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Showing posts from 2014

Joy to the World..and a bit for you too.

What with domestic moves and shoulder surgery, my blog has had to take a little bit of a back seat for the last couple of months.  Even my new book has been slightly delayed in getting the first draft of the publishers. It might also be the time of year. I have long since understood the delights of hibernation for the bear.  Many is the day in late November or early December when I can imagine getting home, particularly to our new flat,  and not going out again until February. This last week has probably been the busiest week work wise I've had since we moved house in late  October, and yet I can already feel myself winding down for the year-end. It's definitely been, to misuse football analogy, a year of two halves. It started as a semi regular member of the cast of "Hollyoaks", followed by two months on "Wolf Hall, moving into a month off to write my new book  and then lots of corporate events. It's ended doing what I do mostly. Being an independent fr

Armed and ready.

I haven't been hospitalised very much in my career - professionally speaking.  I am one of the few members of British equity who've yet to step into the environs of the city of Holby. On a visit to Letherbridge  to see the "Doctors" at lunchtime, I had a father with pigeon fancier's lung whose antics resulted in me sawing through my hand, and on a second visit I had acute angina (no really!). A third visit as an international handbag designer of dubious sexuality lasted for two weeks, and mercifully involved no kind of treatment at all. Unless of course you call my first screen kiss at the age of 53, a course of treatment! Real-life has, for once, mirrored work. I have not been hospitalised since I had chronic pneumonia at the age of 18 months, something for which I'm very grateful. I have had visits to A&E, and two minor procedures on my eyes, but nothing really serious. This year  I have found an increasing amount of pain in my right shoulder. S

Putting it in perspective

For most of us who act, the job is our life. It's what we live for and we count ourselves lucky that we live to work. Many have been the days earlier in my career when there's been nothing to keep me occupied, least of all acting, and I am always grateful when there is something in the diary. The prospect of retirement, while looking attractive on a damp day, is not one that I would really relish. My partner is well aware of this and has no plans to let me retire gracefully. He fully intends to keep sending me out to earn my keep, probably until I drop, or certainly until I'm old enough to play Firs in The Cherry Orchard, A summer of writing, and then an enormously busy September and October directing two major conferences, and doing quite a few individual training sessions, have also had to fit in a major house move. After nine years in sunny Sydenham, we've moved to Shortlands, between Beckenham and Bromley. The flat is absolutely delightful, and from the moment

Home is where the Art is!

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Reading Ben Miller's article in today's Sunday Times about the joys of a shared house when he was a student and starting out in the world of comedy, I'm reminded of my own experiences of mixed domiciles. Throughout my years at drama school in Manchester I lived in a shared house but, mercifully, we all had our own bedsits. So we had a door to close against the world when we needed to, and yet company was call when a shoulder was required for crying on.  The great thing about that house which stood in what was once the red light district of Manchester, now more fashionably known as West Didsbury village, was that the rent was so low that on completing my training I didn't have to head back to my parents. With a two room £5.95 per week bedsit as my major asset, I could hang onto it all throughout my 16 weeks touring for the Royal Exchange Theatre Company, and then come back to it for our run in Manchester. Indeed it proved a handy haven for other actors less prepared

Catering for Everyone

My partner and I are very lucky to be invited out on many occasions to enjoy corporate hospitality. With my experience in the corporate world, and quite often working with the companies who are providing it. In order to give people a happy corporate freebie, I have acted in whodunits on the Orient express while travelling from Milan to Geneva. I have been shouted down by a group of boozy accountants in a pub in Henley. I have appeared in a costume that would only have graced the stage of the worst of pantomimes as a grand vizier at a major London nightclub complete with dubious accent. I can only hope that all the guests of these various functions had a fabulous time. Usually alcohol ensures that they do. The main feature of the successful event is to ensure that everyone is catered for. Now as a  non-alcoholic drinker, I frequently despair of the imagination of the organiser who provides water as the only non-alcoholic alternative. Given the rise to fashion of the elderflower, th

New Term

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Even though my school days  are now nothing but a distant memory, this time of year always feels like a new beginning. September brings a new term with new hopes and new targets. I've just taken the whole of August off to work on my new book, and  other than one days corporate training in mid August, it's been a month of tracksuit bottoms and typing. Next week sees me get back to work. The suits will have to come out of the wardrobe. A trip to Amsterdam for a job, a two-day corporate training programme, and an Actors Centre board meeting, and a voice-over if I'm lucky. I'd like to think that the next year will be like a new term. Lots of new things to learn, and new experiences.  "I like to think I learn something new on every job" is a phrase that has probably become slightly hackneyed. Most of the jobs I do I'm given because I know how to do them. Yet I would hope that I learn something new about human nature, people, or which car park not to pa

