Small pleasures from small favours

Since I’ve already denied women the right to make fools of themselves by taking up pole dancing as exercise and learning it at public classes, and thereby contributing to the backlash against feminism, I thought I would now deny women the right to have children at an age when they should be playing with their children’s children or enjoying retirement. But too much has been said about that 63-year-old mother-to-be and the subject has gone stale on me.

Instead, I want to slap people who, having acquired a little bit of power, suddenly take themselves seriously and refuse to do other people small favours, when it’s no skin off their noses.

My partner and I went to Stratford-upon-Avon for Shakespeare’s Birthday (April 23rd, in case you’ve forgotten when it was): the Royal Shakespeare Company had planned masses of events and we thought it would be good fun.

We hadn’t booked for anything (we’d learned about it too late), but we managed to attend two very interesting events (one about playing Cleopatra – with Harriet Walter and Janet Suzman; the other about the Sonnets – with Patrick Stewart and my beloved John Barton). There had been a few tickets left for the first talk, but the second one was booked up. Nevertheless we thought there might be some returns so we queued anyway. There weren’t, but just before the start we were let in, together with four or five other people, because there was space and because they took pity on us. We stood, or sat on the floor, at the back of the room, and spent a wonderful, stimulating two hours.

There was one more event we ‘didn’t mind’ attending: an interview with Judi Dench. It was to take place in the big marquee that had been erected in one of the theatre gardens (and where we’d heard the two Cleopatras earlier that day). For this too tickets were unnumbered and the queue to go in was unbelievable: it went round and round and round… We, and a very small group of other unfortunate, ticket-less people, waited for everyone to be seated. We had money in our hands; there was plenty of standing room on the side of the seating area and there didn’t seem to be any reason why we couldn’t be let in. That’s when I noticed her – Bronwyn Robertson, the most officious woman ever, and I more or less knew we were waiting in vain.

She could have said to us, “You’ve been waiting so patiently; there’s only a few of you; this is the last event of the day; I cannot deprive you of the pleasure of listening to Dame Judi, who’s come specially today – a Sunday – to give this interview. Please come in!” But she didn’t say it and everyone wandered off (one person was in a wheelchair – you’d think she would have allowed them in), disappointed. We did hear the interview for a while, because we discovered that, if we positioned ourselves in a special spot, behind the marquee, and listened closely, we could hear every word. Unfortunately, the questions were so lame and banal and so unworthy of her talent that we gave up halfway through. But that's not the point.

It would have been so easy for Bronwyn to make us all happy. But, no, it was in her power to deny us and she did. I wonder if she got any satisfaction out of it.

I first met Bronwyn in 1974, when I lived in Stratford and needed a job. She was secretary to one of the directors; she was obstructive and annoying. She was then put in charge of something or other and she carried on being unhelpful. I must have been introduced to her a dozen times. She always forgot who I was. It requires a special kind of person to ‘forget’ completely someone they see practically every day.

While I’m slapping people who deserved it in the past but who only got the utmost courtesy from me because I was still hoping to have a career with the RSC at the time I might as well mention Diana Minchall. We met in 1977, when we were both attending the Summer School and were staying in the same B&B. She knew no one; I knew everyone. By the time she went back to London she knew everyone too. Two years later, when she got a job with the RSC (in the Publicity Department), she had a head start. I had told her about the vacancy so she could apply for it and when she got the job she promised to return the favour. Yeah right!

Not only did she not help me in any way but, within a few weeks of her taking up her new post, one might have thought she was the RSC’s Artistic Director, judging from the way she started behaving. I stopped being in the secret of the gods because my contacts assumed she was giving me lots of info and I didn’t need to be told anything.

She was there for about ten years and I never got another chance to get a job with the RSC. Instead of being a help she was an obstruction. I’ve been wanting to slap her smug face for a very long time. There!

When I used to work at Penhaligon’s I had access to perfumes that everyone valued immensely. I was in a position to give my friends a few samples from time to time. And why not? My mistake is that I’ve always expected others to derive as much pleasure from doing (or returning) favours as I have.

I’m sure Judi Dench would have been very sad to know that half a dozen people were turned away that day – for no good reason whatsoever – because of some self-important official.

Slap!

Old and desolate

Patrick Magee as Sade and Ian Richardson as Marat

... that’s how you feel when the idols of your youth disappear. Gods should not be allowed to die.

The actor Ian Richardson died this morning, in his sleep.

I am in shock.

The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as performed by the inmates of the Asylum of Charenton under the direction of the Marquis de Sade (at the time of its release in the ’60s, people joked, 'I haven't seen the film, but I've read the title') or Marat/Sade, directed by Peter Brook, changed the course of my life – literally. I owe my love of the theatre to that film and it's because of it (and more especially because of Ian Richardson, who played Marat) that I stopped studying psychology at the Sorbonne and took up English instead. The first time I saw it, I stayed for two performances and nearly missed a train I had to catch that evening. 

