Many years ago, when I was towards the end of my schooldays, we were organising the school play. The director was one of the English masters. I forget his name (maybe Fenwick?); he was slightly avant-garde and a damned good teacher.*Rather than changing scenery sets, he set up a system of altering the appearance of the stage using a pretty sophisticated lighting system. This made demands that the normal system could not cope with, so he acquired from somewhere — and I know not where – a couple of extra power boards which ran under 3-phase AC and activated a couple of 3-phase AC sockets. One of the assistants named (appropriately enough) Charlie, walked up on to the stage, saw the new boards, ambled across, asked "These aren't plugged in yet, are they?" and tapped the front of one of the sockets. There was a noise that I can only describe as a combination of a sizzle and a BANG, and Charlie flew across the stage and collapsed in a heap. Fortunately for him (and the rest of us), when he was brought round there was no damage apart from a hole burnt in the knuckle of his middle finger and a blown fuse. He didn't do that again. Nasty stuff, 3-phase AC.
*A good teacher, unlike Mr Davies, the German teacher, whom I won't dignify with the title of master. I am told that one year, when the exam results were published, a comment made to him by one of the maths masters, a gentleman named Mr Braithwaite (better known as "Basher") was "I see one got through in spite of you!"
