The occasion was the celebration of Shakespeare’s 400th Birthday, for which there was to be a special open day where members of the public could stand on the stage and deliver well known lines from the bard’s plays or join in with short, adlibbed scenes. This would be followed in the evening by a performance of impromptu acting which would be directed by Ken Campbell whose brainchild the evening was.

Ken Campbell, comic genius writer, performer, director and antic visionary. Ken had seen us perform previously and had been looking for an opportunity to include Dog Dancing in one of his productions. He is passionate about dogs.

In March, we travelled to meet with Elaine and Keddy, the two actresses we would be working with on the day. The mid-point for the meeting was Macclesfield where we all trooped down to the local park so that they could see exactly what we do with our dogs. It was at this point that Keddy informed us she had an allergy to dogs and that in the past she had only had a tortoise for a pet. We carefully introduced them to Kes, Fly, Ginnie, Tipp and Spice and set about showing exactly what our dogs were capable of doing so that we could work out with them something suitable for the show. We demonstrated the different moves and then ran through a routine which we thought would be suitable for the show. Elaine and Keddy watched carefully and took video footage of our display and plenty of notes so that they could produce a sketch around our performance. We left them several hours later with plenty to think about and with an idea of the scenes which would involve our dog “actors”.

The next time we met was a month later, in the Globe Theatre on the Friday prior to the performance day. We had been invited to attend a press conference and afterwards we would have a period set aside to rehearse with Elaine and Keddy. The day was somewhat confused with timings, a little loose to say the least, but we did our best to fit in with everybody and attempted to please the press with the film and stills that they required. It can be very frustrating working with people who know nothing about animals, let alone dog training… but I think we eventually found some middle ground! Short clips showing our dancing dogs were televised on BBC during Friday night to promote The Globe Theatre.

We were then introduced to the London Borough Inspectors who had to issue a licence for our dogs to appear on stage. After many questions and a visit to our transport and dressing room to check the “dog’s rest areas” we were given the all clear to perform.

The evening performance began at 7:30pm. The audience was gathered around the semi circular stage. There was so much laughter and cheering as the actors made their way through the first half. The scene we were involved in marked the end of Act 1. Elaine, as the dog handler and Keddy, as the dog demonstrated a “Dog Dance” and gave instructions to what they wanted us to do with Kes and Spice.

We decided to deliberately mis-cue our dogs so that it looked as if we were really trying to copy what they said, but produced totally different moves. The audience were in fits of laughter as Kes lay on her back and had a jolly good scratch and Spice disappeared under Kath’s long skirt (all but her tail) and stayed there for some time in spite of Kath’s feigned attempts to remove her! As we left the stage we could hear the applause, cheering and stamping of feet – it was a fabulous feeling and when Allan and David our partners met with us back in the dressing room, they were so pleased with our performance we were over the moon that we had held the stage so well.

At the end of the second act we were introduced as the Grand finale and entered once again to tumultuous applause – and all we had done was walk on in our dog dancing costumes with our dogs Fly and Tipp to show the co-stars what they had managed to “teach us”. We performed to Minuetto Allegretto and Oom Pa Pah – what would Shakespeare have thought to that! The audience and cast were marvellous, they joined in with singing, cheers and clapping. What an atmosphere as Tipp and Fly danced their hearts out. We finished to a standing ovation!

The final part of the evening was planned for the audience to vote for the Star of the night, yes you guessed it – there was uproar as they were told that they couldn’t vote for the dogs! We can honestly say that having 1,700 people shouting “the dogs” was an experienced not to be missed!

Thanks to Ken Campbell for inviting us to join in these very special celebrations. The memories will last forever.