The Blog

Avernus, I hear you say. Avernus? What, who? Is it a car-hire firm, a dodgy international bank (is there any other kind?) or an even dodgier dating agency? That scornful harrumphing noise comes of course from those of you with a classical education – for dear friends, Avernus is a crater in Italy which was believed by the ancient Romans to be the entrance to the Underworld. There’s a reference to it in “Absolute Hell” – which for those of you who missed it, went extremely well thankyou for asking, and delivered a range of very tidy performances, much appreciated by what I’m told were larger than usual audiences at the Embassy Theatre. I had five demanding, fulfilling weeks working with some brilliant Central students, but now have slipped away from the gentle slopes of NW3, and am back in the Elysian Fields of E17, as the pre-Christmas sleet whips across the marshes.

It is, it seems a season of dark titles. Lois and I went to the last night of “Damned by Despair” at the National. Not, I would have said the most commercial of phrases to put on a poster – it hardly sparkles with the promise of Wodehousian wit, does it? I went because Bertie Carvel was in it – and was, it has to be said, extremely good, as were all the other actors. But it was a turgid, sluggish slice of Spanish 16th century religious drama, warmed over by Frank McGuinness. Very Catholic, very intense, relieved by odd moments of spectacle, such as Bertie being hung for mass murder and then hauled off up into the Olivier flies in a blaze of power-can lighting representing Glory and Salvation, because he’d repented. You see. Anyway, Bertie and the rest of the team were very philosophical in the green room afterwards, I think quite relieved that the NT management had taken the piece off ahead of schedule, owing to declining box-office. And now Bertie C is off to Broadway, to repeat his astonishing, Olivier-winning triumph as Miss Trunchbull in “Matilda” – so the very very best of luck on the Great White Way…..

To balance the export of London plays to New York, I’m now involved in importing one to London from Philadelphia. A very old friend, the New York producer Sean Hewitt and I have teamed up with my former RADA colleague Andrew Visnevski to create a rehearsed, staged reading of a play by Arden Kass.

It’s a fascinating story, and has been in development in America for a couple of years. In November Andrew joined the author for a set of workshops with some Philadelphia actors, and a neat, intriguing script has emerged. It’s set partly in Manhattan in the 1970s, partly in Prague in the 1930s, and partly during the war in the Terezin concentration camp. It has a number of strong parts for women.    In an early reading in New York Miriam Margolyes read the part of Malka, as she will in the London presentation, which is being supported by American sponsors. As of today she’s going to be joined by Tamsin Greig, Jemma Redgrave and Jason Isaacs – expect further casting to be announced over the next few days.

It’s going to be a one-off presentation at the GBS Theatre RADA on January 10th. If you’re a producer, director, an investor or are simply interested in new exciting theatre ventures and would like to come, contact me via ellis@teachyourselfacting.com.

This could be quite an event.

I’m hoping that one or two of the RADA alumni might be able to join us. One who’s going to be too exhausted is Sally Hawkins. I went to see her and Rafe Spall in “Constellations” at the Duke of Yorks. In the tube on the way home a man sitting opposite my friend and I noticed we were looking at the programme -“I went to that” says he “I went because I’ve got a man-crush on Rafe Spall! It was one of the best plays I’ve ever seen…” Well both Rafe and Sally (on whom I’ve had a man-crush since she turned up as one of our students at RADA) are very fine, and it’s a gripping display of inspired storytelling, brilliantly directed. It closes on January 5th.

November in NW3 has been a busy month, grafting away at the Central School with some remarkable new young actors. The show we’re putting on is designed by my long-term comrade-in-arms, the brilliant Alexander McPherson, and is a truly striking piece about the life of a struggling young artist in the gay, often desperate, shifting world of Soho during the General Election of 1945.

If you’re in London, please come.

ABSOLUTE HELL  by Rodney Ackland

The reasons for my embarking on this blog include the theatre critics! So often I go to see a play, then look back over the reviews and reflect on how unhelpful the reviewers have been. They’ve usually seen the show at a “press night”, they’ve see it through their own peculiar prism of a life spent peering at performers while honing pithy phrases, to upload instantly to their publication or website – often within minutes of the last actor traipsing off into the wings. Then whatever they’ve come up with hangs about in print and on the Web, affecting ticket sales, affecting other people’s enjoyment or otherwise of the piece, and very often affecting actors’ chances of future employment. 

