Yakkers

We drove down South for Christmas last night.

It was a good journey, soundtracked by a Christmas song playlist which enabled us to dub Christmas Time by the Backstreet Boys as the Worst Christmas Song Ever.

Conversely, my personal belief is that Christmas Time (Don’t Let The Bells End) by The Darkness is the Greatest Christmas Song Ever.

The pre-Christmas excitement was slightly reined in today however, with the news that a friend; Simon “Yakkers” Yaxley, had died the day before. Whilst we weren’t particularly close and I hadn’t seen him in a while, I had always enjoyed our time together on the amateur stage, particularly when I played Holmes to his Watson in The Hound of the Baskervilles a few years back.

He always seemed to be in several productions at once, whilst maintaining his job as a local radio DJ, and I never knew how he was able to juggle everything and do it all so very very well.

I’ve felt a little numb today as his passing is a total shock to all those who knew him - which judging by the Facebook feed was basically EVERYONE in the North West. The saving grace has been that same outpouring of love and affection from all quarters for him and I truly hope that he was aware of just how much everybody thought of him.

Slight cheat on today’s photo as it is a screenshot of a promo photo taken for a pre-pandemic production of Aladdin where I played Widow Twanky and he was Abanazar.

This was the only time I ever saw him struggle on stage. He felt he just wasn’t clicking with the audience. The reason? He was being far too nice for a bad guy!! I told him that as the Dame, my job was to be the audience’s friend, his job as the Villain was to make them hate him and they will love him for it. He made the necessary adjustments, terrified the bejesus out of the children and was absolutely brilliant as ever!!

It was the last production I was in with him.

Rest in peace, you lovely man.