I will write more later.

Update (10 February): By the time the world became aware of him, Ian Richardson was already past his prime. Yes, he was wonderful as Francis Urquhart in House of Cards. Absolutely wonderful, but...

I was there. I was there, night after night, matinee after matinee, in the dark and womblike auditorium of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, standing at the back of the stalls, leaning on my railing, lapping it all up: the scenery, the costumes, the music, the verse, the emotions. I was there when Ian Richardson was a god and he knew it and he had the audience hanging on his every inflection, when his voice soared... ah!...

Don’t just take my word for it. Every review of every play he was in mentioned the voice, but this is what Roger Lewis says in his book Stage People:

He sings his sentences, his voice swooping from a bellow to a whisper, from a hoot to a silence. Richardson’s voice is his instrument; he is conscious of it and proud of it; he plays upon it and with it. He can draw out a single word into an alarming stutter of syllables, like a libretto fragmented and reproduced under the stave; he’ll then speed ahead, putting a girdle around a paragraph in four seconds.

It was the voice above all. But also the poise, the stillness. And the wit. And the sense of danger too. There, on the stage, not preserved in aspic for posterity.

He’s gone and hardly anyone is mentioning Shakespeare. My 20-year-old self would never have believed it. It makes me very sad now.
 
I knew Ian Richardson – a tiny little bit. I lived in his Stratford house, with two other girls, for the best part of 1974. He wasn’t there; he was renting it out to us. The house was very cold; my room was the coldest of all, but I didn’t care. There was a throne from some past RSC production on the patio; Marat’s tin bath was rusting at the bottom of the garden; his acting editions of Penguin Shakespeare were sitting on the shelves in the living room (they got thrown away a little later and I now wish I had ‘stolen’ a couple of them, but I didn’t dare at the time). Fans used to walk past the house, stop and point at it. Told you he was a star.

He used to scare me to death, from time to time, by turning up unannounced (always accompanied by his wife, who usually remained silent) and demand to know why the lawn hadn’t been mown (the neighbours were always complaining). I’ve heard Marat and Francis Urquhart and Angelo and Richard II yell my name from the bottom of the stairs and then discuss mundane things. It was wonderful.

Later that year, when I was working at the Aldwych Theatre (dressing the tallest actor in the company, of course – some kind of hazing I believe it was), we used to pass each other backstage every night and exchange no more than a smile, except once, when he said something so bitchy about someone we both knew that I was in hysterics for the rest of the evening. That’s also how I want to remember him: rather camp and mercurial.

I visited eBay last night: lots of people are trying to cash in on Ian’s death and flogging photos and letters signed by him. I have a few of those, among them a very grumpy letter: I had reproached him for wasting his time on rubbishy stuff (it must have been before House of Cards), and he had written back defending his choices. I wasn’t convinced, and I was right: a few years later, he said in an interview that he bitterly regretted not doing stage work any longer, and Shakespeare in particular.

I also have the waistcoat he wore as the Government Inspector at the Old Vic (I didn’t steal it; I bought it for a few pounds at a charity auction). No, you won’t find it listed on eBay either – not now, not at any time in the future.

What else can I say? I saw him recently at the National Theatre, in a play, and also talking about his career (I went mainly because my younger self would not have missed it and I owed it to her). He was just as entertaining as ever. He said he would probably never act on the stage again (a premonition?) and his one regret was that he’d never got a chance to tackle King Lear. He sounded happy, though.

There’s no doubt about it: it was the voice that did it.

Update: To hear the voice that mesmerized me 40 years ago, click here

Tête à claques XI

Told you the mellowness wouldn’t last long.

Before you go on reading, please answer this question: did you enjoy Truly Madly Deeply? If you’ve answered, “Oh my god, it’s my favourite movie; I’ve seen it 25 times and cried soooo much each time,” you can stop reading now because this post will upset you.

If, on the other hand, you’ve answered, “Ugh! That movie made me want to throw up: it was so syrupy and fake and the acting was disgusting,” then please carry on.

Juliet Stevenson was the main culprit and I wanted to slap her very hard for it when the film came out, all those years ago, and I can’t wait one minute longer.

I used to adore her. I saw her in her very first part at the RSC in 1978. She was 20 years old, I think, and fresh from drama school. She’d got the part of a servant in a marvellous production of The Taming of the Shrew because the actress who should have been playing that part had broken her leg or something, and she made a great impact in that small part. I got to know her and the following year she even stayed in my flat in Paris, while I spent the summer in Stratford. I saw everything she was in and was never disappointed. She had a superb, distinctive, grown-up voice and she was always good. She was also very serious and dedicated and had unbelievable self-discipline.

