What Bloody Man Is That

by Simon Brett

  But the actor himself did not seem worried by his bad reading. There was no embarrassment as he fluffed and floundered through some of the most famous lines in the English language. Charles was going to be very interested to see how that particular performance grew in the course of rehearsal.

  The rest of the cast read predictably. Russ Lavery’s Fleance was way over the top, clearly the product of much detailed agonizing in front of his mirror.

  Warnock Belvedere was also over the top, but with a chilling authority. From his first line, ‘What bloody man is that?’, he dominated his scenes, and Charles the bloody man in question, looked forward with interest to sharing what was left of the stage with him.

  The reading went through jerkily, but without major interruptions, until they broke for coffee at the end of Act Three. The only long silence in the second half occurred in the Apparition Scene. The first Witch cued the first manifestation (an Apparition of an Armed Head) with the line, ‘He knows thy thought: Hear his speech, but say thou nought’, and nothing happened.

  ‘Erm . . .’ said Gavin vaguely. ‘Oh, sorry, haven’t I cast this? I wonder, Charles, would you mind . . .?’

  As he read the lines, Charles Paris reflected on the ambiguity of his agent’s words about Gavin being ‘optimistic that there could be some other good parts’.

  Charles had blithely assumed that that had meant parts in future productions. From the way things were going, it looked as if they all would be in Macbeth.

  Chapter Four

  AFTER THE read-through they broke for lunch. The theatre was some way out of the town, so most of the company ate and drank in Norman’s bar, where a pair of motherly ladies dispensed salads and one hot dish (Irish stew that Monday) from behind an angled glass counter.

  Charles Paris joined John B. Murgatroyd and a group of other small-part actors for a good giggle about past theatrical disasters. Warnock Belvedere still held court to a circle of admirers, regaling them with further apocryphal anecdotes of theatrical giants, and drinking far more brandy than seemed suitable for an actor proposing to work in the afternoon.

  Gavin Scholes, not surprisingly, found himself monopolised by Felicia Chatterton. But, recognizing that he was going to have to hear her views on the true meaning of Macbeth at some point, he shrewdly decided to give up his lunch hour and get them out of the way quickly.

  When the company assembled in the auditorium at two, however, he made it clear that there was not time for further discussion.

  During the break, the ASMs had marked out the stage, showing the proportions of the fixed sets, and had assembled a selection of tables and chairs to represent the moving parts. Gavin Scholes moved to the centre of a stage that looked like a furniture warehouse and clapped his hands for attention.

  ‘Erm . . . Okay, everyone, now we’re going to block the play through from the start. We’ll get on as quickly as possible, so please I must ask none of you to leave the theatre premises, because I don’t want any delays. Go to your dressing rooms, by all means. Or the Green Room. Out on the terrace, if you like. But, please, be somewhere where the ASMs can find you. Okay? Right.’

  He reached round for a ring-file on a chair and opened it, revealing the text of Shakespeare’s play, interleaved with blank pages. ‘Okay. “Act One Scene One. A desert heath.” Could I have the Three Witches up here, pronto? Come on love, leave your knitting, cut the cackle. We’ve got work to do.’

  ‘But, Gavin . . .’ came a predictable husky voice from the auditorium.

  ‘Yes, Felicia love?’ Already there was a hint of strain in his voice. He had listened to her right through lunchtime and he felt he’d done his duty by her. From now on he couldn’t afford the time to be so accommodating.

  ‘You aren’t really going to start blocking now, are you, Gavin?’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m going to do, yes.’

  ‘But we haven’t discussed the characters.’

  ‘You and I spent all lunchtime discussing the characters.’

  ‘But that’s only scratched the surface. And we can’t start making decisions about where the characters are going to move until we know who those characters are, can we?’

  ‘So what do you suggest we do?’

  ‘Well, I suggest . . . I’d assumed that we’d talk through the characters for a bit, try to sort out their interrelationships . . .’

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘Oh, only a week.’

