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.

Chapter 4 - From Stage to Screen

After a fairly successful run with Durrington Theatrical Society (Aladdin by Christopher Lillicrap, and Din-Dins by Derek Hoddinot) I was enlisted by a group of close and trusted friends to play what is ostensibly my first straight screen role, that of Detective Superintendent David Wilson in Chris Kirk's A Mind of Winter.

This was a very challenging role as I was only 21 at the time and I had to act early to mid-thirties as a hard nosed detective who will stop at nothing to solve the murder of a local cab driver. The true nature of his character does not become clear until towards the end as it is revealed that he committed the murder and has been trying to pin it on a disgruntled unemployed guy who lives in the same village.

So far, so Midsomer Murders. Or so you would think.

Unfortunately, what I thought at the time was a great twist was slightly hampered by the fact that they tried to put a supernatural twist on the nature of Wilson's character. According to some plot  elements and exposition, my character died ten years previous to the events in the film in an accident involving a taxi driver. Is it the same driver? Never explained. Is my character a ghost? Possibly with some of the weird things that seem to happen.

Although uniformly superbly acted by everyone involved (Derry Everett gets a special mention for the key scene where she begins to suspect Wilson and she confronts him, leading to a bit of a barnstormer. I put her through hell on that scene and I'm very proud of the work we did that day.) the film suffered from a loss of plot cohesion as the bodies started piling up, sometimes for plausible reasons, others just so that Chris could experiment with his special effects kit and have tons of blood and brains splattered all over his car windscreen. At least, that's how it feels in hindsight. At the time, it was hilarious.

It also led me into my first proper relationship thanks to a drunken night at my friend Mark's birthday party a few months before shooting started. The best thing to come out of that time, which lasted far longer than it should have, were my two older children. Bye bye drama school and a potential acting career, hello doing acting in my spare time with my mates between nappy changes.

Still, we all have to make sacrifices; we must suffer for our art.

After a number of other projects in those early days, Chris and I had a falling out and Mark struck out on his own in order to take his creativity away from any negative influence, which resulted in a few more collaborations together, details of which will follow in future posts. Chris and I have since got back in touch years later, water very much under the bridge, and he has been collaborating with Mark to get all of our old projects on YouTube. Hopefully they'll actually be working soon!

Next time: my time with the Arundel Festival!

Chapter 3 - Going Down Under

And so we come to my final college production which finally set the seal on the fact that I wanted to enter acting professionally and do it for the rest of my life - Our Country's Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker.

Based on the book The Playmaker by Thomas Keneally, it tells the story of one of the first convict shipments to New South Wales in Australia, and how the Governor Arthur Phillip tries to convince his officers that the unruly convicts can be brought in line by having them put on a production of The Recruiting Officer. Sounds implausible? Well, it really did happen, and we brought it to life in November 1991.

Even with all the productions I've done in the last 20+ years, I can honestly say this is one of my absolute favourites. The script is brilliantly written (it won the Olivier Award for Best Play) and the cast were at the top of their game.

The feel of the production can be summed up by the fact it was a collaborative process between the Drama and English faculties. We had to draw people in to fill all the roles as there were so many. There were people coming into this that had never acted before occupying key roles, though you would never have known.

Auditions were an intriguing process. I really wanted to play Major Ross, a nasty piece of work in the Governor's staff who is totally against the idea of putting on a play. However, I was told by my Director that I was 'too nice' to play such a role. I would prove them wrong years later.

I was eventually selected to play the role of the convict John Wisehammer, a self taught 'literate' who learnt everything he needed to know about the English language from a dictionary that he always carried with him. He was fond of dropping definitions into conversation as the mood suited him, and he had a soft spot for the character of Mary, the young convict who would eventually fall for the charms of Ralph, the Captain who is assigned with Directing the play.

This was my first production using Theatre in the Round (where the audience surrounds you on all four sides of the 'stage') and it was quite an experience. I had never got so close to my audience before, and to begin with, it was a little off-putting. After all, this was only my third stage production, and we had explored a different mode of theatre in every single one. Eventually, it grew on me, not least because my parents got to see me perform up close.

I also got to say the word c*nt for the first time on stage. In front of my parents. It was so liberating!

The thing I will take away from that production in particular was undoubtedly the final scene. All the cast members are 'backstage', waiting to go on; it's opening night and the whole colony has turned out to witness something that the officers are convinced will be an unmitigated disaster. You can feel the tension in the air, particularly after my character reads out his idea for the epilogue - a rather bitter and controversial piece that he had penned himself. Despite the general approval of all present, the Captain has no choice but to decline it's use.