And then Truly Madly Deeply happened and that was it. She became the most mannered actress ever – a kind of caricature. My partner’s theory is that she was praised so much for her performance in that film that she must have thought that was what the public wanted from her so she gave it more of the same. And she started playing fluffy (she doesn’t have the physique for fluffiness) and scatty women because she was offered other parts like that after that landmark film. Her voice got shriller too.

I stopped being able to watch her, but I don’t give up easily on people and I’ve seen her in other things since then – just because I keep hoping that one day she will be the powerful performer she was when she was young. Tonight my partner and I saw her in a terrible production of The Seagull, directed by the perverse Katie Mitchell. Perverse because she decided to go against the text all through, without any reason whatsoever. Perhaps tomorrow’s reviews will reveal that the nonsense we saw on the stage had some profound meaning, but I doubt it. Juliet wasn’t bad, but she couldn’t be good in such a preposterous production. I’m afraid I hid from her, when she walked by in the foyer after the show. “Darling, you were wonderful!” I couldn’t possibly have said that to her – no way.

I’m slapping Dame Juliet (it’s only a question of time…) for being such a disappointment.

Tête à claques V

I’ve never met my previous Têtes à claques, but I knew Rupert Everett when he was a young boy. These photos were taken in Stratford-upon-Avon, in 1977: Rupert was 18.

He was tall and thin as a beanpole (an asperge in French – we’re a little more refined in our choice of vegetables). He was gangly, not quite coordinated; he could be bitchy and waspish, but also very very cute.

I first saw him in Stratford in 1976; he used to hang around the theatre day and night and , as I was on holiday, I used to hang around the theatre day and night. That year the RSC had decided to transform the theatre into a replica of Shakespeare's Globe and there were seats at the back of the stage. This young man was annoying me a lot by pacing up and down at the back of the seating area; I kept wondering why he was allowed to disturb the paying public in that way. Then, one morning I saw him with Ian McKellen outside my B&B. They looked very ‘friendly’ with each other. That was ten years before Sir Ian came out of the closet; he was a matinee idol rather than a gay icon and female fans used to mob him at the Stage Door (one of them even threw herself into the Avon to attract his attention). Anyway, who was courting whom, I couldn’t possibly say.

The following year I bumped into Rupert again in London: he was working as an usher at the Warehouse (the RSC’s studio theatre) and already charming his way to fame. He recognized me and we started chatting. We met up a couple of weeks later in Stratford: we were both attending the Shakespeare Summer School and we had great fun together. He was always on the lookout for mischief and together we behaved outrageously (one night we were even thrown out of a very respectable Chinese restaurant). He returned to London at the end of the week and we didn’t see each other again for another year.

Then, one afternoon, in Paris, I got a phone call from him, “Please come and bail me out. I’ve crossed the Channel without a passport. I’m at the Hôtel Meurice, on the Rue de Rivoli. I'm hungry. I've got no money. I'm going back tonight. I don't know what's going to happen.” By chance another actor friend was staying with me. He knew Rupert too, by sight. He was extremely amused and agreed to go with me to rescue him. We found him lounging on a sofa in the beautiful lobby of that most luxurious of hotels, writing a letter with a pen and a pad lent to him by one of the commissioners. He stood up languidly to greet us and, on the way out, offered to return the writing implements, but the commissioner told him to keep them with a huge smile – totally under his spell. We took Rupert to Angelina (a very posh tearoom) next door and plied him with tea and cakes. We had a whale of a time. Later, he borrowed money from us (“Rupert, you still owe it!”) to pay for the fare to Gare du Nord, and he left as nonchalantly as he had appeared. No doubt he charmed passport control too, later that evening.

In 1981 I went to see him in Another Country, at the Greenwich Theatre (before the show transferred to the West End). He was the same old Rupert. He entertained me with stories of the other actors in the play (one of whom was Kenneth Branagh). That was the beginning of his rise and rise to stardom.

I’ve seen him a couple of times since then, but not recently and if I had I probably wouldn’t have recognized him. He’s had plastic surgery: a brow and eye lift, and cheek implants, they say. He doesn’t look like himself any longer.

Rupert, I’m slapping you for spoiling your good looks – even more than a few wrinkles would have.

First a secret, then a lie

Secrets and Lies by Mike Leigh is one of my favourite films: one of those I can watch every single time it’s shown on TV (there are a few others that never cease to delight me). It’s wonderful: funny, profound, heartbreaking, delicate. The acting is superb. You care deeply for the characters: they are real people with real emotions.

