Agent 2 = The Bitterness of Change

That was Bob True, manager of the Truro International Theatre Syndicate (he apparently hates the acronym), asking if I was available to do some work for him and the rest of his coterie. He said he had rung Avril, but she had told him of the situation vis my departure from their books and how I was ‘not very good anyway’ and would he prefer to hire someone who can actually act, as opposed to ‘the wooden old man with the flatulence’.

I had to think back a bit to think of when exactly I have farted in her office, and I think it’s not a great deal. I think a ratio of 8:10 is probably about right, and I don’t recall anyone complaining at the time. I remember her actually telling me once, that a certain performer, not entirely unconnected with pianos, staircases and PG Tips, actually defecated on her desk while she was in the room. And STILL got the voiceover.

I also don’t recall anyone saying I am wooden. Unless you count my stint as Pinocchio, the wooden child puppet which I played in ‘Pinocchio, The Accountancy Years’ (a savage work by the Epsom Esoteric Theatre Workshop about tax evasion) which was heralded in the Epsom Evening Argos as ‘meh’.

In fact, not one person has ever called me ‘wooden’ in any part I have played. Except where the part has required a certain timber-like quality. (Bert the Beech in The Trees of Soloman Lakes for example). No, I will not be called ‘wooden’.

I suppose it could be a compliment. Wood is after all eternal and reliable. It provides shelter, can be fashioned into weaponary and also provides a natural nesting and breeding environment for a rich ecosystem of life. Much like myself.

I shall take it that is what she meant. Although it is weighted by the phrase at the end of the sentence ‘shitbag’.

Agent

 

I have to advise those interested in booking me for engagements I have changed my representation. I used to be with Avril Peck Artistes, and Avril served me well for many years, since I left RADA actually. I well remember meeting her in the RADA bar. As I carried her out, she told me I was a marvellous performer and I should sign up with her agency should she ever form one. I wasted no time in calling her the very next month, and she seemed surprised to hear from me.

The sheer variety of work since then has been stunning

• 3^rd Dalek in Dr Who
• Man in Lorry in the Information film ‘Don’t lie under lorries!’
• Ferry Passenger waving in Triangle
• Dead Body in Survivors
• 15^th face in Godley and Cremes’ ‘Cry’ popular music video
• Lead in BBC TVs’ Doctors

Of course there were other roles she secured for me. I well remember the long nights of method acting to really get into the character of Strawberry jam. To know what it is to be jam. How jam feels and thinks and loves.

And the theatre work was fantastic too. Although the uniform was the wrong size.

But things change, people move on and Avril really hasn’t given me anything for a few months, except a text (which she says she doesn’t remember sending) at 2.43am which simply read ‘tosser’.

So all enquiries are now to be made through Elliot Trubstien Associates, a small but powerful company, headed by Elliot himself. Elliot has a fine pedigree of acting talent to draw from. Tim West, Robin Kessler, Googie Olsterham, Claire Sacheimer and myself, of course.

He says he was enticed into poaching me when he saw a film I made years ago, something which I thought all copies had been destroyed, in Covent Garden. A film where I played a young man whose dreams of success in the big city are cruelly and mercilessly crushed under the heel of the capitalist agenda. ‘My Big Part’ was, it has to be said, an metaphotical look into the world of class, of rich and poor, of have and have nots, of hope and despair told in a series of increasingly explicit sexual encounters with a variety of partners and a parrot.

Excuse me. Phone.

Improvisation

A few tips on improvisation. Improvisation comes from the improvise, and is a valuable tool in any actors armor. It comes from the Latin, as most good words do. Vise, meaning see, Prov meaning prove you can do it and imp meaning a small dwarf like creature mainly listed in medieval mythology. It is important you understand, if you are to make any headway in theatre to understand words, their derivation and meanings. For instance, there's a word in theatre called 'workshop'. Most people think this word means a small space, maybe in a garage or basement, where one or other member of a relationship can hover around, piddling about with some frankly stupid idea which never comes to fruition while the responsible one, the one who spends his evenings not cuddled up on the settee, but in the very real battlefield of contemporary theatre. Ducking the shrapnel of reviewers, the bazookas of inattentive audience members and the enormous sherman tank of the interval where suspense builds to see if anyone actually comes back, and more importantly, did those who didn't return claim a refund. And that person does this because he loves his partner and loves his home and his partner is to lazy to get up and do something themselves, being so 'busy' making a motorised gnome or something in the basement.

