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February 14th – Hello, shall we?

11 November 2016 by Ellis Jones

February 14th – Hello, shall we?

FEBRUARY 10, 2016 ~ TEACHYOURSELFACTING ~ EDIT

This blog is in association with www.ellisjonescoach.co.uk providing access to an amazing range of presentation and performance skills training.

(This entry is the first to be available on the WordPress platform.)

I’m often told that a famous Chinese curse runs “May you live in interesting times”. I don’t know if this is actually is a famous Chinese curse – I must ask one of my Chinese Friends. Oh, and Happy New Year, by the way. Especially to all monkeys. If you were born in a year ending around this date in 1933,45,57,69,81,93 or 2005, then congratulations, monkey, this is your year! If you are due a baby this year, I am reliably informed – well by Wiki, so it must be reliable, just ask at the Ecuadorian Embassy – that she or he will be a Fire Monkey. For the implications of this, please ask a Chinese friend….

And talking of whom, here is one of mine, the remarkably talented Lin Li, known to her English pals as Milly – who on Wednesday graced once more the UK Chinese Students Association New Year Gala, this time at the O2 Arena, with a bravura display of Guzheng music, accompanied on drums by Tong Jiaxing – the musicians post-grads at King’s London and Oxford Universities respectively. If you don’t know what a guzheng sounds like, at the bottom of the page there’s a link to a Youtube video of Milly playing with a young orchestra in China.

To move from Oriental celebrations to more domestic festivities, regular readers will know that I rejoice in dual identity, having spent my childhood years in South Wales and my teenage ones in East Yorkshire. So let us salute the approach of St David’s Day with a nod to the daffodils as they cautiously appear in my still-wintery garden, having survived the succession of tempests which recently swept these islands. Is it just me, or have the storms taken on added ferocity since the Met Office took to giving them names? Storm Imogen was especially boisterous, clearly revelling in her name’s epic Shakespearian associations – I quake at the thought of a Storm Goneril, or Heaven forfend, a Storm Margaret….

And up in storm-tossed Humberside, there are more cautious green shoots. At the KC football stadium Chief Coach Brucie and the lads of Hull City may just be looking to return to the Premier League next season, and elsewhere in the town credentials are being polished ahead of the sunburst which will be Hull, City of Culture 2017. The slogan at the head of this blog-post is a quote from the business vanguard of these events, ignited last week by a visitation from the slightly faded New Labour deity, Lord Mandelson. This is of course entirely fitting, as previous political leaders in those parts celebrated the centenary of the region’s greatest modern literary resident – the poet Philip Larkin – by decorating parts of the city with specially-commisioned sculptures echoing his poem “Toads”.

Why should I let this toad work
Squat on my life? Philip Larkin – The less Deceived (1955)

I’m not sure this fits with the thrusting business ethic of the “forward-thinking collective” which is the 2017 Hull Business Club. But hey, the lads in the snug at the Lord Prescott Arms, and all we who nursed cracked mugs of Bovril on chill Bunkers’ Hill watching the F.A. third division Tigers in the days those words were written, we know what he was on about, eh lads?

Meanwhile my life between the London theatre and academic zones is gathering momentum with the new theatre season and the new term. Following Kenneth Cranham’s entirely appropriate award as Best Actor from the Critics’ Circle, Florian Zeller’s play “The Father” returns to the West End for a limited five week run at the Duke of York’s Theatre, and once again I shall be happily in attendance as Ken’s understudy, which as I reported before Christmas is both a great privilege and enormous fun. In the spring we’re going on tour, so if you’re in the UK, keep a look out for us at your nearest regional venue. Photo:Simon Annand And if you’re going to be in London between Feb 24th and the end of March and haven’t seen this fine production of this remarkable play, then hasten to grab tickets via the link at the bottom of the page. And by no means fail to click on the link to Ken’s comments about the play on Youtube.