It’s the way Mike Leigh develops his projects: he chooses a subject; selects a handful of actors and tells them to go out there and work out their characters. The scripts evolve through research and improvisation. Very often the actors don’t know what the others are actually playing. In Vera Drake, for instance, only Imelda Staunton, who plays the title role, knew that her character was an abortionist, so when the police come to arrest her the look of utter horror on the faces of the other characters is absolutely genuine.

So, considering what gems Mike Leigh can create (there were also Abigail’s Party and Nuts in May, among others), what was it my partner and I saw last night at the National Theatre? What was that lightweight, banal, lazy, superficial, cliché-ridden play? We bought our tickets ages ago; at the time, of course, no one knew what the play was about – not even Mike Leigh himself. It was announced as “A New Play by Mike Leigh” and it sold out within minutes because… well, because of what I said above. We all trusted him to produce something exhilarating.

It now has a title – it’s called Two Thousand Years – but it’s not worth seeing. It was fascinating while it was a mystery. Now it’s as interesting as listening to a trivial conversation at a party.

Some critics are already saying it deserves to transfer to the West End, after its run at the NT (btw, if you hate E M Forster and love this play I can't be your best friend; don't bother) : it makes me wonder whether we saw the same play. But, then, I didn’t like David Hare’s Amy’s View and Alan Bennett’s The History Boys either (to name but two), and they were hailed as masterpieces.

A slap to Mike Leigh for disappointing us!

Puzzle of the Day

I’ve just spent nearly two hours trying to book theatre tickets for the forthcoming Royal Shakespeare Company London season. The National Theatre priority booking forms are always a bit tricky and counter-intuitive, but you need a degree in something (but what?) to fill in the RSC ones.

There was no proper schedule of performances – a calendar with plays clearly marked, just separate blocks of dates for each play (and there were seven of those I wanted to see) so you couldn’t see the “big picture” and there was a risk of booking two plays for the same date.

Then there was the odd weird instruction and you had to rack your brain to try and fathom what on earth they might mean.

Why do they think anyone has the time for this? I suppose the subscription and seats are so expensive that they reckon only wealthy retired people can afford to book anyway. I adore the RSC – they are the reason why I moved to the UK (long story), but when the mailing from them lands on my mat my heart sinks and I get panicky.

And don’t get me started on the fact that they lied to me – and to Dame Judi Dench, which is much worse – when they promised to find a home in London that wouldn’t be a West-End type theatre. So what do they choose as their London base: the Strand Theatre (they can't fool us by renaming it the Novello Theatre? Ha!). Liar, liar, pants on fire!

Slap!

That's it! We're outta here!

I’m dying to slap someone, but I can’t, so, I’m afraid, a lot of other people are going to get slapped in her place.

Three hundred thousand people have been affected by wildcat strikes at the height of the summer holiday rush. British Airways staff have come out in support of sacked in-flight catering staff, egged on by the unions, of course.

Now, the unions have their uses and I remember defending them to my father (who, as a small employer, had had a brush with them), years ago, when I was an idealistic teenager, but they can also be incredibly pig-headed and devoid of common sense. I’ve had experience of it.

In February 1986, I was on tour in Paris. I was working as a technical interpreter on a National Theatre show at the Théâtre de l’Odéon. I was interpreting for the French and British lighting crews and things were not going very well. The main NT man was a woman hater (you should have seen his face when he realized he’d be working with me) and the French guy was an impatient boor. I was caught in the middle and had to resist translating the curses that those two men (who couldn’t have been more different and had taken an instant dislike to each other) were uttering under their breath while I was speaking. Still, the set was being built and the play wouldn’t be played in the dark.

And then, late one night, the day before the technical rehearsal, it all came to a head: a few minutes before midnight the French oaf said something; I translated it; the NT chauvinist pig then answered and I’d just started to translate when the French union representative stepped forward and ordered me to stop. Stunned, I uttered one more word…. and the French lighting crew walked out. Nothing anyone said could make them resume work: it was past midnight; they wanted to be paid overtime, but had been told earlier that they wouldn’t be. I hadn’t been warned – I would have told the British crew and advised them not to go beyond midnight – and they used me as an excuse to strike. I’d never been in that position. It was horrible.

Time was of the essence, as always on such tours – there’s never enough time to do everything and one has to work all hours (we worked 40 hours non-stop once) – and the union rep used it to blackmail the theatre administration. The way he did it was shameful.

The following day, they had a meeting, which lasted most of the morning and afternoon thereby reducing the possibility of getting things right even more, and they resumed work grudgingly in the evening. By some miracle the lighting was fine on the night and, as far as the critics and audience were concerned, the tour was a success.

By the way, the actors, one of whom was Ian McKellen, remained totally unaware of what had happened.

A slap to the unions and their flagrant disregard of common sense and of people’s needs, except those of their members.