by Rupert Smith
From my parents’ point of view, I couldn’t have made a worse friend if I’d tried. They had never liked Tina, whom my father described as ‘a sad case’, but at least she could be passed off as a girlfriend. Nutter was completely beyond the pale. They disapproved of his mother, who, as a divorcee, would never be invited to their drinks parties. They disapproved of Nutter’s greased-up hair, and they reserved special scorn for his Northern accent. On the one occasion when he was invited to our house for tea, he sat silent throughout the meal while my parents made prying enquiries about the state of his family life, which I fended off as best I could. As soon as we had polished off our tinned mixed fruit, Nutter and I dashed upstairs to my bedroom and leafed through my stash of movie magazines and shared a cigarette leaning out of the window, blowing the smoke into the garden.
I never asked him back. By the age of twelve, I was ashamed of my parents. Nutter’s house was Liberty Hall by comparison, and it was during one of my first visits that he solemnly announced that he was going to ‘initiate me’. He crouched in front of the record player, opened the doors of a small wooden cabinet and brought out a stack of 78s. Removing one of them from its sleeve, he placed it reverently on the turntable. For the first time in my life, I heard the music of Elvis Presley.
I can’t remember exactly what that first record was. Nutter insisted that it was ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, but I’m convinced it was ‘Love Me Tender’. He watched me like a hawk for the two or three minutes’ duration. When the song ended and I was about to speak, he silenced me with a gesture and replaced the record. Song followed song until I had heard the entire Presley output to date – seven or eight songs. I knew that I was hearing the sound of the future. Nutter was one of the first people in Britain to own Elvis’s records; he was one of the pioneers who brought rock & roll across the Atlantic. For me, it was the beginning of a revolution.
I found a mail order outlet advertised in one of his fan magazines and regularly invested my pocket money in the new seven-inch singles that were gradually replacing the 78. During our regular trysts in the school playground I would present Nutter with the latest batch of records – titles by Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent and Buddy Holly which he grudgingly accepted and eventually came to expect. Soon we were the greatest authorities on rock & roll music in the United Kingdom.
But there were other interests that were demanding my time. At the end of the first year, all the boys had to choose a Friday afternoon ‘recreational’ activity – extra football, scouts or the cadet force, who paraded in military uniforms up and down the playground and were occasionally bussed out to a rifle range. I had no interest in football, and as for the scouts and the cadets, I had no intention of making a fool of myself in a uniform or being shot at by my schoolmates. The alternatives, reluctantly offered, were three hours of ‘private study’ (sitting supervised in a room with the school’s asthmatics, myopics and overweight) or the new, burgeoning drama society, run by magnetic English teacher Mr Phillips. This was the obvious choice for me, but there was a problem: joining the drama group was tantamount to standing up in front of the whole school and announcing that you were a ‘pouf’. There was also my parents’ reaction to consider; ever since my stage debut at the age of three my father had done everything possible to quash my dramatic inclinations.
Nutter was the only one whose good opinion I craved. He would have opted for football; he loved the game and could have captained the school team. Unfortunately, his unpopularity meant that he and I were always the last to be chosen for any sporting activity. With a little gentle persuasion, I convinced him that acting was a viable alternative to football. Was not his hero James Dean a serious student of theatre? Was not Marlon Brando a worthy role model for a would-be rock & roll star? Finally (the clincher) was not Elvis himself pursuing a parallel career as a film star? When Nutter announced his decision to join me in the theatre, shock waves reverberated around the school – and the prestige of the drama group was considerably increased. We were joined by a few other creative students, and by the end of the summer we were keenly looking forward to our first rehearsals.