These last few weeks have been punctuated with sad news of wonderful people leaving us – much has already been written and band-wagon jumping is not edifying, so just briefly to say that Alan Rickman was as supportive, thoughtful and kind a Vice-chair as Nick Barter and I could ever have wished for in our days as Principal and deputy at RADA. There were too many instances of unsolicited kindness to record, but my daughter Cressida I know will forever cherish having been one of many colleagues’ children who were invited to spend a day on one of “Rickman’s tours” of the Harry Potter sets at Leavesden Studios, having lunch with Alan and the other stars and meeting, oh best of all – the owls. Another dear colleague from those days whom we mourn this week has been the great director, Bill Gaskill – whose reputation for striking fear into actors’ hearts was belied in his later, mellow years by his endlessly patient, caring direction of the Gower St students.

Until “The Father” moves into St Martin’s Lane I’m busy catching up on theatre fare elsewhere in London. On the “to see” list is our Gemma Arterton as “Nell Gwyn”, Simon McBurney’s Edinburgh Festival triumph “The Encounter”, and Florian Zeller’s companion-piece to “The Father” playing at the Tricycle Theatre, unsurprisingly called “The Mother”. So please stay tuned, as they used to say on Radio Luxembourg.

Last night to the Bush Theatre, and “Pink Mist” by Owen Sheers. Fine, full-on tough work co-produced with the Bristol Old Vic company. Before we’re next asked to send soldiers to fight in distant lands, send your MP to see this .

claire-skinner-becca-in-rabbit-hole-at-hampstead-theatre-photos-by-manuel-harlan

Photo: Manuel Harlan

This last week I’ve also seen the matchless Claire Skinner and an immaculate cast deliver an arresting, moving, award-winning American play, “Rabbit Hole” at Hampstead, and accompanied a party of New York University students to the Royal Court for Caryl Churchill’s “Escaped Alone“. This latter is one of those haunting plays which stay with you, and you keep thinking about for days afterwards – four women sit talking in a garden, and one of them intermittently steps out to address the audience, to tell a tale echoing the underscore of global disaster ever-present beyond our private lives, in these depressingly interesting times. The American students were utterly engrossed. It has a superb cast and is beautifully directed by James Macdonald. Before anyone points it out, yes Claire Skinner was the daughter in the last run of “The Father” and yes, James Macdonald directed it. In amongst all the hype and the fuss, there’s so much quiet talent about in this city. Another quietly brilliant and charismatic performer, Amanda Drew, is taking Claire’s place in “The Father” alongside several other exciting cast changes – more reports soon on this and other intriguing London events.

May St Valentine this day bring you all you desire. But be careful what you wish for….

LINKS:

Tickets for THE FATHER at the Duke of Yorks Theatre

Kenneth Cranham on receiving the Critics’ Circle Best Actor Award for THE FATHER

Shall we? with Lord M and the Business Club

Guzheng music:

THE TWENTIES – THEIR FIRST WINTER

11 November 2016 by ellis jones

This blog is in association with https://ellisjonescoach.co.uk providing access to an amazing range of presentation and performance skills training

It’s been an unusual summer. The hottest English August on record, with comparatively low-key Games in distant Rio, give or take the odd stamped foot in Moscow. We’ve had the weirdly reminiscent sights of Downing Street staff welcoming a new Tory lady boss, of the Labour Party again throwing its lot behind a shambling north London no-hoper, and of Hull City FC clambering, wide-eyed and unsteady, once more onto football’s top shelf.

Me, I went to France. Old friends invited me to stay in Cap D’Antibes, on the Côte d’Azure.They have a lovely quiet house, a few steps away from the beach where in times gone by Picasso sketched, Scott and Zelda drank, and Ernest Hemingway preened, all guests of a rich, hedonistic American couple called Gerald and Sara Murphy. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about it all in “Tender is the Night”. Another member of the group was the painter and ceramic artist Fernand Léger, now celebrated by an exuberant museum a few kilometres inland.

Léger’s work is joyous: I love his wacky ceramic stuff – like the “Walking Sun”, and “The Wrestlers” – the latter perhaps hinting at party games down at the Murphies….

Soon after the end of the Second World War the town of Antibes presented Pablo Picasso (in self-exile from his native Spain, then still ruled by fascism) with a studio in a fine medieval tower overlooking the bay. Now the Picasso museum, it has a stunning terrace hosting work by contemporary sculptors – and it’s not hard to see why they call it the Blue Coast….