  ‘A week! Out of a three-and-a-half week rehearsal period? You’ve got to be joking. What, a whole week before we start blocking any of the moves?’

  ‘But once we know who the characters are, then the moves will arise instinctively. We’ll know where to go because we’ll know who we are.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Felicia.’ Gavin tapped his ring-file. ‘All the moves are in here.’

  ‘What, you mean you’ve actually worked them out before we’ve started rehearsing?’ she asked, appalled.

  ‘Exactly. And I’m afraid, given the time-scale that we have, that is the only way we can possibly get the production ready for the opening.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Sorry, Felicia. We’re already ten minutes late starting.’ And he turned his back on her. ‘Erm, Witches. Okay . . . Right, I know the text says, “Enter Three Witches”, but I want to have you discovered when the tabs go up. Okay? So let’s have you centre stage and . . .’

  Charles saw Felicia turn in bewilderment and ask, to no one in particular, ‘Does he always work like this?’

  ‘I should bloody well hope so,’ snapped Warnock Belvedere, sprawled bad-temperedly across a seat beside her. ‘About the one good thing so far you can say for him as a director is that he seems prepared to just get on with it.’

  ‘But how can you make a move that doesn’t feel right?’ she asked in plaintive incomprehension.

  ‘You can make any move you’re told to, so long as you’re visible to the audience.’ Warnock fixed the flower of the R.S.C. with a bloodshot eye. ‘And let me tell you, theatre was a damned sight healthier before everyone started bloody intellectualising about it. First, the directors began taking the text apart. Now we’ve got bloody pea-brained actresses turning academic on us.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘When I started in the theatre,’ he continued inexorably, ‘actresses knew their bloody place – which was either getting up there and saying the lines, or getting down there on their backs and giving the actors what they wanted. They didn’t fart on about characterization and motivation.’

  ‘So what you’re saying is –’

  ‘What I’m saying is just be thankful you’re in work and keep your bloody mouth shut!’

  There was no ambiguity about this rudeness, and the offence was compounded by the fact that some of Warnock’s circle of sycophants sniggered at his words. The colour drained from Felicia Chatterton’s face; she turned and moved with dignity to the back of the auditorium.

  On stage, Gavin Scholes pretended he hadn’t heard the altercation and continued studiously showing the Three Witches where to move. The blocking of the short scene was quickly completed, the Witches ran it a second time following the pencilled notes they had made in their scripts, and then the director was ready for the next scene.

  ‘Okay. “Act One Scene Two. A Camp near Forres.” Let’s have you on stage, please, Duncan, Malcolm, Donalbain . . . oh, and this is Lennox, isn’t it? Come on John B. and Charles. Bleeding Sergeant.’

  The Bleeding Sergeant and Lennox rose to their feet and moved forward.

  ‘No, loves, no. You stay there. I want you to make your entrance from the auditorium.’

  Oh God, thought Charles. All the old tricks. Gavin Scholes really was a boringly traditional director. The predictable set, all the moves worked out in his interleaved script (moves which, Charles knew, would always end up, whenever there were more than three characters on stage, in the time-honoured theatrical semicircle). And entrances from the auditorium. How corny.

&
nbsp; In a flash Charles saw exactly what the finished production would be like – a faithful telling of the story, no controversy, no excitement, ideal Schools Matinée fodder.

  ‘Right, so, Duncan, you enter downstage left.’

  ‘Downstage?’ echoed Warnock Belvedere.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I think not.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘Duncan is a King. The natural place for a King to enter is through the upstage centre archway.’

  ‘Erm, yes, except that that entrance is going to represent various castles in –’

  ‘This is where I will enter,’ announced Warnock Belvedere, stationing himself firmly upstage centre.

  ‘Well, I suppose that’d be all right if –’

  ‘I’ll have some attendants, won’t I?’

  ‘Well, you’ll have Malcolm and Donalbain . . .’

  ‘What about Lennox?’

  ‘No, I’ve got Lennox helping on the Bleeding Sergeant.’

