The Blog

Because most people’s focus is at present on the death of our Head of State, and because of a coinciding tragic event closer to my own life, I’ve delayed full publication and notification of this post, the first draft of which was written  on September 6th. An update, as of September 14th, has now been added at the end of the post.

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I was briefly involved in ridding the world of Autons.

At a secret location – suffice to say not very far from Stratford upon Avon – some of the survivors of this series of desperate events from long ago gathered together on a sun-filled day.

It couldn’t have been more timely…..as I write there are disturbing images on the television news of blank-eyed, robotic creatures assembling near Downing St…

So yes, folks, this was a “Dr Who” convention – for your blog-pilot today is one of the few cast members still around from the 1970 series “Spearhead from Space”, notable as the first story featuring the late Jon Pertwee as The Doctor, also notable as the first story to be shot in colour, and on high-quality film as opposed to video-tape – and even more notable since the first character to appear colour in it was played by me! But don’t let me spoil it for you – DVDs are still available….

 We met at a fine hotel right next to the Very Secret Location where we filmed the story back in the autumn of 1969, a site which even now is a real-life High Security part of the BBC,  into which at one point I wandered, and was briskly turned around by a very starchy uniformed guardian. My fellow cast members facing an amiable q&a with a hundred or so “Whovians” (some of whom were zooming in questions from as far afield as Australia, where it must have been the middle of the night) were the majestic Michael Kilgariff – a veteran of several “Dr Who” series, complementing a distinguished stage and screen acting career – plus the leading Auton himself – see the picture. This was the gifted writer Robin Squires, who as a young trainee on the production team, found himself encased in a full plastic head-mask doing a robotic character-walk to terrorise the inhabitants of late sixties  Warwickshire. And a most effective Auton he made – and he can still do the walk!

There were other sessions during the day, featuring for example, actors involved in more recent audio versions of the stories. This is an interesting dimension of which I admit I wasn’t aware, but it has a big following. In that q&a team was  Daisy Ashford, who plays the part of The Doctor’s companion in audio recordings of stories in which the rôle on TV was played by her mum, the late, much-missed Caroline John.

Another exciting aspect of the day was the presence of The Doctor himself, in the incarnation of the brilliant Sylvester McCoy, with his human companion Sophie Aldred. As well as a chance to ask questions, the fans were able to be photographed with the stars out on the lawn, where the Tardis had conveniently landed…

This summer I had as guest an old, old schoolfriend, now resident in the antipodes, so there have been excursions to the many and various Places of Interest around these parts.

In the first of those somewhat unsettling heatwaves we took an upstream boat from Kingston’s Turk’s Pier for a special open-air performance in the Courtyard at Hampton Court Palace. Now when I first heard about “SIX” – a musical about Henry the Eighth’s wives performed by an all-female rock band – I was at pains to avoid it, as I thought it sounded a really NAFF idea.

In 2017 at two Cambridge undergrads, Lucy Moss and Toby Marlow put the show together as an idea for the Edinburgh Festival – where it became a festival hit, then a London hit, then Covid struck, then it re-emerged in London, then became a smash in New York. It’s become a cult, as happened with “The Rocky Horror Show”, with a growing band of faithful disciples willing to turn up and buy repeat tickets – in London and on tour in the UK, on Broadway and on tour in America, and it’s now touring New Zealand and Australia.

The album of its songs attracts sixty thousand “streams”on the Internet every day.In a rave review the New York Times called it “a lark and a provocation”. Why am I going on about it”? With those figures the chances are you’ve already seen it. But just in case you haven’t, ignore any misgivings you might have about a show mixing A-level history with post-Spice Girls feminist rock’n’roll – seek it out and enjoy!

This summer has brought a new treat for visitors to these parts, in the shape of a wondrously restored Marble Hill House in Twickenham, reached from my side of the river by Hammertons’ Ferry (an ancient amenity now run as part of a cheerful family business – see link below.) The house was gifted by George the Second to his mistress, Henrietta Countess of Suffolk, who became the centre of a circle of local creatives – including Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift and John Gay, who wrote “The Beggar’s Opera” (of which more in a minute). It’s been superbly refurbished – a terrific example of a compact 18th century villa, with a fine collection of paintings – plus a remarkable recreation of Chinese silk wallpaper – and at present entry is free.

It seems the recreation of the Countess’s dining room wallpaper took a thousand days of work by modern Chinese craftsmen. Or something. Must have cost a packet – English Heritage must be in funds, especially as – for now at least – they’re not charging to see it.

I’m sure her neighbours would have enjoyed their visits – below is a bust of the poet Alexander Pope, with pictures of his Irish satirist pal Jonathan Swift and playwright John Gay, all on view in the house . The latter’s smash-hit “Beggar’s Opera”produced by John Rich, “made Gay rich and Rich gay” – in fact it made Rich so rich he built a new theatre in Covent Garden, on the site of what is now the Royal Opera House.

 

 

 

 

“The Beggar’s Opera” was the first final-year production I directed as Head of Acting at RADA. Last week a young colleague, Anastasiya Yevchenko, invited me to watch two excellent short plays in English by two of her fellow Ukrainian playwrights, reflecting life in their wickedly tormented country. (The Finborough is still functioning as an adventurous, innovative theatre while the rest of the building undergoes transition from pub to restaurant, see link below.) The first play – called “Take the Rubbish out, Sasha” by Natal’ya Vorozbhit  – included a very strong, moving performance by Amanda Ryan, a distinguished graduate from my early days at the Academy. While we waited to go into the show, I was suddenly pounced upon by another beautiful and successful woman:  “Ellis, it’s Rachel Pickup – I was your Suki Tawdry in “The Beggar’s Opera”!  What a joy!