On my last evening with my friends Doug and Kate, we sipped wine in their garden while the Bastille Day fireworks crackled and whizzed across the bay in Nice. At one point the noises became very clear loud bangs, and I made a facetious remark about war breaking out. Shortly afterwards we turned on the TV news and discovered the dreadful truth about the horrible terrorist attack.

Mass murder, untold grief caused by religious bigotry – does our new PM really think it’s helpful to exhort religious parents to send their children to exclusive single-faith schools?

After a much-delayed flight back, I set about preparing to work on a drama project in Hampshire, and was rewarded by several glorious sun-filled weeks in one of England’s most idyllic counties. I stayed with my sister in the interesting market-town of Alton, full of Jane Austen associations (as indeed is my sister, a long-serving volunteer at the nearby Jane Austen museum) and on my free days we explored the country and the coast, along the way sampling cream teas, fish suppers and local ales.

The Hampshire seaside options are rich and varied – for example, you can watch cars drown at Bosham, fly kites on Hayling island, or re-paint the Spinnaker Tower at Portsmouth….

For those like me saddened by the closure (or trendy, ruinous modernisation) of so many urban pubs, it’s a joy to report that here flourish still many traditional hostelries, some hidden deep amongst inland forest hills, where it would be no surprise to find Frodo Baggins hobnobbing with Tom Bombadil over a foaming pint, or at least a poet jotting a few bucolic lines by the fireside…

Here’s the Three Horseshoes at Elsted with its garden views of roses and wheat-fields, a secret revealed by Jane Hayward, friend and comrade from repertory days at Farnham.

The harvest evening that seemed endless then

And after, the inn where all were kind.

All strangers.

(Edward Thomas, reflecting on English country life, not by the fireside but from the trenches in Flanders in 1915.)

Many of these inns have stood since Tudor times, and this summer has brought echoes of those far-off days. We took time in Portsmouth to re-visit the Historic Dockyard, and the remarkable Mary Rose, whose timbers have now, after a nigh-on thirty year process, been wax-treated to survive for several hundreds more. Do go – if like me you have an interest in Shakespeare and his days, here’s a window into that world – or rather lots of windows – literally thousands of salvaged objects sit there as if they’d been used yesterday – clothes, gadgets, jewels, tools, weapons, all saved from a ship sunk at the Battle of the Solent on July 19, 1545. There are curiously carved cannon, ornate swords and halberds, and many long-bows as used at Agincourt, all restored with guidance from our country’s greatest long-bow expert, the gloriously nonogenerian actor Robert Hardy.

Returning to another historic county, one nearer to my east London home, my pal Robin and I went into Essex, to see the Tudor Hunting Lodge. Queen Bess’s dad Henry V111 relaxed – between bedding and beheading ladies – by hunting down stags in Epping Forest. Doubtless venison pasties featured on his table, and you can see a rather good display of prop-food at the lodge.

I include a picture of the stairwell, because it seems the original 16th century stairs here were used as the pattern for the staircases at the re-created Shakespeare’s Globe in 1997.

And prop-food and Elizabethan stairs take us, dear reader, back to the world of The Theatre – which is what this blog is supposed to be about. Once again it’s the time of year when I conduct New York University undergrads to London shows – and as I write this the current troupe is braving steady drizzle as Globe groundlings, watching “Macbeth”. I saw it last week – it has Ray Fearon as the Thane, with Tara Fitzgerald as the Lady, and a supporting cast including puppets. There’s a new régime at the Globe, with Emma Rice now artistic director, following several lively years running the Kneehigh company in the the West Country, promising lots of exciting new directions at Bankside. She’s already given a reportedly very funny take on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, featuring Helena as a chap. Quite where the current rash of onstage gender-bending has come from is difficult to nail. I reported earlier on our Michelle Terry’s impressive “Henry V” – see below for the latest manifestations.

Meanwhile, two other excursions to report. To the National Theatre, to see the Chichester Festival production of “The Seagull” – part of the Young Chekov season – with some fine acting, notably from Geoffrey Streatfeild as Trigorin, Adrian Lukis as Dorn and Jade Williams as Masha. And last week back once more into Essex, to the Queens Theatre Hornchurch. This place is worth watching – one of the very few remaining near-London regional producing houses, with high production values and a strong artistic track record.

