THE ACTOR
James Hesford
Rotherham 1972
Richard was washing his breakfast dishes in the small sink in the corner of the room. It wasn’t designed for that - more for washing hands and faces with cheap scented pink soap, more soaking a flannel and wiping your armpits kind of sink. Still, that was all the bedsit had to offer, that and a bed, a desk, a chair and an antique gas oven which doubled as central heating in Winter.
He often thought about the gas oven. The romantic notion of an undiscovered genius popping his head in there was strangely appealing, especially to a seasoned actor (as he liked to call himself) with a penchant for high drama and fatuous sentimentality. It would be a fitting end for the time - a kitchen sink drama kind of demise, a sixteen-millimetre noir film on BBC’s Play For Today suicide.
It was all happening back then - the kitchen sink dramas, the Joe Ortons, the John Osborns, the Look Back in Angers. In his earlier years, the possibility of being a part of that seemed real enough; a young lovey strutting his stuff on the boards of the Royal Court, the RSC and the National was just one lucky break away. After all, he had the talent, the looks, the Northern accent (when required). Leading man material they said, albeit the casting department of Butlin’s Holiday Camp Rep where he had spent a few Summers honing his skills in the endless portrayal of the minor characters of Rattigan and Agatha Christie and finally earning his ticket after doubling as a Red Coat.
Five years on and things weren’t looking so bright. He thought about the oven. He could see himself in there - his head propped up against the greasy gas nozzles, the camera panning across his limp, lifeless stretched-out legs and a zoom in to his feet pressing up against the side of the quilted plastic Divan. Being the subject matter for the up-and-coming Ken Loach’s new classic would be at least something, a fast track to his immortalization in the cannon of thespians who had sacrificed themselves on the altar of seeking attention.
His obituary in the Rotherham Gazette would help. Maybe Ken would notice it. He might remember casting him in Kes as the postman who nods his head as he passes the young Billy on his paper round. Even though the scene didn’t quite make it out of the edit suit, or at least the bit with Richard, it was a memorable performance. He might remember him as a corpse lying on a mortuary slab in an episode of Z cars: a scene that did make the final edit after taking on board the director’s note to stop building his part.
Yes, he could definitely see it - a script, a play, a movie, even a part for him, the main part. But then again, that wouldn’t work, would it? Because he would be dead. Plan B?
The trouble with Richard was that he had no plan B just a big pile of discarded plan A’s. But at least he had found a groove of sorts. Some might say that Rotherham in the early 70s may not have been the best place to be an actor, but Richard saw it differently. For him, it was the hub of the Northern powerhouse of dramatic arts: Christmas Pantomimes at the Lyceum in Sheffield, the Civic in Barnsley, Summer Seasons on the Pier in Cleethorpes and Blackpool. He always managed to get something that, however small, would rekindle a tiny flicker of hope that the big bright lights of fame and fortune were just around the corner. A belief reinforced by Harold, his chain-smoking Doncaster agent, when telling him that dressing up in a floppy-eared dog costume and handing out leaflets on the sandy shores of Skegness might get him noticed.
‘You never know who might see you. You just never know.’
It was true. ‘You never know.’ A line that he repeated to himself like a mantra after staring at the gas oven.
—---------------------
Richard was unblocking the sink plug hole with his index finger. Half a dozen soggy cornflakes had not drained away and he needed to clear them so he could soak his underpants. He would be gone for most of the day, so they would be well and truly soaked and all they would need would be a good squeezing out and hanging on the oven door.
The next half hour was spent preparing himself for his grand entrance. Richard was a pro after all and he needed to look the part. It was Thursday, dole day.
‘Occupation?’
‘Actoooorrrr’.
