Year of the King: An Actor's Diary and Sketchbook - Twentieth Anniversary Edition (33 page)

Bill fits the ceremony to the music. At the moment of climax, as the
voices reach for that final `gloria!', the throne bearers hoist me up as high
as they can above their heads. A ripple of shivery sensations - it's like
being shot out of a cannon. There is nothing more exciting than acting
to live music, the make-believe at its most indulgent and its most thrilling.

The coronation is going to be a tremendous end to the first half. In
fact, a hard act to follow.

Bill's idea is to echo it at the end - bring the congregation on again,
perhaps singing, or a more violent chanting, for the death.

After the rehearsal Guy spots the throne we've been using for rehearsals
and asks, 'Is that from an oldJulius Caesar?'

`Looks more like a Cymbeline to me,' says Bill.

Jim and others are quick to join in, circling the throne, like a crowd of
Arthur Negii on `Antiques Roadshow':

`Or Coriolanus even.'

`Well, a Titus for that matter.'

`I wouldn't put a Troilus past it.'

`Antony and Cleo?'

`I don't know,' says Guy, `the feet still have the look of a '72 Chris
Morley Caesar to me.'

Black Mac's on board; he will be dressing me after all. He's using the
two-week holiday due to him from the Army so that he can be here during
the days of the technical and dress rehearsals.

`I told you Animil, if you wanted me, I'd be there!'

Despite a mogodon, I wake with the four o'clock gremlins. Today, the
first run-through of the whole of our first half. Also the false back will
finally arrive from Tucker.

RUN-THROUGH OF THE FIRST HALF The cast warm up on the
coronation Gloria, while I limber up on the crutches. Feel very nervous. A lot of the Company will be seeing it for the first time, also Bill D., the
lighting designer Leo Leibovici, and Charlotte who has come up from
London to pronounce final judgement on the safety of my deformed
position.

Bill says, `Right, we're starting in fifteen seconds' time ...' I'm pacing
around muttering `Now is the winter' under my breath like a rosary. Bill's
countdown is not helping: `... nine, eight, seven -'

`Has anyone seen Roger Allam?' asks Philip MacDonald, the stagemanager.

Everyone stops what they're doing and looks round the crowded room.
No Roger Allam. The stage-managers hurry away to put out a call over
the tannoy and to phone his digs. We wait poised. We can't start without
him - the first Clarence scene is straight after `Now is the winter'. Word
comes back that he is nowhere to be found. Stage-managers are sent to
his digs, we to wait in the Green Room. People who know him well say
it is untypical of him to have misread the call sheet. Something more
ominous is feared.

Waiting. At regular intervals he is called over the tannoy. But there
seems to be some problem in pronouncing his name: `Will Mister Allen
go to the Conference Hall immediately ... Mister Allung ... Mister
Annun ... Mister Annum ...' as if by trying different names it will
miraculously conjure him up.

We wait an agonising half hour. At last Bill decides to proceed with
Clarence's understudy, Andy Readman, who knows the lines and is
prepared to have a go.

After all of this, the run is extremely tense. It probably would have been
anyway.

Andy is quite stunning as Clarence. The character's fear and confusion
are, of course, well served by the present situation. But even so, he plays
with a speed and absence of emotional indulgence which we all could
learn from.

I take until Act Three to relax and start enjoying myself. Earlier on, the
feeling is dreadful - no laughs from the people seeing it for the first time,
I'm trying much too hard, dripping with sweat after the first five minutes.
I remember all the lines, but clumsily. Stumbling and paraphrasing.

Oddly enough it's the two boy Princes who get the first laughs and
everyone relaxes around them.

Strange feeling afterwards. Exhausted, wet through, disappointed with
myself, but also uplifted by the bits that have worked. Also a feeling of presumptuousness - the check of daring even to attempt this great part.
Wanting to run away and hide, but having to put on a brave face, like
after press nights.

