[ Chapter One ]

I knew Brian, Clive and Keith long before dfg was even a twinkle in their collective eye and can, in fact, lay claim to having first introduced them.

I first met Brian on the set of a musical I was directing for an avant-garde theatre company in Oldham. The play was a postmodernist German version of 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves' written by Auschwitz survivor Ishmael Goldmanbergmanberg. Entitled ‘She May Be Snow White But Her Teeth Are As Black As Death (Aryan Whore)’ it was a harrowing but ultimately heartwarming interpretation of the old fairy tale.
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Although auditioning for the role of Prince Churchill, it soon became apparent that Brian’s acting talent lay elsewhere and I quickly cast him as Grumpy the Polish dwarf.

At that time, Clive was doing an NVQ Level 2 in ‘Hair, Beauty and Deconstructionalist Theory’ and had a placement with us, for which he was helping to photocopy the fliers for the play.

In the beginning I liked Keith the least of all the dfg boys. I had been aware of him for some time as Swindon’s leading conceptual artist but I was not a big fan of what I perceived to be his deliberate shock tactics. (One of his more celebrated stunts – entitled simply ‘Modern Art’ – involved him defecating in the foyer of the Tate Modern, pointing at it and yelling "Look. It’s Modern Art. Look. It’s shit." for the entirety of his three day exhibition.)

Nonetheless he intrigued me, so I had agreed to let him join our production as a tree in the scenery. He wanted to stay on-stage for the duration of our three-month run at the Oldham Playhouse as a study of man’s interaction with nature. I decided to have him on board on the condition that he didn’t produce any ‘modern art’ during the actual shows.

Despite working in close proximity for six weeks the boys remained oblivious of each other until the opening night. As the curtain raised, as the trees shook, as the dwarves scowled, as the placement boy massaged the director's feet... three sets of eyes met... there were smiles and then laughter and then silence and I knew I had witnessed the start of something special: dfg (although yet to be named) was born.

And the rest, as they say, is history (apart from the stuff that hasn’t happened yet).

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