Mark Drower and the Everyones: Emma’s memories

Emma’s memories of Mark Drower and the Everyones? Published at the Wud Records website? Seriously?!

Yes, it’s true! One of the original members of The Everyones, Emma Leach, has very kindly written her memories of Mark Drower and the Everyones.

It’s a wonderful piece of writing that is a real joy to read. We highly recommend it.

It has also been tremendous to relive these delightful memories through the lens of her perspective. We already published the memories of Mark Drower and the Everyones by both Pok (which you can enjoy reading by clicking here) and George (which you can enjoy reading by clicking here).

Emma describes many of the events that occured throughout the Everyones period. The events articulated so eloquently in Emma’s memories of Mark Drower and the Everyones were fundamental. The Everyones were highly significant with regards to how the wider Wud posse have become that which we have become today.

These memories seem to be growing more and more precious over the passage of time. It seems hard to believe that it is 39 years since the first legendary performance of Everyone in July 1982. It would be wonderful if more memories happened to be forthcoming, as it was certainly a highly memorable event. Should any more ever come our way, we shall of course let friends and followers know via our News service and on Twitter.

One of the things that Emma mentions in her recollections is some of the fabulous music, chosen by Mark, that was used throughout the show. The music was often accompanied by the performances of three dancers.

Emma mentions 2000 Light Years by the Rolling Stones and how the play opened with Led Zeppelin’s No Quarter. ELP’s Oh Lucky Man, we’re fairly sure, was a new addition for the second series of shows at Exeter Cathedral and it wasn’t included in the original King’s School set of performances.

When Everyone met his muse Treasure, as can be seen in two of the photos, Money by Pink Floyd was the theme to introduce the scene. The photos were taken by George’s friend Giles Staddon who was in the audience. Giles had been armed with George’s parents’ horrible ghastly cheap camera, which he had been forbidden to take with him but he sneaked it out anyway, along with a rotating cubic flash bulb that had only four single shots to it, hence only four photos. How technology has changed in the past 39 years!

Somewhere in the middle of that scene came the song from The Blaze Tape EP, Treasure.

When Everyone was left sat at the front edge of the stage all alone, having been forsaken by the fickle Treasure, burning photocopied fake money, Breadfan by Budgie played. Breadfan began from the middle, at the start of the gentle wistful part with the beautiful guitar and haunting vocal. The three dancers slinked onto the back of the stage in black leotards. As Breadfan cranked up into its classic riff, the dancers became more wild and their performance was the transition to the next scene.

Robert Fripp’s Exposure was used at one point in the performance, as was a Peter Gabriel track.

The play ended to the sound of David Bowie’s Five Years, with Simon jamming along on lead guitar from the gantry with Mark, and the whole cast coming together on stage for a final bow.

The three original dancers were Amanda Drew, Caireen Toms and Adrienne Law. Amanda moved away to Leicester to study theatre over that summer and was replaced for the Exeter Cathedral performances by Jo Wilson.

Although we lost touch with Caireen, Adrienne and Jo a very long time ago, we know Amanda went on to enjoy a very successful career in acting. She works mostly in the theatre and has also appeared many times in popular uk tv dramas such as EastEnders and The Bill. She also starred in a highly memorable award-winning advert where she played a young mother having a tantrum in a supermarket, shocking her young daughter. Amanda is also known for her tremendous work as a redoubtable champion of retired racing greyhounds.

If you’d like to read and see more about Amanda, here’s a link to her Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Drew

If you would like to read Emma’s memories of Mark Drower and the Everyones, please click here. You can listen to the beautiful songs Mark composed at the same time. ;-)

If you would like to follow Emma on Twitter @emlovesherlife, please click here.

To enjoy listening to Emma’s most recent musical project, Strange New Things, click here to open her SoundCloud page.