The Fry Chronicles (22 page)

On the ground floor at the foot of our staircase a
smaller set of rooms had been taken over by the college and transformed into something quite marvellous and strange and new: a ladies’ lavatory. The outer room was fitted with a large dressing-table with bulbs around the side of its mirror. On this table were boxes of coloured tissues, a glass jar of Q-tips and a pretty painted porcelain bowl filled with powder-blue, baby-pink and Easter-yellow balls of cotton wool. A basket-weave chair freshly painted in white gloss was tucked into the valance or pelmet of flower-printed chintz that underhung the table. On the pink-painted walls were three different coin-operated sanitary towel and tampon machines. In the lavatory itself a complex incinerator for used examples of same stood next to the toilet, and hanging off the back of the door could be seen a thick swatch of brown Lil-lets disposal bags. The whole place screamed, ‘You are a woman. Don’t even
think
of forgetting it.’

Queens’ College, after 532 years of single-sex status, had decided to go co-ed. Women undergraduates had arrived this term as full members of the college.

I can picture the scenes at the meeting of the college’s governing Fellows. The President coughs for attention.

‘Gentlemen! As you know, this body voted two years ago for women to be …’

‘I didn’t!’

‘Nor I!’

‘Er, yes, thank you Doctor Bantrey, Professor Threlfall. A
majority
of Fellows voted for the admission of women. Next term, as you know, will see our first intake …’

‘Will they eat with the rest of us?’

‘Well, of course they will eat with us, Dr Kemp, why on earth shouldn’t they?’

‘Well I thought they ate … differently.’

‘Differently?’

‘They pick up their food with their mouths, don’t they? Or am I thinking of cats?’

‘Dr Kemp, have you actually ever
met
a woman?’

‘Er … well, not that you’d … my mother was a woman. Was introduced when I was seven. Used to see her at mealtimes occasionally. Does that count?’

‘And did she eat normally?’

‘Let me think … now you come to mention it, yes, she did, yes. Quite normally.’

‘Well, there you are then. There is, however, the issue of cloacal arrangements. Women do of course have hygienic requirements that are … somewhat
sui generis.
’

‘Oh yes? In what way?’

‘Ah … well, to be honest I’m not actually sure on this one myself. But I believe every now and again they are required to shout and to slap a man and then burst into tears and … er … then they have to blow their nose or something. And do their hair. Something along those lines. This happens regularly once a month, I am told. So we will need specially designed rooms set aside for the purpose.’

‘I knew no good would come of this.’

‘Hear fucking hear.’

‘Gentlemen, please! If we can just …’

‘And where are they going to hang their breasts at night? Answer me that.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Women have extra mounds of flesh that they attach with wire suspenders and silk peggings to the front of their chests. I know that much at least. The question is,
where are they going to hang them at night? Hm? You see? You just haven’t thought this thing through, have you?’

And so on … until the meeting broke up in disarray.

With the exception of the startling lavatories the arrival of The Women turned out to be the most natural thing in the world. It seemed impossible to believe that they had never been here before. Whether they took to the more honkingly earthy college institutions like the Kangaroos, the college’s sporting club, or indeed to the Cherubs, of which I was now leader or Senior Member, I cannot quite say. Since, by definition, all the women in college were first-years (how they must have tired of the terms ‘freshettes’ and ‘undergraduettes’) there were none quartered in Old Court, hence none to use the gleaming Ladies at the foot of A staircase. It became, therefore, our private poo-palace. Which is how I know the towel-bag legend off by heart: ‘Lil-lets expand widthways to mould themselves gently to your shape. If you have any questions write to Sister Marion …’

Kim and I were lovers by this time, and it was a happy state to be in. He played chess, read Thucydides, Aristotle and Cicero and boomed Wagner over Old Court, sweetening it with gigantic moments from Verdi and Puccini. I learnt my lines, typed the occasional essay on my Hermes typewriter, read, smoked and chattered. Friends came up the stairs and stayed for long afternoons of toast, coffee and then wine. We were closest with Rob Wyke, a graduate from St Catharine’s who taught in college and worked on his thesis. He had played Gonzago in
The Tempest
. He, Paul Hartell, another PhD student at Cat’s, and a third wild and wonderful graduate called
Nigel Huckstep formed a triumvirate in whose company Kim and I loved to be. Their range of reference was enormous, but they wore their learning lightly. On free evenings we would ‘draaj’ (which Nigel, who picked up languages as easily as infants pick up infections, claimed was an Afrikaans word for saunter) past King’s, down Trinity Street and to the Baron of Beef pub in Bridge Street, where the dirt was dished on all of Cambridge.

As a third-year now I found myself on innumerable committees. Aside from being the President of the May Ball, Senior Member of Cherubs (‘I’ve seen ya member, Senior Member!’ being the obvious chant) and President of BATS, I was on the committees of the ADC, Mummers and several other drama clubs. This meant that, at the opening of term, I found myself bouncing from meeting to meeting, listening to directors ‘pitching’, as we would now say.

It went like this. Let us say you are a director, or want to be one. You choose a play – new or classic – you decide how you mount it, prepare a speech about your ‘concept’, draw up a sensible budget and get yourself on the list to be heard by each of the larger drama societies. All this would now be done with presentation and spreadsheet software I suppose, but back then it was bits of paper and speechifying.

At a meeting of the ADC a first-year brimful of confidence arrived. He had the pained, coat-muffled-up look of a sensitive socialist who finds everything around him violent and faintly oppressive.

