress (and lots of body armour!).
Another film he had worked on was Ridley Scott’s Christopher Columbus film, 1492, which was shot in Puerto Rico. The locals, apparently, were very difficult to work with as extras, as they would often put themselves in dangerous situations, and they weren’t very reliable at turning up again after they had been paid, which is very frustrating if they were in shot behind one of the major characters. He also risked the lives of the (very expensive) actors when he was asked to set up a shot of them coming down a slope into a river and wading across it. He checked the river out, found out where the deep parts were and decided it was safe. The scene was filmed and it all went beautifully. The next day some of the natives were standing in the river with spears. He asked what they were doing and they said they were hunting caiman. It turned out that a family of caiman, which are six-foot long alligators, lived under the bank of the river, right under the point where all the actors had jumped into the water!
He didn’t say much about the antics that the Merries got up to on RoS, probably thinking we’d heard it all before, but he did say what a wonderful series it was to work on, how everyone got on together, and how it’s the only series he knows where the people who worked on it still have reunions nearly every year.
After a break for lunch it was Mark Ryan’s turn on stage. As he walked on the song “On This Night of a Thousand Stars” from Evita was playing. (For those of you who don’t know, he was in the original stage production as Magaldi, the singer who brings Evita to Buenos Aires, and that is the character’s big song). He then told us about his part in the new Alan Parker film version of the musical with Madonna. He had auditioned for the part of Evita’s brother and he hadn’t got it, then Alan Parker himself asked him if he’d like to appear in the film, because he thought it would be nice to have someone from the original cast in it. He was happy to do this and was treated like a bit of a star while he was filming. He appears as a waiter in the restaurant where Jimmy Nail, as Magaldi, is singing “On This Night...”, giving him dirty looks and making out he’s a useless singer.
He was asked about work he’d done recently and he mentioned a TSB advert he’s done where he had to throw a plate in the air. Apparently he broke so many of them that they had to go and buy more, and he also managed to hit a camera with one of them! He then talked about First Knight, the Arthurian film with Sean Connery and Richard Gere that he appears briefly in, and that he worked on as assistant swordmaster. He said that there had been a little bit of tension between the two leads as Gere is a very relaxed person whereas Connery wanted to get on and finish quickly each day so he could go and play golf. Well, Gere thought of a way to make it up between them when they were filming the scene where he runs the gauntlet. The gauntlet is complicated apparatus that people are invited to try and cross without getting knocked off, the prize being a kiss from Guinevere. Gere runs all the way along this thing, gets to the end and Connery says, “Well done, you may now claim your kiss.” Gere then grabs him and gives him a massive snog! This is front of a courtyard full of hundreds of extras, who watch in horrified silence until one person starts to laugh, then they all start laughing, so Sean Connery can’t get upset about it.
One day during the filming, Mark was talking to Jason Connery on his mobile and Jason asked if he could talk to his father. Unfortunately, Sean was in a meeting with the producers so Jason just gave him a message thanking his father for a meal out the night before and arranging a time to go to the theatre that evening. Mark waited for Sean to come out of the meeting and went up to him with the message from Jason. Sean just looked at him, going, "Jason? ....Jason? ....ah, my son! Does he owe me any money?” (Mark does a brilliant Sean Connery impression by the way).
Mark was asked if he’s ever been injured while sword fighting or doing stunts. He said that he was never seriously injured on RoS, but he was while working on First Knight, when rehearsing a fight between Richard Gere and Ben Cross. They got a bit excited and he ended up with a cut near his eye that needed a few stitches. He did hurt his back when he jumped from the bridge in Rutterkin, but the injury he remembered best was during the filming of The Betrayal. They had to have stuntmen that looked like them for the scene where they fight their doubles and Terry got hold of this chap who was supposed to be a good fighter, and good at various martial arts to be Nasir’s double. Unfortunately he turned out to be completely useless, and during the fight he got closer to Mark at one point than he was supposed to be. Mark tried to pull back, but he still managed to cut the stuntman’s nose a little bit. He then proceeded to faint, and demand an aspirin when he came to! None of them were very impressed with this and he never got asked to work on RoS again.
Somebody asked him about The Phantom of the Opera, a film he appeared in with Robert Englund (Freddie from Nightmare on Elm Street) as the Phantom. He was surprised that anyone had seen it, and said that he was amazed at how nice Robert Englund was, for someone who makes a living out of cutting people up. He told us about a stunt they did in the film, where his character was disembowelled. They fixed him up with a steel plate next to his body and a fake stomach in front of this, filled with tubes of blood and bits of offal. The Phantom lifts him against a wall then sticks a sword in his stomach, letting him fall down and opening up his guts in the process. All the blood and gore comes out, and apparently it looked very realistic, as well as smelling pretty disgusting, and even the hardened film crew were disgusted. However, the director wasn’t happy with the shot, so they had to do it again. By this time the offal has got really smelly and the whole set is a bit ripe. They do the scene again, and this time it’s even more revolting and makes everybody feel sick. In the end they didn’t use the scene in the film because it was decided that it looked too horrific!
Finally, Mark showed us some swords that he’d brought with him and told us about the sword fighting techniques that were used on RoS and are now standard in the British film and television industry. He had brought Nasir’s two swords with him - these were lovely and apparently nicely weighted for fighting with. He also brought the larger of the swords Nasir used when fighting for Owen of Clun. This was big and badly weighted so it was difficult to work with. The last sword he brought was from First Knight, which he’d sneaked off the set with help from Richard Gere. It was quite a straightforward looking sword and was very well balanced for fighting with.
