Chapter 7 - Attention!

"We're, SADUSEA...but on the other hand, we're glad to see..."

I would just like to point out before I begin that until I did the show I am about to tell you about, I could not dance for toffee. My right foot was almost certainly replaced by a duplicate of my left foot while I was still in the womb.

So when I was approached by Roger Redfarn to do Privates on Parade by Peter Nichols, how could I refuse?

Privates on Parade is set during the communist insurgency that took place in Malaya just after the Second World War and it follows a group of soldiers, mostly conscripts, who performed to the British troops that were stationed out there. 

On the cover of the script, it was subtitled 'A play with songs'. No problem, I thought, I adore singing as well as acting, so this should be a lot of fun. Then I found out that we would be dancing at the same time, and I almost bolted. If it weren't for the fact that Roger was directing it, I would have said no right off the bat.

Then I began to think about all the things I had done during my year at Chichester College; a lot of them had taken me so far out of my comfort zone that I no longer felt I needed one, so if I wasn't willing to try my best at a bit of musical style theatre, then I would have learnt nothing.

Me on the left as Charles with Andy behind me as Len doing our duet

I was cast as Charles Bishop, a gay northerner who had formed a kind of relationship with Len Bonny, another member of the group. Charles was the medic, assigned with looking after his unit, and he doted over Len like a mother hen a lot of the time. His character goes on quite a journey, and it came with opportunities to be both funny and serious, so it was a good balance.

Rehearsals were, however, very different, and were split into various types: those that dealt with the lines and blocking of the play, those that rehearsed the songs, and those that dealt with the dance moves. 

Our choreographer, Kate, was extremely patient with us, something I am very thankful for, and I was very pleased to see that I was not the only one without any real dance experience. These rehearsals always seemed the longest, and it took me several weeks to really get the hang of it, and we weren't singing at the same time yet.

Ah, yes, the singing. Our MD was Daniel, who wanted nothing short of perfection, and I don't blame him as a great deal of the emotional weight, as well as 50% of the laughs, came from the songs. He warned us before we started that he tended to crack the whip more than a little, however we didn't really give him much reason to. We hit our harmonies most of the time (thank goodness for my dominant Welsh genes), and I had a duet with Andy, the guy playing Len. It was a lovely song called Sunniside Lane which paid homage to Flanagan and Allen. I really enjoyed that moment as it clearly illustrated the closeness between the two characters without being overly schmaltzy.

Then came the crucial part of the rehearsal process, and I'm still surprised that Roger managed to pull this off. Our esteemed director called in an ex-Army corporal to be our drill instructor for the day. To add to the fun, I was late for this particular rehearsal, so they were already drilling when I walked into the auditorium. 

You can imagine the reaction of our instructor as I clambered up on stage after putting on a decidedly uncomfortable pair of boots. I really felt like I was at a boot camp and that I was the dodgy recruit who couldn't get anything right. We were taken through standing to attention, turns, saluting, and of course marching, which we did outside the theatre. I couldn't keep pace because the boots were starting to hurt my feet. By the end of the day, I had blisters on both heels, sore toes, and a highly increased amount of respect for our boys and girls in the armed forces.

The performances were so much fun, with a brilliant audience reaction. Everyone seemed to be having a whale of a time, and Roger was very pleased with all of us.

I came away from that production with a sense of achievement - not only had I managed to do a musical play successfully, I had actually managed to pull off some dance routines with the rest of the ensemble. I felt very proud. 

However even though I had developed a new found respect for the genre of musical theatre, my first love will always be acting.

Chapter 6 - The Dark Side

From the time I did The Ghost Train, to working with my friends on various film related projects, up to my first steps onto the Arundel Fringe, I have mostly played funny characters, or at the very least the straight man to the funny guy, and after a while, it began to really irritate me. Even when I was auditioning for Our Country's Good I wanted to play Major Ross who is a right bastard, but the director said "You're far too nice to play that character."

So while I was having a chance at versatility stomped on by all and sundry at college, when I left and started doing productions with local acting groups, I found myself going down the same road again, doing farce and comedies (although doing Ayckbourn had been an ambition of mine which I fulfilled during this period) that I had started giving up hope of ever doing anything remotely serious or downright evil.

Thank heavens for Drip Action Theatre!