‘I am very
very
interested in the work of Grotowski and Brook,’ he told us. ‘My production of
Serjeant Musgrave’s Dance
will utilize their theories, combined with elements of Brechtian Epic. I will dress the cast only in white and red. The set will be scaffolding.’

Gosh. Well. Absolutely. We consulted amongst ourselves after he left. Jolly bright fellow.
Serjeant Musgrave
. Hadn’t been done for fifteen years so far as we could tell. Interesting ideas. Cheap too. Definitely worth considering.

We see a few more candidates, and I rush off to Trinity Hall, where we hold a similar meeting for the Mummers. The third candidate to come into the room to pitch is that same intense first-year who had appeared before the ADC committee. He sits down.

‘I am very
very
interested in the work of Grotowski and Brook,’ he announces. ‘My production of
’Tis Pity She’s a Whore
will utilize their theories, combined with elements of Brechtian Epic …’ He breaks off and gives me a look of uncertainty. Has he seen me before somewhere? He shakes his head and continues. ‘I will dress the cast only in white and red. The set will be scaffolding.’

A few more candidates, and I’m off to Queens’ for a BATS meeting. Sure enough, there is that first-year again. He really is covering all the bases.

‘I am very interested in the work of Grotowski and Brook. My production of
The Importance of Being Earnest
will utilize their theories …’

‘Combined with elements of Brechtian Epic?’ I ask. ‘Possibly dressed in white and red? Scaffolding?’

‘Er …’

That first-year is now a successful
homme de théâtre
and
an artistic director of distinction. I do not know how many of his current productions are dressed in white and red, but his scaffold-clad
My Fair Lady
, utilizing the theories of Grotowski and Brook (combined, I am told, with elements of Brechtian Epic Theatre), wowed them in Margate last summer. No, but shush.

I loathed committee meetings then and I loathe them now. My whole life has been a fight to avoid them as much as possible. A losing fight. I would so much rather do things than talk about doing them. Those who sit in committee rooms rule the world, of course, which is lovely if that is what you want to do, but those who rule the world get so little opportunity to run about and laugh and play in it.

It was a relief then to be cast as Volpone in a production at the ADC. A second-year from Caius called Simon Beale played Sir Politic Would-Be and all but ate up the stage with the most astonishing comic physicality and outrageous upstaging. At one point in the second act he stood talking to me, his back to the audience. I was always rather mystified why my excellent speech to him got so many laughs. It’s unsettling when you don’t know where laughs come from. I discovered that Simon Beale was scratching his arse throughout the whole scene. Had it been from an actor less accomplished or a person less adorable I suppose I might have been miffed. He also sang beautifully and was possessed of perfect pitch. There was a market scene that required singing – not from me, of course, but from the rest of the cast. Simon would stand in the wings, everyone huddled around him, and give out the note. After the performance, as a treat, he would sing ‘Dalla sua pace’ or ‘Un’aura amorosa’ for me, and I would melt into a puddle. One night the venerable Shakespearean
scholar and Emeritus Professor of English L. C. Knight, affectionately known as Elsie, was in the audience. He left a note for me at the stage door telling me that in his opinion my Volpone was superior to Paul Scofield’s. ‘Better shaped, better spoken and more believable. The finest I have ever seen.’ How like me to remember that word for word. The old boy was almost eighty, of course, and almost certainly deaf and demented, but I was, nevertheless, wildly proud. Too proud to show the note to anyone other than Kim and the director, for my pride in refusing to allow myself to appear boastful or pleased with myself was even more intense than any pride I might have had in my achievements. There was sometimes a fight between these two species of pride, but usually the first type won and was mistakenly called modesty.

Early one evening during the weeklong run of
Volpone
I arrived backstage at the ADC theatre and tripped on a pile of boxes in the corridor. They were programmes for the following week’s ADC production, dumped on the floor by the delivery man from the printers. The play was
Serjeant Musgrave’s Dance
, the Grotowski–Brook obsessive having been duly awarded his slot. I read through his programme notes.

I took the boxes to my dressing-room and hunted for a pen. An hour later the programmes had been returned to their boxes. The director’s notes now read:

I saw him later that evening looking white and furious and felt that I had been a hideous beast. But really. I mean. Did Shakespeare call actors ‘workers’ or ‘players’?

The next week Kim surprised me with plans for an exeat from Cambridge. He had bought tickets for Götz Friedrich’s Ring Cycle at the Royal Opera House in London. Monday
Das Rheingold
, Tuesday
Die Walküre
, Wednesday off, Thursday
Siegfried
, Friday off and Saturday
Götterdämmerung
. A week of Valkyries and Niebelungs and Gods and Heroes and Norns and Giants. It was my first visit to Covent Garden and my first experience of live Wagner. Not my last. Indeed, today, as I type this, is a Tuesday. I was at a
Götterdämmerung
just three nights ago. It gets into your blood. Well, my blood. Probably not yours. All Wagnerians know the film that descends over the eyes of those to whom they talk about their obsession, so I will say no more save to point out what is perhaps obvious, that it was a shattering experience and a life-changingly important week for me.

A far more life-changingly important moment and a yet more shattering experience was heaving to on the horizon.

Amongst the friends that came to visit A2 was Emma Thompson. Having taken a year off from the Footlights, she was back in the club as Vice-President for her final year. She arrived one early evening and plonked herself on our excellent sofa.

‘You remember Hugh Laurie?’

‘Er … remind me.’

She flung an impatient cushion at my head. ‘You know perfectly well who I mean. He was in
Nightcap
.’

‘Oh, the tall chap with the flushed cheeks and the big blue eyes?’

‘Exactly. Well he’s the President of Footlights this year.’