They’ve collaborated with the New Wolsey Theatre at Ipswich to produce the first post West-End mus

ical version of “Made in Dagenham”. To be honest, this was a tighter show than the West End one I reported on last year with our Gemma Arterton in the main role, by the Queens artistic director, Douglas Rintoul. There’s neat choreography, gutsy performances by a cast of actor-musicians, and the opening night was given extra resonance by the presence of some of the original Ford strikers (Hornchurch being next-door to Dagenham). It’s a show to watch, at a theatre to watch – on the London Underground (District Line) with sensible ticket prices once you get there.

Now, a heads-up for no less than THREE “King Lears”! Already in performance at Stratford is the RSC one. This is the most eccentric, as it has a man playing the King. Anthony Sher is by all accounts splendid, but I want you to go and enjoy the Unpleasant Sisters, played by two terrific Welsh actresses from my time in charge of the training at RADA, Nia Gwynne as Goneril and Kelly Williams as Reagan.

Meanwhile it won’t have escaped your notice that the great twice-Oscared Glenda Jackson has left politics to return to the boards in the title role of the same play at the Old Vic, due to open next month.

But don’t let that obscure the fact that another distinguished actress, Ursula Mohan, is re-creating the “Queen Lear” we reported on last year, and is performing with an all-new cast at the Tristram Bates Theatre in Covent Garden, starting on September 20th.

I don’t doubt that all three versions of this great work will be wonderfully revealing in different ways. But it may be worth pointing out that the London “fringe” is often the place to find pure gold, at a fraction of the prices you would would pay at the bigger houses. Connoisseurs of intriguing theatre, but especially those on a limited budget, please take note…

And finally, two cheering pictures taken at the end of two streets- one I have called Waltham Forest Flowers, of the blooming displays generated by the borough council on the High Street railings at the end of Coppermill Lane where I live, the other a distant view of the Alpes Maritimes taken at the end of my friends’ street at Cap d’Antibes.

Both for now, heartening local images from within the European Union.

At least for the next two years…

Enjoy.

IF YOU WOULD like to respond, if you disagree with any of the above, or would like to add a comment or two, I’d love to hear from you – you can do so anonymously, if you like – and I’ll happily publish your views. Just click on the word “comment” in the little box below.

This blog comes to you courtesy of www.ellisjonescoach.co.uk. If you need help with voice-training, presentation preparation, getting ready for an audition or access to classes and advice from some of the best trainers in the UK, just click on the link.

FEBRUARY12 NEW DIRECTIONS

12 February 2016 by Ellis Jones

HELLO – THANK YOU FOR COMING – THIS BLOG IS NOW AVAILABLE ON TWO PLATFORMS.

If you know anyone who might be interested in this blog and who lives somewhere where there are problems with Google (e.g. mainland China) please send them this link:

https://teachyourselfacting.wordpress.com

JANUARY 10TH SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

10 February 2016 by Ellis Jones

I’m really sorry, I’m having all kinds of problems with the Blogspot format.

I have a new entry ready, but when I try to publish the server mangles it and it looks a total mess.

I will be publishing shortly on a new platform, and will put the link on the web-site, and announce it on Facebook, Twitter, etc

The new blog will not be in a Google format, so it should be available throughout the world, which Google products are not.

Bear with me!

Ellis

A note about this entry, written in November – I wrote this in near despair – in fact I now publish this blog on both Blogspot and WordPress platforms

December 15 THE SEASON OF THE GOOSE

15 December 2015 by Ellis Jones

This blog is in association with www.ellisjonescoach.co.uk providing access to an amazing range of presentation and performance skills training.

As the winter drizzle sets in, as the festivities loom, spare a thought for the street artists. And the geese. Both are in abundance around Walthamstow right now. On walls, doors and gates around E17 there are foxes, herons, and an amazing hawk hovers at the Coppermill bus-stop.
And behold – an artists and a goose have coincided at my garage door!

Not just any goose – an Egyptian goose, one of the marshlands’ more recent incomers, an elegantly colourful creature, defined by bright plumage and orange spectacles. The artist is the wonderfully talented Hannah Adamaszic, one of the post-Banksy generation, lifting street images away from the weird, often obscure mysteries of graffiti, to bring real style, wit and craft to our public spaces.

