Lines and Laughter

My theatrical / performance career so far has been limited.

I have a vague memory of appearing in three school productions at the age of five, six or seven. In one of them I think I was a tree. In another I was, I believe, a traveling jester who asked a joke. My mother, who taught in a school, found some kind of appropriate costume that fitted me - and embarrassed me because it was much better than the adopted street clothes that my fellow thespians wore. Lastly, I was a magician making one of my classmates miraculously appear out of nowhere. The theory was fine, but my subject's feet kept showing where they should not, leading to laughter from the spectators and further embarrassment from myself.

Eight to ten years passed. Now in boarding school, I volunteered - I have no idea why, because I am sure I did not think I had talent - for the role of Smith in The Long and The Short and The Tall, where a group of British soldiers takes a Japanese prisoner in the Malaysian jungle. I was cast, I am sure, because the director could find no other would-be actors, and given the role with the fewest lines apart from the mute POW. So I stood stiffly on stage, unable even to muster a Northern English accent, realised what a mistake I had made in coming forward and wished the whole thing over and done with - particularly when off-stage I issued what was intended to be a pathetic cry of death and was rewarded, once again, with audience laughter. 

On to university and a degree in English and Linguistics. Acting was beyond me, I decided, so maybe I could direct. Well, no, actually, I couldn't. The drama group I'd joined presented me with Olwen Wymark's The Inhabitants, which has a ménage à trois involving a man, a woman and a teenage boy. The suggestions of homosexuality attracted me and I completely missed the reference to the ego, superego and id; another member of the drama group took over direction and I wilted into the shadows.

But still I could not let go. The next venture was a student radio programme put on by the local commercial station. I auditioned for the role of presenter, and to my surprise, got it. This was something I could do. I knew how to read clearly and the course in Linguistics was bearing fruit in that I was learning exactly what was involved in the complicated process we call communication. True, I was gently booted out of the hosting position when they found a man with a livelier voice than mine, but it was the first indication that I had a voice that people could and wanted to listen to - even though it was more a late-night dj's voice than the breathless young tones of a Radio 1 announcer.

Twenty years passed. I wrote and published a few works of fiction, whose sales went consecutively downhill. (My talent improved, but the mood of each novel and story became darker, more depressing and less commercial.) I had moved to Los Angeles and was living with an aspiring actor. He liked one of my stories. Why didn't I turn it into a play and we could produce it, with him starring and directing? LA is full of fringe theatres with movie wannabees playing to amateur agents. So we auditioned dozens of actors, with me reading different parts opposite the candidates while my partner took notes. Hey, I said to myself time and again, how is that I can read these lines with far more feeling than most of those auditioning?

Flick forward another fifteen years. I'm living in London, with the man I expect to end my days with, running a small business from home and often listening to Radio 7 / 4 Extra. I am amused, bored, cheered, depressed, entranced (you can finish the alphabet), and also intrigued. I can do that, I tell myself. I have The Voice (frequently over the years I have been complimented on my tones and accent, and more than once have women fall for me over the phone...). I even have a Variety of Voices. I am no longer an ignorant and diffident youth, but an adult with confidence in myself and awareness of people move and think and emote. Something inside me says I might have the ability to Act. I have nothing to lose, so why don't I try?

I tell the Other Half. The Other Half laughs at the idea. That is the moment, in early 2011, that I decide I'm going to spend a year doing this. I have nothing to lose; it should be fun and challenging and there is a lot I could learn. Let me try it and see.