Year of the Fat Knight

by Antony Sher

  Oliver Ford Davies was back with us today, and he had a curious little gift for me: he said he had been concerned about the sound of one of my lines, had checked various editions, and had a suggestion.

  The line was in the alcohol speech, when Falstaff talks about it making the brain ‘apprehensive, quick, forgetive’.

  I’ve been saying, ‘forget-tive’ (as in ‘forget’). Olly thought it might be ‘forge-i-tive’ (as in ‘forge’). Which makes sense, since the word means ‘inventive’, and the implication of ‘forgetting’ was not helpful.

  But it’s going to be hard to relearn the pronunciation of something I’ve been saying wrong for months. I immediately stick up notices on the mirrors in my dressing room and in our Avonside bathroom, and start repeating the new version like a mantra. ‘Forge-i-tive.’

  Time to forget ‘forget-tive’, and forge ahead with ‘forge-i-tive’.

  Tuesday 25 March

  We are, bizarrely, back in a tech.

  And I’m marvelling again at how Stephen BL’s supremely simple set keeps providing strong new images for every new scene. It’s done with minimal furniture and maximum atmosphere (i.e. Tim’s lighting). Greg has placed Act Two, Scene Two in the changing room of tennis courts (there’s a line about the ‘tennis-court keeper’, and of course tennis balls will feature prominently in Henry V), and this is created just with a bench and a stool. Alex and Sam Marks (Poins) enter with tennis rackets, and proceed to change out of their sweaty sport shirts.

  Today, when the chaps are bare-chested, some of the actresses are watching from the stalls, and begin wolf-whistling. One of them calls out, ‘Thank you, Greg Doran!’ If this had been the other way round – males making lustful noises about females stripping – there would be outrage. There’s liberation for you!

  In Part II, Falstaff’s new look, as he now plays at being the ‘Hero of Shrewsbury’, is perfect: minimalist and a bit tacky. A few feathers in his hat, a red sash across his torso, and a little medal which looks like it came out of a Christmas cracker. This is suitably upstaged by Simon Thorp’s costume as the LCJ: fine black and scarlet robes, and a real chain of office.

  News comes that the actor Jeffrey Dench has died. A real stalwart of the RSC. Greg stops the tech, asks everyone to gather in the auditorium – cast and crew – and does a tribute to Jeffrey. Then says, ‘An actor doesn’t want a minute’s silence – let’s give him a round of applause!’ Later, Jeffrey’s sister, Judi, sends a message thanking Greg for the gesture.

  Wednesday 26 March

  Tech’d the alcohol speech. As I exited down the stage-right vom, I saw Ciss Berry sitting on one of the aisles. Muttered to her, ‘That’s not one for the AA.’

  (She’s completely open about her time as an alcoholic – in her youth.)

  She replied in that way of hers, mixing the streetwise and the theatrical: ‘Too fucking right, darling!’

  She had a good note for me. Asked, ‘Who pays Falstaff?’

  I replied, ‘Well, when he’s on active service, like now, the State does.’

  ‘Exactly. There’s that pressure on him.’

  Realised I was playing the exchange with Prince John too lightly. The knight Coleville has surrendered to Falstaff – surprisingly – and Falstaff wants the Prince to ‘let it be booked with this day’s deeds’; he wants the credit, the reward. Like what Hal did at Shrewsbury: backing the absurd story that Falstaff killed Hotspur. But John is a very different, much colder character (excellently played by Elliot Barnes-Worrell), and resists all Falstaff’s attempts at humour and banter.

  Ciss was reminding me that the stakes are higher.

  In playing Falstaff, the constant danger is just being fatuous. The fat knight isn’t fatuous.

