Year of the Fat Knight Page 4

  The drop-off was arranged for 10.30 this morning. Feeling like I was a spy in a movie, I went down to the lobby, and scanned the people there with an uncertain eye. Who was I to look for? Then a young woman suddenly came over, and handed me the envelope. We said no more than hello and goodbye.

  Now I’m back in the room. There are about fifteen pages, each with my name stamped heavily across it (making some of the dialogue difficult to read) – it ensures that if any of this material was ever revealed publicly I could immediately be identified as the mole, the traitor.

  After all this real-life drama, the scenes themselves are rather straightforward. But I’m not sure if it’s safe to reveal their content even here. What if this diary was stolen?

  Anyway, it doesn’t really matter. The role is quite strong and I’ll be playing opposite Ian. The rest all comes down to how little time it’ll take to do, and how much money they’ll pay.

  My attitude to these film cameos is completely different to my theatre work. If you’re playing a big leading role on stage, you have to share the responsibility for the whole thing. If you’re appearing briefly in a film, your only responsibility is to do the little job efficiently. But these same little jobs make it possible for me to do plays which I’m passionate about in theatres that don’t pay much, like the Sheffield Crucible (Enemy of the People), the Kilburn Tricycle (Broken Glass), and Bath Theatre Royal (Hysteria).

  Sunday brunch is one of New York’s special pleasures. We had ours at the Russian Tea Room just behind the hotel. An unexpected conversation took place.

  I began tentatively: ‘Listen… I’ve been thinking about the Henries… and I’ve had this idea… it’s probably crazy… but I’m going to say it anyway.’

  Greg leaned forward over his caviar blinis, frowning but amused.

  I carried on: ‘What about a modern-dress production?’

  There was a pause, then Greg said: ‘Good heavens, I’ve been thinking exactly the same thing.’

  ‘Good heavens,’ I echoed; ‘I was sure you’d say it was completely impossible. With these of all plays.’

  ‘Yes, and maybe it is, but… I’m quite drawn to the idea.’

  ‘Well, from my point of view it changes everything. I mean, for Falstaff. If he doesn’t have to look like some Toby jug from the souvenir shop, but… I don’t know, a kind of British version of a Vietnam vet. With a ponytail and bandana, an earring, big scruffy beard… this battle-crazed old guy gone to ruin. I mean, it would be such an original interpretation that the whole question of why I’m playing it… well, it would just cease to be. I’m playing it because this is the way we’re playing the production. And the perfect Falstaff actor – whoever that is – might not be able to play him like this. But I can.’

  We talked about how it would affect other characters, pictured this or that scene in a modern context, then went quiet, almost holding our breath, both filled with the same thought: is this a good or bad idea? They’re sometimes difficult to tell apart.

  Greg said in a quiet, sensible tone, ‘Well… let’s keep thinking about it.’

  ‘Right,’ I replied; ‘But I just have to say – this is very exciting!’

  Saturday 20 April

  Stratford-upon-Avon.

  One of those mornings. I walked into the front room at Avonside, and had to stagger back, shielding my eyes. Sunlight was blazing on the river, beaming through our windows, bouncing off every wall. Perfect weather. It’s Shakespeare’s birthday celebrations today.

  This begins with a parade through town. Taking part are local civic dignitaries, ambassadors or cultural attachés from every country in the world, scholars from the Shakespeare Institute and Birthplace Trust, and many others. The assembly point is outside the Town Hall at the top of Sheep Street. Prefects from KES were leading the various groups – we fell in behind the one holding the RSC placard. Catherine Mallyon was there too, with partner Susan, and as we set off we realised that, like on the red carpet for Matilda in New York, the RSC was being fronted by two people in same-sex relationships – a first for this time-honoured procession, I bet. A tiny, quiet bit of history being made.

  There was a long wait on Bridge Street while flags were unfurled from every lamp post – Greg doing his RSC duty – and brass bands marched up and down. Then they led us through town, to Trinity Church, where we laid flowers on Shakespeare’s grave.

  The whole affair is quaint and slow, essentially English, and rather touching. In today’s bright sunshine, there we all were, dressed in our smart clothes, some with hats and sunglasses, chatting about this and that as we strolled along to the bands’ tunes, participating in a little country-town ritual, which happens to be honouring one of the most universally famous figures of all time.