Hannah signs her pictures “Hannah Chloe” – look out for her work: for instance, if you walk the east London marshes, her foxes and birds brighten the underpass beneath the train-line from Liverpool St. Or if you were around Waterloo last week you might have been lucky and caught her show “Fresh” in the street-cum-tunnel that is Leake St, close by the entrance to the Vaults, one of London’s wackier performance venues. I hope her main image is still there, adorning the ceiling – go seek it out. And visit Hannah’s website – the link is below. If you’ve a wall, a door, a gate – or a caravan, a boat or a bus – that needs a lift, you need Hannah!

Long ago on a cruise ship far away a bunch of actors, who I’d engaged to perform in plays offered by the RADA graduate/Cunard Shipping Line theatre company, got bored. After some weeks of filling the languid hours between performing plays and running drama workshops with drinking cocktails and counting seagulls, they decided they should be more creative, so they made a movie. A full-length, feature spoof James Bond movie called “The Scampi Trail”, complete with explosions, helicopter sequences, fancy cars including an Aston Martin, gorgeous women, exotic locations and a selection of arresting, if sometimes eccentric performances, not the least eccentric being one from me as “M”. You can witness the whole thing on Youtube on the link below – but the point of mentioning this now is to announce that the two movers and shakers behind this venture, Will Norris and Craig Gallivan have come up with their second film project. Now these guys are actors – sometimes they have some money, sometimes not – and certainly never enough to fund movie-making. So they fund-raise amongst their pals, they trade favours (Will reckons the main expense of “The Scampi Trail” was eight bottles of champagne swapped for the loan of cars and locations) – and for their latest venture they also ran a campaign via www.Kickstarter.com

The upshot is a crunchy, finely-crafted “short” called “The Lock-in” which had a private showing last weekend at the Everyman Baker St.
It’s a tightly-scripted, neatly shot dark comedy and has two excellent central performances from the quite exceptionally lovely Sophia di Martino and one of RADA’s (as yet) not sufficiently celebrated talents, Caolan Byrne. It’s going to be rolled out in 2016 on the festival circuit, and I’ll keep you posted.
Caolan Byrne Photo: Jessica Carney Associates
Trailer link: https://vimeo.com/139964274

And talking of “indie” movies, regular readers will recall my warm response to “Radiator”, which was launched at last year’s London Film Festival, and stars Gemma Jones and my (since sadly departed) friend Richard Johnson. Well, as we’d hoped it’s been given a richly deserved, if limited, cinema release. Another cunningly constructed, beautiful example of low-budget work, set in Cumbria – don’t miss it if turns up at a nearby cinema.
Gemma Jones in”Radiator” Photo: Cambridge Film Festival

Trailer link: https://vimeo.com/106483233

Meanwhile, back to goings-on in London E17, some worrying, some optimistic. This blog generally avoids matters political, but on the eve of the parliamentary vote about sending the RAF to try to attack the Syrian terrorists I walked out of the Village pub straight into a demonstration aimed at persuading our local Labour MP, Stella Creasy, to vote against.

There were perhaps a couple of hundred people there, and I listened to the case being put sensibly and clearly by several speakers representing the Muslim community. There were also less clear, less convincing and far less articulate speeches by non-Muslim individuals, one of whom tried to stir the crowd into chants of “Walthamstow says NO!” with only desultry, rather sheepish results. The following day our MP chose to support the government motion, and triggered a spattering of infantile social media abuse and threats to “de-select” her. Oh dear: I fear Dave Spart may have moved to E17. He may even drink in the Village…

And now the optimism, albeit cautious. I reported some months ago that there is hope of saving the superb art-deco Granada Cinema in Hoe St. Local pressure persuaded the Council to refuse permission for it to be sold to an evangelical church, and now it’s been bought by the Antic pub company, who say they are willing to collaborate with Soho Theatre in combining the pub operation with two auditoria offering “art” film showings and live theatre productions.