Now, I know a) that this is the Way of the World, and nothing can be done about it, and b) that what I write is yet another personal, partial reaction, but I try to offer a perspective as one who’s been involved with the craft for decades, who finds inordinate fun in the whole process, and wishes all who set out on the high-wire at least a few cheers and maybe a decent parachute!

Take for instance, the comments in that otherwise fine paper, the “i”, about “King Lear” at the Almeida. Jonathan Pryce is faintly praised for “a lucidly pondered” performance as the King in Michael Attenborough’s “considered” production, in which “both fall short of the emotional extremity that the tragedy requires….” Eh? Not the night I saw it! It’s a cracking, brilliantly paced production and Jonathan Pryce, for my money, has pulled off a fantastic sequel to the best “Hamlet” I’ve ever seen, at the Royal Court back in 1980. Like the Hamlet, this King Lear is an unsettling maverick, edgy and unpredictable, who nonetheless takes you to the raw core of human experience, to the guts of the tragedy, and had me quietly weeping as he sat there holding the corpse of the once-beloved daughter he has spurned and cursed.

  

There’s also a fine set of supporting performances all round, including a sharp Geordie Fool from Trevor Fox, and a strong, rather scary Goneril from one of our mentors at  www.teachyourselfacting.com, the always superb Zoe Waites. Zoe came along to talk with the NYU students last week, bringing lots of insight into the painstaking process top classical actors go through in rehearsal to bring us performances of this calibre.

Talking of painstaking work, the “i” has redeemed itself by placing under the banner “If You Only See One Thing Today” the Tricycle Theatre production of “Red Velvet”. If you have any interest at all in the art of acting, and want to see a truly remarkable example of good, well-researched historical story-telling matched with quite brilliant performances – then GO AND SEE THIS – you’ve only a fews more days left! 



As it happens, Adrian Lester, who stars as the real-life, great 19th century actor Ira Aldrige, and the playwright Lolita Chakrabarti are both RADA graduates, serving as distinguished members of the academy’s council, and Charlotte Lucas (pictured here playing Ellen Tree) is yet another former student from my time in Gower St. Their talents combine with those of an equally talented company to create a unique, quite startling  event. If you’ve ever looked at those old prints of actors striking dramatic poses and wondered how such odd-seeming behaviour could move huge audiences to profound grief, joy and wonder, then these actors show how. Adrian is to move on to the National and create his own version of Othello in the spring of next year – notes to be made in the diary.  

October being well under way, it’s fun to be dealing with two species of student, one lot who think it’s the Autumn Term, and another lot working through something called the Fall Semester.

I’m in pre-production meetings with the technical and design teams up at Swiss Cottage with the Central School of Speech and Drama – of which more below – and meanwhile applying myself to the onerous task of sharing theatre visits with young Americans on the NYU London programmes. OK, programs.


At home, the marshland trees are glinting coppery colours, especially the sumacs in my garden, and the deciduous parade out along Coppermill Lane, planted by the ever-environmental Thames Water Ltd…

 Back at Waterside, the sun glinting bravely on the reservoir, the woods on the marshes stirred by a lively autumn breeze.

At the back-end of August I travelled in the North, visiting friends and relations. I stayed with niece Francesca at Skelton-on-Ure, a North Yorkshire village on the Newby Hall estate.

And lo! The night I visited, came there from the faraway Thames river-bank players from Shakespeare’s Globe, bringing a splendid “fit-up” version of “As You Like It”, acted on the lawns before the great house. All through the day the rain had POURED from the skies, but from breakfast on the BBC weather website had insisted that in North Yorkshire the skies would be clear from 6 to 10 pm  – and, on cue at 6 out came the sun….

New readers –  Like Henry the Fourth this narrative has two parts, so please scroll down to start with The Lapsed Curmudgeon Part One, below, or click on the link to the right.

Warwick is a great place to visit, built on hill crowned by the famous castle, with streets full of ancient buildings, and a great sense that this is a fine old market and county town, which Will Shakespeare could well still recognise, if he could avoid getting run over…

Be warned, however about the castle. It’s been taken over by Madame Tussaud’s, and the word is that it’s expensive, and that you have the sense once you’re there of a place that’s been taken over by Madame Tussaud’s…The full price of a ticket for a single adult is THIRTY POUNDS.

Leaning, with the air of an Old Salt making a Decision, on an ancient and convenient post-box, Robin announced decisively that if a castle were to be visited, it would be the one at nearby Kenilworth, accessible by bus-pass and under the benign and reasonably-priced stewardship of English Heritage.