The answering of the first question of the brief weekly interview was always delivered with so much more conviction after time spent in front of a mirror mouthing consonants and vowels with exaggerated staccato pronunciation. Details, details details. ‘It’s all in the detail’ - adjusting the height of his chin bearing in mind that the fine line between dignified and aloof was one not to be crossed, upper lip a little stiff and protruding slightly, one end of his cashmere scarf nonchalantly tossed over his left shoulder leaving it loose enough to reveal the open neck shirt nicely framed between the upturned collar of his long black woollen overcoat. He was ready.
His weekly visit had been made much easier since Mrs Stephenson was moved from the back office into the signing room. The trick was to get into the right queue. Recognising a face through the haze of cigarette smoke and a steamed-up glass partition was not so easy. And once you had made your choice you had to stick with it. Changing queues midstream was definitely non grata. Riots had been caused for less.
Richard’s appointment was the highlight of Mrs Stephenson’s week. As a devoted member of the Rotherham and District Amateur Dramatic Society (RADA-DS), she had a deep appreciation of the skills required to strut your stuff. Being in the presence of a professional, albeit for a few minutes, brought a welcome respite from a life reduced to a mere machine stamping the forms of pitted-faced, unemployed, woodbine-smoking furnace workers who thought nothing of expectorating their tuberculous sputum onto the cigarette butt littered floor of her office. Richard was her comrade of culture in a world devoid of it, a fellow Mr Sunshine thespian bringing light into a dark world of tedium and mediocrity and it was now her duty, as a self-proclaimed agent of Art and Culture, to help level up the national distribution of such by stamping his claim.
Being a big fish in a small pond, a glistening beer battered Cod and chips in a world of smelly anchovies, certainly had its advantages.
The signing on was quick - no problems, no getting into the wrong queue and having some rookie clerk trying to make a name for himself by forcing Richard into taking an interview for a position totally unsuited to his artistic temperament and physical stature. It didn’t happen that often, but Richard came prepared for that. His status as a bonafide member of the acting profession could be easily verified by his Equity Card and, better still, a letter from his agent listing future auditions. Although a work of fiction (e.g.7th November 1972 - Prospero, The Tempest, The Old Vic, London), Richard was lucky enough to be living in a time when embossed headed paper from a local impresario carried some weight, even at the Employment Office. Should all else fail, the Doctor’s note regarding Richard’s mobility would verify that he was incapable of working a job requiring physical exertion. This was, in fact, fact and not fiction. A few months previously, three theatres in South Yorkshire (the West Riding) had decided that Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs would be their Christmas Pantomime and due to a shortage of suitable talent, Richard had been cast as Dopey and had spent five weeks shuffling around the Sheffield Lyceum’s stage on his knees. He was grateful for the work, the opportunity to explore the complexity of the character, but had been paying for it ever since.
The encounter with Mrs Stephenson, as said, was brief and businesslike. With a dozen claimants standing behind him, engaging in conversation with her was totally off the agenda, as was exchanging pleasantries of any kind which could be construed as favouritism, but she had managed to pass him a folded glossy sheet of A4 which he discreetly tucked into his inside pocket. After a subtle nod of appreciation, business concluded he left. Freedom, for another week at least.
Freedom smells. There’s nothing like the smell of Rotherham napalm in the morning - rancid smoke from the Tinsley smelting factories, a thousand Victorian coal burning fireplaces, diesel lorries pumping out their fumes as they carry the steaming dust of spent Iron ore to the tips and landfills - smells like victory, freedom. Having nothing particular to do for the rest of the week was so much more gratifying with the thought of others grafting at the coal face doing a ‘proper job’; something that Richard had managed to avoid for the thirty-two years he had spent on this planet. That, in itself, was success, victory, was it not? And why should he feel guilty? This was one of his resting periods. He deserved it. He had earned it. For a council estate lad in a mining village, his chosen profession was totally unsanctioned. He had stuck two fingers up to the bastards who would have ground him down and had gone his own way, kicked in the back door of middle-class entitlement and walked through it. Sure, there was the piss-taking, ridicule from his peers, but what did they know? For them, life was just about survival: labouring, eating, drinking, sleeping, shitting and producing sprogs. For him, it was much more about….. about……. about what precisely????? Whatever. Another thought to stash away in his mental pending tray.
