Look what I just found!!! You, me, Stephen, and Mother starring in a children's book, "Let's Go to a Theatre," thanks to your friend, the photographer, Marc Henrie!

Thanks to YouTube, your great acting skills can be viewed for ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvBLMmypt2w

Produced and directed by Peter Norman. This short film tells the story of one man's (Ray Mansell) descent into possible madness, caused by his obsession with a beggar lady and her painting, "The Passion". The original short story by Brian Philip Heard won first prize in Torrevieja's 2007 International writing competition.

I just came across your short story that was published in the Costa Blanca's TV Choice magazine in January, 2012. You had so many great short story ideas! I particularly loved the storylines you developed when you were in Casaverde. Your mind was active until the very end!

To read this story, click on the image and then click on the 1:1 button underneath the image to expand it to the actual size. 

You were so productive in the last few years of your life! It's great that writing this article gave you the opportunity to combine your two loves: theater and teaching. It's also wonderful that the article was so well-received. You deserved it!

To read Ray's article, follow this link:

https://tinyurl.com/lcrf8ey

by Ray Mansell

My background is Theatrical - from performer to Management. I certainly wasn’t academic at school, but aged 12, I attended a special morning matinee for selected schools of Laurence Olivier’s brilliant film version of Hamlet (1948) – ‘the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind’ to quote the film’s introduction. I emerged from the cinema into a foggy Park Lane transformed. I had discovered the joy of Shakespeare.

I auditioned successfully for the school Drama Society – something that functioned outside school hours. Thanks to its outstanding Producer, Tom Graham, I learnt basic stagecraft – how to motivate my actions and dialogue. Due to his guidance I was able to gain a scholarship to the R.A.D.A (The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art) shortly after my 17th birthday. From there I began a humble career as a young jobbing actor, singer and stage manager. I was about to get married and in search of a less precarious form of employment, I trained in cinema management. Fortuitously I was promoted to Head Office Publicity Department, invaluable experience when I later became Business and General Manager of a theatre in Chesterfield.

Once again Sir Laurence Olivier played a critical role in my life. Following his appointment as the first Artistic Director of the new Chichester Festival theatre (1962) he formed the nucleus of the soon to be established National Theatre in London. I wrote an application letter to him asking if he could use my services when the time came to move into the new building on the South Bank of the Thames. Although he couldn’t offer me a job directly, my letter was passed on to Granada Television and I was accepted for their Story Department in 1963 – this proved to be my stepping stone to becoming a Television Script Editor/writer for a decade. In 1983 I returned to being a Theatre Manager – in Chichester, of all places, where I met Lord Olivier when he came to visit his wife, Joan Plowright, who was starring in a production there; this provided me with the chance to thank him for the inspirational role he had played in my life. After 4 years in Chichester I returned to London and became the Manager of Her Majesty’s Theatre for the first 18 months of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA until I was offered the chance to move to the London Palladium.

In 1988, I felt I needed a change of direction and decided to start a new life in Plymouth, Devon. I began teaching adults: ‘Presentation Skills’ and ‘Writing for TV, Film and Stage’. To gain a qualification I enrolled on the Certificate in Education. When I completed the part-time 2 year course, at the University of Plymouth, I was offered the opportunity to stay on as a Tutor.

Little wonder then that for me theatre and classroom are closely aligned... 

After Ray’s theatrical training at RADA, he went out into the world of theatre where he got a job on tour in the chorus of “The Pajama Game”, which in turn led to a small part in one of those most memorable British TV SciFi dramas of the 1950's that had the nation watching from behind the sofas - “Quatermass and the Pit”.

Ray changed career, managing an ABC cinema in the Old Kent Road which was a challenge for any manager, as it was a bit on the rough side - one of the patrons, for example, lit a small bonfire in the auditorium. Ray came to the attention of the head office as someone who had talent and soon found himself in the publicity department helping promote the new films for showing in the cinemas, which could be a task in itself, as some were not very good!

Ray’s talents were seriously under-used and he moved literally across the road to work at Granada TV's London office where he worked as a Reader of new scripts, and one of those he came across that showed promise was written by Fay Weldon. Ray moved on to writing scripts himself for the soaps, which included Coronation Street, Emmerdale Farm and Crossroads, as well as working as a script editor. He then got promoted to producer when he joined the BBC and was given the task of producing a new soap called “United” about a football team, which on paper should have worked - the men would watch for the football the women would watch for the stories. Sadly the program just didn't work; however, Ray went on later to work on another soap called “Castle Haven” for Yorkshire TV set in Whitby, with Kathy Staff and Roy Barraclough. Ray then decided to have another career change and moved back to his first love--the theatre--this time into management.

His work in theater management included working at Chesterfield, moving onto the St. Martin’s Theatre in London (Home of Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap” - the world’s longest running play), and Chichester Festival Theatre before returning to London at Her Majesty’s Theatre for the opening of a new musical, “The Phantom of the Opera” which became the hottest ticket in town. This show attracted many celebrities who came to see it, giving Ray the opportunity to meet many performers whom he'd long admired from Hollywood's golden age (the photo is of Esther Williams visiting "Phantom" at Her Majesty's Theatre in 1987). Presented with a new venture, he then moved on to the world’s most famous theatre, the London Palladium.

Ray also wrote for Radio and Children's TV and went on to write with Paul Benn, the comedy series “Bootle Saddles” set in Apache Wells, Lancashire - a town based on the Old West, built with little money by a couple from Blackpool, where you could go and dress up as a cowboy and relive the period. It became the number one show on BBC2 when it was broadcast.

In later life, Ray changed career again into a long held interest in education.

What would a memorial of your life be without mention of your time at RADA, with such influential classmates as Albert Finney and Peter O'Toole. I recall you telling me that Peter O'Toole was the most exciting actor you'd ever been on stage with and that,"one basked in the glow of his extraordinay talent, simply standing beside him. We also did some classroom scenes as exercises together (sometimes I would Direct him and sometimes vice versa.) We had a lot of wild all night parties and if Peter got out of hand and aggressive, the group would ask me to calm him down as I was the only one he wouldn't turn on when he was drunk." 

How lucky I had this historic document to post along with this memory: A 1954 cast list of a show you were in with Albert Finney and Peter O'Toole! 

I am so happy that the last article you wrote was published in time for you to enjoy yet another academic publishing success! I know how hard you worked on this article and I hope it will be enjoyed by readers for years to come and truly help to make an impact on teacher education.

http://www.collegequarterly.ca/2013-vol16-num04-fall/mansell.html