The Blog

Who was it said March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb…? Around about St David’s Day we had some teasing hints of sunshine – but now it’s bleak and raw again, and forsooth,  snow forecast for tonight….

To keep warm, much bustling about. Yesterday to the “Perform!” event at Olympia, which is a trade show for aspiring performers. Matt Barber, a thrusting young thespian with many irons in many fires, invited me to take part in a forum on “How to get Into Drama School”. All one can do is be honest, remind people of the late Michael Bryant’s dictum “If you want to be an actor – don’t. If you’re going to be an actor – you will” and point out the harsh realities of a) the sheer difficulty of getting into a top school and b) the struggle to make a worthwhile living once your training’s done. But just now parents seem to be saying “Well, there are no jobs for young people anyway so you may as well have a go at acting.” My colleagues at RADA and Central tell me that numbers of applicants this year are about to hit all-time highs, literally in the thousands.

Alongside Matt and I dishing out advice were two fine products of great London schools, Susannah Fielding (Guildhall) and Jeremy Legat (RADA). Jeremy is one of the grads from my time who’s made a considerable mark as a singer as well as in acting – for instance, in “Wicked” – and has a mounting reputation as an acting tutor for singers. Susannah – who is, as you can see,  nothing short of scrumptious – plays Imogen in “Trelawny of the Wells” at the Donmar.  Guess where your faithful reporter is heading next Monday…

Young Mr Barber is, amongst many other activities, recording a recurring part in the new “Dracula” series coming out later in the year. He also runs a web-site which sits easily alongside www.ellisjonescoach.co.uk, called www.dramaschoolauditions.com.  Not quite the same thing, but sort of Avis alongside Hertz….Which, I wonder, tries harder…?

And so back to the grind of escorting bright young Americans about London’s theatre-land. Somehow I’ve achieved several decades without having seen a single production by the famous Canadian director Robert LePage. Primed in advance by a lecture from his technical director, Patric Durnan, we set off for the Roundhouse to see “Spades”, the first of four plays he and his company Ex Machina are developing around a playing-card theme.   It’s an astonishing display, delivered by six actors and a team of technicians via a self-contained, large circular platform. They all kneel or crouch hidden beneath it, and the actors and scenery spring up into view as the story requires. There are smashing effects (e.g. I’ve never seen an extractor-fan put to more creative use) with lighting and sound of a startlingly high order.

Patric told us that Ex Machina scripts are developed over several months of brain-storming and improvisation. In this case, I have to say – as have several of the critics – that the play at present still has an “in progress” feel – but nonetheless this is rare theatre, work to be witnessed. And the actors are very, very good – an international team, with Tony Guilfoyle and Nuria Garcia especially impressive.

It was a great privilege earlier this week to host a seminar with the Guardian’s acclaimed theatre critic, Michael Billington. My NYU students are required to produce reviews of two of the shows in the current season – so who better as a mentor?  Michael – who is one of the few people to have been on the scene even longer than I have – is a link to the days when Harold Hobson in The Sunday Times was the sole champion of Pinter and Beckett, the brightness of whose genius failed to penetrate the blinkers of all other critics back in the 50’s, and when Frank Rich at the New York Times could stop a multi-million dollar production in its tracks with a single damning review on its Broadway first night. 

Nowadays critics have less direct influence – not least because, as Michael says, “these days everyone’s a critic” and opinion spreads as fast as the Internet can carry it – with people even tweeting from their seats before the curtain’s down!

Not of course, to mention the bloggers…And this one went with the students on Wednesday to the Duke of York’s Theatre to see David Hare”s “The Judas Kiss”. This, starring Rupert Everett and Freddie Fox,  has been widely reviewed twice, since it’s a transfer from Hampstead Theatre, so I’ll not presume to comment. Suffice to report that several of the young women in my party were left in quite a state by the recent Central graduate Tom Colley as Galileo Masconi. This could just have been to do with the fact that, in a show for which Sue Blane has designed some fine costumes, in the case of most of the handsome Mr Colley’s character’s appearances she can take no credit at all…..   

 

Looking beyond London, former students out there include Bertie Carvel now in previews at the Shubert Theatre on Broadway, offering New Yorkers a chance to marvel at his alarming Trunchbull in the RSC’s “Matilda” – and an as yet relatively unsung, but quite unique talent in the shape of Kevin Trainor, garnering great reviews up at the West Yorkshire Playhouse as a magical “Dr Faustus”. 

 

Marshland February: 

my next-door neighbour’s forlorn weather-cock 

Just because we’re at the very fag-end of the year, when the razor-sharp easterlies scrape the skin off your runny nose and the whole nation is on suicide-watch, don’t fret, hang on in there! There are still reasons to be cheerful.

This blog, we know, has followers in the far Antipodes, who even now ease their parched throats with tubes of amber nectar while watching cricket, but do we waste a drop of envy?  Nay friends, the blitz spirit still lingers here in the windswept waste of the Lee Valley, we have fertile, restless imaginations fed by rich drama and unmatched entertainment. 

