After the Show is over.....

There is an absolutely brilliant piece of writing, one of many, by Alan Bennett called "Going Round".  In it he examines the process of going to visit an actor after a performance in his dressing room and as in so many cases, Mr B gets it bang on the nail.

 "You have Come Round. He has performed. Now it is your turn.

For that is what it is, Going Round: a performance. A performance which, if it is to convince, has to equal and indeed to surpass the one you have just seen on the stage. And whatever you thought, even if you slept through the whole of the second act, you have to go in there saying it was all marvellous. Marvellous. It was MARVELLOUS.  Never stray too far from that. "

It is brilliant advice and for all non actors who have to visit a thespian after it has performed go, it is advice I would suggest that they heed. Of course the opinion that the actor really wants is that of his fellows, his peers and his mentors.  It's fine for me to tell my plumber that I like the new boiler they installed last week. My knowledge of pipework is scant to say the least.  My admiration of the boiler is only because it delivers the hot water that we spent two days without.   A fellow plumber, however, will be able to offer a detailed paean to the bracket work, the clever and circuitous route of the pipe supply,  and the beautifully located stopcock. This admiration, plumber to plumber, is valuable and much appreciated.

So it is for us actors. The praise of our colleagues is above value. A friend of mine has recently completed a run on Broadway, and it's been fascinating to look at his twitter feed and see the number of people who were impressed enough by his work to go round to the dressing room after the show and tell him so. Nice to see him in the arms of Cameron Diaz, and the guys from  "Breaking Bad",  none of whom had to go round, but went because they wanted to lavish praise on a performance which I'm sure was fully worthy of it.

And of course that is the trick. Their visit was unasked for. They have gone round because they feel comfortable to having enjoyed the performance.

But what of that night when you've gone to support somebody, a friend, or a fellow actor, and they know you're in and you get to the end of the show and you haven't enjoyed it. It's not been good.

In a very early week of our relationship Richard and I went to see a friend of  mine in the Neil Simon Play "Laughter on the 23rd Floor".  The Hollywood star Gene Wilder was in it, and with the exception of an actress in the third act (who funnily enough later turned out to be the wife of somebody with whom we were working.) the play and the cast were uniformly awful. We managed to go round to the friend’s dressing room, have a drink, and then take him to Joe Allen's for dinner without once mentioning the show. Quite an achievement. Yet he knew. He knew what we meant and that's why he didn't ask "did you enjoy it?" It mercifully left us room to manoeuvre.

That of course is not always the case. I once went to see an actress I knew in a Restoration comedy at the Watermans arts centre, Brentford,  a journey that should never be undertaken without a team of licensed Sherpas and a fully laden camel train. I was with a couple of colleagues, and the play was toe curlingly awful. At one point it was so dire that four of us in  the middle of a row were stuffing anything available into our mouths in order to stifle laughter.  We were discussing what we might say in hushed tones when the actress joined us in the bar. She was not backward in asking for our comments.

"Well what did you think? Did you like it? Did you? Did you?"

She obviously wasn't keen to hear anything else other than the word ‘yes’. Yet I counted her at that time as a friend, and I always feel that one should be able to turn to one's friends with honest feedback. That and the fact that I had just ensured two hours 45 minutes of the most appallingly performed, misguided,  up its own backside Restoration comedy production that it had been my privilege to see. And quite frankly she had been awful in it!

And so I said so. Briefly, sharply, but honestly.  "No" I said "I'm afraid I loathed it"

"But me" she continued "me, me. What did you think of me?"

"Not your best work" was the nicest thing I managed. Among other things were "Well the good thing is you didn't stick out by being any better than the others".

We're not friends now.

In an attempt to avoid this situation, I now frequently visit shows without telling friends that I am in. Then if the show is fabulous, I can go round at the end, full of praise and heartfelt appreciation, or if that's not the case I can slink off to Joe Allen's and they never need know I've seen it.

 On Tuesday night last week Richard and I went to the first night of "The Mystae" at the  Hampstead Downstairs Theatre where Adam Buchanan, last year's winner of the Alan Bates award and the young actor I'm currently mentoring, is one of a cast of three. He's good. He acquits himself very well. He's going to do himself no harm with that performance in London. There's a fabulous set. A cave fully realised in the tiny studio  theatre, with water filled entrances. Sadly the play doesn't really live up to the magnificence of the set.

Afterwards in the bar, Adam asked what I thought. I told him what I thought of him, which was positive. Extremely positive. He then asked me what I thought of the play. I decided that as his mentor , honesty was the best policy.  I told him that it really wasn't for me. there was an intila moment when his face fell, and then….. you know what? He was fine about it.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and in our business no one is ever 100% right or wrong. Two people can sit side-by-side watching the same actor in the same play on the same night. One can think they are the best thing since sliced bread, the other can think they are on a level with the cast of “Hollyoaks”……Oh, hang on, I’m in the cast of “Hollyoaks!” Well, you know what I mean!  Both are right.

So if you do have people coming round to see you after the show, ask for their opinion by all means. Just make sure that you want to hear it before you ask the question.