I was so, so lucky to have helped steer, over more than a decade, so many incredibly talented young people towards creative and inspiring lives – exemplified by a reunion of the RADA “Class of 2000”,  organised by Emma Lowndes at Gower St a couple of weeks ago. To say that it is twenty-five years since Nick Barter and I welcomed this group onto the RADA Acting Course is to underline how remarkable an event  this was, which a good two-thirds of the group were able to attend, some flying in from as far afield as Australia and America. This was the year-group who coincided with the Academy’s major Lottery-funded re-build, and who thus had to rehearse in a converted garage in Kennington, and perform their final shows either at Kennington or at random venues around London. The new Vanbrugh Theatre didn’t open until September, by which time they’d all set off on their careers. Some of them are now “household-name” actors, all of them following brilliantly creative, valuable pathways – not least, in many cases, as parents of equally creative offspring – two sets of couples who met during their training with us are still happily and productively married! Emma showed a fine collage of video clips of photos and video messages from their tutors – which, as you can see, held everyone’s rapt attention.

 

Meanwhile, back in Twickenham, your starter for ten – which local resident painted this nude?

The answer is none other than J.M.W Turner, he of amazing light-drenched landscapes, he of “The Fighting Temeraire”, who built this quiet, unobtrusive little house as his country retreat. He actually designed the building himself – albeit with some help from his architect pal, Sir John Soane. My friend from the antipodes, D.A.Townsend, was impressed by the exhibition currently on show there, of  some of the great man’s more, er,  private creations, and posed modestly beside this relic of the old country, sitting as it does in one of the borough’s quieter back streets.

According to my almanac, Autumn doesn’t actually start until the Equinox on the 21st, so this is still, by the skin of its teeth, my summer blog. But Autumn is, after all, when wheels start turning, when projects come to fruition, albeit this year under many lowering clouds – including, for instance, the far from unrealistic question as to whether our theatres are going to be able, as winter unfolds, to afford the electricity to light their shows? There are other more apocalyptic concerns in the world, from the perspectives of people in Kiev or Islamabad, but nonetheless one our trade can’t ignore. For the first time in over two years, I have just met a cohort of cheerful New York University students with whom I shall be exploring a season of London theatre productions from which I will report – it’s started well, with a terrific evening at Rebecca Frecknall’s zingy revival of  “Kit Kat Club Cabaret” at the Playhouse – bold, challenging, and much more resonant of the original story than the brilliant but not-quite-right Liza Minelli movie. And later this week I shall be attending the press night of “Antigone” at Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre (brolly already in bag) and a concert by the Philharmonia Orchestra in a (covered) car park in Peckham. Watch this space.

It’s a cliché to talk of unsung achievers as “backstage” heroes – and in the theatre the most unsung folk are so often indeed the stage-management team. The justly celebrated theatre school Drama Centre has, disturbingly, been allowed this year to disappear. The school which trained actors of the calibre of Tom Hardy, Geraldine James, Simon Callow and the late Helen McCrory had a laudable policy of final year shows being stage-managed by first-year students, giving the new recruits a sense of the practical realities of production.Each cohort of first year students was carefully and caringly overseen by a seasoned professional stage-manager, a rôle performed for many years by Diana Fraser. As the school dwindled and vanished, Diana’s contribution to the deep understanding and appreciation of their craft shared by several generations of fine practitioners has been honoured by the Stage Management Association, in the form of the David Ayliff  Life Time Achievement Award. Diana and I have worked together several times, and I can attest to her marvellous efficiency, good humour, and ability to provide just the warm, concerned support every actor and director needs, so bravo the SMA!

14th September

Since commencing this entry, two cheering items have appeared. One is for the benefit of those visiting, or who are fortunate enough to live in, God’s Own County. Up there on the North Yorkshire coast, Sir Alan Ayckbourn has now produced and staged his eigthy-seventh play at Scarborough’s Stephen Joseph Theatre, “Family Album”. 87 plays in and he’s still clocking up a 4-star review in the Yorkshire Post,  saluting “an outstanding cast” in a piece bringing joy and laughs, plus “profound and bleak things…wrapped up in Ayckbourn’s deft and light touch”. Link below.

                                                                               Photo: Nikos Iliopoulos

And meanwhile from another idyllic part of the planet, a report has arrived of international performing arts students relishing the 2022 Kalamata Summer School. Under expert guidance from Andrew Visnevski and Gabrielle Moleta, young actors spent 3 weeks exploring varied acting challenges, including using masks as in the workshop pictured above, but also through swimming with horses in the sea! We never did that in my time at RADA – memo to the new Principal at Gower St… If you want a chance to join in creative fun next year amongst vineyards in sight of the Ionian Sea, then keep an eye on the KaDISS website, link below.

Links:

Marble Hill House: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/marble-hill

Turner’s house: https://turnershouse.org

The Ferry at Twickenham:  https://www.hammertonsferry.com

Finborough Theatre: https://finboroughtheatre.co.uk

Playhouse Theatre: https://kitkat.club/cabaret-london/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwpeaYBhDXARIsAEzItbENic6NJwJoVbWF4BIoHEgXqbBid-9Baws2qEG11isYeFXVcKoXZR8aAhU3EALw_wcB

Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough: https://sjt.uk.com/events/family-album

Kalamata Summer School: https://kalamatadrama.com/facilities/

 

But meanwhile, there has been one over-riding sadness. The same day that the Queen passed away, last Thursday, Gwyneth Powell also died. This has been the tragic event mentioned at the top of the post – we didn’t want to include it until a proper press statement had been released by her agent. She is mourned, of course, by several generations of followers of BBC Television’s school drama “Grange Hill” because of her eleven years as the stern but kindly Headmistress Mrs McClusky  – but also to many, many admirers of her brilliant, commanding work in countless other rôles on stage as well as on the screen.

Gwyneth and her husband Alan Leith have been dear friends of mine since we all “cut our teeth” in repertory at the Connaught Theatre Worthing, back in the late 60s. To lose Gwyn has been shattering, of course for poor Alan, but also for all who have enjoyed her loving, ever-supportive friendship – the greatest of all possible gifts.