One of Nasir's swords.
Sword from Herne's Son.
Sword from First Knight.
After his talk both Mark and Terry signed autographs and then everybody went off to get ready for dinner. The evening meal was a nice idea, as it meant everyone got together and had a chance to mingle with the guests, it’s just a pity that the food was of school dinner standard. However, the guests came and sat at each of the tables in-between courses, and Mark entertained us by telling us how he drives his sister mad. She has young children, and he convinced his nephews and nieces that every animal has a special call, and if you want to catch them you must make this call. He told them that to catch halibut they had to shout “Halibuuuut!” and soon he had a phone call from his sister asking what the hell he’d done to her kids and why were they wandering round the house shouting “Halibuuuut!”. Then he took them to Sherwood Forest, and they were disappointed that they couldn’t see any deer. So he taught them the deer’s special call, which involves putting your hands on either side of your face making a sort of howling noise. So, if you see any small children running round Sherwood Forest making funny noises, you know who to blame!
Once the meal had finished the disco got going, with a fair mixture of music that encouraged most people to have a bit of a boogie, especially Mark in his rather nice black leather trousers! Terry took a bit more persuading, and would only dance to Rolling Stones records, so when the DJ said he’d finished after only having played “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” Terry threatened to beat him up unless he played some more Stones (he was rather drunk at this stage!). This had the desired effect and we got a nice little Stones compilation that nearly everyone got up and danced to.
By this time (about midnight, I think) the bar had packed up and some people were ready to go to bed, but Mark had a quiet word with the night porter and sorted out some after hours alcohol for the rest of us. We (well those of us with staying power) stayed up till 4am, with Terry getting increasingly drunk and increasingly lewd. He seemed to spend most of the time trying to pair people off, with no success, and most of what was said cannot be repeated here. (It’s either too rude or makes no sense when you’re sober).
On the Sunday we emerged, slightly the worse for wear, and watched a few videos, including the rest of the out-takes, a programme about the making of RoS which was very interesting, and Clive Mantle on This Is Your Life. Someone later asked Mark whether they got drunk at the party afterwards. For some reason I’m not surprised, but apparently he and Ray stayed up drinking until the cleaners turned up the next morning!
After lunch Terry and Mark came on stage together and chatted about all sorts of things. Mark told us about the book he’s just finished about a specially designed tarot pack, the Greenwood Tarot. He’d brought pictures of the cards and it sounded very interesting. It should be out in October, if anyone wants to get hold of it. He also told us that recently there had been some interest in a film script he’d written a few years ago called “Pendragon”. He was having to rewrite it a bit, as after it had done the rounds back then some of the plot ideas turned up in other people’s films, including the T-1000 in Terminator 2.
Somebody asked Terry about the work he’d done on Prince of Thieves and he started complaining about poncy art directors who don’t know what they’re doing. Apparently the one on PoT had made some swords which were completely useless because they had large diamond shaped pommels which could break someone’s wrist while they were using the sword. The art director had copied the design from the Bayeux Tapestry - which also shows horses with all four legs in the air at once! This same guy was very pleased with the set design for the final fight between Robin and the Sheriff, the only problem being that the ceiling was only about 6 feet high, which didn’t give them much room to swing their swords. The walls had to be extended several feet to make it workable.
The same sort of thing happened on RoS when the art director decided that the floor of Clun Castle would look much better with peat on it. Unfortunately the peat was wet and slippery and so far too dangerous to stage fights on. It had to be removed and the floor dried before any filming could be done.
Talking to the guests after they had finished on stage they were saying how much fun everybody had when working on RoS and they told us about the sort of tricks people got up to. At one point there was a craze for cream bun fights, which started with someone saying that they thought the cream smelt off. When the poor victim leaned over to have a smell the bun was shoved into their face. This escalated to full scale fights, then one day they picked on some poor assistant director who was walking across a field. They all got in a Land Rover with loads of cream buns, surrounded him in the middle of the field and then pelted him with all the buns until he was covered in cream!
The most bizarre story was about how they helped to make Jason feel welcome when he’d only recently joined the show. He was eating a meal one day when he found a bit of gristle in his meat. He threw the gristle across the room into a bin and carried on with his meal. In the meantime Clive got the gristle out of the bin and put it back on his plate when he wasn’t looking. Jason couldn’t figure out what had happened and he just threw it away again. Clive retrieved it from the bin and, later that day, he managed to slip it into Jason’s coffee! This went on, with Jason throwing it away and Clive getting it back and putting it into his food and drink. In the end Jason buried it, but Clive still managed to find it and kept it in his leather pouch (now you know what’s in there!). A few years after the series had finished they had a reunion and Jason was just finishing a drink when he found a shrivelled bit of gristle at the bottom of his glass! Lovely!
To sum up, the convention was very enjoyable due to the friendliness of the guests and the other attendees, but I think it could have done with a few more activities to break the ice and get people talking to one another. It would also have helped if the guests had been asked a few more questions about their time on RoS by the organisers for those attendees who hadn’t been to a RoS convention before. However, I had a great time and I hope everyone else who went did as well.
This article first appeared in Nothing's Forgotten newsletter issue 4, Aug 1996