This week alone I’ve been twice bowled over by high-voltage song and dance, once in a basement off Piccadilly, and once in the plush velvet of a great and glorious iconic playhouse. At the Jermyn St Theatre Sophie-Louise Dann re-creates the defiant spirit  of post-war vitality in Ivor Novello’s “Gay’s the Word”, supported in this tiny space by a company mixing youthful dash with rare, vintage skills brought by the likes of Elizabeth Seal, Gaye Brown and ellisjonescoach.co.uk‘s very own Frank Barrie.

It’s a welcoming space: I look forward to re-visiting there when Sandy Marshall’s “And in the End: the Death and Life of John Lennon” appears in the spring.   

The night I saw the Novello show, sitting nearby smiling broadly and soaking up every word and every musical note, was one of the great men of British comedy. How very, very pleasing to share an evening with Jimmy Perry, who with the late David Croft brought us “It Ain’t Half Hot, Mum”, “Hi-di-Hi”, and of course the indestructible “Dad’s Army”. Meeting someone like that, whose wit has added so much to the gaiety of nations for decades makes you feel so grateful.

And so to the other musical treat this week – last night with the American students to the Old Vic and “Kiss Me Kate”. If you really want to escape this dismal weather, you couldn’t make a better choice. Directed by Trevor Nunn, the word from visitors early in the run was that this probably needed time to settle in. Well if it did, it has. The show’s only “bankable name” is its director – but the cast is made up of top-notch West End musical stalwarts like Alex Bourne, Holly Dale Spencer, David Burt and Clive Rowe, with a gutsy, mega-decibel but always wondrously tuneful Kate from Hannah Waddingham. Unlike most of the other big musicals in town, you can get into this without having to mortgage the house. For instance, if you don’t mind a bit of a side-on view, you can get a seat in the “slips” of the upper circle  for £11. *

It’s been a busy couple of weeks: we’ve also been to see “Old Times” at the eponymous Harold Pinter Theatre in Panton St. Now there’s a word you don’t often get to use about theatres….Somehow an elegant word that sits well in the very street where the amazing Mr Foote ( see last entry) lived while running the Theatre Royal around the corner. Anyway, our visit was enriched by having watched the BBC documentary “Working with Pinter” with its maker Harry Burton, and the fascinating tales Harry told us of his close, touching friendship with the great playwright. You can buy the DVD at Amazon, and watch a clip from it at:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DiwAbeYNhw   

Another enriching experience was a seminar with the theatre producer Julius Green, whose achievements both as an independent and as senior producer for Kenwright Productions are legion. The world of producing is wonderfully challenging, and wondrously fulfilling, for those who can combine theatrical instinct with nerves of steel. Julius, who teaches the Creative Producing M.A. course at Birkbeck College, has distilled his experiences into a concise and helpful book, “How to Produce a West End Show.”  I’ve got to know Julius in the context of my producing the London presentation of “Appetite”. If there are would-be producers out there – don’t venture into that uncertain world without this guide-book!

For those of you who might prefer to stay at home and practice reading poetry, news comes from across the Pond of a new work by the actor-poet, Tracie Morris. Tracie, whose poetry is written to be performed – often in the context of music – is keeping her acting honed by taking an on-line course at www.ellisjonescoach.co.uk – so the least we can do is mention here her new poetic achievement, “Rhyme Scheme“.  

* Actually, I just had some feed-back from students who bought £11 tickets and said the view was terrible – so probably best to go for 2nd price level!

And, dear readers, so I have. 

Two consecutive theatre visits so far this week, and ’tis but Thursday. With my doughty team of American theatre-hounds on Tuesday to the Bush, to see MONEY- THE GAME SHOW, and on Wednesday to Hammersmith Lyric for METAMORPHOSIS. The first is a co-production with Unlimited Theatre, the innovative company based in Leeds at the West Yorkshire Playhouse. Lyn Gardner in The Guardian calls it “thoughtful and riotously entertaining”. It does what it’s clearly meant to do – it makes you think. Think about the thoughtless, mad gambling that lies at the heart of capitalist economics – how modern currencies, none of them tied to anything tangible like gold, or even to real trade in real products – leave all of us at the mercy of dangerous, often unhinged, gambling addicts, calling themselves “hedge fund managers”.  For my money (if you’ll forgive the expression) the show goes on maybe 15 minutes too long, and lapses into slightly preachy indulgence. I had a sudden sense of deja-vu, of shows I used to watch aeons ago at the old Edinburgh Traverse, directed by Max Stafford-Clark, written by angry and then still emerging writers like Howard Barker.  We raged against the instability of capital then,  and at least thank God we still have angry young writers to shout about it now! This play is  well worth seeing – the new Bush is one of the more welcoming of London’s fringe venues – good bar – sensible prices, tasty food.

                     
 The two performers in this show, Lucy Ellison and Brian Ferguson – directed by writer Clare Duffy – are skilled and beguiling. All together a good, inexpensive night out.





METAMORPHOSIS is strong stuff – Kafka staged by David Farr with the Icelandic company Vestuport. A production already enjoying international acclaim, delivered with Complicité -like physical panache and conviction. Last night at the Lyric there were lots of parties of sixth-formers,  whose predictable whooping and cheering as the lights went down were soon stilled into intense listening and watching, irrupting again joyfully at the end of the show. It’s a great and disturbing tale, finely told.