In all conceivable ways, one of the best.

 

 

 

 

Down on the river, the swans dance. Springtime sunshine triggers the foreplay ritual: together in pairs, they sway their long necks, curling and uncurling to dip their heads into the water in rhythm – it’s a strange event, but clearly effective – this stretch of the Thames swarms with swan families, nay, clans, proudly and elegantly fecund!  The rustle of spring is upon us – on Good Friday I biked the towpath to Ham House,  saluted Neptune’s statue, took the ferry across the water and pedalled back along the far bank, taking in the glory of Orleans house, the pretty Twickenham church, and the bridge to Eel Pie island where more than half a century ago the Rolling Stones mixed rhythm with blues. And I found a theatre by the river, where the Richmond Shakespeare Society is offering “Henry IV” – both parts! (Link to production news below)

 

 

 

So the world turns. Above the equator, to the north and west the sun shines on restless wildlife, on bike-rides and picnics, and to the east on merciless slaughter of innocent people, in a war it seems supported by over 80 per cent of Russians. And in Africa a daughter of immigrants into Britain signs a deal with a dodgy dictator, to whom she promises millions of British pounds in return for an offer to take in hundreds of immigrants diverted from Britain….

However –  even as the Ukraine tragedy unfolds, as shameless, thick-skinned posturing persists in Whitehall, and despite the lingering, uneasy Covid count – our theatres have stumbled back onto their feet. This week to the Bridge, to witness “Straight Line Crazy” – a play by David Hare about buildings, planning, people and traffic in New York, with lots of impressive acting from Ralph Fiennes, backed up equally impressively by Danny Webb and Siobhán Cullen. Ralph Fiennes is currently at the height of his powers, and is now undoubtedly a Great Actor for our times. I loved his recital of T.S. Elliot’s “Four Quartets” recently at the Harold Pinter Theatre, and at the Bridge his sheer physical presence and magisterial vocal command are quite wonderful – although for my money the play itself wobbled somewhat under pressure…

Over at the Old Vic, we find another extraordinary actor, Bertie Carvel, also bringing amazing skill to a not-quite-there-yet text. He gives a wondrous study of Donald Trump in Mike Bartlett’s “The 47th”. Bertie tells me the production process was accelerated by the Old Vic unexpectedly becoming available, and one has to say that the play, while witty and full of shrewd commentary on a post (or perhaps not post) Trumpian world, and currently needs another draft or two to tidy it up, is well worth a visit if you’re in London. There’s also smashing work in support here, from James Garnon – like Bertie, another grad from my RADA days – as Ted Cruz, and from Tamara Tunie as Kamala Harris.

This is a shifting, uncertain Spring, wherever you look –  I hear of friends forking out fortunes to get home from holidays in Europe because of cancelled flights and trains, and of colleagues in Shanghai once more completely locked down because of massive Covid resurgence. And all quite apart from the horrors of a not-so-distant war and echoes of 1960s nuclear threats.In such times comedy will sour and darken – for instance, people are re-discovering the long retired, ninety-five-year old Professor Tom Lehrer’s bleak, razor-sharp cold war wit.  There’s a link below to his most apposite song, which should be forwarded to the Kremlin, if anyone knows how. Disjointed, unsettling events appear – I just read that John Darwin, the husband in the true story behind “The Thief, his Wife and the Canoe” currently on ITV, is reported to have taken himself off to fight in Ukraine, at the age of 71 – but maybe in every generation there’s a place for tales of a Don Quixote, or a Walter Mitty. Some events lose their comic potential quite quickly – trouser dropping and gross champagne-swilling in high places are perhaps too familiar, too recent, to generate even the most rueful chuckle. However, as referred to in an earlier post I recently took part in a new short film called “the Contract” by two bright young writer-producers Harry Davies and Adam Howe, which boldly goes into just that territory, and will soon be available on Amazon – watch this space.

Sharp-eyed readers will have noticed in the above paragraph no fewer than two shameless plugs for my own fitful, minor excursions back into the limelight as an actor. Please don’t rush to watch the ITV “Canoe” story expecting to see anything other than very brief, wordless appearances from Carrie Cohen and me as Anne Darwin’s distressed parents – but please watch it because of the superb lead performances from Monica Dolan and Eddie Marsan, and fine writing and directing by Chris Lang and Richard Laxton respectively. If you missed it this week, it’s on the ITV hub, just click below

I am aware that many of you will include varying degrees of travel annoyance in your memories of Easter 2022, and I have been smugly savouring my good fortune in living in a pleasant, historic place which people strive to visit, and thus I have to travel only short distances to enjoy London and its attendant glories like Ham House, like Hampton Court, like Kew Gardens.

And even driving to further London parts isn’t that much of a problem, providing you’re canny about the Clean Air and Congestion  charges – or at least that’s what I fondly thought until this week… But then I experienced the growing plague of “rat-run” signs. They look a bit like this:

They’re quite small, and quietly pop up on through-routes in residential areas, routes you might have been using for years, and thus not think to look out for them. And they carry underneath, in quite small print, warnings on the lines of “Buses and cycles only. Cars not allowed 7am to 7pm”. A carer friend has recently been clobbered four times in as many days while visiting a disabled client, simply because the route she has taken for decades suddenly sprouted these warnings and she hadn’t noticed them – and it’s a minimum fine of £65 a time, delivered smartly to your letterbox .. My sat-nav is struggling to cope. I drove to visit friends in Islington yesterday, Easter Sunday, and was repeatedly exhorted by my phone’s Google Maps lady to “Make a U-turn”…”Eh?” says I “I’ve come this way for years, whatever is the matter…?” And then I started to see the little round signs…Beware, my friends, oh beware…

Fortunately a short bus-ride from where I live is, as mentioned, one of the undoubted wonders of the post-Victorian world – Kew Gardens. I confess I haven’t visited there for years, but on Saturday my friend Jo – who’s a member there – and I enjoyed a glorious wander and picnic, amongst the lakes and the blooms and the birds. Oh, and the bees….