Summer Longings

 lt's always difficult when I haven't blogged for a little while to work out what to talk about. Lots of things going on, yet are they things that might be of interest to other people? Well, it's August, and holiday time, and as I'm having a month off from work to buckle down and write my new book "The Working Actor", it would seem the appropriate time to take a little respite from giving advice, and to have a little indulgence. We just had what for me was a trip down memory lane. A weekend away in Stratford-upon-Avon to see two shows and catch up with several people who I know  in the company down there at the moment. Eliott Barnes Worrell has been mentioned by me before, as I had the great pleasure of mentoring him two years ago as winner of the Alan Bates bursary award at the Actors Centre. Joan Iyiola was a gorgeous National youth Theatre assistant director who worked with me in 2010 on a less than happy production and who has  stayed a firm friend an

The Working Actor

Some people think I'm a dreadful actor. And they are right. Mercifully some people think I'm rather good, and, of course, they are right too. The point here is that acting is never something that can be measured quantitatively. It's always going to be something that's subjective. We can sit side by side together in the theatre on the same night watching the same actor in the same play and we can have widely differing opinions. And that's great. But how does that work at the end of three years training and an investment of around £27,000 when you step out into the world?  Your drama school doesn't grade you. It can't. Even those drama training establishments which are now part of larger educational bodies and offer degree status mainly award the level of degree on the written work involved in the course, rather than the level of talent. That's why drama schools offer up their final year students in showcases knowing that some of these people are prob

A Summer Lull

As a child and this was probably one of the most exciting times of the year. Next weekend would see the start of the big long summer  holidays. Six or seven weeks of no school, and long empty days to fill as you would, with all sorts of games and leisure. And, of course, boredom. Inevitably by the end of August, the novelty of lots of long unstructured days had begun to wear off, and one craved a little order and routine. As an actor long unstructured days are not only the province of the summer, but things can feel even harder when there is a holiday feel all around you, and all you desperately want is work. The dread that if you've not been cast in something by the end of July, then you probably won't be actually working until at least early September is one that can bring dark clouds into even the brightest of summer days. Yet as an actor you are working all the time, whether it is for someone else, or yourself. It's easier to convince yourself you had a good day whe

We're all going on a .......

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Actually we have just come back from our summer holiday. Two whole weeks of gorgeous sunshine, delicious food, and the fabulous hospitality that is Turkey. Of course today I am paying for it all with a desk full of emails, invoices, post, and a week ahead of meetings etc that require preparation. That, and a guest appearance in the Sydenham community play next Sunday afternoon, should mean that the holiday will soon become a distant memory. Yet it is incredibly important. It’s two whole weeks that I get to spend exclusively with my partner. It’s all about me and him, and allows us to renew our batteries, and the joy we have in spending time with each other. It also allows me to step away from my work, and see things in perspective. It’s very easy for actors, desperate for work, and constantly having to chase every opportunity that comes up, not to allow any time for themselves. Between leaving drama school in 1978, and meeting my partner in 1996, I took one holiday. Sometime in

The Power of No

As an actor in training, one of my favourite games was "Yes...let's". An exercise to encourage the ability to accept ideas from fellow actors. "Let's go the Zoo..... Yes, let's"  "Let's all lie down and pretend to be in the Arctic...." Yes......(Sideways glance for a skulking polar bear) ....Let's". The whole concept of being open to things and reacting to them in a positive way.  To build and not to block. The whole idea of trying something out wholeheartedly before rejecting it is key to the way we work in the rehearsal room and in front of the camera. Yet there is a very important place in our work for the word "NO".  It's all part of the process of knowing yourself, and knowing that what you bring to each and every job you do as an actor is yourself. You have likes, and you have dislikes. You have standards, and you have an ability to compromise. You also have the choice to decide when all those things co

All in a day's work.

