Brimstone and Fear

Regular readers of my blog may be feeling a little uncared for this year. It was with a certain amount of surprise that I noticed my last post was at the end of January. Probably the same reaction I had when finding out that we have now entered Spring, the clocks have gone forward, and the end of the week will bring April Fools’ Day.

Probably apt as April this year will see my return to the stage after a gap of nine years. It wasn’t a deliberate career move; just that the right project hasn’t come along. With the exception of starring in a West End show, theatre is what I would unfortunately regard as underpaid. My ability therefore to commit to a long run has been limited by my desire to earn money. Also limited by my boredom threshold. My last theatre outing as an actor was in Watford in 2008 and it was hugely enjoyable. Sarah Esdaile directed a brilliant cast in “Kafka’s Dick” by Alan Bennett and we had a very enjoyable three weeks in the rehearsal room. Then we had a technical  week and previews and then we had a press night on a Tuesday. All went well and was great fun. By the Saturday of that week as I got into my car and headed off onto the Watford ring road, I was ready to go home for good. Unfortunately there were another two weeks of the run to go. When my little Citroen finally turned off the Watford ring road fourteen days later, I never ever wanted to see the bloody place again.

So I was thrilled earlier in the year when the very enterprising and award-winning Matthew Parker, artistic director of the Hope Theatre in Islington, offered me a challenging role in his revival of Dennis Potter’s controversial piece “Brimstone and Treacle”. I read it. I loved it. I wanted to do it. After making sure there was enough money in the bank and checking out that I actually liked the 50 seat theatre, I signed on the dotted line.

 And then the fear set in. The fear of actually having to stand up and do it, and above all the fear of having to learn what is a reasonably considerable role. For the last nine years any time I have stood on a stage with a lot of words, I’ve had autocue. Corporate events, presenting awards ceremonies; everything down to the last unfunny joke has been on a screen in my eye line. Now, the delicious dialogue of Mr Potter has to be retained in my head. The only two things actors have to do, according to Noel Coward, are “learn the lines and don’t bump into the furniture”. Until I see the model box, there is nothing I can do about the second of those requirements, so all my attention has been on the first.

How happily I recall those days as a young actor in my 20s when following an afternoon’s rehearsal, a quick flick through pages of the script would be followed by a long visit to the pub, a quick read of the lines before bedtime, and there they would be, implanted in my brain for the next day’s rehearsal. Alas, that is no more. The last nine years I have learnt dialogue on the night before I needed it. Whether it’s been one scene for a film, or 10 scenes on the stints I’ve done in soap operas, the line learning has been quick, but easily erasable. Now I need to retain the dialogue, process it, and have it at my beck and call for the next six weeks of rehearsal and performance. It’s been a long slog, but with the aid of a line learning app, my Bluetooth headset, and an awful lot of strange looks on my journeys into town, I have what I hope is a working grasp of all the dialogue ready to begin rehearsals. Now I’m just running it every day.

If there isn’t an element of fear in a job, then I don’t really think it’s worth doing. The jobs I enjoy the most are the ones that, when I leave the house in the morning, I doubt my own ability to do.

I’m being joined by a first rate cast at the Hope Theatre, all of whom I look forward to meeting, and I know from my meetings with Matthew Parker, that I’m in very safe hands. Yet the fear is there. But that is probably the reason why we do it.