Let me introduce my drama teacher, Mr Phillips, a man who was to have such a profound influence on my life – not all good. He was a senior member of staff, respected by colleagues and feared by students, a brilliant pedagogue who laboured tirelessly to instil a love of poetry into the thick heads of boys who regarded the subject of English as slightly cissy. Bernard Phillips – or ‘Phyllis’ behind his back – was a gentleman of the old school, elegant, witty, urbane and well dressed, a youthful sixty-year-old with long, manicured fingers, neatly dressed white hair and pale blue eyes which gazed witheringly over a pair of gold-framed lunettes. Rumours abounded that Phyllis was ‘queer’, that he seduced students in his flat and was interested in the drama group only as a means of getting his hands on more boys. It was the typical reaction of the philistine English male confronted with something beautiful and high-minded – a reaction that I myself had been provoking since my first date with Mr Peroxide. If Mr Phillips was privately homosexual, he certainly never allowed his tastes to influence his dealings with students. In my eyes, he was the epitome of refinement and intellectual grandeur which I, at the age of twelve, could never hope to attain. But I set myself the task of learning everything I could from that wise, silver head.
The play that Mr Phillips announced as our first production was an ambitious choice: Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. I knew nothing of the play. The Elizabeth Taylor version was a long way off, and nothing in my education had acquainted me with Roman history or the works of our greatest poet. But from the moment we were issued with our pocket-sized ‘acting editions’ (heavily edited so as not to offend the tastes of the times) I knew that I had formed a special new relationship. Nothing has ever stirred me as much as Cleopatra’s speech from Act One: ‘Eternity was in our lips and eyes/ Bliss in our brows’ bent, none our parts so poor/ But was a race of heaven.’ The moment I saw those words, I was determined to have the role.
Mr Phillips’s original plan had been to produce Antony and Cleopatra with girls from our ‘sister school’ in the female roles. But he was easily persuaded otherwise. At the first audition, I insisted on reading not for the role of Caesar (which he had offered me) but for gipsy queen herself. When he heard my rendition of ‘Ram thou thy fruitful tidings in mine ears/ That long time have been barren’ I could see that the battle was won. Yet still he dithered; decisiveness was not one of our director’s strong points. I was prepared. I knew from a brief scan of the introduction that, in Shakespeare’s time, the female roles would have been taken by boy actors. Who were we, I argued, to stand in the way of tradition? Phyllis immediately announced that our production of Antony and Cleopatra would be ‘historically correct’.
I could only play the part of Cleopatra with the right Antony opposite me – and nobody would do but Nutter. Further down the list a few concessions were made to the original notion of co-ed casting: the parts of Octavia, Iras and Charmian were given to girls. This didn’t trouble me; the main point had been conceded. Perhaps I would have put up more of a fight had I known that, way down the dramatis personae, lurked the asp who would bite me.
From the moment I began to rehearse the role of Shakespeare’s greatest queen, I knew that destiny had plucked me out for a career in the theatre. I threw myself into the production body and soul, and even took a perverse pride in the fact that my playground nickname had changed from ‘Baby’ Young to ‘Queen’ Young. My appearance assisted me: I still looked younger than my years while others were falling prey to the curse of acne and greasy hair. Mr Phillips was generous in his praise, and even Nutter admitted that it wasn’t too difficult to imagine me in the role of the ‘triple turn’d whore’ to whom he, as Antony, would lose empire and life.
This was to be no ordinary schoolboy mangling of Shakespeare. Mr Phillips summoned up the spirit of ‘old Nile’ with every resource that our small theatre (a sparsely refurbish
ed old gymnasium) had to offer. The school orchestra was pressed into service, yards of sheeting were painted by conscripts in the art block to resemble the exotic hangings of the Egyptian court and bedchamber, while our wardrobe ransacked the local fancy dress shop for gleaming armour, swords and togas. My costumes were hand-stitched by Phyllis himself: diaphanous creations draped around my shoulders and hips, leaving my midriff bare. Nutter started referring to me as ‘Little Sheba’.
An entire term was devoted to rehearsals. While the rest of the cast were drilled to be word perfect, Nutter and I were gently coaxed and nurtured in hour upon hour of after-school workshops. ‘You must make the audience forget that you’re adolescent boys,’ insisted Phyllis. ‘For two hours, they must believe that you are the greatest lovers in the history of the world.’ This made Nutter uneasy, and finally, after an evening in which Phyllis coached me in the art of straddling Nutter’s supine form after one of the many banquet scenes, he stormed out muttering inaudible oaths and was not seen for the rest of the week. It took a larger-than-usual packet of 45s to persuade him to return.