 

 

 

 

 

The Hive at Kew Gardens is a most extraordinary installation, which allows you to tune in, via an electronic link, to the sounds and vibrations shared by the inhabitants of a nearby working beehive, expressed through flickering lights and vibrating tones in the Key of C – the key in which honey bees buzz.  I bet you didn’t know that. I certainly didn’t. Neither did I know that bees recognise a particular vibration which triggers what the information plaque calls “their famous waggle dance”.

So this post starts with the Dance of the Courting Swans and concludes with the Waggle of the Dancing Bees…

Enjoy.

Links:

The Richmond Shakespeare Society at the Mary Wallace Theatre Twickenham

https://www.richmondshakespeare.org.uk

“The Thief His Wife and the Canoe”

https://www.itv.com/hub/the-thief-his-wife-and-the-canoe/10a1187a0004

and finally –  and I mean finally….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frAEmhqdLFs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Because of two heart attacks, I was once in Ukraine. It was just before Christmas 2013, and I was on my way to New Zealand via Singapore. The plane had been delayed for several hours at Heathrow because of a faulty smoke-alarm. Then three hours into the flight, the cabin staff put out a call enquiring if there was doctor on board: someone had suffered a heart attack. Half an hour later, the doctor was called for again. A second person had had a heart-attack. The pilot announced he was going to have to land, at an airport with access to good medical facilities. This turned out to be the main airport at Kyiv, Ukraine. As soon as the plane had come to a stop on the runway, a team of highly efficient Ukrainian medics swiftly came on board and took the patients off to hospital. However, by this time, because of the previous delay in leaving London, the plane’s crew had used up their permitted flying-hours, and we were told they would have to rest for a minimum of 24 hours, during which time we would be taken to hotel accommodation.

Eventually, as our plane quietly accumulated frost on the tarmac, we were loaded onto several buses, and taken off to a hotel away from the city centre, the scene of recent anti-Russian  demonstrations, which were to lead a few weeks later to Ukraine’s pro-Russian government being driven from power. And then to a western-leaning, pro EU government being elected…and then, to Putin sending in troops to annexe Crimea…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thus echoes of one of the oddest episodes in my travels have been summoned by grim, surreal images of the Russian invasion, eight years on. The news is so distressing for all of us, left watching impotently while homes and hospitals are destroyed, blood is shed, and civilian lives shattered at the whim of a crazily deluded despot.

And how remarkable that the superbly heroic Ukrainian resistance is being led by an actor-turned President, the admirable Volodymyr Zelensky. It’s weirdly pleasing to know that his impressive c.v. as a performer includes providing the voice for both “Paddington Bear” movies – the Ukrainian counterpart of our own Ben Whishaw.

Photo: BBC

Ben of course is currently starring in the BBC adaptation of “This is Going to Hurt”, gaining lots of admirers in a rôle drawing on real-life experiences of an NHS doctor at a time when the public’s awareness of our health service has never been higher.  Ironically, also now at a time when horrific international events obliterate recent memories of the scorn and disregard for all patients and medics shown by our own, elected political leaders. Given the shocking images and reports arriving every few minutes on our screens and radios – how trivial and pointless seem our “party-gate” concerns. But, but…those events nonetheless happened, and since we are so very fortunate to live in a democracy, let’s not forget that the sub-Churchillian platitudes now uttered in Downing St are from the same mouths that quaffed wine as fellow citizens suffered, and mocked the laws they themselves had made.

Links between politics and stage of course are not uncommon – most recently in our country Tracy Brabin comes to mind, moving from “Coronation St” to being elected MP for Batley and Spen after the horrific murder of Jo Cox, and who is now the Mayor of West Yorkshire. In earlier years a recipient of two Oscars, RADA graduate Glenda Jackson served as a Labour minister. And even further back, my misty memories of being an active trades unionist recall decisively right-wing positions being taken at 1970s Equity gatherings by a Guildhall School of Acting graduate, one Roger Gale – now a prominent MP and an articulate critic of his party-leader’s love of parties.

 I guess the nearest equivalent of Zelensky would be the late playwright Vaclav Havel, who in the 1970s confronted the Russians as a leader of the “Velvet Revolution” in Czechoslovakia, going on to become President of the Czech Republic. I daresay Putin knows well that this previous theatrical-political star played a major rôle in dismantling the Soviet-dominated Warsaw Pact, and expanding NATO’s presence in Eastern Europe –  both of which achievements Putin is out to reverse, slaughtering as he does innocent citizens and children he claims as “fellow-Russians”.

Photo: kafkadesk.org

Mention of the Guildford School of Acting (GSA) brings me back to safer, more domestic matters. One of our TYA Audition Surgery clients is now, very happily, a student on the B.A. Acting course at GSA – where this week the appointment of a new Principal has been announced. A new generation of UK drama school leaders is emerging: Catherine McNamara moves to Guildford from the University of Surrey (and before that  she was at Central, where there is another recent appointment, Josette Bushell-Mingo) while – at last – in June my old Gower St manor will welcome Niamh Dowling as the new (and first ever female) Principal of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, RADA.

Photo: Rada.ac.uk 

Niamh has a fine track-record in running courses, at the Rose Bruford School, previously at Manchester Metropolitan University, and is a specialist in Movement. As one who spent more than a decade striving to balance the training needs of phenomenally talented young actors, I rejoice in this appointment. Alongside the wretched, apocalyptic news from Ukraine, our arts industries’ recent concerns pale –  the painful debates over diversity, the struggles to keep going throughout a pandemic  – even though they have been deeply serious. Now is a time for mature, sane and considered leadership – and my sense is that the prevailing winds in our sector are calming, to bring a fresh and optimistic focus for a generation facing a world immeasurably changed, where we can but pray that Miranda’s lovely salutation will prevail.