  Thursday 27 March

  First dress rehearsal of Part II. I felt good. Last Saturday night’s conversation about Falstaff’s ‘youth’ has transformed things. In that troublesome early scene with the Lord Chief Justice, the lines about ‘we that are young’ are no longer just hot air, but deeply felt. Yet so is the moment when Falstaff says ‘I am old’ to Doll Tearsheet a few scenes later. Connecting these two points is a strong thing to play. And the theme of ageing builds through the Shallow scene – ‘the days that we have seen’ – and culminates in Hal’s rejection of Falstaff: ‘I know thee not, old man.’ We have borrowed Ralph Richardson’s version of this climactic moment (as reported by Kenneth Tynan): I keep my back to the audience throughout Hal’s speech, and then only turn out front when he’s gone. Falstaff is poleaxed, but trying to talk, trying to work out what’s happened. ‘Look you, he must seem thus to the world,’ he says of his best buddy, now King Henry V, and twice insists: ‘I shall be sent for.’

  Friday 28 March

  Slept for ten hours! Felt excited about tonight. The audience will teach us…

  First preview of Part II. Braced myself for no laughs, but there were lots (maybe ongoing affection for Falstaff from people who’ve seen Part I), even in the alcohol speech: I said the line about how, if I had a thousand sons, the first thing I’d teach them is to ‘addict themselves to sack’ and there was a roar of laughter. Extraordinary. They were celebrating the idea of a father turning his children into alcoholics. There’s proof of how far Shakespeare dares to take the charm factor of this character. And of course the Gloucestershire scene, with Shallow/Silence, and then the group of recruits, caused a big comic storm.

  But the play itself… it’s a strange beast…

  Saturday 29 March

  Tonight, with a very warm audience, the show felt as strong as Part I. A good way to end the week.

  Afterwards, Greg emailed some small cuts to the actors. Which gives us tomorrow to absorb and learn them. The rule is that if you passionately want to keep a condemned line, you can do so, as long as you sacrifice another of your own lines in exchange. That way we still reduce the running time, which is too long.

  Sunday 30 March

  We were coming to the end of our morning stroll, approaching the church, when suddenly a roe deer – an adult, quite big – scrambled out of the water and onto the Dell, charged this way and that, then bolted across the Avonbank Gardens. A moment later we saw it swimming across the river, only to turn round, climb onto this bank again, and hurtle back towards us. Where had it come from, where was it trying to go? We glanced at all the dogs out on their walks. Would they attack it? But the blind panic of a wild animal creates such a force field that the dogs were as frozen as their owners. Every living witness was just holding its breath.

  As we left the gardens, I saw a man phoning the police on his mobile. But I don’t know what happened to the poor deer.

  Felt haunted by it all day.

  Panic turning into force.

  A bit like getting on a show.

  Monday 31 March

  Having rehearsed the new cuts this afternoon, we put them into tonight’s performance, and it was eight minutes shorter. Which was good. The same could not be said for tonight’s audience – they were quiet and flat – and the weaknesses of Part II felt exposed again.

  I’m like a yo-yo on this.

  Many people think Part II is the inferior play. I’ve thought so myself in the past. (Richard Eyre’s TV film proved otherwise, but it doesn’t strictly count; firstly, the text was so reduced, and secondly, Jeremy Irons himself admitted that he couldn’t have done the same performance onstage.)

  Now that we’re actually doing both plays, I don’t want to believe that Part II is going to let us down, and turn this epic experience into a broken-backed affair.

  ‘Will fortune never come with both hands full?’ asks the King in Act Four, Scene Two.

  I’ve got my hopes on hold at the moment.

  Tuesday 1 April

  It’s April Fool’s Day, and I guess the joke is that we’ve got just sixteen days till the opening.

  Wednesday 2 April

  Today was good. A series of things made me happy.

  There’s a corridor on the ground f
loor of the backstage area, between the door to the stairs and the door to the stage, where a constant low noise is heard. Probably just to do with the air-conditioning or plumbing system, but stopping in there this morning, a different alternative occurred to me: it was like the sound of distant applause. It’s as if, when they were rebuilding the theatre, rearranging its spaces and its routes, a pocket of air got trapped here, and then, when everything had settled down again, this most unexpected thing was released. Everyone talks about theatres having ghosts in the walls; they mean actors, but why not audiences too – the ghost of an audience? At the end of some show, some time in the RSC’s history, when the people had enjoyed themselves, and clapped loud and long… and it’s continued to echo in this one passageway.

