STAGECRAFT AT TYBURN

Preface: this is a pretty horrible piece. Don't read it unless you have a strong stomach and are not prone to nightmares.

STAGECRAFT AT TYBURN

So you are my new boys are you? You look as though you're freezing. Come and gather round the brazier. Tomorrow it's your job to get it started and to work up a good heat by the time I arrive and to keep it going as long as we're here. Collect your wood from the Master of the Royal Combustibles first thing. He'll be expecting you.

So, my lads, what are we all here for? Would I be correct in saying that you want to go on the stage? You look puzzled. Well, here you are, you're on the stage. It's only a rehearsal because we don't yet have the principal players. Unless you count me, of course. Tomorrow we'll have them. The ones the audience comes to see.

Oh no, it's not that kind of stage. But look at it. It's a stage all right. Right? I am a theatregoer. I go to the Globe, the Rose and the Curtain. My favourite players are The Lord Chancellor's Men. What I like about this theatre is that this is the theatre of The Queen's Men. And who knows but one day we might play our play with the Lord Chancellor himself in a leading role. Now there’s a thought!

Now to business. You my fine lads are my bound apprentices. This is your first day and I'm going to take you through tomorrow's procedures. Tomorrow is the real thing. The performance. The performance of our duty.

The first time is always difficult. I won't think ill of you if you weaken but do what I tell you and it will be all right. It was all right for me when I was indentured and it will be for you.

But, before I start I’d like you to have a thought on the future. Where are we going? What is our ambition? Professional recognition is our ambition. Oh yes. There is a ladder to be climbed. You are, today, on the first rung. I am many rungs up that ladder. If tomorrow goes well then I shall be rewarded with full membership of our Company which will make me eligible one day to be on the Council. You look puzzled. On the Council of the Worshipful Company of Hangers, Drawers and Quarterers, that’s what! One of the City guilds! And this glorious future can be yours. But you have to work hard. If I am offered this recognition it will mean that I shall have successfully carried out no fewer than fifty dramatic productions and my name will be a byword amongst our audiences. I shall be entitled to wear the badge of our Guild which bears our crest. I can’t do all the Latin faldedoodle but what you’ll see on the crest is a noose suspended, two crossed hook knives, a brazier and a cleaver. And down at the bottom the skull and crossbones. And thought of that glittering future is something that has sustained me throughout my life. One day, who knows? I might even be elected Master of the Company and wear fine vestments with an ermine collar. Lads, such ambition will sustain you over the years ahead. I am delighted to be the man chosen to introduce you to a noble craft.

Let’s begin!

You've seen this kind of theatrical performance before, I'll wager. You wouldn't be here if you hadn't. You might even have seen me in action! What brought you here, I wonder? It can't have been the costume. A leather apron, a pair of boots and a pair of thick, leather gloves. That's all. You'll need gloves and boots for tomorrow. I see you've got them. Good. There’ll be aprons for you tomorrow. You'll pay for them out of your first week's wages.

Let me tell you about our mystery. The mystery of our craft.

The first scene of the first act does not take place on this stage. It takes place - it took place - two days ago when one of my other lads took a small bag of money to the Head Gaoler. This was to pay for the purging. You didn’t know about the purging did you?

You see, the principal players come to the stage empty. They are fed nothing for these past two days, nor tonight, nor tomorrow morning. And they are purged so that nothing of a foul nature exists in their bodies. That’s the Gaoler’s job. And don't ever forget to pay the Gaoler - or you'll regret it! Ooh, it brings tears to the eyes just to think of it. They’ve got to be cleared out. And what about the foulness in their minds you might well ask. Well, they soon get separated from that. So what you see coming up the steps of this stage to start our play are men who could not shit themselves with fear no matter what their apprehension.

There's three on stage tomorrow. And by the time they arrive we've got to have everything ready. The gibbet will be in place, over there at the front. The table goes centre stage. The tools laid out on that bench. The brazier roaring and close enough to keep us warm and - to do a bit of cooking.

The ropes are in a sack that I'll bring. They are my ropes. I'll see to them.

They come to us wearing only shifts. Like white nightgowns. Nothing underneath. They are wearing these things for - would you believe it? - modesty. Now the crowd - the audience - is soon going to see everything they've got. So where does the modesty come into it? Well, they are going to be hanging from those ropes and when those ropes take their weight their John Thomases are going to rise to the occasion in a most impressive way. Nobody knows why it happens but it’s as though it’s the body having one last fling. You look amazed. It’s true. Sometimes the result is, how can I express this delicately? Explosive. It's better covered up.

