Year of the Fat Knight

by Antony Sher

  Clapham High Street is a long stretch of mini-supermarkets, hardware shops and scruffy cafés; it’s not my favourite place, particularly on a grey day, but this is where the RSC rehearsal rooms are situated: a characterless building with a big open space on each floor. We’re on the top.

  God, the shows I’ve done here, I think as I climb the stairs, but the memories – all good, as it happens – provide no protection against the first-day-at-school nerviness that accompanies me into the room. It’s ridiculous. I’ve been an actor for over forty years, yet I’m as anxious today as I was when I started out.

  The room is long and high, and large enough to have the footprint of the main Stratford stage marked out on the floor. The tall windows overlook the surrounding buildings, and have black drapes, which have to be drawn when the low December sun slants in, making you shade your eyes. We’re moving to a different location in a few weeks, so this is rehearsal room number one.

  Actors are arriving, pulling off overcoats, scarves and hats. Most of the cast are strangers to me. I say hello to Alex Hassell (playing Hal): he’s got a big open smile, and looks great – tanned from a trip to India. Then I make a beeline for someone I know very well indeed: Jim (Hooper, my former partner, now closest friend), who’s playing Silence and Vernon. It’s going to be a comfort having him as a travelling companion on the journey ahead.

  When everyone’s assembled, Greg does a brief talk, introducing some key RSC folk: Catherine Mallyon, Jeremy Adams (our producer), and John Wyver (who’ll be in charge of our broadcast, Live-from-Stratford). Greg also explains why we’re starting on this unlikely date: although we’ll lose Wednesday (New Year’s Day), it still gains us an extra week. We’ve got eleven in all, for two plays.

  (I’m not convinced that’s enough. Greg’s argument is that although it’s two plays it’s only one character – which will speed things up.)

  Now Greg says, ‘We’re going to do a little icebreaking game. Technical team and stage management are welcome to participate, but actors have to.’

  As I watch all the non-actors flee for the exits, I think: Games – whether on sporting fields, at parties, or in rehearsals – I hate them!

  This one involves us walking around the room, greeting one another, and imparting three facts about ourselves. Then we’ll each sit in the hot seat, and the group will try to remember what they’ve learned about us.

  As I stroll round, I tell people I was born in Cape Town, I have a wool allergy, and one other thing which is sure to ‘break the ice’.

  When we go into the next part of the game, the hot seat, I begin to see the point and pleasure of the exercise: we have, very quickly, got to know one another. Sometimes the facts are trivial – the names of pets or favourite colours – sometimes more important: someone was almost stolen as a baby, someone else fell out of a helicopter.

  My turn comes. As soon as I sit in the hot seat, people start to shout out the third fact I told them:

  ‘He’s sleeping with the director!’

  Greg gives a spluttering laugh: ‘You told them that?’

  ‘I did,’ I reply; ‘I thought it best they knew.’

  Josh Richards (playing Bardolph and Glendower) pipes up: ‘It’s the only reason he got the part!’

  ‘Absolutely true,’ I say, and then to Greg: ‘Now we’re both blushing.’

  Much laughter.

  (Though there was a time when Josh would have been giving voice to my very real fear.)

  Now Greg does a talk about the plays, and about Shakespeare. He’s always felt that the RSC needs to help those young actors who are joining for the first time, and who may feel ignorant about our resident playwright. He claims it’s how he felt when he arrived as an actor in ’87, which I don’t quite believe (he was living and breathing Shakespeare as a schoolboy), but it’s certainly how I felt back in ’82.

  He’s brought along some books in a canvas bag we got at Shrewsbury, with the logo Battlefield 1403, and lifts out his facsimile of the First Folio. ‘Here’s my favourite page,’ he says, showing the group the list of actors in Shakespeare’s company: Richard Burbage, Will Kemp (who probably played Falstaff) and the rest. Greg relates stories about many of them. We listen, enchanted – we, modern-day actors – basking in their long-ago glory.