‘Later.’
The whole day was now in front of him. First stop, the Midland Cafeteria for a mug of hot steaming tea and a Chelsea bun, a sausage roll maybe? Maybe not. Not at the Midland. They’d probably been sitting there since Monday. Sod it, he’d have one. While dusting away the pastry crumbs from his coat, Richard remembered the glossy sheet of A4 Mrs Stephenson had given him. He knew what it was but thought he would look at it anyway.
ROTHERHAM CIVIC THEATRE
RADA-DS PRESENT
‘An Inspector Calls’
On the back of the poster was a handwritten note from Mrs Stephenson - an invitation to the opening night and the small reception afterwards for cast, crew and honoured guests. There would be a ticket on the door for him. A discrete thumbs up at his next signing-on would suffice as his Répondez S'il Vous Plaît.
‘Can’t wait.’
Disdain for the HamDrams was always a good talking point amongst his fellow professionals. He would be meeting them in the pub later, all three of them. The poster would kick start a good hour or so of self-affirmation disguised as taking the piss. Cruel perhaps but funny nonetheless - to them anyway.
If he were honest with himself, Richard would admit that he loved the opening nights of the RADA-DS productions. There would be free wine, homemade canapes and cake and the play was never as bad as he would make out when holding court in the pub. No one forgot their lines or bumped into the furniture and, for the price of a few moi moi kisses on cheeks and a couple of ‘You were wonderful darlings’, he could spend an evening bathing in the light of their adoration. It was a ready-made audience primed to receive his well-rehearsed anecdotes of his past close encounters with the stars of stage and screen: over the years the story of a passing nod from Pat Phoenix on the set of Coronation Street had creatively evolved into an intimate, hour-long conversation about the relevance of Stanislavsky and Meisner in the School of Social Realist New Drama; Brian Blessed shouting at him to get out of his way and stop pissing about had metamorphosed into kind paternal advice on the importance of hitting your mark. You had to give it to Richard. He certainly knew how to spin a tale.
---------------
It was getting late. He had arranged to meet Neil at midday and it was a good ten-minute walk up Wellgate to Clifton Park. Not that there was any need for urgency. It wasn’t as though Neil had anything much to do apart from playing go fetch every day with his overweight, arthritic bulldog and a chewed-up Frisbee, his only employment being a fortnightly trip over the Snake Pass to Manchester to pick up a few ounces of Moroccan or Pakistani Black and chop it up into quid deals. Neil wasn’t exactly the drug baron of Rotherham, but he made enough to subsidise his failing acting career and he was never short of something to smoke.
The steep incline of Wellgate was doing Richard's knees no favours, neither was the damp mist that swirled up from the River Don. It would be another couple of hundred yards up the hill before the air cleared a little and the stink of effluent became a faint farty whiff.
Once at the iron gate, he could see Neil in the distance sitting on the bench - the highest point in the park. His red bell bottoms and fur-lined sheepskin coat were unmistakable, so was Banjo, his dog, who was lying on the grass refusing to fetch the Frisbee.
Greetings were brief as usual.
‘Comrade.’
‘Darling - what have you got for me?’
‘Some nice red leb and a bit of black.’
‘Have you got a taste?’
Neil handed over one of his famous conical super-sized spliffs - six Rizlas and half a page from the Bible - a physical realisation of the ‘religion is the opium of the people’ trope. The joke never failed to amuse although, Neil having smoked the entire book of Genesis, it was wearing a bit thin.
Richard leaned back into the bench and took a hit allowing the smoke to slowly drift out of his mouth and to be sucked in again through his nostrils.
‘Nice.’
