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Enter the bailiffs, stage left
Benedict Moore-Bridger05.03.09
A play being watched by housing and planning minister Margaret Beckett and a former aide to Prince Charles was almost called off when bailiffs mistakenly started dismantling the set.
The bailiffs came in half an hour before the curtain was due to go up and minutes before Mrs Beckett arrived.
The four men entered the Finborough Theatre in Chelsea, where actors were preparing for the evening performance of Untitled, starring Nichola McAuliffe and Patrick Ryecart, and demanded parts of the set be handed over.
They had been trying to recover £1,400 owed by the downstairs pub's owners to Kensington and Chelsea council but had not realised the theatre was privately leased and a separate entity.
Onlookers told how four bailiffs began taking out tables, chairs and stock, while two ran upstairs to the theatre to remove props for the play.
McAuliffe, who plays American socialite Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor, in the play set in late Seventies Paris, said the bailiffs wanted to stop the production.
She said: "I should have been putting my make-up on and calming down before the performance, but these men were trying to get into the theatre to take our goods. Most of the set came from my dining room.
"Then the crew came out to stop them as well. This was half an hour before the curtain went up, before Margaret Beckett arrived.
"We told them the theatre had nothing to do with the bar but they were not listening. They wanted everything." The drama was only averted when the pub's owner, Tracey Coles, wrote a cheque for the outstanding money using money for employees' wages.
She said: "We were six months behind on our domestic rates taxes. We had offered to make arrangements to pay but it was unacceptable, apparently. I had to use staff pay to get rid of them."
Also in the audience was Prince Charles's party planner and former aide Michael Fawcett, who left Clarence House in 2003.
One onlooker said: "It was remarkable. They were taking out chairs and tables - it was chaos. Everyone was panicking that they would not be able to put on the play.
"I would have liked to have seen the bailiffs trying to throw their weight around with Margarett Beckett's security people." Mrs Beckett said she had not seen the quarrel. She said: "I had to come from the House of Commons and arrived as the play was starting."
Untitled, by South African playwright Lena Farugia, details Mrs Simpson's decaying life as she reflects on the 1936 abdication crisis and its consequences, often confusing her butler, played by Ryecart, with her late husband the Duke of Windsor.
Reader views (4)
nu labour have given baliffs absolute powers. In law, Margaret Beckett's close quarter security could have done nothing to prevent it. We as voters have allowed it!!!
- Steve, London UK
It's going to get worse, very soon, balliffs are to be empowered to break into homes to sieze goods,money and even pets.
The bill has gone through Parliament.
- Frank H., London.
it looks like mr price should do a little bit more home work if bailiffs where never allowed to enter premises then this country would be in a bigger mess then it is now maybe he should contact all the councils in england and ask them how much money the bailiff companys collect on there behalf and then comment.
- Will Rogers, london
Bailiffs are wrong most of the time, these days. They should never be allowed to call for police assistance, or be allowed to enter premises, with, or without an order from the courts
- Keith Price, Luton, England
