Road to the Dales

by Gervase Phinn

  On the third day an extremely suave, rather pompous boy – I cannot recall his name, but I had observed him the previous day telling a group of adoring girls about being accepted at one of Oxford’s oldest colleges to study Greek or something incredibly impressive – never turned up. Mr Hammond asked if I would oblige by reading the part of Dr Diaforus. This was a very meaty part. Dr Diaforus was a patronizing, arrogant and ambitious man who wanted his son, the dim-witted Thomas, to marry the rich daughter of his friend. I had a real stab at it, and after my rendition the producer took me aside and asked why I had not auditioned. ‘You are very good,’ he said, ‘natural timing, a good ear for language and an excellent stage presence. Next year we’ll find a part for you.’ It was as if I had been awarded the ‘Free Reader’ badge again. I walked on clouds. I was even more ecstatic the following day when the producer told me Mr High-and-Mighty wasn’t coming back and the part of Dr Diaforus was mine if I wanted it.

  I loved the rehearsals, the camaraderie backstage, the sharing of jokes and anecdotes, the assignations and the attention-seeking exhibitionism that surrounded me. I loved watching my fellow actors going through their paces, listening to the producer shouting out directions, the smell of the theatre, the bright lights, the mugs of hot sweet tea, the bacon sandwiches and fizzy lemonade in the dressing rooms. I had never before in my life felt so much a part of a group of entertaining people.

  We were all understandably nervous on the first night but it was thrilling: the rushing about, the hustle and bustle, the excited voices, the nervous conversations, the last-minute alterations to the costumes and, of course, the make-up. My face was transformed from a spotty youth’s to an aged man’s by the liberal use of Leichner theatrical make-up. The effect was startling. My face was darkened with Numbers 5 and 9, then wrinkles were painted on my forehead and an ugly mole added to my cheek, shadows appeared under my eyes and a thin black line was traced across my lower eyelashes. The final touch was the grey straggly beard. A long pigtail of grey crêpe hair was teased out under the steam of the kettle, and the facial hair was stuck on with some evil-smelling sticky brown glue which made my face sting. A stick of carmine completed the effect and my lips changed to the colour of dried blood.

  ‘You look absolutely revolting,’ said a fellow actor.

  ‘Thanks,’ I replied, getting into my costume.

  The play was performed at the Rotherham Civic Theatre. In addition to the role of Dr Diaforus I was given the part of the Prologue. ‘You do a very good patronizing look,’ Bill told me, ‘excellent at looking down your nose, and I like the way you strut. You will start the play off.’ Dressed in dark blue pleated silk frock-coat, embroidered waistcoat with silver buttons, silk knee breeches, high-heeled black shoes with buckles, frilly cravat and ridiculously curly, shoulder-length wig, I was the first on stage, appearing before the curtain to introduce the drama.

  ‘Break a leg,’ said the stage manager as I took a deep breath, ready to make my appearance. I had no idea what he meant. That first night it wasn’t butterflies in my stomach but great kangaroos leaping up and down. I was terrified.

  To open the play on the very first night is daunting for any actor, however experienced and confident. I appeared under the spotlight to see the producer in the centre of the front row nervously rubbing his chin, eager parents, friends, the theatre critics from various newspapers (the Rotherham Advertiser, the South Yorkshire Times, the Sheffield Star, the Yorkshire Post), and row upon row of people watching and ready to judge. Off stage I knew that all the cast would be watching intently too, nervously preparing themselves for their own entrances. It was now up to me to set the scene.

  The single most enjoyable experience in appearing in that first play was the sense of elation before and after the performance. Every night my heart would race with expectation and be high with happiness. There is something very special and exhilarating about being a part of a company of actors backstage, listening to their exaggerated stories, how they try to outdo each other with anecdotes and jokes, listening to the accents they put on, and above all feeling the warmth of their companionship and of being part of a group of like-minded people.