  ‘Surely the Bleeding Sergeant can come on on his own. He’s not bleeding that much.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry.’

  Warnock Belvedere sniffed his disapproval. ‘Oh well, I suppose these two will have to do. Right, we’ll try the entrance.’

  Duncan, followed by Malcolm and Donalbain, disappeared through a break in the curtains at the back of the stage. There was a long pause, during which a muttered confabulation could be heard, then the curtains parted to admit Malcolm and Donalbain, who took up positions either side of the entrance.

  After another pause, Duncan swept in. His two sons bowed as he moved centre stage. He looked slowly round the auditorium, then demanded in a booming voice, ‘What bloody man is that?’

  ‘Erm . . .’ Gavin Scholes’ voice strayed tentatively up from the front row.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think that’s fine . . . I mean, as a move . . .’

  ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘But, er, Warnock, if you could say the line as you come in, rather than waiting till you’ve taken up your position . . .?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, you know, it’s just pace, love, pace. I mean particularly at the beginning of the show, we do want it to move along. Can’t have too long a pause.’

  ‘Are you suggesting,’ asked Warnock Belvedere, puffing himself up with affront, ‘that I do not know how to judge the length of a pause?’

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘I tell you, Noel Coward himself – Noel Coward, no less – admitted that he couldn’t hold a candle to me when it came to timing . . .’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course, but –’

  ‘And Tony Guthrie once said to me . . .’

  ‘Heigh-ho. It’s going to be like this all the time,’ John B. Murgatroyd whispered to Charles, with a tremor of a giggle in his voice.

  ‘Best spectator sport since Christians being thrown to the lions,’ Charles murmured back.

  On stage the diatribe continued, until Gavin once again crumbled and agreed to let Warnock do it his way. Then the director turned to the auditorium to direct the entrance of the Bleeding Sergeant.

  Following instructions, Lennox supported the wounded man up the centre steps on to the stage.

  ‘I think they’d bow now,’ said Duncan.

  ‘I’m not sure . . .’

  ‘Duncan is a King, Kevin . . .’

  ‘Gavin.’

  ‘Kevin, Gavin, what the hell? They’d bow.’

  ‘I don’t know . . . Well, okay, try it, Charles and John B.’

  They collapsed on to the floor, and Charles could feel the silent vibration of John B. Murgatroyd giggling beside him. Oh dear. He suddenly remembered that John B. was one of the worst corpsers in the business. They were going to be lucky to get through this scene every night without breaking up.

  Malcolm then stepped forward and instructed the Bleeding Sergeant to ‘say to the King the knowledge of the broil

  As thou didst leave it.’

  Charles began, ‘Doubtful it stood:

  As two spent swimmers, that do –’

  ‘Erm, I think we’d better have you standing for this, Charles. Want the audience to see you a bit, don’t we?’

  ‘I don’t see the necessity,’ boomed Wamock Belvedere.

  Well, sod you, thought Charles. See if I care. At least if I keep my back to them throughout the scene, it’ll save another make-up change.

  Rehearsals did progress through the week. They slipped behind a bit, but, considering the ridiculous schedule Gavin was trying to keep to, the slippage could have been a lot worse.

  Warnock Belvedere, having imposed his personality on the company to his satisfaction, seemed to calm down a bit. Or perhaps it was just that he wasn’t around so much. Duncan, as Charles had observed, gets killed satisfactorily early in the play and so, since they were working through from the beginning, Warnock was soon free while the rest of the blocking continued. He wasn’t called for either the Wednesday or the Thursday’s rehearsals. And, without his malevolent presence, the mood of the company improved.

  Felicia, too, stopped making objections and buckled down to hard work. Accepting that she was not going to be allowed to discover movements that arose naturally from her discovery of her character, she began instead to devote her considerable powers of concentration to making Gavin’s imposed moves fit into her developing concept of Lady Macbeth.