His week had finally kicked off. Spending an hour or two sitting in the park staring at the chimney-lined horizon wasn’t exactly communing with nature, but after another couple of hits it would feel like it: the peace, the quiet, tranquillity even. That was the great thing about hanging around with Neil, you could just sit there in silence and never feel uncomfortable. His droning monologues about ‘come the day of the revolution’ and the opulence of the bourgeoisie gained at the expense of the long-suffering proletariat were reserved for those who wouldn’t point out to him that he was basically a capitalist who profited from the dubious needs of a few local deadbeats.
It was when Neil got up to take a piss that Richard noticed it. The copy of IT (International Times) was still warm having spent a couple of hours being pressed under the arse of Neil’s trousers. IT, a sort of English hippy version of the Village Voice, although popular in London (a predecessor of Time Out), its circulation had never grown further north than Hendon Central.
While flicking through it, an article about street theatre in New York and San Francisco caught his attention. Groups like The San Francisco Mime Troupe, The Living Theatre, Bread and Puppet Theatre were taking their work out into the parks and streets and giving free performances to whoever happened to be there at the time. Richard remembered seeing The Bread and Puppet Theatre in Hyde Park before the Stones concert kicked off. It was good, a bit political - something about a King in his castle who after spending most of his life being a ‘right bastard’ was evicted by the prols; not exactly Richard’s thing but definitely good.
‘You ever thought about this?’
‘What?’
‘This.’ Said Richard pointing to the article.
‘Wearin’ a stripy jumper and paintin’ me face white? No. Not particularly.’
‘No Darling, Street theatre……..Do you mind shaking that thing in the other direction? It’s disgusting.’
‘Sorry…… Mime artists in Rotherham. You wunt last five minutes. Trust me.’
‘It doesn’t have to be mime or even that physical - something more…… more relevant.’
‘Relevant to Rotherham? Good luck with that mate.’
Richard could see this was going nowhere. Best to put it on the back burner and smoke another joint.
‘Can I borrow this for a while.’ re: IT
‘Sure, have it, ‘s not mine. Was here when I got here.’
The word providence came to mind. ‘Of all the park benches in all the world etc.’ Providence, Serendipitous, Performance, Relevance, Street Performance, Relevant to Rotherham, Relevant to him. Words, Words, Words, Words. Richard was finding it difficult to arrange them into a coherent sentence, but something was simmering away and he needed to articulate his thoughts before his head turned into soup and dribbled down his chest. Neil was a sweetheart, but he needed to get away, be on his own for a while.
‘Later Darling. Black Swan, Sevenish?’
‘Sure.’
—---------------
The Riverside Library, Main Street, Quiet.
Richard was scribbling away in the notebook he had picked up from Woolworths on the way there. There were still no sentences just lines of bullet points he had plucked from the IT article:
Carnival - NO
Physical Theatre - NO
Interactive street theatre - NO
Improvised performances. - DEFINITELY NOT
Politically motivated - NO - WELL MAYBE - A BIT - RE: NEIL
Use street theatre to combine performance with protest - BIG NO NO
Pre-arranged scenarios - YES
Involving passers by in conversation - MAYBE - IF THEY INITIATE IT - DISCOURAGE IF POSS - IN FACT NO
Character based street theatre. YES, YES, YES, DEFO
Character-based street theatre, pre-arranged scenarios with a bit of politics wasn’t much, but it would be enough to be getting on with. Character based? Characters, but which characters? Well, it was his show, his choice. He thought about his favourite movies. Ben-Hur came out top of the list. He always secretly fancied himself as a bit of a Charlton Heston, a sword and sandal hero type. But was it relevant? Chariots, sword fights, Romans and Hebrews, American accents, leprosy, Rotherham? - scratch. Spartacus - he thought about that for a while. Auctioning slaves in Rotherham market definitely had a metaphorical context - the burdening yolk of the working classes and all. Neil would like that, but would he be willing to dress up in a coal sack toga with a rope around his neck? - scratch.