Well, the first part of that is now happening – you can call in and drink beer or cocktails, and munch posh sausage rolls in the faded grandeur of the front-of-house areas, as I did but three nights ago. Will the creative part of the bargain be honoured in 2016? Watch this space…

A few hundred yards north of the Granada is the increasingly popular venue, the Rose and Crown Theatre Pub, where we the TYA team have been running some more of our “Acting Essentials” workshops on Saturday mornings. The feed-back from the participants has been really encouraging, and my brilliant locally-based colleagues – vocal coach Rebecca Cuthbertson and movement director Chris Lane – and I will be offering more classes for those with a serious interest in the craft once the new year is under way. All enquiries to info@ellisjonescoach.co.uk.

And so this is (almost) Christmas…. If during the days of indulgence you can’t cope with any more re-cycled Hollywood or Bollywood, you could do far, far worse than pour yourself a small Wincarnis (eh? look it up) and settle in to watch “The Scampi Trail”. Here’s the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZlTya1kqZ0

And if, come the New Year, you feel in need of a paint-job, here’s Hahhah’s web-site:

http://hannahadamaszek.com

If you’d like to respond, if you disagree with any of the above, or would like to add a comment or two, I’d love to hear from you – you can do so anonymously, if you like – and I’ll happily publish your views. Just click on the word “comments” in the little panel below, and follow the instructions.

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NOVEMBER 11 THE VIEW FROM ST MARTIN’S COURT

11 November 2015 by Ellis Jones

This blog is in association with www.ellisjonescoach.co.uk providing access to an amazing range of presentation and performance skills training.

“Where, oh where Jones have you been?”

I hear faint cries from the tiny band of readers who haven’t given up entirely on this blog in the weeks since the last entry. Well, I’ve been to London Bridge, I’ve been to Cambridge, and I’ve been to the Charing Cross Road. And I’ve been BUSY, distracted from bloggery by having to learn lines…

Yes, after years of absence from the boards – what Equity calls an “honourable withdrawal” – I’ve been given a chance to make an honourable return, to fulfil a supporting but hopefully useful function as understudy to the remarkable actor Kenneth Cranham, in a remarkable play. This is Florian Zeller’s “The Father”, which won the Prix Molière in Paris last year, the English production of which has come to the West End from Bath Theatre Royal via The Kilburn Tricycle Theatre. James Macdonald’s crisp, sparse production has received more five-star reviews than any other London play for over a decade. We’re now settled into one of the West End’s most beautiful theatres – the Wyndhams – for a limited run until November 21st.

It’s one of the best jobs ever – a lovely company, a cracking play, and a meaty part to get the teeth into in rehearsal without too much danger of having to go before a paying West End audience, since Mr Cranham is as fit and robust as they come.

However, the management surprised us by scheduling a public understudy performance for an invited audience last week. About 300 people turned up, and we managed to give a tidy account of the piece – though I say it myself as shouldn’t – we being my fellow understudies Emily Stride and Tom Michael Blyth, supported by principal actors Rebecca Charles, Kirsty Oswald, and Jim Sturgeon. We had a lovely time, and for me it was well, a sort of homecoming. I’d honestly not realised that deep down I was missing performing onstage, and what a stage on which to return!

Wyndham’s Theatre is a jewel – a masterpiece of Victorian elegance designed by William Sprague, commissioned by actor-manager Charles Wyndham, and it’s graced the Charing Cross Rd since 1898. Unlike some other London venues, it has excellent sight-lines, and an acoustic as sweet as a nut. So it’s a joy to visit, whether you go there to watch or to perform. We were so lucky in that we had an outstanding show stage-management team, great resident theatre staff and in Stella Powell-Jones a fine rehearsal director, all of whom went out of their way to make sure last Tuesday afternoon’s experience was as good as it could possibly be for all concerned. We’ve only got a couple more weeks at the Wyndham’s but there is talk of a regional tour next year, so I do hope that if you haven’t seen it yet, you will next year – and if you’re reading this in America, look out for a new production on Broadway, which I understand is planned for next March.

The play explores the distressing world of dementia, and reflects life as seen through the eyes of someone increasingly afflicted by Alzheimer’s – and yet the tricky subject is so skilfully realised by the writer that even audience members with painful related experiences say they find the show rewarding and entertaining. Last week the play was nominated for the Evening Standard Best New Play Award, and Ken’s been nominated as Best Actor. Ken is partnered onstage by Claire Skinner – two outstanding talents, both at the top of their game.