  I was still smiling at the thought, when I walked into my dressing room, opened the big window, and witnessed an astonishing spectacle on the river. A flock of swans came in to land on the water, then took off again, and repeated the exercise. Some of them were last year’s cygnets – almost fully grown, but with mottled feathers – so maybe the parents were giving them flying lessons, using this straight stretch of the Avon as their runway. When swans prepare to fly, they gallop along the surface, beating their wings on it, making a special sound – Greg calls it ‘an applause of swans’. It was breathtaking. I stood on my balcony, unable to believe that this was my place of work and yet a natural wonder was happening right here before my eyes.

  Glad to report that tonight’s show added to the day’s delights. A wonderful audience, restoring my faith in Part II. Despite Greg’s much-repeated note to us this afternoon – ‘Laughter is not the barometer of this show’ – there was plenty of it, culminating in an extraordinary event in my speech at the end of the Gloucestershire scene. Falstaff is telling the audience about Shallow’s wild youth, and being indiscreet about his sex life. I began the line, ‘When he was naked…’ but could get no further because a lone woman in the stage-right stalls began to giggle loudly. I turned to look at her. The audience guffawed. She bent forward, clutching herself. I pointed at her with my stick. A bigger guffaw. I walked over to her. The house shook. I carried on with the speech, and got to the line which has a vulgar double-meaning for a modern audience: ‘He came ever in the rearward of the fashion.’ As usual, people reacted with uncertainty – did Shakespeare write that? – but I had only to point to the woman again to ignite another explosion. I thought:

  Blimey, I’m doing stand-up. With Shakespeare.

  Greg was grinning broadly when he came to my dressing room afterwards. I said, ‘Just call me Billy Connolly.’

  Of course it was a happy accident, and is unlikely to happen again. On the other hand, there’s a tradition of Falstaff being played by comics – beginning with Will Kemp (probably) and going through to George Robey – and those performers would’ve used all Falstaff’s soliloquies to interact with the audience much more than I’ve been doing, or can do. But if I did possess those skills, would I want to use them? It’s an intriguing point. If Falstaff plays with the audience like those stand-up people do, with their own personalities on show instead of his, would you still care about him as a man? Falstaff – character or clown? That is the question. I know what my answer is.

  Thursday 3 April

  Part I is back on tonight.

  This morning I did all my lines, and this afternoon we had a company line-run, which became a walk-though – it was good to be reminded of the geography of scenes as well as their content.

  But there was an emergency.

  A fearsome bug, a cough/cold, has been sweeping through the company, affecting many people, though not me (which is a miracle, since I’m very susceptible to these things). Alex is the latest victim. The news gave me a jolt. Over the weeks, Alex and I have developed an onstage chemistry which is worth its weight in gold. This only happens with certain actors, and you thank God if they’re part of a crucial relationship in a play, like a marriage (I struck lucky with Debbie Findlay in Stanley and Harriet Walter in Macbeth) or something like the Falstaff/Hal friendship.

  In order for Alex to do tonight’s show, his understudy did this afternoon’s run: Sam Marks, who plays Poins. Today he did both Hal and Poins, often together in the same scene. Word perfect, very impressive.

  Alex got through the show, and the whole thing was in good shape. I had a slight sense of being one step behind the action, and indeed was late on for the Battle of Shrewsbury. (But at least that was in character.)

  Saturday 5 April

  First time that we performed the two plays together, matinee and evening.

  The task seemed so huge that there was no place for nerves.

  In the event, it was an extraordinary day, when we and the audience (those who saw both shows) went on a six-hour journey through one of Shakespeare’s great creations.

  I was struck by how Part II benefited from Part I. I felt I was in a kind of sitcom. As soon as I came on in Part II I was getting what I call free laughs – not for specific lines, but just for being the same character that they’d enjoyed in Part I. The same was true for Mistress Quickly, Bardolph and others. It was heart-warming. And it helped disguise the true nature of Part II, which is sluggish and uneven – especially in comparison to the velocity of Part I – but the emotional power of Part II was suddenly all the greater for the whole story being told. Especially in terms of what happens to Falstaff and Hal. I was reminded of Jim Shapiro saying that Eastcheap is a green world, a dreamworld. This afternoon’s matinee began with Falstaff and Hal waking up in a bawdy house, engaged in a terrific relationship – playful and combative – and this evening’s performance ended with Hal banishing Falstaff, saying, ‘I have long dreamed of such a kind of man… but being awake, I do despise my dream.’ The savagery and sadness of that was very raw today, very upsetting. But the necessity of it was also clear: if Hal is to be a good ruler, he must get rid of the Lord of Misrule.