  The big lunch is next, but this has become a problem. There are so many speeches and toasts that the meal has been known to drag on for five hours, and leave guests dazed with Shakespeare-overkill. So this year, a new format is being tried. Two of the main events – the Toast to the Immortal Bard and the presentation of the Pragnell Prize – are happening first, at a different location. KES. We were given glasses of champagne as we arrived, then climbed upstairs to Shakespeare’s schoolroom.

  Here Margaret Drabble gave the Toast. It came as a surprise to learn that she had been ‘a spear carrier’ (her words) with the RSC in the early sixties, understudying both Judi Dench as Titania in Peter Hall’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Diana Rigg as Cordelia in Peter Brook’s famous King Lear (with Scofield). She said, ‘I cannot exaggerate the importance to me, through later years, of the experience of being so close to Shakespeare on stage.’

  The recipient of this year’s Pragnell Prize (given for outstanding contribution to Shakespeare) was Simon Russell Beale. In his acceptance speech, Simon proved himself to be very skilled at this sort of thing: his style was relaxed, spontaneous, seeming almost absent-minded, fussing with his papers, and of course humorous. I particularly enjoyed his story about doing the annual play at his all-male school. Those boys who played women (Simon was Desdemona!) were taught to hold their thumbs in their palms; ‘I don’t think it made us more graceful and feminine – we just looked like lemurs!’

  The lunch which followed was not in its usual location – a marquee in the Bancroft Gardens – but in the Rooftop Restaurant at the theatre. We were seated next to Simon. I had decided not to mention that I was going to play Falstaff, but Greg did, almost immediately. Simon gave a little, non-committal smile and nodded. More than anyone, he knows about casting-against-type. The idea of him playing Hamlet seemed very far-fetched, yet it became one of his most acclaimed performances.

  We talked about his Falstaff in the BBC TV film. Greg asked him if playing it to a theatre audience might have changed his way of doing it. He thought it might – their laughter would have shifted the tone – but he remained committed to the idea that Falstaff is haunted by death from the start. Now that I knew the part better, I disagreed – but didn’t say so.

  Anyway, Falstaff was past history for Simon. He had his sights on the next one – later this year he’s playing Lear at the National, directed by Sam Mendes.

  Friday 10 May

  London.

  I’ve been having problems in my lower back – a feeling of my hips being locked – and with the long flight to New Zealand coming up, decided to finally get it sorted. Went to Dr Ralph Rogers in Harley Street. He’s an orthopaedic specialist, who deals with sports injuries. This kind of doctor is very useful for performers: like sportsmen, we need fast, and sometimes unconventional cures. He gave me some injections in the spine. Quite painful, but guaranteed to help, he assured me. Will have another treatment or two before the flight in a fortnight.

  Back at home, thrilling news. Hysteria is back in the picture. The idea of a Broadway production fell away, like the West End transfer before it, but now there’s an offer to do it at Hampstead Theatre. Perfect. In every way. It’s just a mile or so from where the play is set, in Freud’s last ho
me at 20 Maresfield Gardens, now the Freud Museum. And it’s a theatre where I’ve had a series of special experiences (Mike Leigh’s Goose-Pimples, my one-man show Primo, my play The Giant). Rehearsals will be in August (their length dependent on which other members of the Bath cast want to do it), and it’ll have a decent run till October. I feel excited and pleased. Hysteria gets its London showing after all, but in a small space, which should be packed. And as a job, it neatly fills the gap between The Hobbit and the Henries. Emailed Terry Johnson to express my delight.

  Wednesday 29 May

  New Zealand. Wellington. The Hobbit film studios.

  I finally get the chance to say it to Ian McKellen’s face:

  ‘It’s all your fault.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Me playing Falstaff. You suggested it.’

  ‘Ah,’ he says absently; ‘Did I?’