  For the end-of-show party we young thespians donned a bewildering array of clothes. Let’s face it, we were show-offs and this was the night when we were going to show off. I was sartorially ready and willing and arrived in a corduroy jacket with wide lapels and leather elbow patches (which had once belonged to my Uncle Alec), a mustard-coloured waistcoat with silver watch chain (minus the watch), a bright green bow tie (borrowed surreptitiously from my brother Michael) and green socks. I must have looked laughable, dressed like a young Oscar Wilde, but then everyone in the cast had dressed over the top. After all, we were actors.

  It was such a thrill to be part of that production of The Imaginary Invalid. Everything was so new, so different, so exciting, and my confidence blossomed. As a member of the cast I was no longer on the sidelines watching and listening – I was part of a group of lively, interesting and amusing young people. They readily included me in their conversations and sought out my opinions, laughing at my jokes and making me feel interesting and important.

  A girl called Jeanette had a minor part in The Imaginary Invalid, and after one show she told me she thought I was the best actor. Flattered, I asked her out. I decided that the corduroy jacket and bow tie were not the most appropriate garb for a night out at the ‘flea pit’, so reverted to tight black trousers, white open-necked shirt and lapel-less jacket (all the rage at the time). I Brylcreemed my hair, splashed on Michael’s after-shave and polished my shoes.

  We sat on the back row at the Tivoli (where they had those double seats especially designed for courting couples) and watched The Beast from Twenty Thousand Fathoms. Freed from their Arctic home, where they had been in a state of suspended animation, great prehistoric creatures were brought to life by an atomic blast. One giant beast lumbered down the coast of North America, devastating everything in its path and causing widespread panic. It went out in a blaze of glory at Coney Island. From what my brother tells me about Coney Island today, it appears it still hasn’t recovered from the devastation of the Beast of Twenty Thousand Fathoms. Today such films, with their wooden acting, amateur sequences, patently unrealistic dialogue, ludicrous sound effects and plastic models trundling across the screen, would make us laugh out loud, but at the time they were truly frightening. Jeanette clung to me the whole time like a Whitby limpet and we kissed, just before the lights came on and the National Anthem was played. Girls were now back in my life.

  42

  The following year I was given the part of Venturewell in The Knight of the Burning Pestle. This period piece by Beaumont and Fletcher, written in 1607, is a parody of plays about the romantic adventures of air-headed knights and of the theatre itself. Throughout the play, a well-to-do citizen and his garrulous wife keep interrupting with dim-witted comments and advice and insist on their apprentice playing the lead. The citizen was played by Peter Smith, who was able to perform an unnerving impersonation of Frankie Howerd. He peppered his lines with the outrageous comedian’s catchphrases, ‘Oo, no don’t,’ and ‘No missis, titter not,’ and ‘Perleese madam, don’t mock. Have some respect.’ Peter was a natural comic but prone to excessive improvisation on and off stage.

  I was cast as another mean-minded, avaricious and thoroughly nasty old man who had great plans for his effete son to marry the rich and innocent daughter of a family friend. My son was portrayed by Bernard, a tall, long-haired and pale-faced boy who acted his part to perfection. He would stare vacantly into the middle distance sighing, wipe his brow dramatically, walk in an affected manner with short quick steps and swinging hips and deliver his lines in a high lisping voice.

  In one scene Peter had to evict the son from his master’s house and did so rather too energetically. He poked him hard in the shoulder, pushed him roughly through the door and kicked him so hard on the backside that the poor boy was propelled a good di
stance across the stage. This performance was well received by the audience, which roared with laughter.

  ‘You really don’t need to be so heavy-handed,’ Bernard told him after the first night, as he removed his make-up in the dressing room. He rubbed his arm dramatically and pulled a pained face. ‘I’ve got bruises.’

  ‘I’m only getting into the part, Bernie,’ Peter told him.

  ‘Well, don’t be so rough, and don’t call me Bernie,’ replied Bernard.

  The following night Peter, much to Bernard’s alarm, appeared on stage armed with a length of rope, which he used to very good effect. He banged it so loudly on the table the whole set shivered, swung it around his head and finally brought it down on Bernard’s shoulders. There was a desperate high-pitched wail from the victim.

  ‘If you do that tomorrow,’ Bernard told him off stage as he rubbed his shoulder, ‘I shall walk off.’

