Characters who made a hilarious name for themselves

There’s a book coming out soon about the history of Bath Arts Workshop and its contribution to alternative culture in the 1970s.

Way before it went independent and elevated itself to its salubrious position on Widcombe Hill, the Natural Theatre Company was an integral component of the Workshop’s cultural empire in Walcot.

I’m not sure if room has been found in the book for a complete list but I believe attention has been brought to the theatre company’s propensity for hilarious names for their myriad comic characters.

Here’s a selection, minus a few too rude for publishing out of context:

■ Brian Limpley and Courtney Bending: a pair of simply ghastly theatre critics featured in the BBC documentary about the company, filmed of course in the Theatre Royal bar. Add to them the ridiculously plummy Brian Sewage (so acerbic he came as a pair of identical twins) and you have the entire art establishment targeted!

■ Gloria Swansong: faded Hollywood film star.

■ Douglas Bloodbanks Junior: another Hollywood icon on his last legs reduced to opening provincial shopping malls and Ms Swansong’s 17th husband.

■ General Knitting-patton: a nukethe-lot-of-them military man who ruled Walcot Nation festival for just one day before being ousted by the Emperor Highly Unlikely who, before anyone gets all politically correct, was a spoof on wicked dictators such as Idi Amin rather than his Holiness.

Not that we baulked at poking fun at revered religious figures. I remember The Flying Pope at the City of London Festival.

The flying bit was me in full papal regalia leaping from a great height into the arms of six terrified vestal virgins chosen from the audience.

Other characters included famous female detective Maigret Rudderford who in the show had little pieces of sandpaper glued to her personage and the set so that she could light her Holmesian meerschaum pipe at any given moment.

Musical characters, of which there were many, included music hall trooper Tilly Lamp and ultrasmooth French crooner Sasha Asnovoice.

Not to forget of course the company’s biggest super star Rocky Ricketts whose never-ending come back tour was aided and abetted by his trusty manager and exotic dancer Vince Pube.

Diana Toss and the Chicken Supremes are probably best forgotten but fruity theatrical knight Sir Nempnett Thrubwell offered us many a memorable cameo.

Named for the hamlet in Chew Valley, Sir Nempnett proves the company’s theory that you can pick almost any village in Somerset and Dorset and create a famous thespian whom you haven’t quite heard of. It’s great fun trying to match them with their trademark role.

Thus Wyke Champflower excelled in Chekhovian roles, Fisherton De La Mare specialised in romantic leads, and who can forget Compton Pouncefoot’s Hamlet? And as for Rodney Stokes kitchen sink anti-heroes of the 1960s!

Best of all, perhaps, were the two larger than life opera singers Dame Clara Boot and Dame Nelly Tesco who could empty an arts centre theatre in five minutes and whose combined top notes could shatter a champagne glass at forty paces thanks to our special effects department!