Hanging. You can kill someone by hanging them by the neck. This is what we do not set out to do. We hang them so that they nearly die. We hang them to the point where they can't struggle and can't be a nuisance to us. Three minutes usually does the job but if you want to be kind give 'em five and they are more or less past it.

Now with three you've got a choice. Put them all up together. The audience loves that. All jiggling around and going blue in the face. But we can only do the rest of the business one at a time so if you pluck one and lay him on the table the other two are still hanging and getting so close to their Maker you don't get the required dramatic effect when you get to do them. You want a bit of life in them but not too much if you get my meaning.

If you take 'em all down at the same time you've got the risk that the two 'gentlemen in waiting' as I call them, start to recover and then you lose all the benefits of the hanging and you might even have to start again with them.

Or you do one at a time, from the hanging through to what we call the ‘wet work’. That means you've got two watching what you are doing to number one all shivering in their shifts. Then when we do number two you've got the one left - he's watched the performance twice over. It's real punishment for their sins. What I do is put them in order of their wickedness. If there's a young one and he's been influenced by the other two I do him first and I give him a bit more time on the rope. Who goes first is a matter of my professional judgement.

Tomorrow we'll hang all three together and give them plenty of time. We'll take them down together and deal with them accordingly. I think it's only fair to you on your first performance.

And  I'm going to add another character to the cast. I don't normally do it but with doing all three together there is a distinct risk that we might be a bit shy, a bit short, of screaming. The audience likes a good scream. it's part of the show but if I hang 'em long enough to make them ... passive there's a chance that we when we get to the knife work we might only get groans and they don't carry. The audience don't hear groans at all well, So tomorrow we're going to be joined by a fellow we call Sam the Screamer.

You'll know it's Sam by his hood. He'll wear the usual apron, boots and gloves but he has a big hood on his shirt that comes right forward so the audience can't see his face when he bends his head down. He'll seem to join in with what we do but he won't actually do very much. 'Tell the truth he's a bit what we call 'knife-shy'. He'll just be there. And if we don't get a real old scream when we get down to the cutting then that's where Sam comes in. He can do a scream that'll make 'em jump in Greenwich. And the audience can't see him doing it because of the hood. It's a good dramatic effect is the screaming, d'you see? Always think of the audience. Send them away happy.

Now what happens next is not just a matter of being beastly to these men – although Heaven only knows they deserve it. Can you guess why it has to be done? Can you? No takers? It’s a matter of tidiness, practicality and fairness. There now. What’s going to be the end result of all this butchery? It’s going to be four big lumps of meat nailed up in four different places as a warning to others, as a way of showing what happens to traitors. You don’t want … stuff … falling down on to the heads of law-abiding citizens do you? So we’ve got to get rid of all the bits that might drop down. That’s the bits inside and the bits that dangle. They’ve got to go.

And don’t want those big lumps falling down, do you? You want the nails to go through something solid. Flesh won’t do. It’s too weak and it rots. Bone. Imagine we’ve got a man lying here and we are about to quarter him. Top lefthand bit. Top righthand bit. What do they have in common? A shoulder blade, that’s what. It’s made for the nail. Last a lifetime. Bottom lefthand bit? You’ve got it. You’ve got the hip bone. Perfect for nailing. Thin but strong. If the Good Lord hadn’t made us they way he did we could be in a right pickle.

The head. There you are splitting the body right up the middle and suddenly, there you are, there’s a head. You can’t just cut it into two pieces, no-one would recognise it afterwards and it would be ... untidy. If you leave it there is it going to go with the left bit or the right bit? People would complain if they didn’t get the head with their lump of meat when another borough did get it. Not fair they’d say. Better to cut it off. That’s tidy, practical and fair.

Now to our business tomorrow.

So, you've got your men down. I'll point to the one we'll do first. So strip off his shift. Roll it up carefully and put it in the bag. Don't want it getting too dirty. It has a commercial value for us. Sentimental souvenir. People will clamour to buy it from us. It’s ours to sell. We share. I get two thirds, you share the rest. Put him on the table. He's incapable of movement but he's alive and conscious.

All you two do is secure him. Hold him if he wriggles. Don't mind if he screams. It's all part of the show. Don't get close to his teeth or you’ll be sorry.

Now I don't like this bit but it's laid down by the Crown. Keep one hand on his shoulder and put the other on his knee – pull ‘em open and, see that bucket there? - kick the bucket over so it's underneath his crotch. I will lean over him and pull hard on his privatees, everything, the full tackle, and before you can say knife, it's up with the blade and it's all in my leather-gloved hand.

I won't mind if you look away. But make sure that bucket is in position. When I make that cut I go for the arteries as well. Getting that blood out of him makes for a tidier job and makes him more able to cope with what's to come. We don't want that blood on the floor and I don't want it on my boots, thank you very much.