Quite so, a good plan – and in the meantime we set about exploring the less costly bits of Warwick, including the marvellous St Mary’s church, full of glorious gothic features, and containing the famous Beauchamp Chapel, which in turn contains the tombs of assorted Significant Aristocrats from medieval and Tudor times. The most Significant is of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, he who had the mixed fortune to be the favourite of Elizabeth the First. He was a busy and prominent figure in these parts in those times, and amongst other activities was responsible for maintaining “Lord Leycester’s Hospital” – which was in fact a hostel, intended for the “needy, infirm or aged”. It seemed the perfect choice for us, so we went there for tea.



Robert Dudley’s tomb 
is the one on the left.
He died of malaria soon
after the Armada was
repulsed in 1588, and
his wife Lettice is 
buried beside him.






The refectory is the room at the right of the hospital’s courtyard, and we representatives of the needy infirm and aged can report they do a very tidy cream tea.

Albert, who is also quite aged and infirm, lacks a television, so to see the Olympics opening ceremony we set off to the nearest picturesque canal-side Warwickshire pub, assuming the citizenry would be eagerly gathering around the large TV in the bar. In fact a middle-aged rock-group was setting up for a gig which they would be performing directly in front of the telly, starting at 9 o’clock. So we walked inland to another pub, where they said yes, they would be watching it, but they were also having a pool tournament, taking place in the same room as the TV…We began to sense that enthusiasm for this Great National Event perhaps didn’t stretch quite as far beyond the M25 as Mr Cameron might imagine… Anyway, notwithstanding the odd pool-player’s elbow in the face, and a general air of resentment when the landlady kindly turned up the sound for our benefit, we stuck it out and awarded full marks to Danny B and his team. Great stuff, though I shall have to enquire quite what the Chinese chums made of Sir Ken Branagh playing Isambard Brunel playing Caliban in a stovepipe hat…


But we were in Warwickshire, where Shakespeare is never far away. Our visit to the lovely Kenilworth Castle was terrific, despite occasional brisk showers of hailstones. 
Kenilworth was in medieval times one of the homes of the great John of Gaunt, a key figure in the “Wars of the Roses” plays, and in Shakespeare’s time was owned by our friend Robert Dudley, where he lavishly entertained Good Queen Bess. In “Hidden Shakespeare” Nicholas Fogg offers the thought that the young Will could well have witnessed some of the entertainments laid on for the Queen during one of those visits.




When we were there actors were at work, costumed in Lincoln green, teaching medieval combat to groups of kids, who merrily chased each other about the ruins, clearly having a great time.

And so to Stratford. In a previous life Robin was stage manager there for the RSC, back in the days when Terry Hands was in charge, and the likes of Alan Howard and Helen Mirren the leading players. We visited with my Stratford resident pal, Charlie Twigger, a stalwart patron and key supporter of the present regime. Robin was fairly gobsmacked by all the recent rebuilding, and Charlie – who served as local representative on a consultative committee during the process – was able to fill in background info and gossip. Inevitably we sat in the sun outside the Dirty Duck, and almost as inevitably we met one of the Radagrads from my time, a distinguished actor using the Duck as a convenient place to stop for a pee while driving to Wales!

We made a couple of visits to Stratford, the second time meeting up with a very old friend from my early days as a director, Dominic Denny, who’s now living in Warwickshire after years plying the music trade in Canada. Tearing ourselves away from merry and intense chat at the Duck, we slipped off to Illyria.

There’s a smashing, spikey Malvolio from the brilliant Radagrad Jonathan Slinger, and a drop-dead gorgeous Viola from the wondrous young Irishwoman, Emily Taafe, who delivers a great performance despite having literally to swim underwater to make her first entrance onstage!

And so back to our journey over water, as we turned Albert’s bow southwards. The sun still shone, a bit more fitfully than the week before, the locks were rather less hard work, and there was time to savour the beauty that still sits at the heart of our country. The best time is often the first of the morning…

 

I got back to London for the last few days of the Games, a bit browner, a tiny bit fitter, and distinctly less curmudgeonly, ready to work with new clients at teachyourselfacting.com.  

We watched the fireworks on the last night. This is the time of the year when the earth passes through a great belt of meteors, and later that night I wandered out into the garden to try to see shooting stars. But the clouds of autumn were already gathering….