Catch Up

Sorry for being so silent this month. Hope you're all well and having some sunshine. I'm working on a proper post and I'd love to hear what everyone's plans are for the summer. Also, what's on your vacation reading list?

The BBC

Careless talk. 

After two months caressing the fringes of the 1960s, it's back to seamed stockings and victory rolls for The Land Girls, a new 5 episode series for the BBC.  If I can't turn back the clock, I can time travel in my own fashion. 

Getting into the BBC building is particularly challenging, and after 15 minutes of signing in, getting a pass, waiting to be collected, getting screened again at the door and walking back through the corridors, only to arrive at the original main entrance where I used to sit and wait for auditions as a child, it feels like a not too subtle metaphor for life. This time I remembered to take my coat off before the meeting, the one piece of advice my mother gave me and one that I always ignored, to my cost. Once, a Gentleman Writer on reviewing my screen test, sent word to my agent that I should wear a less voluminous top on the next occasion we met. I ignored him too and didn't get the part. Though really, I think only augmentative surgery would have given me the correct attributes for the job. Taking my coat off just wouldn't have been enough.

We have a full-on proper Read Through for The Land Girls, with all the cast and lots of Suits and many Heads of Department. Everyone says their name and what they do and it is noticeable that all the actors are nervous. It is impossible not to be. Months (sometimes years) have gone into preparation for this moment, when all the cast, crew and executives get together and the production begins. There has been no rehearsal, few of the actors have met, and some are not entirely sure what their character's name is, but today they will read through the entire project in front of the people who wrote and cast it and are in charge of commissioning, producing and casting all future drama at the BBC. No pressure.

The Read Through goes well and the young actresses who carry the show are delightful and moving. I am booed. After the trauma of Nurse Ratched, I am undecided on the merits of provoking instant hatred in the audience. In some ways it feels rewarding to cause such a reaction after a very short time, especially sitting at a desk in the middle of the day in a crowded room in White City. However, there is a certain type of performance, let's call it pantomime, that I am not exactly aiming for and again, I wonder if I have achieved it anyway. It's not that actors are contrary, you understand, we just spend all our lives seeking attention and when we eventually get it we do tend to wonder if it is actually quite the right kind.

The Grass is Greener

Last week of the play, in Malvern. There is a possibility that it may go on tour in the Autumn for a longer run which would be a good thing. I am enjoying the play and especially my character, Hattie, and it is a great company of only 5 actors. We have bonded particularly over the issue of such a short rehearsal period, not something I would rush into again. But since we all had to get on with it so quickly, we stuck together and helped each other as much as we could. It is an irony that comedy can often divide a company, as individuals pursue laughs at the expense of their colleague's and sometimes at the expense of the play itself. If the actors collaborate then the play is necessarily better served, and good feeling translates well on to the stage, I believe. However, audiences sometimes prefer one grandstanding performance to a finely tuned ensemble, perhaps feeling that they have really got their money's worth when they can see the work that has gone into it.  

The Grass is Greener

Victor: Well, what's wrong with pride?

Hattie: Comes before a fall, they say.

On Wednesday I leave the rehearsal rooms feeling pretty good. The play is coming together, we have a week until we open and the sun is shining. Then I decide to run for a bus and take a perfect dive into the pavement. The moment I hit the concrete I think of my stupid pride and how just when you lose all dignity, you are made most aware of the enormity of your hubris. With skinned hands and knees, I stumble around for the rest of the week wondering why I am always one step behind my character.

No, I didn't catch the bus, but I expect I entertained the occupants.

The Grass is Greener

Starting rehearsals this week for a short tour of The Grass is Greener, by Hugh Williams and Margaret Vyner who were married and wrote and starred in the play together . There is a film version with Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, Jean Simmons and Robert Mitchum. I was thoroughly enjoying reading the script until I got to the stage direction where I take off my coat and stand in my underwear. This only means one thing and regular readers will know it. No more donuts, dammit.