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All in a days work. Like most actors, my first television job was “doing a day on something”. Not a regular member of the cast,  but just booked to do one day’s filming and a couple of scenes. I say a couple of scenes,  but these days with the advent of two camera shoots, the workload can be much heavier. My first two guest appearances in “Doctors”, the esteemed BBC1 soap, each consisted of one filming day of between 22 and 27 scenes. A whole plot line. In today’s cut-price world of television, schedules often ensure that guest artists spend as little time on set, but doing as much work as possible.  So how do you make sure that this day goes well? You've no time to get to know anyone, and you’re stepping into a unit that runs like a smoothly oiled machine, it can be hard to find a comfortable place to be.From the minute you step out of the “non-exclusive transport”  that your agent has managed to negotiate for you, you need to fit in. The second assistant director is pr

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some........

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In the early eighties I had the great joy and honour of being cast in "Mother Courage" at the RSC opposite the person whom many of us feel is one of our greatest ever actresses, Dame Judi Dench. She's one of the people about whom you will never hear a derogatory word said. Her spirit shines out as a person, and when you are opposite her on stage, you are in no doubt that you are working with a true great. Rehearsing opposite her, although nerve wracking at the time, was a joy. Her immense sense of fun is something that is undeniable, and at no time when you were working with her did you ever feel that she was acting. In fact, I began to wonder when she was going to "turn it on". When would the big performance that Mother Courage demanded start coming into play. Every time I stepped onto the stage opposite her, I was talking to the same Judi with whom I would share a cup of tea in the green room. The Thursday afternoon of our first full run through arriv

Keeping it Live.

A new experience this week. Performance by phone and internet. Usually when travelling abroad on a job, I advise whoever I'm working for that its dangerous for me to travel out on the same day as the job. If flights are cancelled or delayed, the job can be screwed and the client still has to pay once they have confirmed my booking. This particular client had decided that starting a job at 2pm in Amsterdam meant that I could fly out the same morning at 9:25 AM from London City. That flight lands normally at 11:40 AM Amsterdam time giving me around two hours to get to the office which is perfectly reasonable. The next flight from London City however is of course one hour 15 minutes later, and London City airport is notoriously the first to be fogbound when the weather is inclement. And inclement it was on Wednesday morning. I had started out early in order to defeat the tube strike, and actually the journey by overground  and Docklands light Railway was probably even better

Learning the Lines

I never used to find it a problem to learn lines when I was younger. I have memories of rehearsal afternoons on particularly difficult scenes in those high points of my career where I had a lot of dialogue, and then retiring to my digs for a quick read through of the lines we had done that afternoon before preparing supper and repairing to the pub. A quick read through  post pub before I went to bed, and the lines seemed to somehow get into my head.  As I've got older, it hasn't stayed that easy. Now I have to work hard to get the lines in. Having recently finished a stint in a soap, I am in awe of the actors who have managed to learn four or five scenes the night before. I can learn lines quickly, but I really do have to work at it. I used to have a music stand which I would set up in the lounge and onto which I would place my script. I would then stand and recite lines from it only looking down when I needed a prompt. It worked rather well, but of course carrying a m

Reading it Out

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Having now seen the television footage of our six Alan Bates bursary finalists, I really have absolutely no idea who will win this Friday in the final round. It should be very exciting and, mercifully, that decision is in the hands of our wonderful judges. The casting director Catherine Willis, the agent Kevin Brady, and the actress and national treasure, Anita Dobson. Although it's impossible to predict, I would make one guess. Our six finalists should stand a good chance of working in their first year, and as any actor who starts a new job will tell you, the first thing they will have to get through is the read through. A minefield all of its own, and the place where first impressions are formed by you and about you. Readthroughs used to be de rigeur on the first morning of any theatrical production.. Now they have most likely to have been replaced by a meet and greet, where everyone from the director to the wardrobe mistress and the stage door keeper to the accounts dep

Facing the competition

This week we have seen the first two rounds of the Alan Bates bursary 2014. This bursary is something that we are very proud of at The Actors Centre, and my involvement with it over the last three years has been one of the highlights of my period as chairman. It was set up in memory of one of the actors who was a founder of the Actors Centre, Alan Bates. A fabulous English actor, who had a great love of actors and acting. I have very fond memories of seeing him as Petruchio at Stratford on my first ever visit to the Royal Shakespeare Company with my mum way back in 1973 when we spent a whole week seeing all six players in the repertoire. He's very well remembered from the iconic Ken Russell film "Women in love" and there's a huge body of work to his name, so it's an honour for us to have this bursary named after him. It's open to all graduates leaving a Drama UK accredited drama school course this year and we have a 170 applicants who were all seen by