  We’re in Ian’s tent (where he waits between camera set-ups) in an area next to the sound stage. He is dressed and made up as Gandalf, and I as this character called Thrain. I am wearing facial prosthetics which take three and a half hours to apply each day, and which transform me so completely – into a big-nosed, big-chinned, big-eared, wrinkled, scarred, old Dwarf King – that when this movie comes out, I defy anyone to say whether it’s me or Meryl Streep in the role. This is character acting which has nothing to do with the actor: it’s the creation of the art director and make-up artist.

  Anyway, although Ian has only a vague memory of suggesting me for Falstaff, he’s very encouraging about me playing it: ‘That part needs either a great clown or a leading actor with a feel for comedy. Which I think people would say both you and I are.’

  ‘So why did you turn it down?’ I ask.

  ‘I’ve never really got Falstaff’s humour,’ he replies.

  Here we are again – the humour. I don’t actually see how a great clown (like George Robey, who played it in 1935) could pull it off. There’s so much more to Falstaff than the laughs.

  Ian says there was a moment a few years ago when he became tempted to play Falstaff – in a gay relationship with Hal. But he went to see a student production which tried this interpretation, and realised it didn’t work.

  No, absolutely not. The Falstaff/Hal relationship has to be father/son. The play makes Falstaff Hal’s surrogate father – albeit the wildest, least conventional parent-figure imaginable – in stark contrast to Hal’s real father, the King.

  Ian goes on to tell me that when he was at Cambridge, his first success as an actor was as Justice Shallow in Part II. He was tutored in it by John Barton, very strictly, line by line, and to this day still remembers John emphasising the importance of the line, ‘Nay, you shall see mine orchard’ – saying how it conjured up a little patch of trees in golden sunlight, a little picture of England. Now Ian does an impersonation of his twenty-year-old self doing the speech, and I laugh – I can hear both him and John Barton in the delivery.

  We’re summoned to do the next scene. As a director, Peter Jackson is open and accessible, but, wearing slightly crumpled clothes and permanently clutching a mug of herbal tea, he also has the air of a man in the grip of a particular obsession – it’s called making a blockbuster. It’s extraordinary – the one-man film industry that he’s built. He has created so much employment in New Zealand, and so enhanced its international profile, that they offered to rename Wellington Airport after him – but he declined. When we met last week, I was talking about growing up in South Africa, and mentioned that anyone interested in the arts always wanted to escape to that mythical place called Overseas. He said the same syndrome was true here, but he never felt that way. No – instead he’s brought Overseas here.

  His relationship with Ian is effortless. Of course it is. This is their fifth film together. As Ian says affectionately, ‘I’ve been playing this fucking part for the whole of this fucking century!’

  Peter’s work method is totally relaxed. Virtually no rehearsal. You do a rough block-through, and then he starts shooting on what he calls rolling takes: one after the other, without shouts of ‘Action’ or ‘Cut’, just a few notes from him in between. (There’s no expensive film stock being consumed; the digital stuff costs nothing.) So you create the scene while filming it, rather than trying to recapture what you did on a specially good rehearsal or take.

  Because the dwarves have to be smaller than Gandalf, Peter employs several devices. Sometimes the camera angle is enough, or Ian stands on a box, and he and I can still play the scene together. At other times, the scale doubles are brought in. Ian has a seven-foot scale double called Paul (in real life, a local policeman), and I have a three-foot scale double called Kieren. Both are costumed and made up to look like us, and in some close shots I’ll be reaching up to Paul’s arm, or Ian will looking down to Kieren.

  At times it’s quite surreal. At lunch, in the huge canteen tent on the studio lot, you’ll see the other dwarves – actors I know, like Ken Stott, Jimmy Nesbitt, Richard Armitage – in their prosthetics and body suits, sitting next to crew members in their ordinary clothes, and next to them the scale doubles. On my first few days, it wasn’t only severe jet lag that made me feel I’d landed on Mars.

  Sunday 2 June

  I’m hopeless at being away on location. I’m no good at either socialising or exploring, so when I’m not filming, I tend to stay holed up in my hotel, eating from the room-service menu, or sometimes venturing out to a restaurant.

  ‘I take a book along,’ I told Greg on the phone; ‘And I don’t feel lonely – but I know I look lonely.’

  ‘Why don’t you find your book amusing?’ he suggested; ‘And laugh occasionally, so people can see you’re okay.’