  ‘Thank God I don’t have to read Falstaff today,’ I said to Greg as we gathered round the table for this afternoon’s session. He’s the only director I know who doesn’t do a read-through on the first day. Maybe because he was an actor, and knows how crucifying it can be. We all try to pretend it’s not a kind of audition (even though you’ve already got the part), but judgements are made.

  Nevertheless, we do start reading Part I. We go round the circle, each reading whichever part is next, as long as it’s not our own – the rule is you can’t read your own part – and then ‘translating’ the speeches into everyday English. We’re aided by the notes in the various editions on the table: as well as the ones I’ve been using – the RSC and the Arden – there is the Oxford, the Pelican, the New Penguin, the New Cambridge, as well as an invaluable bible, the Crystals’ Shakespeare’s Words:A Glossary and Language Companion.

  Some surprises as we proceed. In Act One, Scene Scene, Westmoreland tells of the fate of Mortimer’s forces against Glendower; the butchery and mutilation of soldiers:

  Such beastly shameless transformation

  By those Welshwomen done as may not be

  Without much shame retold or spoken of.

  We look at one another, frowning in puzzlement. Then Josh Richards, who’s Welsh, says, ‘I’ve known a few women like that back home.’

  We laugh and are about to move on, when Simon Thorp (playing Blunt and Lord Chief Justice) looks up from his Arden edition, and says there’s a note about the mutilations. They involved the cutting off of penises and sticking them in mouths, and the cutting off of noses and sticking them in anuses. Stunned, we turn back to Josh, who says:

  ‘Oh yes, there was this lady in Cardiff…!’

  Tuesday 31 December

  Continued reading Part I round the table. How well British actors sight-read Shakespeare, how fluently. (While I struggle and stumble my way through whatever part I’m allotted.) But this same facility can be deceptive. Most Shakespeare productions don’t go through the process we’re doing at the moment, and the actors can end up speaking the text with lots of flair but little meaning. Greg’s shows are praised for their clarity. Here’s why. And it’s important for the company to do this together, so that we all understand the whole play. It’s particularly good for those actors playing small parts – they develop an investment in the work which they might not otherwise feel.

  This afternoon we stopped paraphrasing (we’ll come back to it) and just read the rest of Part I. Greg wants us to have read both parts by the end of the week.

  At the end of rehearsals, Greg suggested a New Year’s toast. Stage management brought in several bottles of Pedro Ximénez, and trays of little plastic glasses. Spanish sherry is thought to be close to sack, the Elizabethan drink which is much referred to in the plays.

  As we raise our glasses, Greg says, ‘Here’s to a happy new year!’ Laughing, he adds, ‘At least I hope so, since we’ll be spending most of it together.’

  We drink, and pull our faces. It’s sweet and syrupy. It would be impossible to have it in the vast quantities that Falstaff and his cronies consume. So sack must be something different. I volunteer to make it my research project. (Others are doing the Crusades, the Battle of Shrewsbury, etc.)

  It’s liberating to no longer go to New Year’s Eve parties – like Richard Wilson’s legendary Hogmanay bashes in the eighties and nineties – to no longer stay up late for them, work out how to get there and back, and also, in my case, coke-sniff my way through the jollities, and begin every new year completely wrecked.

  These days we go to bed at ten, and simply miss all the fuss.

  It’s very liberating.

  Wednesday 1 January 2
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  ‘Happy New Year,’ we murmured on waking. Greg said he heard the fireworks on the Thames at midnight (‘the chimes at midnight’), but I slept straight through.

  How strange and wonderful to have a day off already.

  We made a roast chicken lunch, and for dessert tried the Pedro Ximénez sherry poured over vanilla ice cream – as recommended on the bottle. Absolutely delicious.

  The weather was miserable – grey and rainy – but perfect for an afternoon movie on the telly. It was The Sound of Music. We were both pushovers for it; Greg said, ‘It’s the sound of childhood.’ Mind you, he was six when it came out (1965), and I was sixteen.

  Thursday 2 January

  Back at work. This week is quite confusing.

  Oliver Ford Davies (playing Shallow) joined rehearsals. I’m a big fan of his. Not only is he a very fine actor, but a very bright mind.