Charlotte is very encouraging about the disability and gives it the seal
of approval. She's never seen the play before, or even the film, and says
it had heron the edge of her seat. That's good to hear. Jim also encouraging
but says, `You've got to find more of Richard's intellectual brilliance. You've
got to be as agile with his mind as you are on the crutches.' Other reactions
from Blessed - `Going to be 'kin marvellous, very original, very exciting'
- and Harold Innocent who says, `Too long, too long.' I agree with this.
It ran over two hours and people are still tending to play their moments
rather than telling the story.

Bill has a rather charming weakness for note sessions. He launches into
reams of detailed notes, forgetting until half-way through to make a
general comment: `Oh, by the way, it was very good.'

Roger Allam appears, looking ashen. He had simply misread the call
sheet. He goes on his knees, and begins to crawl across the floor towards
Bill.

Bill says, `Roger, the worst punishment I can give is to tell you that
your understudy's performance is rather brilliant.'

WARDROBE FITTING-ROOM With my heart in my mouth, I hurry over
to see my back.

It's much softer than I imagined, lying on the floor like a big pink
blancmange, a slice of blubber, a side of Elephant Man. I can hardly get
my clothes off fast enough to hoist it on to my back. A crowd of wardrobe
staff, the Bills, Alison, Charlotte, are gathered around. They gasp at the
first sight. I view myself in a series of mirrors. It's magnificent from the
side and back, moving with my body in a convincing and disturbing
fashion. But nothing shows from face-on because of Tucker's refusal to
build up a massive central hump extending on to the shoulders. A faint
sense of disappointment that the bull is gone. But hardly time to register
this as an army of wardrobe ladies descend with pins and scissors.

The back has arrived so late that they are now left with exactly one
week to make all of my costumes. No doubt they've all been through anger
and despair, but this evening there is an atmosphere of celebration.
Everyone is grinning, laughing, chattering away. Again that sense of hope
for this production is rather moving.

The deformity will be worn in two sections. The arms and knees will be sewn into a complete body stocking. The back will strap over this like
a parachute.

Roger Allam seeks me out to apologise personally. He's looking so shaken
I end up consoling him. He's been out and bought Andy Readman a bottle
of Madeira wine called Duke of Clarence.

The Bills have disappeared to a lighting meeting, so I'm left alone for
the evening. Exhausted and fighting back post-natal depression after
today's run.

Luckily bump into Penny who feels the same, so we take one another
to dinner at Hill's, Stratford's excellent new restaurant, and have a
wonderful evening. She is terrifically constructive about today's run: `It
was too long, not because it lasted over two hours, but because the play
is a classy thriller, no more, no less. It's got to go like the clappers.'

Bill and Ciss give me notes on the run. Bill puts it vividly as always: `You
haven't learned the part yet. You've learned the lines, you played each
scene well, but you haven't got the shape of it yet. It's like you're surfing
this magnificent wave, but you're not content to lie on the board and enjoy
the ride. You're paddling furiously with your arms, expending lots of
energy, but not affecting the progress of the journey in any way.'

Ciss points out that Richard has no set-backs in the early part of the
play, nothing to jolt his sense of confidence. Success with every step he
takes. She talks of me overworking my voice and it lacking a lightness of
touch, but is always careful to add, `It's only a question of degree, darling.'

I request that we run the whole play at least three times next week. I've
got to be able to treat it as just another play, de-mystify it. In Shaw's
words, I'm still too `solemnly conscious of Shakespeare's reputation'. In
a way, I've got to get a bit bored with it.

I mention cuts and the discussion immediately disintegrates into a tense
monologue from me. Everyone felt the run was too long, why is Bill the
only person who can't see it? I resort to a few blows below the belt,
suggesting that by refusing to cut, he's making my job harder, forcing me
to overwork in the effort to drag this deadweight along.

Bill's tactic is to sit very still, stare at the floor and not enter the
discussion at all. It's very effective. I run out of steam and begin to pack
up for the weekend.

He suddenly says rather formally, `I just want you to know that I think
you're doing smashing work on this.'

I'm taken aback. He never normally says things like this to me, but
expects me to know for myself when things are working well.

I say, `Thank you. And I'd like you to know that I think you are too.
And it sometimes occurs to me that you think I've lost faith in you.' (Very
pleased to have had the chance to say that.)

