Andy Whitwham

Professional Entertainer

Back in 1981, after a life of a variety of professions, I followed a good friend of mine into the business that they call show business. Had a chance to join a magic / comedy / illusion act and took the plunge and dived headlong into a new career that would last for the next 30 years.

I was the straight man/stooge in a comedy cabaret show with a professional entertainer called Paul Coates. Paul and I headed off to Clacton on Sea where Paul was the entertainment manager at :

 Highfield Holiday Park, a huge holiday center and a whole new world for me. Thrown straight into action as a children's uncle and soon I had a regular 200- 400 screaming kids following me around daily as I organised the games and kept the kids entertained and amused through a 33 week summer season.

Not only was I in charge of the kids entertainment, I had my own mini theatre and started to learn presentation skills. In addition to this Paul used to perform his own act in the holiday park's main theatre and I was introduced into the professional world of cabaret. I learned magical tricks and illusions as the 45min cabaret included Paul as a comedy drag bunny girl artist, me in a tux, and a whole host of tricks and illusions finishing with me padlocked and chained and escaping from a huge trunk.

CABARET

Upon returning from Clacton after my first summer season I stayed in Paul's house in Rhyl in North Wales throughout the winter of 1981/1982 and worked with Paul doing the club circuit in and around North Wales, Anglesey and the North West. The introduction into the act of a boa constrictor, an iguana and Sally the singing Jack Russell plus I continued to learn the business whilst performing in the act. Totally new world for me but I was loving it.

HOLIDAY PARKS

The following spring, Paul had an offer from the local council to perform daily at the local theatre throughout that summer and because I loved my first season in a holiday park I decided I wanted more so I answered an advert in The Stage for bluecoat type entertainers and became a Bluecoat for Ladbroke Holidays, my first season with them in Sussex at Sussex Coast Holiday Village in Middleton-on-Sea. I had a fantastic time there, met some good professional people and work my socks off from 7am through to after midnight 6 days a week but having a great time in every sense of the word.

The following season I stayed with Ladbroke and was a resident bluecoat at Nodes Point Holiday Village on the Isle of Wight for the season. Once again, I was fortunate to work with some very talented people and their professionalism and work ethic in the business was certainly rubbing off on me. My first visit to the Isle of Wight and I did explore the island on my days off, lovely place too.

I took any work I could in the winters and I had a variety of jobs to take me through to the following seasons.

After the Isle of Wight I returned to Yorkshire, still with Ladbroke and was at a huge holiday centre just outside Scarborough called Cayton Bay Holiday Centre. Cayton Bay was the biggest park I'd been at so far, and it had three massive theatres, swimming pools, and so much entertainment for the guests to enjoy. It was here that I started learning another branch of the business, stage presentation. We had weekly visiting artists, such as Windsor Davis, Melvyn Hayes,  Emile Ford, Little and Large, Brother Lees, The Wurzels and many more household names. In addition to these 'names' we had weekly regular cabarets, from guitar vocalists, to comedians through to speciality acts. It was nerve wracking making sure their music was as it should be, the stage lighting was as it should be, working the huge follow spotlights for the big names.

Halfway through my season at Cayton Bay I was asked to come to the main office at the site, which I did, and there was the head of recruitment, a guy called Slatcher, someone everyone was afraid of and to my surprise he said they had been watching my performance's in the parks and would I like to go to Blue Waters Holiday Village in Weymouth  as assistant entertainment manager as the site was having problems and he thought I could go and help sort out these issues. I readily agreed and the following morning I set off to the South coast, to Weymouth. Upon my arrival I could see what Mr.Slatcher meant. The park unfortunately wasn't the best and after learning the 'Ladbroke way' I set upon making lists and talking to the site manager about my findings. This however, didn't go down well with the entertainment manager, a talented comedian who was excellent in his show but perhaps organisation and presentation of the entertainment department weren't  his best attributes. He left after a couple of weeks, and I became entertainment manager. I feel the season picked up and toward the end we were really going full blast, I had a team of 5 bluecoats. Incidentally Weymouth is a nice little town, with the feature of the mainline rail track runs straight through the middle of the high street!

From Weymouth I had the chance to return to my first holiday park down at Sussex Coast Holiday Village, I loved it down there and what made it  an easy decision to make was the fact that my good friend Keith Urry was the entertainment manager down there,and Keith was really my 'mentor' in the early days, so a chance to rejoin his team was one I didn't want to turn down. Keith worked 100%, 100% of the time, a human dynamo, the guests loved him, so did everyone else and once again I was learning stage craft as well as a higher profile presenting and compering.A great honour for me was I was asked to compere the regional site finals of the beauty queen competitions, hundreds of people there including Ladbroke Holidays chairman and a host of other dignitaries. I went way over the top and went to London, to Carnaby Street and had a white catsuit made by Colin Wild, showbiz royalty and dresser to so many top celebrities. You walk into his small Carnaby Street studio and the walls were lined with photographs of artists he had made outfits for, Tarbuck, Forsyth , Humperdink, Starr etc etc...and now little old me too.

Regular staff training used to take place up in Caister Holiday Park in Norfolk, Ladbroke's main site,  and we used to go there once a season, usually pre season.

My association with Ladbroke ended amicably and from there I took a year off before re-joining the business in a slightly different sphere as Director of Entertainments for Swan Holidays UK, based at the Welcome Family Holiday Park in Dawlish Warren in South Devon.  It was here that I had total control of the entertainment, from hiring and training the entertainment teams, hiring the resident band and attending showcases to book my weekly cabaret acts. I designed the entertainment staff uniforms and had a children's club built and designed. I designed and completed a full fortnightly entertainment programme and sought and secured prize sponsorship for the same. A tremendously satisfying position and I was at the Welcome for two years.

MY OWN SHOW

After my experience in Dawlish Warren I took 18 months off, moved to Torquay in South Devon, rented a house and relaxed. Torbay and South Devon are my favourite places in the UK and wow, what a beautiful part of the world to kick back in.

However, the lure of the spotlight was never far from my thoughts and, as Torbay has a huge collection of hotels, holiday parks, guest houses and theatres I set about creating my own one-man-show. A 3 hour show featuring music, dancing, games, competitions and prizes, working at hotels, mainly to coach tours, doing approx 300 shows a year.

I was busy, always busy with the show and fortunate that hotels came to me to book the show rather than the other way around.

In 2004 we moved up to Scotland to run our friends hotel whilst they were away on holiday and a month later they returned and we decided to stay up in Scotland, beautiful country and I continued with the show throughout Scotland.

In the many years I lived in Torbay, and Scotland I clocked up well over 5,000 shows.