Friday 23 May 2014 Jane Bower (OG73) was delighted to discover nine classmates among the audience when she was guest speaker at the Old Girls’ Club London spring meeting. The OGs had travelled from near and far – including Switzerland – to hear Jane (pictured front, third left) describe how she ended up acting on a West End stage with Maureen Lipman. Jane, a former teacher who now tutors at Cambridge University’s Faculty of Education where she teaches on the Early Years and PGCE courses in art, drama and dance, noted that her years of standing at the front of the classroom were invaluable to her time treading the boards. She said: “Teachers perform all day long, and perform largely alone”. Between lessons and teaching jobs which took her all over the world including Dubai, India and Peru, Jane has written several books and two plays. Her talk included two performances. The first monologue Old Girls’ School Reunion, from the one-woman show she penned on the life and work of Joyce Grenfell, was met with ironic laughter from her audience; while the second performance, Doctors and Diets by Ruth Draper was the monologue she performed for Maureen Lipman when they first met in June 2006. Maureen, a seasoned impersonator of Grenfell, later invited Jane to act alongside her in Jane’s second play, My Name with Yours, which wove together the stories of Joyce Grenfell and her inspiration, Ruth Draper. With Maureen reprising her role as Joyce and Jane playing Ruth, the play was performed at the Stables Theatre, Milton Keynes on July 11, 2010, to mark the centenary of Joyce’s birth. Just three weeks before the performance Jane moved to a cramped flat in London to begin daily rehearsals for the play under the direction of Peter Cregeen. During the numerous rewrites she and Maureen endured, Jane realised how different their agendas were for the performance: she to teach, Maureen to entertain. Jane admitted that she agonised as the actress strayed from the facts, but eventually admitted defeat as Maureen quipped: “Look, love – if it gets a laugh, it goes in!” The play’s producer was Richard Price, a former pupil at Leeds Grammar School, who also produced Mamma Mia and Oklahoma. He told Jane that this performance would be a one-off to test audience reaction. If it was a success, he said, it would need a bigger name to sell it. Jane said: “He asked if I would find performing the play only once deeply frustrating and disappointing. “I said that I never even thought I’d meet Maureen Lipman, never mind any of this – anything was a bonus. I knew my place and my feet were firmly on the ground – good LGHS training!” Alumni