  We launched into Part II. There’s a lot of sickness in the story now: the King is sick, Northumberland is sick (or feigning sickness), Falstaff talks of deafness, gout and pox, and says that even his purse suffers from consumption, Doll Tearsheet has the clap… the whole country is ill. Shakespeare weaves this thread throughout the play, without drawing attention to it, and subtly creates a completely different atmosphere to Part I. That’s good writing.

  I was particularly interested in ‘the other scenes’ (those without Falstaff), and much struck by King Henry’s speech about insomnia in Act Three, Scene One. Shakespeare is obsessed by sleep, as in Macbeth (‘the death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath, / Balm of hurt minds, great nature’s second course…’). I was talking to Jasper Britton (playing the King) afterwards, saying how the sleep speech surprised me. Overhearing, Greg said, ‘It’s only because you never read the parts of the play you’re not in!’

  ‘Correct,’ I said, braving it out; ‘I’m taking a Mike Leigh approach to this, where you only know what your character knows, only his world, and not the rest of the story.’

  I’m still planning to play Falstaff as an alcoholic; I mean, explicitly. Am reading a book called The Trip to Echo Spring by Olivia Laing, which is about famous writers with drink problems, and find myself wondering whether Falstaff’s situation is like these men, where booze is such an integral part of their society that all boundaries get blurred. When Scott Fitzgerald’s health is deteriorating, he tries to stop drinking, but that only means ‘hard liquor’ (spirits) – he still drinks massive quantities of beer. Meanwhile, Ernest Hemingway is contemptuous of his buddy Fitzgerald starting to behave like a drunkard. Hemingway boasts of being able to ‘drink hells any amount of whisky without getting drunk’. That could be Falstaff talking. Hemingway also says, ‘I have drunk since I was fifteen and few things have given me more pleasure… Modern life is often a mechanical oppression and liquor is the only mechanical relief.’ Is there something of Hemingway in Falstaff? The ultimate swaggerer, yet also gifted. Falstaff has such a glorious, disrespectful, unique view of the world, that maybe in another life he could’ve been a great artist or writer…

  Saturday 4 January

  Stratford-upon-Avon.

  …Talking of great writers, I met Hilary Mantel today. We’ve come up to see her double bill (adapted for the stage by Mike Poulton): Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies. Apparently, she so enjoyed this theatrical outing of her work she said it was better than winning the Booker twice. She was perfectly charming, but didn’t really want to sit and have a drink with us, preferring to walk round the foyers: ‘People will recognise me, and then we can talk about it all!’

  The shows were excellent, staged with simplicity and fluidity by Jeremy Herrin, the text sparkling with wit (don’t know if that’s Mantel or Poulton; probably both), and a very strong cast, particularly Ben Miles, Nathaniel Parker, Paul Jesson, and Lucy Briers.

  Press day is Wednesday. It doesn’t really matter what the critics say – the entire run sold out before it opened – but if it is well received this could be another real humdinger hit for the RSC. Following Richard II and Wendy and Peter Pan, it’s getting Greg’s reign off to a tremendous start.

  ‘Let’s hope the Henries don’t let the side down,’ I said to Greg. We both laughed nervously.

  Sunday 5 January

  There’s been wild weather around the country: coastal storms and inland flooding.

  Overnight the Avon has swollen enormously and flooded – just the opposite bank again, mercifully.

  Up early to drive back to London, we peer out of our French windows. The sky is red, the sun bright, the weir submerged, with the rushing river level on either side of it, and the lawns on the other side glassy with water.

  As we leave the flat, I’m struck by this thought: the next time we walk in here, we’ll be arriving to open the shows, and I’ll have created Falstaff. My Falstaff. He doesn’t exist yet, but he will then. It’s the same feeling as when you start a book or a painting. The blank page, the empty canvas, the outline of a famous role. It’s unimaginable that these vacant spaces can be filled in, and that a finished thing will appear…

  Monday 6 January

  London. Week two.