“How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O, brave new world…..”                                                                                                                                                                        

Regular readers will know this blog never lets St David’s Day pass without mention, and as the welcome daffodils appear for a pound-a-bunch in our supermarkets (80p in Lidl!) I’d like to flag up the return to the West End stage of two of our finest Welsh thesps.

 

 

 

 

Craig Gallivan – like Ben, a Radagrad from my time, star of a rollicking production we did on the Queen Mary Two of “Under Milk Wood” – has segued from knocking ’em dead in “School of Rock” to the huge hit musical “Frozen” at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and is by all accounts tearing up a storm. Actor, rocker….Craig is also incidentally a former Welsh youth rugby international….

Photo: Twitter

And my dear fellow “Squirrel” from yesteryear, Merthyr Tydfil’s own Alan David is set to return in May in the revival of the hit play, “Jerusalem”by Jez Butterworth, alongside Mark Rylance at the Apollo Theatre. Here we are acting together at Elstree studios, some time ago. Neither of us looks at all different. Honest.

 

 

Below are links to where you can get tickets to see these two fine Gallic performers. And while you’re around Drury Lane, across the road at the Fortune Theatre my old University chum Terry Wilton can once again be guaranteed to make even the sparsest hairs stand on end in “The Woman in Black”.

Also please find below a link to the British Museum’s “World of Stonehenge” exhibition, to which I went last week, and thoroughly recommend. Beautifully presented evidence from thousands of years ago, that our race even then was capable of bringing beauty and majesty into the world…and alas, evidence also that the cycle of man-made destruction has always repeated endlessly, leaving only stones standing…

Links:

“Frozen”:                https://frozenthemusical.co.uk

“Jerusalem”:         https://jerusalemtheplay.co.uk

“The Woman in Black”: https://www.thewomaninblack.com

“The Wold of Stonehenge”: https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/world-stonehenge

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                  The Thames at Kingston, November

As a long-standing Micawberist – we in our unsteady trade have constantly to remind ourselves that “something will turn up” – I find it unsettling to live in a country run by an Extreme Micawberist.  Some high-profile actors cheerfully rely on “getting away with it” via charm and chat rather than talent – and good luck to them, say I. They don’t have the finger on the nuclear button, or the means to insult mendaciously and repeatedly the nation’s intelligence, blythely allowing the concept of a “caring” society to drift away and evaporate, like the autumn mist. A previous leader of our currently ruling party famously declared “there is no such thing as society”, and well – cometh the hour, cometh the man to prove her right.

This blog seldom wanders into political territory – God knows there is enough print and media opinion out there – however I recall the sadly late, gloriously talented actress Miriam Karlin at a big Equity meeting back in the 70s squashing a heckler’s cry that “actors have no business in politics” with “Darling, the very air you breathe is political…”

So, breathe, Jones, breathe….and lend an ear folks, to tales from an ageing character man’s diary. My latest cautious excursion back into the restless, uncertain Thespian jungle took me slap into the political swamp, in a ripely satirical short movie called “The Contract”.

 

This has a sharp, spiky script, written and produced by Harry Davies and Adam Howes, and directed by Stephen D’Arcy –  a stem from the rich vein of Celtic talent which ran through Gower St in my time at RADA. There’s a cracking cast led by Max Brown and Elizabeth Bower, with surprise contributions from Harry Enfield and Dan Snow. Also included is a corrupt senior business operator with an unusual hobby – played by me. There will be a score by Isata Kanneh-Mason, and the project is currently in post-production, so watch this space – the release date and distribution t.b.a. The more this troubling year unfolds, the less absurd seem the antics of the imagined group of hapless business-types rejoicing in government connections as featured in this satire.

Meanwhile, in the quiet backwaters of my gently stirring, slightly bewildered acting career, the biggest project I’ve been involved in this year – alluded to in the last blog  entry  – has been “The Thief, his Wife and the Canoe”, a four-part drama inspired by real events, due to be broadcast by ITV early in 2022. You may remember the original news items, reporting a northern couple’s extraordinary insurance scam, featuring the husband faking his own accidental death in a sea canoe, and their attempt to use the ill-gotten life-insurance pay-out to set up a business in Panama. It’s an amazing chronicle of shameless lying and deception, poignant and current in the present  political zeitgeist. Carrie Cohen and I make modest, almost wordless contributions to this re-telling of the tale, as the distressed parents of Anne, the wife in the couple played by the quite brilliant Monica Dolan. We had no words at all in the script, and those we spoke were improvised, but the fellow cast members and crew – and above all the excellent director Richard Laxton – made us feel very much integrated, essential team-members on a fine project. The humane, shrewdly observed script is by Chris Lang (who wrote Unforgotten) and Richard’s distinguished previous credits include other scenarios rooted in real-life events, including Honour (with Keeley Hawes) and Mrs Wilson, Ruth Wilson’s account of astonishing episodes from her family history, in which she played her own grandmother.

                 No hiding place for a canoeist…the beach at Seaton Carew, County Durham where the story begins.

Picture: Trip-advisor

A welcome result of the otherwise unwelcome pandemic has been, for this website as an online  coaching resource, new connections across the globe, including mainland Europe, India and the Middle East as well as a range of locations in the UK.  And as the business world clicks back into gear, demand for presentation coaching is re-emerging, under our new communications banner, Peterson Lane Training, so at this address anyway, these worrisome days have at least been quite busy.