`Oh no, no.' He blushes, we shake hands in a curiously formal way and
part for the weekend.

Feel shattered with exhaustion as Jim drives us back to Islington. Sleep
most of the way, half waking as we come into a sunny London evening.
Horse chestnut trees, coral and white, through the sun-roof of the car. A
glimpse of myself in the wing-mirror. Unshaven. Heavy eyes. Arriving at
the house, that hazy sense of waking from or falling into a dream. The
house so familiar and yet the garden wildly overgrown. Branches, vines,
firethorn and pink roses pouring in from both walls, giant hollyhocks
leaning about, the grass long and silvery ... an ice cream van plays `O
Sole Mio'.

London feels like it's on another planet.

Impossible to relax without Richard, yet essential to leave him alone for
the day. A long swim at Dickie's club, the RAC. The Victorian/ Egyptian
swimming-pool is beautiful. Floating face-down at the deep end, hanging
in space.

Evening rehearsals are interrupted by an emergency R S C policy meeting.
There's a feeling at the top that shows are being over-designed, made
over-elaborate. The Bills are rather nervous that some of our set might
get cut as an example to the others.

WARDROBE FITTING-ROOM Normally the designer would be present
at every fitting but because of the meeting I have this one on my own.

They have made a rough of the first black costume to try over the false
back and arms. It is a shock to see how the deformity disappears under a
black covering. Of course that colour is famous for its slimming powers.
The muscular arms don't register at all, the hump only just. I dare not
say anything, but watch with a growing sense of despair as the wardrobe
ladies pin and snip round me. My first instinct was right - Tucker's scale has been too small, it's filmic. The costume itself looks good. The
wardrobe ladies are delighted and hurry away to start some serious
stitching.

I return to the Conference Hall with heavy tread. Something will have
to be done. And tonight.

The Bills are looking relieved. Our set is intact. They got away with a
light ticking-off. Their sense of well-being is about to be shattered.

`It can't be right!' I blurt. `We may have changed a lot of our early ideas,
but we were still expecting something of the deformed brute. Instead
we've got a man with a slightly bad back!'

Rehearsals are cancelled, the wardrobe staff are alerted and we hurry
back across the road.

Maurice Robson, the head cutter, has a fearsome frown on her face.

`Well, here we are again,' I laugh nervously.

`Yes,' she says murderously.

`Right,' says Bill D., and like a sculptor sets to work on me. He calls
for a spare pair of Tucker's arms and stretches them over the ones I'm
already wearing, doubling their size. Grabs some grey foam rubber and
shoves this between my back and Tucker's, trebling its scale.

The costume will have to be started again. Only six days to go. I suggest
we ditch altogether the idea of a second, heavily brocaded costume. This
will lighten the workload. Everyone agrees. Maurice smiles gratefully and
I feel slightly safer now as she wields her heavy scissors round my neck
and groin.

Afterwards, in the pub we give vent to our anger with Tucker, but also
with ourselves. We knew it was too small and were too frightened to
confront him.

`It was those wolves,' says Bill D.

QUEEN MARGARET SCENE We still can't agree on certain aspects of
the scene and are very much the `wrangling pirates' Queen Margaret calls
us. Bill suddenly says, `Right. We're obviously not going to agree, so you'll
have to accept that I can see better from the outside than you can from
in there. This is how it will be ...'

I've never seen him do that before. The problems are sorted out within
five minutes.

FIRST FULL RUN-THROUGH Bill's brief is, `Tell the story, serve the
story.'

I go at it lightly and softly. My aim is just to get through it.

For the Woodville dinner in the Queen Margaret scene, stagemanagement have set real food for the first time, but, forgetting how much
the tables are thumped and jumped on, they've used oranges and apples.
All our agonising over this scene is forgotten as it turns into a farce of
rolling fruit.

In the Princes scene, when I bash the crutches together, one breaks.
This is a sad development. The N H S crutches which have lasted six long
weeks of battering are not, as we thought, invincible. Bill D. blames the
Tory party and the NHS cuts. Another metal will have to be found.