IMPROVISATION AS A LIFE SKILL
It's not even like the house is kept tidy. The working one comes home and the house looks like someone has had a heavy metal convention. Bed unmade, half empty takeaway cartons, disguarded clothes. It simply isn't good enough. The working one gets very frustrated with this course of events and probably at some point the feckless basement dweller will be looking for other accomodation if they are not careful.

USING IMPROVISATION AS A CHARACER DEVELOPMENT AND SOCIOLOGICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL EXERCISE IN PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
I mean it't the principle of the thing. If someone says they will clean the mayonaise off the bedsheet I more or less expect the bedsheet to be mayonaise free by the time I come in. I do not expect to get into bed and find I am impersonating a Caesar salad. Then there's all the expenses that go hand in hand with relationships, things everyone has to spend out on, apparently, to make life a little more scrummy. The three foot plasma screen, the games consoles, the workout area. All these things came from my hard work playing butlers, suspicious relatives or angry tennis coaches. Not one penny was contributed to these things by 'the other party', and now I come to think of it I pay for all the food as well. The emporer has no clothes! Seeing it written down like this has really brought it home to me that this is simply a relationship on a par with the Slave movement on the 1800s. Only instead of an evil mill owner owning, whipping and sexually molesting me I am in a theatre where the only sexual molestation I have had in years was when Francis De La Tour got the wrong dressing room while I was putting on my penguin suit. No more the Fool! Out damn spot!

IMPROVING YOUR IMPROVISATION SKILLS - VITAL CAREER ASSET ADVICE
I just had a word. Promises made, hugs exchanged, points made. sometimes you can build these things up in your head to a ridiculous proportion. Fortunately being a level headed sort, I reasoned it out, although I will have to call the window repair people. So all is good, and the Chi of the McPhereson household is restored.

Where was I? Improvisation, ah, yes. Just make some shit up.

More Poetry

I just had an email from someone who enjoyed my poetry and wanted more. Well, let me write you something straight off the cuff. Again, this demonstrates the value of improvisation, honed after years of performance and practice, with many, many theatre companies.

Down at heel, the old man
Troubled times, heaped on his shoulder
Not a parrot, like a pirate
No
Trouble. Trouble in the form of
a Phone call. A letter. A conversation.
Sacked? Sacked? Tis a noble word
And I didn't want to be in his play
Anyway
They can keep it, they can have it
They would rather have Timmy Mallett.

Watch out Pam Ayres! There's a new kid on the block! McPhereson Prose!

Suddenly busy

I was writing my poetry in the dressing room the other day. So caught up was I in semantic couplets, I missed my entrance. Running onto the stage, I totally forgot my meat cleaver, which my character uses to to threaten the Olinda family into silence. Time to improvise, and this is where the trained thesp streaks ahead of the paltry efforts of the amateur. Seizing a oven glove, I threatened the family and the scene worked a treat. Afterwards, the director, Mylosh Stravin, came to see me in the dressing room. As he does not speak English I had to go by his use of body language to gauge and absorb his message. As he slammed the wardrobe door on my head for the sixth time, I picked up some dissatisfaction with my performance. I don't remember him leaving. When I regained consciousness, I picked up my poetry and continued my prose, albeit with a couple of spots of blood falling on my manuscript. I would like to share this with you now. It's about bees.
Oh, honey bee
You do see
The flowers that are
here for me
you know the route
to find your nectar
and don't have to
put up with stupid
directors who know nothing
of conventional theatre techniques
Stupid Pole. Stupid Stupid Pole.

There is apparently interest in the anthology of my poetry. I am going to try another now.

Winged Chariot of Time
Thy hours pass relentless
Chime the clock
Chime the clock
Owls hoot
Can this really be Newtoxeter?

Disgusted

I am not going to lower myself to their level. It is one thing to be heckled while on stage. It is another thing entirely when the heckling comes from the same stage.