And so, the cast are hushed into silence. Arnold Sideway makes his way onto the stage to deliver the opening speech. And as the last few words are spoken, the music begins to swell...

Excuse me. I've got a lump in my throat even now over twenty years later.

The music of the final movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, the triumphant brass blaring out as the lights slowly faded, will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Oops, here come the tears again.

It was such an effecting and powerful moment created by this little band of Drama and Literature students, that when the last night played out to that tremendous German's music, it took a lot of self control to keep my composure. 

When I got home, I shaved the patchy beard I had grown for the role and had a good cry.

Chapter 2 - Caligula Eat Your Heart Out

The second production I did at College was entitled Lysistrata by the Greek poet and playwright Aristophanes. The play was written as an anti-war piece, and it involves the Greek female population getting together and deciding that they can end the fighting by withdrawing sexual favours from the men. Much bawdy hilarity ensues.

Bawdy hilarity was certainly the aim of our production, as was lavish spectacle as I watched a miniature version of the Acropolis rise up on the floor of the auditorium. I remember musing at the time how the hell they were going to get one of the biggest sets ever contructed by their art department up onto the stage. Then I was told that the seating would be amphitheatre style, with four rows of seating on the stage on a number of levels, with a further two rows on the floor of the auditorium. Impressive stuff, though it did feel like you were taking your life into your hands when you were up on the stage seating (in the gods! - teehee)

Props and costume were taken care of early on, particularly as this was going to be a fully masked production, with traditional robes being worn by the entire cast, with an extra added accessory for the male cast members. In fact, the word members couldn't be more apt...

The masks meant the first and only time I have had latex and plaster of paris spread all over my face, which was an interesting experience, having to breathe through a straw for a couple of hours. The finished result was quite remarkable, and totally unrecognisable as me.

The robes were a doddle, just a case of cutting material into the right shapes.

And the extra accessory? Well, what would happen to you if you came home to your beautiful wife after weeks, possibly months, of fighting to find she has shut you out of the bedroom? Well, according to Aristophanes, you would be walking around with a permanent erection. Well, it's obvious isn't it?

To serve this purpose, we all got involved in making about 8 - 10 papier mache phalluses. These things had straps so that you could feed your legs through so you could wear this thing proudly between your legs. It was obscene. It belonged in Amsterdam, not Worthing. But it was funny all the same.

Rehearsals seemed almost surreal. There would the men be sporting huge erections, while the women would look almost coquettish in their robes, teasing and laughing and winding us poor blokes up.

Performances went far too quickly for my liking. One scene stands out in particular. It was the penultimate night, and I was in one of my key scenes as a soldier returning from the war to his beautiful wife, fully expecting to have his burden relieved. They meet, kiss passionately (not an easy thing with full face masks on) then she disappears into the Acropolis with the promise of returning with various unguents and oils to massage my cares away, if you catch my drift. A moment of inspiration struck me just before her exit. She made her promises and darted off, so I looked down at the hump at the front of my robe and patted the head of the phallus as if to say 'there, there'. Totally unrehearsed.

It got the biggest laugh of the week.

I was so chuffed with my level of improvisation, I sailed through the rest of the production, making sure to include it on the last night as well, and a fun time was had by all, particularly at the end of the play, when the men agree to cease the fighting. Everyone nips into the Acropolis, and a few moments later, they all re-emerge without a single bump in sight.

I can't imagine why...

Chapter 1 - Phantoms, Trains, and Corpsing

September 1989 - my days at Worthing Sixth Form College (now just Worthing College) stretched before me like a ray of hope projected from the sun. After 4 years in a boys only school which were the most miserable of my entire life, you can imagine how much of a culture shock it was to be treated not just like a grown-up but also as a human being. It was so refreshing, I was fairly giddy with the possibility of conversing with members of the opposite sex. Too giddy in fact. Boy did I make some blunders during my first year!

The entry interview was conducted by Clive Blackburn, an extraordinary man and a great mentor as it turned out. He was to be my form tutor. He was also the head of Drama at the college. You can see where this is going, can't you?

Actually, not at all where you would expect. My first year was occupied cramming in my GCSEs, so drama was not really a focus for me. In fact, I hadn't even considered it at the time. A few months went by and we were into the New Year before the information leaflets went around about the accredited courses that were on offer.