  The next night, true to his warning, when Peter appeared with the rope, Bernard stamped his foot, ballooned with anger, shook furiously and, to great applause, stomped off stage, leaving Peter alone to deliver an impromptu soliloquy. A moment later, to everyone’s surprise, Bernard reappeared armed with a rope, only his was bigger, heavier and thicker than Peter’s. Bernard, still smarting from the previous night’s onslaught, belted Peter over the top of the head and, to great laughter and applause, exited stage right.

  The producer was not best pleased and gave both actors a thorough dressing down, warning them that this kind of unrehearsed activity on stage should cease immediately. The following day the South Yorkshire Times, which carried a review of the production, was read with great interest. The young actor who came in for the greatest praise for his outstanding portrayal of a most difficult and demanding role was Bernard.

  Many years later a Performing Arts inspector reminded me of this episode when she related a similar incident where an actor settled a score on stage. I guess this is an apocryphal account (my colleague was a great storyteller and consummate actor), but it is well worth repeating. My colleague chaired a panel which awarded grants for sixth-form students to attend music and drama colleges. One particular young man was very talented and also extremely arrogant, and had applied to RADA, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, arguably the very best and most prestigious drama college in the country. After a bravura performance as Hamlet for his audition, the young man won his award and the inspector was asked by the boy’s headmaster if she would like to see the young man in action playing the lead in the school’s production of Macbeth. The future star of the London stage was indeed very convincing as the Scottish tyrant and dominated the scenes, dwarfing all the other actors with his outstanding performance. On the first night the eleven-year-old boy playing the part of Seyton, an officer attending Macbeth, a rather insignificant part compared to others in the play, made his final entrance to inform Macbeth of the Queen’s demise. With bowed head and in a faltering voice the boy delivered his one final line: ‘The Queen, my Lord, is dead,’ and exited stage left. Macbeth then launched into his memorable soliloquy:

  She should have died hereafter;

  There would have been a time for such a word:

  Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

  Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

  To the last syllable of recorded time …

  At the second night’s performance Seyton’s relatives were in the audience, in fact the first two rows were crammed with parents, siblings, uncles, aunts, cousins and neighbours. They waited patiently for the entrance of the boy. When the young actor came on stage to deliver his one line there was an audible in-drawing of breath from the assorted relations and friends, and the whispered voice of a proud mother from the front row could be heard announcing, ‘That’s our Wayne.’ Seeing his adoring fans, the boy decided to embellish his part a little and, throwing his arms in the air, he wailed, ‘The Queen, my Lord, is dead! She’s dead! She’s dead! She’s dead!’ In one final harrowing shout he announced as he beat his breast, ‘She’s deeeeaaaaad!’ He then left the stage to thunderous applause from the front two rows.

  The future star of RADA was not at all pleased when he found the boy in the dressing room later. There were histrionics on a grand scale. ‘Just say your line and get off the stage!’ he ordered before strutting off to remove his make-up.

  On the last night of the production young Seyton, still smarting from the reprimand, came on stage to deliver his line. Macbeth prepared himself for his powerful soliloquy but was rather lost for words when the boy announced, ‘The Queen, my Lord, is making a remarkable recovery.’

  The following year, when I auditioned for a part in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I asked the producer, Howard Tucker, if I might have a stab at a part other than an avaricious, mean-minded, bad-tempered old man. I suppose by this time I was getting a bit above myself. I remember using a newly discovered phrase. ‘I’m being typecast,’ I told him. Howard smiled and told me he would consider my request when he came to casting the play. The letter arrived a week later, informing the aspiring actors which parts had been assigned to them. I was certainly not an avaricious, mean-minded, bad-tempered old man in this play – I had been cast as Oberon, King of the Fairies. I had really wanted the part of Bottom or Pinch or another of the Mechanicals, so I felt deflated. Howard, however, explained at the first read-through that this was a main role and I had some of Shakespeare’s most beautiful verse to declaim. I felt a little mollified.