At this moment if you are going to get another scream out of him this is when you'll get it. The audience expects it. If you don't then I'll cue in Sam.

You'll see me hold up the bloody mess for the audience. I then hold it where he can see it - and I drop it all on the brazier. Sizzle. Sizzle. He's not seeing anything at this stage but I'll grab his hair and turn his face so it looks as if he can see what's happening to his precious equipment. That's part of our orders. Personally I think it's disgusting.

Expect a burst of applause from the audience here. Don’t acknowledge it. No bowing. Be professional.

Then with the short sharp knife I make an incision either just above his bush or below his rib cage. In goes the hook knife and its either up or down. The hook knife is not sharp underneath so it doesn't cut the innards - and you definitely don't want to cut the innards. It’s the watchword of our craft – Don’t cut the gut.

Now I know anatomy and what I'll do next requires knowledge of anatomy. I'll reach in to the lower part of his body cavity and I'll find the bit that connects to his arse-hole. Up with the hook knife and I've got the lowest bit of his innards in my hand. This is when you thank the Lord they did the purging. Now we have this simple device that we call ‘The Artist’. It’s just a piece of wood with a couple of nails stuck right through. I’ll want you two to stand on either side of him holding ‘The Artist’. I pull up this bit of chitterling and I hang it on the two nail points. Then you two start to wind - both in the same direction if you don't mind. Turn your hands in the direction of his feet then you won’t go wrong. And there you are, drawing him. See why we call it ‘The Artist’? It’s probably the only bit of humour you’ll come across in the practice of our mystery.

If our fellow performer still has a singe breath of life in his body he will lose it in the next few minutes. He may well have lost it when we cut off his privatees. Anyway, you go on drawing him. There's a technique. Pull and then roll. Pull and roll. Don't worry, he won't wriggle. Not now he won't.

So you two are standing there with a reel of guts and pulling and rolling. I help you out. I reach into his rib cage and make another cut with the hook knife - and its all free. Then what do you do? What are you going to do with this horrible roll of giblets?

On this stage and in my executions we dispose by burning. It stinks something terrible but its better than giving it to the dogs as some of my professional colleagues favour. Can you imagine the mess? But you do it later, after the audience has dispersed. They used to try to load all the guts onto the brazier while they were still connected the notion being that this would increase the unhappiness of the fellow. Stupid. The fellow’s well past it and – back to practicalities – it takes forever to get the stuff all burned up. The method I use and recommend to you is to cut everything free and deal with it later. Unwind it into a sack - remember to bring sacks when you collect the wood for the brazier - and get The Artist ready for his next appearance.

We leave everything else in. Liver, lights, kidneys. When the upper quarters are displayed in full public view the birds come and eat those. The heart? Well, it has symbolic status so although we could leave it in and it would not really impair the quartering it's my job to reach in and … tear it out. You need a strong right arm for this but with judicious use of the old hook knife you can get it free. I'll hold it up and I'll shout out something like, 'Behold The Heart Of A Traitor!' and that will get another round of applause.

Then off comes the head. You don't need an axe. I can do it in half a minute with the small sharp knife, the chisel and the mallet. See that pile of stakes over there? You, yes you, grab one and hold it upright with the sharp end uppermost and the blunt end held firmly down onto the stage. I pick up the head. I turn the face to the audience and shoogle it about a bit. I shout out 'Behold The Head Of A Traitor' in a fine theatrical manner. Then I turn and ram it down on the point of the stake and there it is, stuck. You take the stake and stick it in one of the holes at the side of the stage. You keep a straight face, mind you. No playing up to the audience. No mugging.

What happens to the head? I hear you ask. It’s going to go up on a spike somewhere or other. London Bridge maybe. Traitors’ Gate is favourite if there’s space. It’s got to be treated or else it’ll only last a few days when those ravens get to work. It’s sort of pickled, preserved, and then coated with tar. It’s not something we do. That another craft. A lesser craft. They don’t have a Guild like us.

The rest is butchery, plain and simple. I don't do it then and there. We'll see to it when the last poor soul has coughed his last. You two pick up the corpse and put it at the back of the stage and then we're ready to do the next one. And the next one. It’s all in a day’s work.

When the last head goes on display is when we three take a bow. First I come forward and take my applause. I extend my arms and you two join me on either side. We bow together. We extend our right hands in the direction of any royalty or nobility that might be present. We bow again. For those brief moments we are stars. And then, when our audience drifts off looking for refreshment we do our butchery, burn up the chitterlings and we clear up the bloody mess. And then we wash our hands.

Off you go now. Make sure you have a good breakfast on the morrow!