NEWS
CHARLES FELLOWS-SMITH
PAGE 37
Film and TV Chiwetel Ejiofor (90-95) was active on the screen throughout the last year, with three major acting credits: The Life of Chuck, Venom: The Last Dance and Rob Peace. The latter was a confirmation of Chiwetel as a triple threat as he wrote, directed and starred in it. Nick Galitzine (06-13) has also been much featured this year. Having achieved international fame for the highly acclaimed Bottoms and Red, White & Royal Blue, Nick starred in Mary & George with Julianne Moore and The Idea of You with Anne Hathaway. Music and Spoken Word Phil Manzanera (60-69) has been a household name as the Roxy Music guitarist; however, he has also enjoyed a stellar solo career that has run parallel with the group’s activities. This year, Phil released a full compendium of his solo work entitled 50 years of Music. Phil was also honored in the King’s Birthday Honours List for his services to music and became an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). Manzanera said of the award: “I’m both surprised and honoured. This has a poignancy for me and my family because in 1966 my dad, Duncan Targett-Adams was also awarded the OBE but sadly he died before his investiture.” Dan Whitlam (08-13) released his debut EP in the spring. Known for his spoken word poetry, Dan has made use of TikTok to make his work more accessible and reach a wider audience. Dan also completed a tour in 2024 which included the much-loved indie festival, All Points East. Theatre Ekow Quartey (01-08) starred in Much Ado About Nothing at the Globe over the summer. Ekow excelled in the five-star production as Benedick, a role whose chemistry with Beatrice is often central to a production’s success. You might have also caught him over the festive period in the Cadbury’s Christmas advert. Edinburgh Fringe 2024 saw OAs performing to an international audience. Harry Sugden (19-24) was part of the company for Alice Diamond and the Forty Elephants , with Lolly Whitney-Low (11-21) as Designer for the same show. Adam Kay (93-98) also returned to the Fringe with a one-night special , Undoctored, reprising his 2023 bestselling show.
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF... Interview by James Coyne, article appeared in The Cricketer
unclear there would be a Super Over in case of a tie. Then we had Trent Boult stepping on the rope and the four extra runs off Ben Stokes's bat... When we got to the end of the Super Overs with the scores level, we rather meekly announced that England had won the World Cup on boundary countback. It was 7.30pm, a sunny evening in mid-July, so in my view they could easily have had another set of Super Overs. The International Cricket Council then changed the rules for the next World Cup anyway! Perhaps the highlight this year was Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) Disability Day. It was a 9am start for the visually impaired match: two squads of blind cricketers with three categorised levels of blindness. B1 players are totally blind and get double runs, so if they hit a boundary, they score eight. There are jingling bells inside the ball, and when it's hit into the outfield fielders start running in different directions until they pick up the sound of the ball. There were some good cricketers there who play international competitions and take it very seriously. I was sitting with the scorers, announcing across the Tannoy to keep the crowds abreast of the rules. Then we had a strong MCC side playing a mixed ECB Chair's Disability XI – including deaf, physical disability and learning disability players – who chased down the runs and won in front of a big crowd. We had a leading deaf signer, Sula Greeson, translating into sign language almost simultaneously what I was saying, projected onto the big screen. After the game we had a fantastic reception in the Long Room – Nathan Lyon came down from Lancashire for the event. It was all a bit nerve-racking, but the day went well. It's been absolutely non-stop cricket for me this summer. I went to Holy Week in Seville, before umpiring The Cricketer Schools 100 tournament at Desert Springs. After that I umpired Westminster School, whose only defeat of the season was a five-run defeat to MCC. Westminster beat their big rivals Charterhouse in the oldest-recorded schools’ fixture, dating back to 1794, older than Eton v Harrow. In July I umpired my 100th MCC match, to go with 240 played and 50 scored – many of them in associate nations. Playing alongside a young Ross Taylor in Eastern Europe in 2002 was a personal highlight. The county and MCC youth sides I umpire are often dominated by South Asian youngsters. I'm also umpiring a lot more girls cricket now, which is a real growth area. The game is changing rapidly from the one I was playing in 40 years ago.
Charles Fellows-Smith (66-75) is a PA announcer and scoreboard operator at Lord's Cricket Ground, who also umpires a range of matches through the summer. I'm part of a crack team working in the Lord's scorebox, overseen by Andy Scarlett. We have an incredible view of the action, high up between the Mound and the Tavern Stands. For a Test match there will be seven or eight people in the box – the two dedicated book scorers and three or four running
the boards. Very often I’ll be on the manual board. We run the manual board during a big game in case the electronic one fails…which it has done! We have technicians there to make sure things are working. I do about 10 days a year as the PA announcer. We're ‘on' all day; especially on the opening day of a first-class match, you must get there very early. If it's a team we haven't seen before sometimes we have to rush over and take photos of the players so we can identify them. If they're fielding on the Grandstand side, they can be 80 yards away. Wales Minor Counties once had a pair of identical twins, and none of the usual distinguishing features – height, bat handles – applied at all! We can talk to the umpires with a walkie-talkie, but we try not to disturb them too much. In one Championship game, Middlesex v Hampshire in 1997, during the tea break we disappeared for a cuppa. When we came back, we thought there'd been a mix- up and that Jamie Hewitt, who'd bowled the last over before tea, was going to bowl again. But in fact, it was Stuart Milburn – similarly tall and blond. Hampshire had declared, but no one had told the scorers! Panic stations as we hurriedly loaded the second innings. This year Cheteshwar Pujara was fielding in front of the Grandstand for Sussex. Lord’s had a big group of Indian visitors in the ground on a guided tour – they wouldn't leave him alone, asking for autographs and photos. I had to ask them to sit down during overs, in a very polite Lord's way of course. At Merchant Taylors' School last year, Middlesex were chasing 323 to beat Northamptonshire and needed three off the last ball. The scoreboard had failed, so I had to explain to the crowd ball by ball how many were needed. It was incredibly tense, and the game ended in a draw with the scores level. I was working the manual board for the 2019 World Cup final. The atmosphere was like nothing I've seen. Everything was so frantic. Many of the crowd were
Writing Ben Keatinge (86-91), winner of the 2022 Patrick Kananagh Poetry Award, has reflected on the Dulwich experience of walking halls that were once also graced by titans of exploration, or ‘Gifted Amateurs’.
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