  She also found a confidant in Russ Lavery, whose earnestness matched her own, and who was evidently more than happy to spend long hours agonizing with her over nuances of Shakespeare’s text. This new friendship was a great blessing to Gavin Scholes, because it got Felicia off his back.

  Her attitude towards the director changed. Whereas at first she had been trying to challenge his methods of production, now she seemed to feel only pity for his philistinism, sorrow that the fine workmanship of the Bard should have to suffer at the clumsy hands of such a botcher. But at least she didn’t stop to argue every point, and the rehearsals were allowed to proceed.

  George Birkitt also got better, but slowly. He still had a great many television habits to shake off. Apart from the problem of projection, he was also having considerable difficulty implanting Shakespeare’s immortal lines in his mind. Actors in television sit coms are notorious paraphrasers, who give rough approximations of their lines, only homing in with accuracy on the ones which are likely to get laughs. For someone used to that discipline, it was a considerable challenge to have to repeat lines which half the world knew off by heart (and which, at Schools Matinees, might even be being followed in the script by the light of pencil torches).

  For a couple of days, George floundered hopelessly. The lines just would not stick. It was only when Charles Paris gently reminded him of a play called The Hooded Owl that a marked improvement was seen. They had both been in the first production of the piece, in which the star, Michael Banks, unable to remember his lines, had had to go through the ignominy of having them fed to him from the wings through a radio receiver disguised as a hearing aid. The threat of a repeat of this procedure soon bucked George up – apart from anything else, the presence of a hearing aid in eleventh century Scotland would be difficult to explain away.

  Once the lines had started to come, the performance grew. George had a good stage presence and, when he bothered to use it, a strong voice. And in one respect his television training proved useful. Recognising (though not admitting) that he had no instinctive ear for a comic line, he had always been quite happy to parrot intonations given him by sit com directors. Once Gavin Scholes realised that George was not offended by being told how to say the lines – in fact, even welcomed it – the director took full advantage of the concession. Whatever George Birkitt’s limitations as a creative actor may have been, he had a great ability for copying an intonation. So the director spoke the lines as he wanted them delivered, George reproduced the director’s emphases, and slowly a performance emerged.

  The pairing of this Macbeth and Lady Macbeth was unusual, th
e one a mere parrot of lines, the other unable to deliver a line that had not been dissected and re-assembled half a dozen times, but, though their routes to it could not have been more different, both arrived at a remarkably consistent style.

  Another problem with George Birkitt, however, was that he, the member of the cast who needed most rehearsal, was going to have least. The filming days for his new sit com, so carefully negotiated into his contract, would take him out of Macbeth rehearsals for two full days.

  And that was not all. On the Wednesday of the first week, Gavin Scholes for the first time outlined his longer-term rehearsal plan.

  ‘What we’re working towards,’ he said, ‘with all this manic blocking, is a full run-through of the play on Saturday.’

  The shock of this proposal was so great to her that Felicia Chatterton could not help reacting. ‘This Saturday?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A full run? After five days’ rehearsal?’

  ‘Yes. Just to fix the blocking in your minds. It won’t really be a full run-through. More a stagger-through.’

  ‘A drunken lurch-through for Warnock, no doubt,’ John B. Murgatroyd whispered to Charles, with a giggle.

  ‘Yes,’ Gavin went on. ‘We’ve got to try it. See how the play hangs together. Not too rushed, though. First half Saturday morning, second half in the afternoon.’

  ‘Ah,’ George Birkitt interposed.

  ‘Some problem, George?’

  ‘Yes. Saturday afternoon. No can do.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Didn’t the agent tell you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘God, he’s hopeless. The money I pay him and . . . No, I’ve got to fly to Paris for filming on Sunday. Flight late Saturday afternoon. Car picking me up here at one.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I’m sure the agent must’ve mentioned it.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  George Birkitt shrugged. ‘Well, sorry, old chum. ’Fraid that’s the way it is.’

  ‘So it sounds as if we can’t have a full run-through on Saturday.’ Felicia Chatterton sighed with relief.