  A Midsummer Night’s Dream was the set O level text that year. This was good news and bad news. The good news was that we were guaranteed full houses but the bad news was that the theatre would be full of students studying the play. I cannot say I was entirely enthusiastic about appearing as a fairy before a theatre full of students about my age, but there was one real benefit. I got to kiss Titania, the Queen of the Fairies, who was played by the delectable Shirley Ramsey. Shirley was a most attractive girl – shapely, elegant and very desirable as well as being an outstanding actress, and I was very much looking forward to the scene when she lay prone on her bed of flowers and I awaken her from her dream with a kiss.

  My apprehension at playing the part of a fairy was, however, heightened greatly at the costume fitting. Shirley emerged from the girls’ dressing room looking stunning in a pale blue and pink chiffon dress, white tights, pale silk shoes and sporting a tiara of dried red roses. She gave me a knowing smile. She knew something which I clearly did not. I soon found out. My costume was colour coordinated with hers. I had a sort of frilly, balloon-sleeved shirt made of the same pink and blue chiffon, but mine stopped just above the waist, a pair of white tights displaying something I would have preferred covered up, and large white pumps. The whole ensemble was completed with an enormous wreath of brightly coloured dried leaves, acorns and pine cones, to be worn on the head. As I stared at myself in the full-length mirror in the dressing room I shook my head. ‘No way,’ I murmured. ‘No way am I wearing this.’ The costume mistress, who thought I really looked the part in her creation, told me in no uncertain terms that I would be wearing the costume.

  ‘I can’t be doing with primadonnas,’ she snapped.

  ‘I look like a prima ballerina,’ I replied, ‘and I am not wearing this.’

  ‘Well, if you don’t like it,’ she said, ‘you can make it yourself.’

  My sister Christine came to the rescue. She created for me a magnificent black silk shirt (which extended below the waist to cover my embarrassment), decorated with elaborate motifs of stars and moons in gold sequins, a flowing cape and a crown of shiny golden laurel leaves. The producer had stressed that Oberon was a strong, dark and brooding character and he took little persuasion to let me wear the costume. In fact, he was extremely reasonable. ‘Unless you feel comfortable in your costume,’ he said, ‘you won’t feel comfortable acting the part.’ Everyone, except the wardrobe mistress, agreed that I looked really impressive when we came to the dress rehearsal. Bill Crouch, in charge of make-up, transformed my fac
e. With the help of 5 and 9 make-up he concealed the angry acne in my cheeks and gave me a dark and swarthy tan, highlighted my eyes and reddened my lips. For the first time I began to feel comfortable in the part and I threw myself into the role.

  The play was well received, and with each performance my amorous scene with Shirley became more adventurous and exploratory. On the first night it was a peck on the cheek, but by the time of the final performance I had really got into my stride and gave her a great smacker full on the lips. Her eyes shot open. ‘Stop that off!’ she hissed. ‘You’re a sex maniac!’ Shirley never did go out with me, but I had a number of offers from girls who had seen the performance and waited for an autograph outside the stage door. Letters were delivered to the dressing room telling me how good I was on stage and inviting me to parties. One letter I still keep. It tells me, ‘You have lovely legs.’ This acting business made me feel pretty good.

  In my final year at the South Yorkshire Theatre for Youth I had a gem of a part – Malvolio in Twelfth Night. Malvolio is the vain, narrow-minded, humourless steward of the Countess Olivia and the part is challenging and great fun to act. The joke that Maria, Lady Olivia’s maid, plays on Malvolio, the kill-joy and spoilsport, is perhaps the funniest scene in Shakespeare, no matter how often it is performed.

  On the second night of the production the cast was somewhat disconcerted when, peering through the curtains in the wings, they saw the first two rows full of students all clutching books. After the success of the last Shakespeare play, when the seats had sold out in record time because of the play’s popularity with schools, the producer had decided to pick another play which was on the O level set text list. It was clear that many in the audience that evening had brought along copies of the play, intent on following us as we spoke our lines. Despite the producer’s reassurance that no one would shout out if we fluffed a word, we were all nervous. The boy playing Duke Theseus came off stage after the first scene and frightened us all by relating how the students ran their fingers along the lines in their texts as he recited them.