A quick re-cap. We the under-buddies, as we quaintly call ourselves, joined the “The Father” production as it paused between the Tricycle and the West End transfer. Two new principal cast members had to be settled in during 5 days’ rehearsal – this is a commercial production, so learn your lines, turn up and make it work – no leisurely subsidised theatre rehearsal régime here. We understudies had to sit down, take notes, and get learning, just in case….

The TRB production company had hired into rehearsal rooms at the Menier Chocolate Factory, the fringe theatre near London Bridge. It was in fact a lovely, lovely week – if you were about London in September you’ll recall we had a glorious spell of late summer sun, so in our breaks we sauntered around the Southwark streets, just as Will Shakespeare, Dick Burbage and the other lads in the Lord Chamberlain’s company would have done between rehearsals over at the Globe, two streets away.

Like them, we strolled into the cathedral (where Will’s brother Edmund still rests) and wandered into the market nearby, salivating at the range of foods the stalls offer. If you’ve a free lunchtime, get down there and treat yourself. Glorious cheeses, wondrous fruits and salads, hot roast pork sandwiches – abundance beyond compare! A different indulgent pic-nic lunch for each of the five days, perched on a wall beside the cathedral, the river glistening in the sunlight, gleaming from the glass ramparts of the Shard high above in the blue.

Market:shard market

And then off to Cambridge, for a two-week run at the Arts Theatre. Mostly, we had sunshine there too, and while the production played itself in there was time to enjoy more streets steeped in history, more ancient buildings, each evening a view of the sun setting over King’s College, but yards from the stage door.

For the first week it was quiet, then suddenly the academic year kicked off, the “freshers” arrived, the river swarmed with punts and the streets with bicycles. As it happened, I’d slipped my bike into the back of the car when I drove up there, and used it to commute between my digs and the theatre, trundling merrily back and forth across Midsummer Common. And what digs! If life deals you a week by the Cam, don’t hesitate to stay with Thea Tredwell. Read the name carefully. Your hostess is actually called Alix, and she and her house are a joy. I stayed in the garden studio, the perfect place feverishly to mutter my lines, watched only by the house cat, who looked on quizzically, with a faintly critical air.

Back in London, the world of West End understudying is a revelation. There is such an air of mutual support amongst the actors, both principals and understudies – and to go to the understudy performances turns out to be a great way to catch up on sold-out plays! A well as our own presentation, during the last two weeks I’ve watched terrific work by amongst others Will Troughton, Patrick Walshe McBride and Lorna Stuart (covering expertly for Nicole Kidman) in “Photograph 51”at the Noel Coward, and whole team of brilliant understudy performers in “Farinelli and the King” at the Duke of York’s. In this show its star lead Mark Rylance also performed, and at the curtain-call gave an elegant speech praising the work and dedication which goes into providing top-level cover in one of London’s most vital and demanding industries.

St Martin’s Court is the common land between the stage doors of the Noel Coward and the Wyndhams, a favourite gathering place for autograph-hunters, especially at present, when there’s a chance of nabbing a famous movie star in the appealing shape of Ms Kidman. Since Ken Cranham and I are not dissimilar – well, we’re the same height and both have grey beards – I’m sometimes asked for autographs by people who think I’m him, but was happily surprised a couple of days ago by three genuine “Pardon My Genie” fans who were actually waiting for me. They were, of course, of a certain age – “PMG” was after all a feature of British television in the 1970s – but they had with them copies of the DVD version, still available I believe on Amazon. After years of directing and teaching, it’s quite startling to be back practising the craft, a weird and deeply unreliable way to earn a crust, but hey – it’s such, such fun…

If you want to catch one of the last London performances of “The Father” – here’s a useful link:

http://www.tkts.co.uk/whats-on-sale/

(We close on Saturday November 21st)

If you’d like to respond, if you disagree with any of the above, or would like to add a comment or two, I’d love to hear from you – you can do so anonymously, if you like – and I’ll happily publish your views. Just click on the word “comments” in the little panel below, and follow the instructions.

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