Recent acting clients have been experiencing their first term at drama school – for instance, at LAMDA, at the Oxford School of Acting and at GSA in Guilford. The UK drama schools, like our profession in general, have been reeling from the impact of the pandemic, and are striving to contain it by observing social distance, working in masks, etc while confronting the challenges arising from the BLM and Me Too issues which surfaced not long before Covid arrived. At the time of writing two of the leading schools – LAMDA and RADA – are currently without Principals, although I gather appointments will be announced soon. Those accepting the posts will be brave souls – these have never been jobs for the faint-hearted, but in today’s climate they will need exceptional resources of ingenuity, sensitivity, imagination and acres of patience.

I guess one benefit of recent restrictions has been, both for the applicants and the schools, a reduction in the cost of recruiting. Audition fees have dropped, and almost all the schools are using zoom or other on-line platforms for the “first round” of the process. This means that the new generation of actors will perforce have learned the basics of performing on camera before they even start formal training – which is just as well, since the massive boom in “box-set” TV drama spawned by the pandemic means that once trained they will more likely be working on screen rather than for “live” audiences. Given today’s news of a scary new variant, it’s clear that the Virus is far from defeated,  and thus that warnings and restrictions are unlikely be removed any time soon.

In September, grasping my Covid-test passport, I ventured into France, carefully taking all the required Covid tests on the way there and back, staying with friends on the southern coast and in the hills of the southwest. I can report that the beauty of that big country is undimmed, that the vitality of the citizens prevails in these trying times – and that they embrace the need for Covid awareness far, far more thoroughly than we do here. On all transport – planes, buses and trains – and in all gathering places, indoor or out – for instance in the open-air markets – everyone wears masks and all bars and restaurants require you to show proof of vaccination before you will be served. Although it has to be said that I did come across one, utterly charming exception – a small family circus on tour in the village of Mirandol, near to my friend Jenny’s  lovely home in the hills above the River Viaur in the Département du Tarn, where audience participation over-ruled the masks!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As winter storms our islands, as the wretched and dispossessed perish in the waters we share with France while politicians blather, here are images of the calm and beauty we will, hopefully before too long, reclaim – irrespective of borders…

      The coast at Le Cap d’Antibes,  chez mes amis Kate et Doug

 

The River Tarn at Albi and morning mist at Mirandol

Yesterday Storm Arwen approached the Thames Valley, its outriders looming over Hampton Wick. Today windows rattle, waves rush and tumble on the river ahead of a wild, vengeful north wind.

 

On a wall at Toulouse Airport there is a poem, part of which translates as “On an infinite horizon/plays the theatre of our affections/At the turn of springtime/ we shall find each other once more…”

And in the meantime, Christmas will happen. If like me it’s now that you start scratching your head for ideas for presents, here’s a couple of book suggestions.

If you are trying to cope with bereavement, or someone you know is, “Good Grief” by Catherine Mayer and Anne Mayer Bird is a remarkable book of sane, helpful reflections by a mother and daughter both bereaved within weeks of each other, and will soon be available in paperback.

Another highly recommended best-seller, already in both hard cover and paperback, is Kadie Kanneh-Mason’s account of bringing up a houseful of seven wonderfully musical children  “House of Music”, which last week garnered the 2021 Royal Philharmonic Storyteller Award.

Both of these books bring inspiration, and celebrate in totally different ways the need always to seize, cherish and use well our time on this bruised, uneasy planet. And yesterday we lost one of the most inspiring talents of all time, the great tune-maker and wordsmith, Stephen Sondheim.

“Wishes may bring problems, so that you regret them, better that though than to never get them”

Into the Woods, lyrics and tunes by Stephen Sondheim, book by James Lapine, 1986.

This morning as a tribute BBC Radio 3 played a recording of Dame Judi Dench performing “Send in the Clowns” from Sondheim’s A Little Night Music. This you can watch at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvZex3Qf7QQ

 

 

You may perhaps have  heard of the ancient River Thames ritual of “swan-upping”, when in the summer time gents dressed in archaic liveries conduct a sort of census of the Thames swan population, on behalf of the Queen?  (If not, there’s a helpful video link below.) Meanwhile, a hundred yards or so along the river from where I live, a less-publicised Thames Wildlife Survey has quietly been taking place, involving checking the health of – and presumably assessing the effect of pollution on – our local swans.

I joined a small crowd admiring the procedure – at the top of the picture is the vet, assessing the swans one-by-one, handed to him by the young assistant in the foreground, whose job is to lift the bird from the water, and calm it down so that it’s ready for examination. Have you ever tried to lift a large aquatic bird out of the water against its will? Not a task I would relish, but this young woman was a joy to watch – deftly lifting the protesting animal onto the shore, then sitting astride its back and murmuring words of comfort into its ear until it settled down – which each swan did within a few minutes, and then allowed itself to be handed over to the vet, as docile as you please. What and where next for the Swan Whisperer? In this fraught world, there is so much need for the still, small, calming voice…

This summer, as the UK may – or may not – slip out of the clutches of Covid, is truly a time out of joint, where normalities have evaporated, when extremities and oddities no longer surprise. As we in the UK prepare to “staycate” (how the virus has expanded our vocabulary!) we pack very small bottles of sun-lotion along with rain-hats, mackintoshes and welly boots, while downloading lists of “Stories for Wet Afternoons.” But hey, we mustn’t complain – those of you out there in the west of America, or on the Greek mainland with your scary temperatures and billowing forest fires – would, I know happily embrace just one of our fitful downpours. I can’t begin to imagine what living with fifty degrees Centigrade could be like – especially when you quantify it in “old money” and realise we are talking over one hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit!

As with so many, the pandemic has changed my work pattern, inevitably leading one further into Zoomland. A welcome band of new on-line coaching clients has appeared, and a surge of “self-tape” auditions sent by my lovely agents has set the long-dormant acting career sputtering back into life – through modest, “supporting” roles, but supplying happy, much-missed fun along the way.