Ben Hur, Spartacus, Lawrence of Arabia, Exodus, West Side Story, Planet of the Apes, 2001 A Space Odyssey - this was going nowhere. Where was he going wrong? It was all too epic, too complicated, too unrealistic, too fucking irrelevant. He needed something simple, cheap, quick, something that would almost blend in with the environment.
It was the walk around the block and a spliff that did it. Obvious! Why hadn’t he thought about it before? Elmer Gantry. Richard recalled Burt Lancaster’s Oscar-winning performance as a Bible black Bible bashing sermonizer bringing redemption to a Boat Bobbing Sea of sinners in the backwater towns of the Mid-West (Darling); the complexity of a man born again out of the ashes of a world littered with the consequences of his sinful past of debauchery and trickery fueled by an excess of narcotics and alcohol. The part was made for him. Elmer Gantry was Richard and he would bring him to the streets of Rotherham.
Richard needed to calm down, stop waving his hands around like a demented zealot, get out of character and just sit there in silence and write the script. Where to start? - the librarian.
‘Do you have a Bible?’
‘New Testament?
‘And Old.’
‘Over there on the big shelves.’ She points. ‘It’s heavy. Mind your back.’
She was right, It was as big as a paving stone and leather bound to boot.
‘Reference only.’
There were a few raised heads as the book slammed down onto his desk. A pensioner tutted, glared for a while and went back to reading the newspaper.
‘Sorry.’
Fire and Brimstone. There was plenty of that in Genesis. Sodom and Gomorrah - a good beginning.
Richard spent the whole afternoon thumbing through the Good Book and scribbling away. The sermon was taking shape - breaking down the congregation into blubbering blobs of hysteria with threats of 24/7 purgatory roasting like a pig on a spit in the flames of Hades and building them up again from nothing with the arrival of the cavalry in the form of Gentle Jesus, repentance and redemption. By early evening the script was finished, his notebook full of proclamations and testaments reinforced with quotations complete with reference to chapter and verse. Notes, prop requirements and stage directions to cast and crew were written in the margin. Now all he had to do was sell it to his friends - the cast.
—----------------
Being a Thursday, the Black Swan was almost empty. He could see Barry and Dave sitting at their usual place in the corner. He couldn’t see Neil but he must be somewhere because Banjo was sniffing around hoovering up yesterday’s crisp crumbs off the sticky carpet.
Richard knew that this was going to be a hard sell. Dave would be OK. He always agreed with everything Richard said - any opportunity to ingratiate himself to his unrequited man crush. Neil would need a bit of work, but in the end, he would just go with the majority in which case, Barry would have the casting vote and therein lay the problem.
Barry never agreed with anyone. Self-opinionated, stubborn and stroppy, he would start an argument just for the sake of it and keep it up for hours until you broke down and agreed with him. Being right seemed to be his main purpose in life.
Richard thought that buying the first round would be good strategy. His funds were already depleted having paid Neil for his stash, but what the hell. He would push the boat out.
‘Pints …. and crisps. Fucking hell! Did you win the pools?’ Barry said that, sarcastic nuance being the nearest thing you would ever get to a thank you.
‘No darling. I’m just pleased to see you.’
Despite the gathering now complete with Neil back in his chair smelling of freshly smoked ganja, Richard thought it best to hold off for a while to let the alcohol kick in. He thought he might show them the poster Mrs Stephenson had given him in the dole office but thought better of it; the banter would go on for hours and he needed to focus.
Two half pints later seemed a good point in the evening to approach the subject. It was Barry’s round next so there would be a good twenty minutes of him swilling the dregs around in the bottom of his glass trying to avoid it.
‘I have an idea.’
‘Oh yea. What’s that then?’
Richard pulls out his notebook and slaps it on the table.
‘This.’
He launches into it at full throttle.
‘It isn’t just a sermon’, he explains. ‘It’s so much more than that: breaking away from the established institutions, reformation as the voice of the many singing out into a world free of the shackles of servitude, the little man taking back control, standing up to the big machine. We’ll be performing in the town square in the shadow of the Minster, a symbol of ecclesiastic oppression that has held back the masses for a millennium by denying them the succour they so desperately need leaving them abandoned on a sinking ship of despair and destitution - BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH.’