There was quite a mish-mash, from ten-pin bowling to archery, from science club (which I imagined was inhabited by people similar to the characters in Revenge of the Nerds) to chess club. Then I spotted something that immediately intrigued me:

How to Put on a Play - Learn about all the fundamental skills that go into a production on stage. Actors and backstage workers needed. 12 weeks to include lunchtimes, evenings and half-term holidays. Play: The Ghost Train by Arnold Ridley. Apply to Drama Faculty.

Those weren't the exact words on the notice of course, but what caught my attention was the name of the play that they were going to be putting on. So, of course, I went along.

I hadn't noticed the college stage before I joined the course. I had no reason to. In college they didn't have assemblies led by some middle aged bloke wearing his Darth Vader style headmaster's cloak. They had a seperate area for lunch which was right next door to the stage area, blocked off by a retractable barrier. Now that I was going to be using the space properly for the first time I really took notice.

It was a classic procenium arch, with rich red curtains with a gold edging. The stage extended beyond the curtains by about 2 or 3 yards. The stage itself was quite big, with two entrances at each wing, with the capacity for a fifth at the back using the flats (which is what we did for the train station entrance).

The construction of the set was left to the 2nd year A-Level Theatre Studies students - Stuart Crane was one in particular who sticks in my mind. I hope he went on to be a revolutionary lighting tech in London because he deserved to go far. What he did for The Ghost Train was incredible.

Decisions for costume and make-up were left to the directors of the production (yes, there were two, which prompted some interesting discussions) and it was decided that I should have my hair slicked back 1920s style with a parting down the middle, a tweed suit, patent leather shoes, and some emphasis on the lips with some red and a pale complexion. I was to play Teddie Deakin, a bit of a fop and a dandy at the beginning of the play who reveals himself to be something else entirely by the end of the last act.

Rehearsals were taking up most of my evenings, but I didn't mind that. Being able to rehearse in situe was a luxury I knew I probably wouldn't have after I left college, so I made the most of it. Besides, my life at this point was hardly a mad social whirl, so I didn't mind the amount of evenings I was spending on this process.

At long last, opening night came. The audience was packed to full capacity (at least as much as fire regulations would allow) and I was waiting backstage to make my entrance about 3 or 4 pages into Act 1. I have never so nervous in my life, before or since. ( I still get nervous before I go on stage, but not to the extent that I did on that night. It gets easier with experience) Then, my cue arrived, and I enter through the door of the waiting room carrying my small suitcase chanting in my best Bertie Wooster "I say! What a topping little crib! What are we all doing then? Having an argument?" As soon as I said my first line, the nerves melted away.

At that precise moment, I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

There were a couple of line slips by various cast members, including myself, but it didn't matter. Given that this play was written so long ago, with very old fashioned dialogue, we decided to make it into a bit of a farce anyway, so we had plenty of laughter from the audience, even if some of it was unintentional. The biggest reaction was when the train thunders through the station; the lights were rigged up behind the backdrop to run in sequence to give the impression of lit carriages shooting past the platform - coupled with the chosen sound effects, it worked superbly! It got a great reaction. ( My own contribution was the Twilight Zone theme music which was played at the beginning as the curtains opened, just to let the audience know what they were in for! :-)  )

The run went swimmingly apart from the last night. We were pulling out all the stops by this point, and we were steaming ahead to the final act where once more I would be rolling around like a lunatic to the Mission: Impossible theme (don't ask!). Upon learning the news (again) that we were being invaded by 'Bolshies' (again, don't ask) the police officer should have told me that the shipment was full of machine guns. Instead, they chose that moment to say "Just as you thought, sir. Hand grenades."

My good friend Fletcher, playing one half of a young couple in the play, blurted out "Hand grenades?" in the fashion of a man close to losing his sanity.

He corpsed.

It spread like wildfire.

Pretty soon almost everyone on stage is trying to supress the giggles that were welling up inside us, but to no avail. At one point, I vaguely remember putting my arm around someone's shoulder and pretending to cry in order to cover up the fact that I was laughing. It didn't work.

Fortunately, the audience were very forgiving, and when we finally calmed down enough to finish proceedings, they applauded enthusiastically. Phew.

To this day, I can honestly say I have never corpsed in any live production since. Plenty of times while filming, but then that's a whole different beast, and the audience never see the mistakes (except on the DVD, of course!)

I'm hoping that poor old Mr Ridley was not turning in his grave!