  ‘Because then I won’t only look lonely, I’ll look mad.’

  The hotel, The Museum, is situated on the harbour, and there are attractive walks along the quayside, leading to an area not unlike Cape Town’s Waterfront, with shops and restaurants. But the weather isn’t great: we’re going into New Zealand’s winter, and the wind can be formidable – horizontal at times, I’m told.

  Luckily, I’ve got a work project to occupy me during the long days in my hotel room. Cutting the Henries; i.e. reducing the text to a reasonable running time (about two and a half hours per play). This is something I first did with Terry Hands, when we decided to condense the two parts of Tamburlaine the Great into one: as, respectively, director and leading actor, we each did a cut separately, then met to compare and contrast. Greg and I have continued the tradition on our shows together.

  This is a very enjoyable, learning process. Before you can cut a scene – I’m only doing the Falstaff ones – you have to really understand it. So I pore over the notes in the two editions I’ve brought with me, the RSC and the Arden, and then mark possible cuts – using pencil – in the scripts which the literary department has provided in A4 format. It’s a terrific way of getting to know a play (or plays).

  And it led to this conversation on the phone today:

  Me: You know the idea we had in New York about a modern-dress production – it doesn’t work, does it?

  Greg: Carry on – I’ve been rereading them too – but carry on.

  Me: Well, right from the early scenes… at Gad’s Hill, Falstaff can’t do without his horse… then he’s been hacking his sword and his buckler… and a hundred other things… it’s the whole atmosphere of the plays… they’re like a love letter to an earlier England…

  Greg: And it’s not Henry IV’s England – it’s Elizabethan England, it’s Shakespeare’s England.

  Me: Yes. It’s what an audience expects from these plays… it’s what I expect when I go to them… I’d be disappointed by a modern-dress production.

  Greg: I totally agree.

  We were in accord once again. But the exercise was valid, I believe. We proposed a modern-dress production, we examined the idea in more detail, we realised it didn’t work, and now we’ll revert to a period production. But Greg thought we could still incorporate some of the
things which inspired us about a modern version. Like Falstaff as a Vietnam vet. There’ll be ways of suggesting that.

  There’s an eleven-hour time difference between the UK and New Zealand. This phone call was happening on Saturday night for Greg, Sunday morning for me. All quite confusing. I got caught out last week, when Greg began a call by saying, ‘Can I just thank you for the last twenty-six years.’ Our anniversary! I knew that our twenty-sixth was on the 26th of May, but had no idea when the 26th of May was.

  Anyway, when we finished today’s call, I worked for about eight hours on the scripts, excited by our new concept of doing the plays old. Then I gradually ran out of energy, and sat there with a glass of wine, while outside my window with its wide view of the bay and harbour, day turned to night. I thought about going out to a restaurant, and then just dialled room service again…

  I can’t wait to go home.

  Friday 14 June

  Stratford-upon-Avon.

  My birthday. My God, there was a Beatles song about being unimaginably old: ‘When I’m Sixty-Four’. And that’s me today.

  Sunday 23 June

  Over the last three days, I’ve been watching a unique performance of Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’s an RSC project with Google+: the play performed in three sections, each corresponding to the time scheme in the story, and with a lot of social-media activity surrounding the event: filming it, a video-diary room, and so on.

  Greg directed, and managed to collect a cast together who had all played their parts before, either in his own production (like Joe Dixon as Bottom) or in others. This enabled them to rehearse in just one week.

  It began on Friday evening, with the opening scenes, which introduce the Lovers, the Mechanicals, and the Fairies. This was in the Ashcroft Room, the huge, beautiful rehearsal space above the Swan Theatre. The audience sat in a circle, the actors wore their own clothes, and there were no lighting or sound effects. The piece was all the better for it: just the words conjuring up fantastical things, the play itself. I was next to Ciss Berry, the RSC’s legendary voice guru. She’s eighty-seven now, physically a bit frail, using a stick, but her mind is as bright as ever. ‘The sexual imagery in the language!’ she said, as excited as a teenager discovering it for the first time. The cast were splendid, and Joe Dixon so good that I got into one of my weeping-with-laughter states, with incontinent tear ducts.