I have been rejoicing in a wonderful present from my daughter Cressida. If you have an admirer, you might drop a hint or two as Valentine’s Day approaches. If like me you love history, and especially history laced with theatrical scandal, then a recently-published book by the historian and actor Ian Kelly is an absolute must-have. 

It tells the story of one of the great – and hitherto quite neglected – heroes of British comic theatre, Samuel Foote:

  I couldn’t put it down. If you don’t have a generous admirer for Feb 14th, nor do you have a birthday imminent, then splash out, treat yourself – I promise you won’t regret it. Apart from anything else, it has what surely will go down as one of the best titles of the year! 

Oh dear I shall so miss “Borgen”.

No argument: Sidse Babette Knudsen as the Prime Minister in this series gives the best performance ever seen on TV.

Fact, inarguable. Not up for discussion.


Not even the amazing tutors at www.ellisjonescoach.co.uk can actually turn you into that good an actor! However we can set you on the way – and if you have the faintest interest in the craft and you haven’t seen this utterly compelling Danish series, then buy borrow or steal a box-set, and watch this woman go to work.

  

    Now, the press night isn’t till Monday, and I know I’ve had a go at the critics in these pages before, but it would be unfair of me to write a “crit” on the strength of a preview…HOWEVER, last night I went to the National Theatre with the latest lovely cohort of bright, sharp students from New York to see “The Captain of Kopernick“, starring Anthony Sher, directed by Adrian Noble, on the Olivier stage, with settings by Anthony Ward. 

Suffice to say we all found it a remarkable event, and pace a great central performance by Sir Anthony, I’m just going to slip in special mentions for two of the finest character actors at work in London today, Alan David and Anthony O’Donnell. I’ll be surprised if the critics don’t pick up on their performances, but just in case…

Alan David         Anthony O’Donnell

Which is, of course, the title of a great work by a poet mentioned a few blog-entries ago, who was….? Do try and keep up…

It came to me last midnight, as I huddled over my meagre fire and the frost stalked the silent marshes, and I worked steadily through my recordings of all the TV shows I’ve missed during the assembling of “Appetite”. I know it must get a bit irritating the way I witter on about grads from my time at RADA, but over a decade of helping steer the Gower St training gave my small bunch of dedicated colleagues and me a uniquely privileged perspective, and it’s a joy to see our ex-students cropping up all the time on the screen, on the stage and on the radio doing cracking work in great roles.

Sunday night clashes mean the Skybox has to be put to good use. On the BBC Matthew MacFadyen and David Dawson grapple with unspeakable villainy – and sometimes almost unspeakable lines – in the hairy-chested Victorian cop-drama “Ripper Street”, with the streets of Old Dublin pretending, not always entirely convincingly, to be the streets of Old London. But Matthew – a terrific MacHeath in my production of “The Beggar’s Opera” at the old Vanbrugh Theatre – is always so watchable, and endows Inspector Edmund Reid with such presence. The good inspector’s intense devotion to his virtuous wife is entirely understandable, finely played as she is by Amanda Hale, who was in our “A Chorus of Disapproval” playing one half of a slightly dotty elderly couple alongside Mr Tom Hiddleston.


Matthew and Amanda with Jerome Flynn in “Ripper Street”.

And over on ITV, there in “Mr Selfridge” is my Maggie from “Hobson’s Choice”, Kate Kelly – having gripped the nation’s attention for several years as the turbulent Becky in “Coronation St”, and held the stage superbly at the National Theatre – now positively shimmering with upper-class sexual chemistry as the edgy Lady Mae. And the handsome young waiter causing such a stir amongst the posh ladies is one of our boyos, an emerging star from Llanelli – Trystan Gravelle.

But to come back to my former colleagues at the Academy – hurray for Patricia Myers!!  As Registrar, Pat has kept the place going through all kinds of organisational and financial trauma – and through it all has remained a level-headed, good-humoured, forward-looking bastion of optimism for all her colleagues – and most importantly for generations of uniquely talented, and often uniquely vulnerable, students. So the OBE in the New Year’s Honours is long overdue, and utterly deserving.

To come back to “Appetite”. The presentation of this intriguing new play went brilliantly well, and was attended by an audience of professionals, most of whom stayed behind afterwards to drink wine and eat specially baked slices of dobas torta, an Eastern European Jewish cake delicacy, the recipe for which haunts the play. The conversation at the reception was lively and intense – it’s not every play-reading where such a high-octane cast presents a new script so throughly, with well-crafted staging, lights and sound.



Oona Chaplin as young Hana, with Miriam Margolyes as Malka

There were brilliant, insightful portrayals of the central characters by Tamsin, Miriam, Jason, Jemma, Oona and Charlie, with equally fine supporting work from Sue Sheridan, Ursula Mohan, Jemma Churchill, Mary Duddy and Lexi Sekuless, plus a remarkable performance from Julianna Zinkel, whom the sponsors had flown over specially from Philadelphia.

The event – directed by Andrew Visnevski – has stimulated a continuing buzz of interest. Watch this space.