Finally I had to let my parents in on the secret. They’d accepted without question that my evenings were spent studying, at the cinema or at friends’ houses, but as rehearsals progressed, I was sure that even my father would admire my performance as Cleopatra. Surely Shakespeare was one of the great English traditions that he’d fought to preserve?
One night after dinner I presented my parents with two tickets for the opening night of the show ‘What’s this?’ asked Dad, grimly. I explained that it was a surprise, that I’d been ‘discovered’ and was about to launch myself on my chosen career. The reaction was not enthusiastic. The theatre, to them, was little better than embracing a life of crime. They sat tight-lipped while I outlined my plans for the future.
Nothing they could say or do, short of actually locking me in my room, was going to stop me. Eventually, they were persuaded to accept my acting career – although they would never encourage it. Mr Phillips himself intervened on my behalf at a parents’ evening, gently persuading Mr and Mrs Young that they had an exceptionally talented son who would surely bring them fame and glory, and considerable amounts of money.
Finally, the big night arrived. Rumours – the very best sort of pre-publicity – were circulating that various of the performers would appear nude, that there were sex scenes, that Nutter and I would kiss on stage. None of it was true (Phyllis would have been incapable of anything so dangerous) but it ensured a complete sell-out, and the promise of an extra performance if demand continued.
The dress rehearsal was a disaster. Phyllis reassured us all that this was a good omen for the first night, but as I sank to my death amidst chaos and confusion (Nutter had once again stormed out, objecting this time to my over-zealous attempts to revive him during the ‘I am dying, Egypt, dying’ speech) I wondered whether anything could really justify this much suffering. It was a question I was to ask myself many times in the future – and the answer always has to be yes, as long as the public wants you.
Ten minutes before curtain up, Nutter and I stood backstage surveying the audience through a chink in the wings. There were my parents, in the front row. Mrs Cole, Nutter’s mother, had stayed away. And ranged from side to side of the auditorium were our hateful school chums, slavering with prurient adolescent curiosity. Nutter was morose, resigned to the indignity he was about to undergo – he had long since decided that the stage was not a fit place, even if sanctioned by the likes of James Dean and Marlon Brando. ‘Please,’ I whispered, ‘do this for me. I’ll never ask anything of you again.’
‘Okay, Little Sheba,’ he replied, and wandered off to prepare for his entrance.
The performance itself went by in a blur. I’ve always found that during my greatest stage successes, I’m scarcely aware of what’s going on around me, possessed by something greater than myself. I remember my first entrance, dressed in a bikini with a gold cloak slung over my shoulders and gold sandals, surprising my Antony as he relaxed in the traditional Roman bath (Nutter’s costume in this scene consisted of a loin cloth and several coats of baby oil which I had agreed to apply when he complained that Phyllis’s hands shook too much). I heard a gasp from the audience, looked down to see my parents’ white faces, then remembered the cardinal rule that Phyllis had impressed upon us – never look at the audience. I fixed my gaze on the school clock above their heads, took a deep breath: ‘If it be love indeed, tell me how much . . .’
The audience was quiet – respectful of the words of Shakespeare, astonished by the artistry with which a group of simple schoolboys had interpreted the immortal lines. But as scene followed scene I was dimly aware of a restlessness spreading throughout the hall. At the end of Act One, as I writhed on the sofa in a green sheath dress and gold turban intoning ‘Oh happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony’, I distinctly heard coughs and sniggers from certain sections of the audience. I glanced down to where Mr Phillips sat in the prompt position with the orchestra, but he merely beamed and signalled encouragement. It was enough, and I continued to writhe.
