To celebrate Andy Nyman and Jeremy Dyson’s new thriller The Psychic opening at York Theatre Royal this week, we have a guest blog from William Hussey, author and Showman consultant for The Psychic.
Discover the history of Showmen and delve deeper into the world at the heart of The Psychic, in the guest blog from William below.
Roll up, roll up, you ’andsome joskins! I can see that wad of posh in your pocket, which means you’re most welcome on our ground. Now, I ain’t no dinlo, so trust me when I tell ya – this here show is somethin’ astounding rare! Thrills to chill! Jokes that’d make a cat laugh! And horrors downright mullardy!
So step right this way!
If you dare…
Variations on this patter echo down the years, a Showman spiel spoken by my father and grandfather – Bill ‘Bodge’ Hussey and John ‘Fats’ Hussey – to pull in the punters to their rides and stalls. Not just Showmen either. Formidable forces-of-nature, Show-women remain the backbone of every fair. The unquestioned matriarch, the barker on her hoopla, the dookerer in her fortune telling tent – a place where fate can be made and remade by these sharp-eared, eagle-eyed, no-nonsense daughters of Delphi.
Like generations of my forebears, I grew up on the fair. A vibrant, vivid, vivacious community that can trace its roots through ancient Goose Fairs all the way to the jongleur — those travelling storytellers who toured medieval Britain, trailing myth and merriment in their wake. And, like those itinerant ancestors who passed through towns and villages as enchanting enigmas, modern Showpeople still allow the public only a glimpse at their hidden way of life.
I think joskins – those not of ‘the life’ – instinctively understand this. Perhaps it even accounts for some of the allure of the fair. The punter, excitedly handing over their token to the swaggering entertainer who treads the boards of his Waltzer with a dancer’s grace, knows that the Showman will always remain unknown to them. But unknown how?
There’s the language, of course. That slippery argot that’s peppered throughout the play. The origin of some of these words are lost to the mists of Showland history, so that even we cannot unearth them with any degree of certainty. But they act almost as a talisman, keeping the community insular and the outsider at bay.
Mystery pervades the fairground. It always has. The manufactured hokum of yesteryear – a ‘mermaid’ cobbled together from a stuffed monkey and a pickled dolphin’s tail. The queasy mirror marvels and mechanical deceptions of a walk-through spook house.
And then there are more elaborate sleights of hand.
My great-grandfather was a one-time partner of Tom Norman, the legendary ‘Silver King’ – friend of Joseph Merrick, the ‘Elephant Man’. An amusing little vignette and true, for what it’s worth: it is 1889 and Great Grandpa Hussey and Mr Norman wish to run a novelty show on Whitechapel High Street. And so, done up in their best whistles and titfers, off they saunter to the property agent who holds keys for several shops in the locality. They claim to be businessmen from some northern mill town, down for the weekend to inspect commercial premises. Is that parade of empty stores in the East End available? It is? Excellent! After a quick shufty at the gaff, these swells will take up the lease.
What? It’s Friday and almost closing time? Well, Mr H and Mr N don’t want to put our hardworking agent to any trouble. Hand over the keys and, following a weekend perusal, they will return on Monday morning with a cheque made out for a year’s rent.
And so the wily Showmen hotfoot it back to Whitechapel to open their show in said premises – ‘The Electric Lady! The Fat Woman of Wimbledon! The Dog-Faced Boy of Peckham! A gen-hew-ine recreation of Jolly Jack’s most gruesome murders!’ They take a fortune (without a farthing expenditure on rent, thank you kindly!), returning the key to the bewildered agent promptly on Monday morning… but with the sad news that the premises are, after all, unsuitable for their needs.
Crafty, but Showpeople have always lived by their wits, and then, as now, the life is a hard one.
Which brings us to another pair of wily customers. Some sense of the strange, the outlandish, the outré continues to cling to the fairground and its people. And it is this sensibility that infuses the play. Like the very best Showpeople, Messrs Dyson and Nyman are the canniest of operators. They can spin a yarn to entice, enthral and — I ain’t moodying you here — scare the bejesus out of you!
But most of all, they have been faithful to the Showfolk. I know this because, early in the development of the script, they asked me to run an eye over The Psychic. I can’t tell you how refreshing it was to work with writers determined to represent the community as it really is – with all its innate charm, liveliness and, perhaps most importantly, its mystery.
The Psychic is at York Theatre Royal from 29 Apr – 23 May.
Find out more information and book your tickets here.
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