Ten minutes later and he’s still at it.
‘It’s a metaphor for the revolution of mind and spirit. It’s the essence of what theatre should be about and yet so much much more. And we could be there at the forefront of a movement the likes of which has never been seen this side of the Atlantic. Theatre for the many and not the few.’
Richard leans back in his chair. He’s exhausted. Where all that came from he didn’t quite know. He hadn’t planned it that way. He was totally off book. It was almost as though someone else was speaking through him. He looks up. Everyone is stunned into silence. Dave doesn't quite know what to make of it. He’s scrutinising the faces around him hoping that someone will make his mind up for him. Neil is nodding his head thoughtfully.
‘Nice one comrade ……I think.’
Barry just looks confused. He picks up the notebook and flicks through it.
‘There’s no words. We’re just standing around saying nothing. It’s all about you.’
‘No darling it’s not just about me. It’s a concerto. The soloist is only as good as the orchestra that accompanies him. And you know as well as I do that acting is not just about words. Words are just the outpouring from a process of internalising emotions from the past history of your character. Look at Frankenstein’s monster, Boris Karloff and ……and …..Boris Karloff. He never said a word.’
‘Monster from the Black Lagoon. He never said anything.’
‘That’s right David. Thankyou.’
‘Godzilla.’
‘OK David yes. Anyway, there are words.’ Richard points to the text.
‘Alleluya. Is that it?’
‘And this.’ He points again.
‘Praise the Lord. Oh yeh, and here’s another one - Ahmen. Not exactly fucking Shakespear is it?’
Barry is getting increasingly irritated by the whole idea. Richard is about to say something but before he does, Barry suddenly lifts up the notebook and slams it down on the table so hard the glasses rattle. He stands up……..
‘FUCK IT - I’m going for a smoke.’
…….and walks out.
‘What’s up we ‘im?’
‘I’ll leave it for a minute and go and see if he’s alright.’
Barry was leaning against the wall, hands cupped around a match lighting his spliff. Richard guessed that it wasn’t just the script that had got to him. ‘One of those days’ - they all had them from time to time when everything seemed so pointless, so fucking desperate. Barry hadn’t worked for two years since he walked out of rehearsals at the Leeds Playhouse, ‘I don’t take that kind of shit from anybody’ being the post-script to his verbal resignation.
‘Bad day?’
‘You could say that.’
Richard wished he had some words that might lift him, career advice that could help, a bit of tough love maybe - ‘look Barry, you do yourself no favours, just keep your head down and take the shit like the rest of us’. Since the Playhouse incident Harold, their agent, had more or less given up on him. ‘He’s the best ‘ave got but he’s out of control. I just don’t know what to do wi him.’
‘The best ‘ave got’ - probably not the most tactful thing to say in front of another actor, but Richard knew it to be true. Barry was always special, even back in Youth Theatre. However hard Richard and the others worked, Barry would always own the stage without even trying. Was there resentment, jealousy? More than Richard would like to admit.
‘Sorry. I was out of order.’
Now Richard is worried. Getting a sorry out of Barry was a first. Things must be really bad.
‘Harold’s being a right cunt. I’ve been ringing him all week and he never gets back to me and now I’ve got the dole on my back and I’m late with the rent and that’s not half of it.’
‘Shit. I’m so sorry to hear that. My floor is always yours if it ever comes to ……..you know.’
‘Well than…k………. Fuck it. Bollocks to ‘em all.’
He sucks hard on the spliff and passes it to Richard. There’s a good minute of silence before Barry pitches up.
‘So when were you thinking about doing your thing?’
‘So you’ll do it then?’
‘Well it’s not like I’ve got anything else to do is it?’
‘Saturday after next.’
Bingo.
—---------------
CLICK BUTTON FOR PART 2. Jxxx