  Filthy morning: windy, rainy, dark. The Victoria Line was closed, so we caught the Overground to Clapham. Erica Whyman (RSC Deputy Director) joined us so that she and Greg could have a catch-up on the way. The top directors of one of the world’s leading theatre companies are having a meeting strap-hanging on a train, I thought, as I stared down the long, wet, swaying carriage, crowded with heavily wrapped people, many of them sniffing and coughing…

  Trevor White (playing Hotspur) arrived in rehearsals. He’s been on honeymoon in Burma. Face very tanned, with amazing green eyes shining out. For Trevor’s benefit, Greg asked us to sum up some of the things we’ve learned about the material so far. I liked what Elliot Barnes-Worrell (playing Prince John and Francis) said: ‘The plays are like all these windows… you see into all these lives… it’s like Hitchcock’s Rear Window.’

  Then we worked on Part I, resuming the paraphrasing process. We’re building up to a proper read-through of this part on Friday, when we’ll finally read our own parts.

  The thought of which sends a shiver through me.

  Jim showed us a theatre programme today. From 1966. Henry IV Part I. A revival of the famous 1964 production, with Paul Rogers replacing Hugh Griffith, and Ian Holm still playing Hal. Jim told how he and Bobby (Hooper; twin brother; actor and writer) came to Stratford in a school party from Wolverhampton. It was the first piece of real theatre that they’d seen, and they marvelled at the ease with which the actors spoke Shakespeare, the authenticity of the costumes, even the stage smoke. ‘It changed our lives,’ Jim said; ‘On the coach back, we said to one another, “That’s what we’re going to do!”’ I was touched by the fact that Jim had a plastic folder round the programme, and he handled the pages very carefully, as if they were made of a precious substance. Which they were – memory.

  Tuesday 7 January

  Lunchtime. I had a meeting with a chap called Nick, a recovering alcoholic – he’s a friend of one of the company – in an upstairs office at Clapham. A tall, strong man, aged fifty-six, he spoke very openly, the information tumbling out. Said it gave him goosebumps to remember what he’d been through. He’s been sober now for eighteen years, but still gave me a very graphic demonstration of what it was like to start each day. (Which I’m thinking of using for a couple of scenes.) He explained that you’d have made preparations the night before: not only to have the first drink at hand, but also plastic bags, in case that first drink makes you throw up. ‘You’re putting poison into yourself – your body doesn’t like it, but your nervous system needs it.’ He showed me ‘the shakes’ – everything very tight and tense, the knees jumping, the hands flailing. How will you lift the drink? You mustn’t spill any! Either bring your mouth to the bottle, while it stays on the surface, or one hand must help the other raise it. It could take him three hours to get ready for the day, and then people wouldn’t not
ice a thing. ‘The alcoholic is the consummate actor,’ he said.

  Other things that struck me:

  ‘Alcohol is the father of all lies.’

  ‘I’m not doing that again!’ The cycle of resolving to clean up, but failing again and again. (Very Falstaff.)

  ‘You’re the host.’ (Alcohol like a tapeworm.)

  ‘Inner violence – an assault from within.’

  At the end I thanked him earnestly. His honesty was moving, and he’d given me several things I could use.

  Back in the rehearsal room, Greg said, ‘I’m longing to hear what you found out.’

  ‘I’ll tell you later.’

  ‘But it wasn’t like the murderers?’

  He was referring to my research for Macbeth, when I interviewed two real-life murderers, while he waited, nervously, to drive me home.

  I smiled. ‘No, it wasn’t remotely like the murderers.’

  Wednesday 8 January

  First fat-suit fitting. With Bob Saunders, who is a speciality prop-maker, and this sometimes extends to costumes. He has made a rough version for me to try. Like a padded white diving suit, complete with arms and legs. I step into it, the rest is hauled up over me, and then zipped up the back. I look in the mirror. It works – immediately. With big sagging moobs, and an even bigger belly (both of these sections weighted), the overall impression is that it’s feasible – I could, if I let myself go, end up looking like this. Stephen Brimson Lewis suggests some improvements, and I ask for a larger butt. Then I try sitting – good – the belly forces my legs wide apart. I try lying on the ground – good – I have to paddle my limbs like a beetle on its back in order to turn over and heave myself up. I try walking – good – a roll to my gait. We take photos – very, very good.