Speeches

It is unfortunate that actors are ever called upon to make speeches, particularly the impromptu kind, but it often occurs that a body of people, a charitable organisation say, or an events company, decide to commission an actor to speak on an appropriate subject, to an invited audience, touching lightly on their own illustrious lives and delivering the material with a blend of solemnity (for the sake of the cause) and humour (for the sake of the audience) that only the literate love child of Shami Chakrabarti and P.G.Wodehouse might produce. Actors are used to speaking in public, the thinking goes, they are comfortable in the spotlight, and people like to watch them, will even pay to watch them. They bring publicity, they embrace a good cause, and my kids/mother/husband loved them in that film/show/photo shoot.
The vital ingredient missing in this recipe is that of the writer. It is the writer who creates the character that the actor assumes, the writer who creates clever/funny/interesting people and the writer who has a point to make. Actors can only pretend to do any of these things. They are good at pretending, so good that they may get asked for medical advice by strangers when all they did was show up on the set of ER dressed as a surgeon. At this point, actors sometimes get confused and may offer a diagnosis. The easiest person for an actor to deceive is himself. The important thing to remember is that even though both parties believe in the character, the actor knows nothing about medicine and any advice should be promptly ignored.
Strip the actor of their character and of their script and they are reduced to themselves, a person who knows an awful lot about pretending and about as much as anybody else on any other subject, perhaps even slightly less. Most people will have a skill that they use to earn a living and so will have some training in a practical/academic capacity. They will know how to engineer a bridge/play the trombone/fly a plane. Actors can wear the right sort of beard to look like Mr. Brunel/purse their lips with a musician's intensity/sleep with the cabin crew. But they haven't learned how to do anything with any degree of expertise, except fake it.
Most people, when asked to give a speech would either decline or start studying very hard. Politicians employ speechwriters, television hosts read from cue cards, even the best man researches his jokes. But actors are used to standing in front of hundreds or thousands of people and making a fool of themselves. They like it. They don't need to prepare, it's just an extension of their day job, isn't it? It's not until I'm standing in the wings of the Albert Hall with a waiting audience of 5,000 and the producer says, 'The band's going to take a while to set up, could you fill for a couple of minutes?' that I understand the true horror of the situation. I have no 'material', I have no speech, I have in fact, no character. For the next five minutes, I get a glimpse into how it must feel to be able to speak another language fluently and to be speaking it to a crowd of people who have no idea what country you even come from. Tumbleweed. If I thought I had got away with it, the look of incredulity tinged with fury on the producer's face when I came off stage, swiftly disabused me. It was such a disaster that the bouncers tried to stop me going to the party after. And I was the host.
So, if an actor stands up at an award ceremony and the rest of the world wonders how they manage to open their cereal in the morning, remember the one thing that actors are totally unsuited for, being themselves.

Television

Working on a television series is a very different job to making a film. It requires another kind of discipline, one that keeps you working at your best, long after the initial excitement of playing a character has left. You need stamina to work the long hours on a film, but although the day may be a little shorter on a long-running television show, many of the regular cast will be working all year round. The average working week will be over 60 hours long, with line learning and commuting on top. I know, who ever cried over the plight of the working actor? Still, it's a long haul and the actors who do it are often grey with fatigue beneath their face paint.

One of the benefits of playing a regular character is the familiarity with the role. Most actors get quickly acquainted with the characters they play, whether in the theatre or in a film or TV show, you develop ways of getting to know them. Some actors write out histories, some assume the personality of their part and stay 'in character' for the whole job. But on stage and in film, the character is a collaboration. The playwright's words are sacrosanct in the theatre, not a syllable can be changed without the author's permission and the actor's job is to work with the director to bring the story to life. 

On film, famously, writers can be treated very badly, and the script is a little more malleable. However, the character is still a collaboration between the writer, director and actor. Other departments are also influential, the costume, make-up and set designers all make decisions about the characters in a film. Most importantly, once the film is finished, the director and editor get together and make a completely new person out of the one you pieced together over the months of shooting. At this point, the music may be making more performance decisions than you did.

Of course, all these things happen on television shows too. But something else comes into the mix. After a while in a role, the actor starts to know the character better than anyone else ever could. They spend all their working life with them and they have opinions on every choice the character makes. Meanwhile, directors, writers, even series creators, can come and go. Writing teams have a chance to react to what they see on the screen. One character responds unexpectedly to a scene. The writers might want to explore why. A couple of other characters are exciting when they are on screen together, the writers send them out on a date and see what happens. As an actor, this can be both a blessing and a curse. One week you may be celebrating your challenging new storylines, another might find you indulging your paranoia as you search in vain for any non-expositional dialogue.

For the last month I have been visiting the wards on 'Holby City' but the longest time I have spent with a character was on 'Heartbeat'. For two years, I charged about the North Yorkshire moors in my 1960's Citroen Safari, happily dispensing medicine to the denizens of Aidensfield. I learned a lot about the stamina needed to keep up with the schedule and quite a bit about tenant farming in modern Britain. Now there is a tough job.