The John Griff Column: When collaboration gets the job done…
If you’re a regular consumer of this piece (thank you!), you’ll rapidly appreciate that the picture accompanying it is rather different to what normally appears in the pages of this fine weekly title. Four men – in black – and apparently soaked to the skin in places. And yet, all four of them have grins on their faces, however wry they might seem. Who are they? They are artisans and saviours.
With a month to go before the big day - and no – I don’t mean Black Friday, which appears to have morphed into at least a week of frenzied retail marketing - last Saturday saw the annual switching on of the festive lights throughout the town centre. Accompanied by Father Christmas himself no less, the town’s Mayor, Councillor Jane Birch, pushed the button in front of the panto casts from both the Old Savoy (Beauty and the Beast) and Royal & Derngate (Peter Pan) – and a gathered crowd of thousands. The fact that they did was nothing short of remarkable, bordering on miraculous. The photo here gives a clue as to why.
The Fabulous Four were part of the tech team brought in by Northampton Town Council to erect and then man the mobile stage which dominated the top end of the Market Square – they just happened to be standing together when I took my picture. This happened after what was, I think, the eighth time that Mother Nature had wreaked havoc on the stage equipment’s power supply, tripping the safety breakers and plunging everything into both silence and near darkness on a day bereft of any sight of the sun. You can’t mistake the tell-tale signs of a trip taking place – there’s a loud click (not a bang really) and everything stops happening. Mercifully it didn’t happen to any of the performers who had been booked to appear on the day – except me as stage host. For me, it happened three times. In quick succession. Mid-sentence.
So why is this soggy quartet a bunch of saviours? Simply, because they immediately went to work, getting the power on again as quickly as they could. Out of the setup came all of the blown fuse equipment. Then, they reworked the setup so that the show could continue, all the while mitigating the effects of the weather in an attempt to prevent the same thing happening again. And when it did – repeatedly – they simply set to once more, reworking and restoring the infrastructure so that performers could perform and that the all-important time constraint for the actual switching on of the lights was met. Which it was. At no point did anyone get flustered. Instead, wet through as they were, they did the professional thing as a team, covering for each other and watching out for hazards. The hazards were real – wet rain and high power electrics do not make for happy bedfellows, so to see the way everyone worked together was really quite something. In truth I wasn’t that surprised to see all of this unfolding in front of me. Stage Right is a local company which has for years delivered many events up and down the UK and further afield, from its Northampton base. I’ve worked with them before and whatever the weather, they deliver – as do similar county based businesses. This was a bit different though – if water can get into electrics, it will. What you do to restore the show – and how you go about doing it – is the test which they passed with flying colours, even as the rain continued to fall. In the final analysis though, they – and our performers - made it possible for the old adage to ring true once more – the show did indeed go on.
Now, it’s nice to say thank you to the individuals of the tech crew who frequently go unsung and yet who delivered every bit as much as the performers under the stage lights did – me included. Truly, we couldn’t have done it without you. Thanks guys.
It was the same sentiment last night at the Royal Theatre in Guildhall Road when the 2025 Northamptonshire Community Foundation Awards were announced in front of an invited audience. Now in their 50th year of existence, Community Foundations the length and breadth of the UK support local communities and groups with modest grant funding that is multiplied in value many times over through the effects of volunteer activity. Since it began in 2001, NCF has itself provided over £24 million through the generosity of others. That work saves a fortune for the Chancellor and the public purse – it also achieves what it does with remarkable efficiency. Most of the winners announced would hide from the limelight – the awards ceremony did more than hand out trophies – it provided it’s own stage to both entertain, hopefully instruct and maybe inspire similar activity in the years which follow. Collaboration really does work – as does a shared vision. The need for it will never end. Thank you to those who quietly do so much for others.
Even when it pours.