  The long day ended with loud applause and cheers at the curtain call – so much so that we had to go back for more.

  I lived in my dressing room for twelve hours today (11 a.m. to 11 p.m.) – the make-up and costume takes ages to put on and take off – which is much longer than the rest of the company. When I moaned to Greg about this, he reminded me that it was my choice. Quite right. It’s another aspect of being a character actor.

  When I was finally leaving the stage door, I found two Americans waiting for autographs. One said, ‘Falstaff is such a great part – do you feel very lucky to have got it?’ I was so exhausted I forgot to be polite, and answered, ‘No, but he feels very lucky to have got me.’

  Sunday 6 April

  I wake feeling tired. That keeps happening. I’m running on empty.

  Did my Sunday phone calls to South Africa: Randall and Verne. Our mother believed in spiritualism, and we were all sceptical about it. Today I said to them, ‘Mom would be proud of you – you’re talking to the dead.’

  In the pursuit of energy and sugar-rushes, I’m eating everything I normally avoid – chips, chocs, cakes – yet I’m losing weight. It’s the body suit, and the amount that I sweat; Rachel Seal, who puts on my wig, says I’ve got my own personal climate. I drink gallons of coconut water during the show, to combat dehydration, but I’m worried about the effect of weight-loss on my face. Having successfully made it look fat, I don’t want any cheekbones appearing!

  This is crazy. I spend my life wanting to be thinner, and now I can’t control it. I’ve inadvertently discovered something called The Falstaff Diet.

  Was telling Tony Byrne about it backstage the other day, and he suggested that the RSC should market it – sell it in the front-of- house shop. It would come as a kit: a blow-up body suit (like a love doll) and the text of both plays. The would-be dieter has to learn all Falstaff’s lines, then speak them aloud in a pressurised situation – in front of neighbours, or anywhere public – while wearing the body suit. Guaranteed: the pounds will drop off you!

  The one bit of good news is
that my back is fine: in fact, better than it’s been in years. Can it be that the burden of carrying the body suit, plus the armour in the battle scenes, is serving to strengthen my muscles?

  Monday 7 April

  This morning Greg drove to Highgrove with Catherine Mallyon for a routine catch-up with RSC President, HRH.

  Meanwhile, I set about an important task: doing the sketch that I’ll have printed up as my first-night cards. I’ve been trying to ignore the big event, even claiming that I’m not sure exactly when it is, but the time for those games is over. It’s next Wednesday, the 16th; nine days away. My cartoon is based on Falstaff’s line, ‘Turk Gregory never did such deeds in arms as I have done today’, and shows me as the Fat Knight and Greg wearing a turban. I didn’t intend it, but Falstaff’s look is rather lusty…

  This afternoon we did some more cuts to Part II and it was five minutes shorter this evening. But on its own again, without Part I, it was its old self: half good, half not. Greg was feeling frustrated by it at the end, and perhaps because of tiredness – the Highgrove drive was one and a half hours each way – brought his gloom back to Avonside.

  ‘Cheer up,’ I said; ‘You’re frightening me.’

  He said, ‘Well, if you want to live with a director, you’re going to see the reality.’

  Trouble is, I’ve lived with this particular director for twenty-seven years, and I’ve never seen him so uncertain before an opening. (Though only about Part II.)

  Tuesday 8 April

  No energy for anything. Sat gazing at the river, which was sunlit and calming. Thought that if later someone asks what I did this morning, I’ll say, ‘I looked at the river,’ and it will not have been an unimportant thing, or a waste of time.

  God, I’m going to miss Avonside. Much as I’m looking forward to the new house… [Photo insert, page 7, ‘G&T at Avonside’ 7]