Keeping In trim

One of the things about being an actor is keeping your mind, body and spirit in tip top condition. You never know what job will beckon next. A gymnastic Faust. A underwater Hamlet. A Bold commercial set in 1915 on the Somme. So it is imperative that you keep your body, mind and spirit honed, sharp and ready for anything.

Throughout the ages many actors have striven to find the ultimate workout regime, from Thespis’ kicking Romans in the shins and running away to Sir Henry Irving who legend has it used to hang upside down from Putney bridge when not employed. Of course, there are ways of exercising not ultimately involving lions or being a hazard to shipping, and one of those is the ancient, noble art of d’ong wang.

Based on the martial art, d’ong wang is over 20,000 years old and boasts just as many mysteries. It is rumoured the Pharoahs themselves practised it, and they still look as young today as they did then. Proof indeed that this is the pinnacle of internal and external cleansing.

To practice this, one must lie on the floor and try and make a perfect circle. This is the paradox of d’ong wang, because as we all know it is impossible. It is the method by which we accept all things are not possible, and something things are not only beyond our mortal reach, but likely to do your back in.

Then the second move. A highly complex and symbolic ritual, involving chanting, interpretational dance and a not inconsequential amount of excrement. (I should point out this is not something to practice on a shagpile). This is the cleansing, the abolition of pride, the banishment of self-restraint. This is the very essence of being, where innermost longing, deeply embedded memory and the relinquishment of the constraints of societal rules are exposed and expunged. It’s also a bit smelly.

Then, and only then, is the subject ready for the main event, or as we call it ‘t’bizinez’. The voyage into the unconscious can be an arduous one, especially if you have lead a life like mine. Faces popping up that you had forgotten about, demanding you leave them alone, angry theatre managers, Trevor Nunn. You must travel past them, past the empty seats on a Wednesday Matinee, past Richard Dawkins appearing to be praying for the play to end, past the Sunday Times theatre reviewer whose name you cannot remember but who was instrumental in your not only closing on the first night, but never being able to enter Colchester or its’ suburbs again, and certainly not to attend any livestock displays. At the end of the ordeal is the door. The door to self. The door which, when passed through, all things are possible. An eternity of possibilities. A ceilingless realm where you can ascend to take your place with the acting Gods – or what ever occupation you are in.

It is the most alive I have felt in years, and the eighty five pounds is surely well spent, despite what the Daily Telegraph says. Although I did reach the door tonight only to discover I had left my keys on the hall sideboard.

Resting.

There are many actors who dislike the whole ethos of being 'out of work'. Many consider it demeaning, some see it as just a necessary part of the job, while others are driven mad and feel compelled to appear on the Performance channel moaning about having nothing to do. Surely such people have made enough out of the Italian Job and Harry Brown?

Anyway, I find that the phone is suspiciously quiet of late. I have gone so far as to have the line tested, firstly by being the other side of the road in the local phone box and ringing myself, dashing back to hear the ringing (although being careful not to pick up the phone. At 30p a minute, I am not some chat line customer. And even if I was, I would not be asking me what I am wearing. I don't need to call up for that.) Anyway, I endeavoured to get back to the flat, narrowly missing a lorry on my journey - although another traveller was no so lucky (sent flowers to the family) to find the phone chirping away. The dilemma was heartbreaking. Could it be an actual call? Should I risk 30p on the off chance it would be a major producer offering me the chance of a lifetime? Gingerly I picked up the receiver. I placed the receiver quivering to my ear, my nerves at breaking point. "Mr Speilberg?" I almost whispered.
Down the line came the most enormous raspberry I have heard for some time, in fact I have never heard such a noise since I was doing a 'Murder In the Library' in Glasgow. But the voice on the other end had not said 'no', so I repeated my question. Again, the sound greeted my ears, a rasping, rolling raspberry, this time followed by a voice which said 'You old pouff!'.
But still no definitive answer, and the call had been terminated. Could it be Speilberg himself had called me to issue this abuse? What had I done to him? I had met him on one occasion, when he was kind enough to come back stage, ask my name and have someone write it down for future reference.

And so the mystery deepens.