What is the Question – May

For May’s What is the Question Roland spoke with promoter and entertainment producer Andrew Guild.

 

What is your name?

Andrew Guild

What is your occupation?

Entertainment producer and promoter.

What brought you to Ballarat?

My first showbusiness involvement in Ballarat was bringing legendary impresario Kenn Brodziak’s Big Show to the Civic Hall, starring Normie Rowe. Kenn was well known for bringing some great musicals, and concert artists, to Australia. He famously signed The Beatles before they hit the world headlines. The Big Show featured many of Australia’s 1960s pop stars, but it was Normie that everyone wanted to see.

What is your favourite spot in the city?

The grandeur of Sturt Street always impresses me. What vision the city fathers had when laying out cities in those days. William Urquhart’s grid plan, with its central boulevard, makes Ballarat one of Australia’s great cities.

What is your earliest memory?

Boat sheds at Lake Wendouree.

What do you like to cook?

I consider myself one of the great coq au vin cooks. I inflict my specialty on all my friends as often as I can; and spaghetti sauce, too. There are so many different ways to make it – and you really can’t get it wrong. Most of my cooking – apart from the two specialties above – are done “by the book”. I’m always cutting-out recipes. When I decide to try something new I follow the instructions to the letter… to the gram…to the minute… to the temperature.  Drives my wife, Ai-gul, mad!

What is the most expensive thing you’ve purchased – property aside?

Several years ago, after a most successful tour, I splashed-out and bought a big flash new car. It sat in my garage for three years, knocking-up just over 10,000 kilometres, and gathering a lot of dust. I sold it at a huge loss and learnt an expensive lesson. Now I catch a bus, or ride my pushbike!

What building would you choose to be?

There is a Melbourne building on the corner of Elizabeth Street and Flinders lane. It’s red brick, very decorative with lots of small balconies, chimney pots, a large bay window, and small garret-type spaces. I find it both intriguing and interesting in design. I think it’s unique in all of the city.

What is your most treasured possession?

A tiny wooden fish that was given me for my 14th birthday by a special person in my life. My fish has been with me for all of my life in show business. Part of its tail has broken-off and been lost so I can’t repair it. It is much treasured as it symbolises the beginning of so many of my amazing experiences.

What is the greatest love of your life – apart from friends and family?

Music to match the mood.

What or who inspires you?

I am fortunate to have spent a great part of my life travelling the world looking for shows that I think might entertain. While 90 per cent of what I see is fairly mundane, every now and then I see something new, unique, original, and genuine. The search for that hard-to-identify sprinkling of magic is what drives me on. Taking an eight hour plane trip to central Siberia to catch an obscure folk dance troupe; watching a tiny, not all that interesting, circus when suddenly an extraordinary clown captures your heart; or listening to a huge symphony orchestra playing Mozart of Mahler.

What is your favourite holiday destination?

I like Singapore. It’s a nice stop-off country for Australians on the way to, or coming back from, Europe. It’s so easy: great climate, excellent food, well organised.

AI-gul and I are big fans of New Zealand and go there, often. We jump into a car and just drive. Relaxed, friendly and breath-taking scenery.

What music and television do you like?

Chopin is my favourite composer followed by Tchaikovsky. His ballet scores, Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Nutcracker, are truly magnificent.

What is your favourite quote?

“My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me” – Winston Churchill

What person – living or dead – would invite to dinner party?

It’s a duo: Lev Ivanov and Marius Petipa – they were responsible for choreographing Swan Lake, the world’s most famous ballet.

What technological/scientific development boggles your mind?

Communications throughout my lifetime. First it was the aerogram letter; then the telex followed by the fax machine; now the internet, and the mobile phone; and the progress of air travel: just over a century ago there was the first aeroplane flight. Now we travel the world in double storey planes.

What qualities do you admire in other people?

Fairness, clarity, positiveness. I don’t like moaners!

What was your first job?

The Artful Dodger in the 1961 JC Williamson production of Oliver. I got paid £20 a week, a fortune for those days.

What did you want to be when you were growing-up?

Happy! I was, and still am.

What scares you?

A lack of ticket sales!

What historical calamity would you choose to reverse?

It’s happening now. COVID-19.

What do you wish someone had told you when you were starting out?

Be careful whom you trust. Choose your friends carefully. Don’t make enemies – life is too short.