Following the excursion mentioned in the last episode – into darkest Somerset to be harassed by dogs and cannibals courtesy of a new “Blair Witch Project”style scary movie due for release in the autumn – I was cast as the elderly dad of the main character in a four-part “real-life” drama to be screened by ITV early next year. My “screen wife” Carrie Cohen and I had a terrific time in a range of locations, including Holloway Prison and Clerkenwell Crown Court, finishing in our own, “ordinary” northern living room – except it wasn’t, it was a cunningly adapted interior in a once-stately home – Stoke Court, Buckinghamshire!

For some of the shoot, we were on one of the George Lucas sound stages at Elstree Film Studios, where “Star Wars” was created, and where “The Crown” happens. After several uncertain decades, the UK film studios are all expanding like crazy, to meet the huge international upswing in TV “box-set” viewing figures during the pandemic. Investment is pouring in – on the way home one day my driver took me to see the Hertfordshire building site that will become the new “Sunset” studios (announced in last week’s news) and it’s MASSIVE, hundred of acres devoted to the creation of new drama. Despite Covid, despite the Brexit backwash, parts of our trade are in a healthy, optimistic state – long may it last and may it augur a soon and rapid recovery for our “live” stage, not just movie sound stages.

All at once, reader, things turned very Welsh. I am an illustration of the old Jesuit insistence that the crucial years in a man’s life are the first seven. Although in my eighth year I was transported from Cardiff to northern climes and had, to survive my new schoolmates’ taunts, to acquire a Hull accent, I still slip in a trice to a south Welsh persona, complete with accent. Which is handy from the acting point of view, and once we’d done the filming for ITV I nipped off down to the Valleys, to play a tiny part in Steve Spiers’s English-language sitcom for BBC Wales, “The Tuckers”. This show isn’t yet fully networked across the UK, but you can catch the whole of Series One on the iPlayer, and it’s great fun – tales of a disreputable family’s usually disgraceful adventures in Welsh village, by a cast led by Steve himself with Lynn Hunter as his fearsome mum, and Robert Pugh as her especially disreputable brother. It’s hugely popular in Wales – they’re now recording Season Three, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it were to gain a place on the BBC national schedules before long. Steve Spiers is a quite ubiquitous actor and writer – I’m especially a fan of his work as Shakespeare’s leading player Burbage in Ben Elton’s “Upstart Crow”.

Although this visit to the Land of My Fathers was very short, it was rich in scenery and interest. I was staying in Caerphilly, I had a couple of hours to spare before being needed on set, so – on the first scorching day of the recent heat-wave –  I went to wander in the local medieval castle, the largest in the UK outside of Windsor. I must have been taken there as a child, but I had no recollection of just how impressive Caerphilly Castle is – a sprawling, looming fortress originally built by warlike English aristocrats to intimidate the Welsh, and restored in romantic Victorian times by the Scottish coal billionaire John Crighton-Stuart, Marquis of Bute, who also restored Cardiff Castle and commissioned William Burgess’s gothic fantasy, Castell Coch.

Going on to join the crew and cast of ” The Tuckers”, I found myself again brushing against Welsh history, of a more recent and distressing kind, for the show is currently being filmed at Senghenydd, the site of one of the worst mining disasters of all time. In 1913, 439 men died as a result of an underground explosion. There is a “green room” for the actors in the local museum, so while waiting to be called on set I could browse the photos and memorabilia of this horrific event – and reflect on how many of its survivors then went off to perish in trenches in Flanders. Not, you might think, the best frame of mind in which to perform comedy…but life goes on, and “The Tuckers” has all the wry, dark humour that echoes in Welsh culture, after centuries of pain and oppression – alongside so much beauty, poetry and music.

Elements of course distilled in Dylan Thomas’s great 1954 “play for voices”, “Under Milk Wood” – which shortly after getting back to London I went to see at the National Theatre as part of a socially-distanced audience in the Olivier auditorium, the production directed by Lindsey Turner. In this version the piece is extended by the Welsh poet Siân Lloyd, and the play emerges from scenes in a Welsh care home. As in the 2014 BBC TV version, narration is by the great Michael Sheen, full of honest passion, with delicious character work by the likes of Alan David as Mr Pugh and Anthony O’Donnell as Captain Cat. I’m told the piece has been recorded for broadcast, so if you missed it presumably it will be available in the autumn or winter TV schedules – and if it is, let us know what you think.

                                                           Image: nationaltheatre.org

So the theatre is starting to emerge in the UK – isn’t it? Is it? Some shows are already under way, many more being bravely advertised to open in October and November. Others have been squashed out of existence by so many actors being “pinged” to isolate at home – for instance Kenneth Branagh’s “The Browning Version”, slated to raise funds for RADA at the Riverside Studios.

All we can do is keep our fingers crossed, and reach once more for the TV remote.  The papers are full of columnists’ lists of the “best pandemic/lockdown shows” and I’ve banged on quite enough about my passion for the great French products “Call My Agent” and “Spiral”. So just two series to mention this time – I can’t avoid “The Kominsky Method” on Netflix, which is about – well, it’s about a once well-known actor who survives as an acting coach, has had several attempts at marriage, and has a grown-up daughter who worries about him….Crackling, witty scripts, super acting – with Michael Douglas, and for the first two seasons, veteran comic genius Alan Arkin. Glorious, brilliant – however for this particular viewer, perhaps just a little too much resonance…

The other series I rejoice in is Channel Four’s “We Are Lady Parts”. Amidst all the noisy “woke” debates, amidst all the tiresome misconceptions and blustery accusations, here’s a show about an all Muslim female punk-rock band, with no preaching – just honestly-drawn characters and a clever storyline, delivered by a group of wondrously talented actor-musicians.

 

                                                                  Image: IMDB

I laughed loud and frequently through the first 5 episodes, and in episode 6 wept joyfully at the (spoiler alert) happy, merry ending. This is work created (as writer and director) by Nida Manzoor, a brilliant graduate of UCL – who found herself obliged to close all her social media accounts because of abuse following the series being broadcast. What a sad, mad world….