In 2010, after a couple of stints at the Arundel Festival on their theatre trail, Drip Action's artistic director, Bill Brennan, made me an offer I couldn't refuse. To date, it is still my best role, and one I will never forget. Five years later, I still remember the majority of my lines, including the four or five speeches I had sprinkled throughout the piece. I was Ralph Wantage in Bryony Lavery's Frozen.

As Ralph in Frozen, March 2010

The play centres on just three characters: Ralph, who is a loner looking for a distraction, mainly in the form of young girls; Nancy, the mother of his latest victim; and Agnetha, an American psychologist who is drawing up a study on the criminal mind and uses Ralph's case as part of her research material.

This was a moment for me that had been a long time coming, and after reading the script, I was stunned and shocked at first that I would be considered for such a role as Ralph. It was going to take me down some very dark places, especially in my research. I had to read it a few times before I said yes. I take every role I accept very seriously, and I was going to have to become someone that was my complete antithesis.

First off, I knew I wanted to make Ralph seem as ordinary as possible, so I focused some of my research on the case of Roy Whiting who was convicted in a high profile child murder case here in the UK some years ago. Images and sparse amounts of footage of the man showed me someone who would have been quite easy to overlook in such a case, and that was the quality I wanted to bring to my interpretation of Ralph.

I also researched psychological studies relating to paedophilia and child murder, the motivations behind such crimes, and the reasons perpetrators gave for committing them. It was the scariest, most unusual research I had ever done for a role, and it made me itch every time I looked deeper into it.

I brought my research and ideas to the table. Pennie was once again my director, and she knew my capabilities and it made the relationship more collaborative - we were both navigating unknown territory in our chosen fields and a lot of what we decided was based purely on instinct.

As rehearsal went on, and the background Lavery gave Ralph became more and more evident, I actually began to feel sorry for him. That edge of sympathy that I felt towards him made me determined to make the audience feel the same way by the end of the play. I wanted them to feel a connection with his character other than revulsion. I wanted them to see that he was a human being, not just a monster.

As performances came and went, we lost something in the region of between two and six audience members per night at the interval. For obvious reasons, some people simply could not handle it. If anything, I saw that as a compliment from those that chose to leave - it meant we were getting the message and the story across in as vivid a way as possible.

This production changed my whole perspective on acting as a discipline as well as an art. It was certainly the first time that I had heard directly from audience members how they believed everything that was happening in front of them on that stage, even to the point that some of them asked me where I had acted professionally and who my agent was, and what other productions I had done and at which theatres.

It was then that the little seed was planted which, just over a year later, would germinate and begin to grow with the kernel of an idea that I was ready to go pro.

After that, I was generally cast as the bad boy in a number of other productions: Collaboration by Ronald Harwood in which I played the Nazi minister Hinkel; Happy Now? by Lucinda Coxon in which I played Miles, an alcoholic husband who constantly talked down to his wife and made her life a misery while trying to keep his reputation going as a party animal and all round fun guy.

I'm hoping that things continue to go in varying directions like this in the future, in my voluntary roles and (hopefully!) professional life.

Chapter 5 - Fringe Benefits - The Arundel Festival

There's something special and unique about fringe theatre. It holds its own special magic in that it totally takes over your life for a very short space of time, and even though you probably haven't got paid for it, you feel like a professional - even if the venues are a little unusual!

I was first introduced to fringe theatre when I was asked to be involved in the Arundel Festival Theatre Trail, eight plays played at eight different venues over eight days. I jumped at the chance, of course, as I had never done anything like this before. The Arundel Festival was slowly but surely growing in esteem, and I thought it might be a good chance for me to get spotted doing what I love best. Bearing in mind, I was still working my day job at this time and had no inkling that it would be coming to an end in a couple of years, so this was all still a 'hobby' for me.

My first piece was Life Class by William Kenning, directed by my good friend and long term am dram colleague Pennie. I was playing a reclusive genius who had invented the various different types of puzzle you would come across in your daily newspaper. He had made a fortune doing this, his puzzles being published in every national newspaper in the UK and several around the world, so he was able to live very comfortably with his disabled sister who was an artist who specialised in life drawings.