In Act Two disaster struck. Phyllis had designed a beautiful balletic interlude, when, to the orchestra’s scraping and blowing, we enacted the famous erotic speech of Cleopatra in which she recalls how ‘ I drunk him to his bed/ Then put my tires and mantles on him, whilst/ I wore his sword Philippan.’ These lines had been cut from our schools’ version, but Mr Phillips had reinstated them as a series of tableaux in which Antony and I performed a pas de deux as we exchanged clothes. There was nothing remotely shocking about it – the whole dance was performed behind a gauze that was waved by the Roman soldiers to suggest a dream – and it was only due to a wardrobe misunderstanding that I was wearing nothing under my costume. As I shimmied out of my dress and reached to accept the toga from Antony (which was intended to preserve my modesty) I found nothing was on offer, and was left standing in only my high-heeled gold sandals. I turned to see Nutter with his costume rucked up between his legs in grave danger of pulling his Y-fronts down, and suddenly realized, from a chilly draught blowing from the wings, that I was in the nude.
All hell broke loose. With a curse, my father jumped to his feet and dragged my mother out of the hall. I grasped the gauze from one of the soldiers, created an outfit for myself and attempted to continue the scene, but it was too late. Shrieks of laughter, whistles and cries rendered the music inaudible. The curtain began to close, operated, as I saw from the corner of my eye, by the headmaster. I struggled to make the front of the stage only to be pushed into the wings by brute force. And where was my leading man? He had disappeared, leaving his toga and his sword Philippan in a heap on the ground. I stormed back to the dressing room only to be confronted by the sight of Nutter, my Mark Antony, locked in a clumsy embrace with the treacherous fourth-form girl who had foolishly been given the role of Octavia. Caesar’s virgin sister indeed! She stood crushed against the wall with her hand rammed down Nutter’s pants and her tongue down his throat.
This was the final straw. Robbed of my greatest role, held to ridicule by a crowd of fools and now betrayed by my best friend, I burst into tears and rushed from the building, straight into the arms of Mr Phillips. Frightened and confused as I was, I dared not go home to face my parents; my father, I told Mr Phillips, was a violent man and would almost certainly beat me, or him, if we were to confront him after what he had just seen. Poor Mr Phillips was understandably distraught; faced with a hostile public, he didn’t have the courage to stick up for what he believed was right and beautiful. And so the kind old man took me back to his flat and put me to bed. When I awoke in the morning, my school uniform (retrieved by Phyllis from the dressing room) lay neatly folded beside me. The length of chiffon in which I had been wrapped when I fell into Mr Phillips’s arms was nowhere to be seen. I left before he awoke and made my own way home, let myself in before the house was stirring and went to bed. I was too ill to return to school before the end of term.
M
y parents’ response was swift and barbaric. I was forbidden from any further theatrical ‘adventures’, threatened with everything from the juvenile courts to electric shock treatment and warned that any involvement with Mr Phillips or Nutter would be very severely punished. ‘If you don’t grow up and start behaving like a man,’ said my father, ‘you won’t be my son any more. Do you understand?’ I understood. He was ready to throw me out on the streets.
Everything after Cleopatra was a let-down. In retrospect I recognize that our production was groundbreaking: ‘underground’ theatre long before such a thing existed. But at the time I felt frustrated, even defeated. I started to keep a diary. These volumes capture the bleak depression that settled on me as the New Year began.
Friday 12. January: Compulsory football all afternoon. Drama group ‘suspended’, everyone blames me. Nutter ignores me, actually enjoys the game, scores twice. Suddenly he’s everyone’s friend.
Saturday 13 January: Nothing on at pictures, only stupid war films. Went to town hoping to see N. Saw Gill (the dreaded Octavia) and her friends hanging around outside the Golden Egg. They laughed at me but I ignored them. Got caught nicking H&E from Smiths. Manager took me into office, threatened police, let me go when I cried.
Sunday 21 January: Stayed in bed all day. Mum and Dad don’t care. So bored.
Wednesday 7 February: Talked to Nutter during lunch break. He’s finished with Gill, he says (she doesn’t know yet, ha ha). Told him I had some records for him, he was pleased. Went to Boots and nicked Little Richard LP, will give it to him soon (if he deserves it).