 

Links:

Swan-Upping explained (British Pathé News, 1953)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQyVxyhRH4Q&list=RDCMUCGp4u0WHLsK8OAxnvwiTyhA&start_radio=1&t=23s

The Tuckers:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000d4w2/the-tuckers-series-1-episode-1

We Are Lady Parts:

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/we-are-lady-parts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(If you’re reading this on a phone, the pictures look better in “landscape” rather than “portrait’)

As we in the UK ease – perhaps – out of Lockdown, and as our theatres prepare – perhaps – to re-open, things across the English Channel are looking less promising, with new restrictions on public gatherings in Paris and elsewhere. And so alas it’s not surprising that theatre ventures there, especially those involved in importing artists from outside French borders, are foundering. For those of us whose pandemic world has been enlivened by the gripping drama of “Spiral” or the whacky comedy of “Call My Agent”, any dwindling of connections with our brilliant and resourceful French comrades is really sad. One such lovely link has been severed within the last two weeks: the admirable and cheering “Friends of English Theatre”, based in south-west France at Le Théâtre Colombier, Les Cabannes – a smart civic-owned venue beside the glorious medieval “bastide” town of Cordes-sur-Ciel.

This initiative, instigated and steered by the redoubtable expat British actor Donald Douglas, just doesn’t have the financial or human resources to carry on. For more than 6 years the FET (Honorary President Sir Derek Jacobi) has invited small-scale British productions to perform at Le Colombier, and found a welcoming audience amongst the region’s British expats and summer visitors.

The theatre is small (about 125 seats) and FET receives no subsidy, so it has kept going thanks to the unpaid efforts of Donald and a band of volunteers, organised by a committee. Over the years enough tickets have been sold to pay incoming artists modest fees plus expenses including flights – and for those lucky enough to perform there, wonderfully generous accommodation and hospitality have been provided by Donald and Emma Douglas, or by others on the FET committee.

But the the impact of Covid during this last year has been shattering. Donald I hope won’t mind my mentioning that he’s now approaching the latter stages of his ninth decade on the planet, so needs and deserves a rest. And at present there’s no-one amongst the English-speaking community in the Tarn region who feels able to take up the task of reviving the project once the pandemic finally evaporates.

So, in the Spirit of Micawberism that rules so many of us in the theatre trade, I’m offering this short summary of FET’s history and successes in the hope that someone out there may, as the world turns and the pestilence hopefully weakens, find themselves in a position, not to re-kindle this flame but perhaps to light another.

The Friends of English Theatre as a producing body no longer exists, but the Le Colombier Theatre does – it’s a comfortable, efficient space and within its building has a number of rooms which at one stage provided accommodation for a resident company. But please don’t bombard Donald with requests for information and help – below is a link to the contacts you will need if you have projects or ideas which you think would fit the venue and its location.

FET was formed in response to the theatre being built as a local amenity in 2014, when its committee obtained an agreement with the municipal authority for the use of the venue for a certain number of English-language presentations each year.

Below is a list of the projects that have added a dash of English-speaking theatre to this exquisite corner of mainland Europe these last six years, with some production photos by former committee member Jenny Cundy.

2014 Michael Lunts  in Rachmaninov  Crocodiles in Cream – Kevin Moore  Growing Old Disgracefully  – Virginia Ironside.   Sweet William – Michael Pennington Christmas Show – with Sally Bradshaw and Donald Douglas.

2015 Oscar Wilde – Leslie Clack Hi Diddle de Dee – Donald Douglas one man show for charity .Beowulf the Blockbuster  – Bryan Burroughs.  A Fine Line  – Judith Paris  Scrooge – Clive Francis. 

2016 Sweet Shakespeare  – Frank Barrie ,Delena Raymond , Emily Raymond 84 Charing Cross Road – Leslie Clack Mme Tussaud  – Judith Paris Under Milk Wood  – Leslie Clack and company . Burton – Rhodri Miles Tom Crean – Aidan Dooley.

2017 Posting Letters to the Moon  – Lucy Fleming & Simon Williams Austentatious – Improv company. Mrs Roosevelt Flies to London   – Alison Skilbeck Totties  – Carolyn Allen, Paul Smith.  Galileo – Tim Hardy I Found My Horn  – Jonathon Guy Lewis .  

2018 Miss Wilson’s Waterloo – Karen Archer, Martin Wimbush  Invisible Woman – Kate Cook  47 Roses – Peter Sheridan The Weatherman – Derek Fowlds, Donald Douglas.  Lucy, Lucy – Lucy Barfield Are there More of You?  Alison Skilbeck  In Loyal Company –  David William Bryan.  Coward at Christmas  – Simon Green

2019 4 Love –  Delena Raymond , Donald Douglas , Claire Carrie , Nick Waring .  Flo – Ursula Mohan  Mistero Buffo – Julian Spooner The Man with the Golden Pen– Michael Chance.  Larry – Keith Drinkel   Tom Crean  – Aidan Dooley. (Return visit  – a big hit!)

 

Photos by Jenny Cundy.

Alison Skilbeck, Tim Hardy, Aiden Dooley, Simon William, Lucy Fleming

Martin Wimbush, Karen Archer,Derek Fowlds, Donald Douglas, Lucy Barfield

Ursula Mohan, Julian Spooner, David William Bryan

The world had become a different place since 2014, international changes the theatre will reflect. Brexit has happened, Covid is still happening, the Me Too and Black Lives Matter movements have shifted perceptions on gender and race. Now more than ever, collaboration, care and understanding across borders are needed, and our companies and venues will have a significant role to play.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT THE LE COLOMBIER THEATRE, CLICK HERE:

http://mairie.cordessurciel.fr/culture-loisirs/espaces-culturels/54-theatre-le-colombier