The play deals specifically with him meeting one of the models, a woman who is very confident and assured compared to his shy reclusive demeanour, something he immediately finds attractive but would not dare say anything about to her face. When her commission to the artist is over, unbeknownst to her he commissions a painting of her for himself, just so that he can continue seeing her. When she finds this out, she at first thinks he is some sort of pervert, but then he pours his heart out to her about the accident that he caused which put his sister in a wheelchair which led him to become the way he is around people, and she forgives him for commissioning the painting behind her back. It then becomes obvious to her that he is interested in her and she decides to make the first move and asks him out, much to his delight. He looks around his room at the mounds of newspapers he has accumulated over the years, grabs a black sack and starts shoving them into it with a big grin on his face. Blackout.

It was a lovely piece, very well written, and the venue, the old jailhouse under Arundel Town Hall did not seem detract from the action. If anything, it made it that much more intimate, and it was my introduction to not only fringe theatre, but also to the closeness of the audience that such little productions generated. I got a real kick out of it.

Over the next four or five years, I was asked back again every year, and on a couple of occasions I was asked to do two different plays! That was always interesting, working the rehearsal periods out with two different directors, learning two different 30-40 minute scripts, performing as two distinct characters in different situations. I am very grateful for those times as it kept my mind sharp and gave me the ability to compartmentalise, something that would stand me in good stead as time went on.

So far, I have played a reclusive genius, a Jewish psychiatrist on the run from Nazi Germany, an attempted murderer, a car driver in an accident, a journalist, an ex con, and a marketing exercise host. I can only imagine what I'm going to be doing there next!

Next time: Turning to the Dark Side.

Farewell, Terry Pratchett - A Fallen Hero

I'm still feeling very emotional about the news of the passing of one of my greatest, if not THE greatest of my literary heroes, Terry Pratchett on the 12th March 2015. So much so, that when I had heard it had happened, I felt a surge of inspiration that could only have come from the man himself, and I was compelled to put figurative pen to paper. What came out is shown below, and it stills brings a tear to my eye.

"The streets of Ankh Morpork were deserted. The flag on the Patrician’s palace flew at half mast. The cityfolk thronged along Temple Street, gathering around a small shrine that had mysteriously appeared out of nowhere that very afternoon. They knew it was important, they just weren’t sure why. They just knew they had to be there, to share in...something.

Captain Carrot stood resplendent in his brightly polished armour, Sergeant Colon standing close behind. Corporal Nobbs slouched besides Colon, wondering what all the fuss was about.

“What’s this all about then, Fred?” whispered Nobby. The silence was all around them, pressing in like a thick fog.

“Not sure, Nobby. The Arch-Chancellor at the Unseen University said some cobblers about a major re-al-ity shift. Or summin.” Fred looked up as if the answers could be deciphered from the rainclouds that had also appeared out of nowhere at the same time as the shrine appeared.

Commander Vimes worked his way through the crowd and stood alongside Captain Carrot. “What’s this then, Carrot?”

“No idea, sir,” said the Captain standing perfectly to attention. “Shall I get Sergeant Detritus to move them along sir?”

Commander Vimes shook his head as he made his way over to the shrine. It was very small and simple, made of stone, with a carving embossed on each of its four faces. The carving was of a jolly bearded man wearing spectacles, a large floppy hat on his head. “Is that Rincewind? Has he finally popped his clogs?”

“Don’t think so, sir,” said Carrot. “He’s a survivor. I think it must be someone important.”

At that moment, a faint cry broke the silence. Everyone looked around to try and find the source of the sound. The ground shook beneath their feet. The cry came again, animalistic in origin. Then four great loud trumpets sounded from deep beneath the surface of the Disc.

The trumpeters were the four giant elephants that supported the disc on their mighty shoulders, sitting atop the shell of Great A’Tuin, the world turtle, as she made her way through the great vastness of space on her unending journey. If you looked closely, on her craggy, meteor scarred face, you would have seen a single gigantic tear rolling slowly down her cheek."

When a hero falls, especially one that has had such an impact on your life and the way you view the world around you, you will feel the inevitable sense of grief that comes with the loss that you share with millions of other people who felt the same way that you did. Then there will come the anger that something so precious can be taken from the world while it had so much more left to give it. The acceptance stage in the process, I'm sure, will take a long time to reach.

Reaper Man is my all time favourite Discworld novel, and still is to this day, and it is more poignant than ever now the great man is gone from us. It seems fitting then to end this entry on the final lines of that book. It just seems to fit...

"And Azazel, who knew the secret, said I REMEMBER WHEN ALL THIS WILL BE AGAIN."

Adieu.