The week.

The week started off well enough, I suppose. I visited Mrs Carr, who runs the local laundary. Wonderful woman with an outlook on the world which is refreshing and candid, albeit peppered with more swearwords than one can comfortably entertain.

That is the modus operandi of the actor; the devour those salient features of a personality one might find useful later. For instance, I may, on occasion, meet a drunkard in a bus depot. Unlike those other people I should approach said intoxicant and engage him in conversation. Snippets of these peoples’ lives adds a tapestry and realism to ones’ work, stories, emotions, mannerisms. And if anyone wants me to do a role which requires reaction to a punch in the face, I am a prime candidate.

Many other actors have used those who they know or who they have worked with between jobs to gather such valuable material. For example

Derek Guyler : Got his whimsical wide eyed look for Play School by watching Stockport fans during a thrashing by Chelsea.

Anthony Hopkins: He mastered the brooding menace and threatening tone of Hannibal Lector by trying to return a jacket to a dry cleaner

Charles Dance : discovered he could swivel in a chair like all his comrades during a temporary position with British Gas (although he has yet to use it in a role)

Helena Bonham-Carter : perfected that look of shock from a mechanic after she tried to get a 1982 Datsun Sunny through it’s MOT without extra charge

Jude Law : I don’t know where he gets his material from.

Johnny Depp : Presumably drugs.

One thing young actors always ask me is ‘how do you start with a character?’. It is quite difficult, and every actor is different. Some will say it’s the voice, others the walk, others still will pish pish all that and say it’s the ears. With me, I always start by deciding what socks they would wear. From there, I work up to the knees, then the thigh, then the naughty bits and finally the torso and head. It may sound presumptuous, but my system is the best and all the others are rubbish.

One thing that proves you have done your job well, is when people fail to recognise you. I can walk down my road in Camden and no one says ‘hi’, no one bothers me. As an actor it is tremendously liberating to experience the highs of success and the joy of freedom. In fact, such high esteem I am held in, so serious my work is taken by the denizens of my district, some ignore me all together, nudging into me, crossing the road or in one instance, recently, shouting incoherently from a balcony (are you listening, Jamie Theakston?).

So anyway, from Mrs Carrs’ tender mercies I proceed to the market, where, as I say, I am free to wander around unfettered by the great unwashed.

And there, on the table at Donald Knotts’ Emporium of Flapdoodle, like the beacon of the Grail to a holy man, I saw it.

A genuine Georgian Toilet Roll holder.

I’d read about it online and exchanged several emails with sellers but their ridiculous greed had made me pull out of any prospective sale. But there it was, unmistakeable, irreplaceable, beautiful. Next to the gonks.

Don’t be deceived by Don’s cheerful cockney way, his almost cheeky chappy demeanour or his two hefty bouncers. And don’t let the presence of the plain clothes police officers meandering about his stall bother you either. Don is a salt of the earth fellow. And so what if he has done time? He served his sentence, that money was recovered and who knows? Maybe that Post Office Clerk wanted surgery to have his ears reduced anyway. It was a shame they were lost in the post though, all the same.

Don is one of those people I mentioned earlier. An invaluable source of mannerisms, traits and foibles so intrinsic to my art, although he doesn’t like having his picture taken. Ordinarily I would put a picture of Don here but my camera is sadly broken at present.

So this toilet roll holder. What stories it could tell if it could talk. Made from what I perceived to be China, and written clearly “if found please return to George III”. They’d have a job!

I am returning today after my initial enquiry,  the response to which I think I can best describe as somewhere between ‘frosty’ and ‘threatening’, to negotiate a full and satisfying transaction.

It can sit in my cabinet of treasures, along with the Alfred the Great Hot Cross Bun mould. Conversation will never again be short in my flat.

The Ides of March.

So March comes to an end and to be honest I won’t be displeased to see the back of it. Some sad losses this month. Brian Grout, whose ceaseless encouragement when everyone else were doubting me was a real set of inflatable armbands. Hannah French, who I have to say I had and on and off friendship with, after she reprimanded me for burping at the BAFTAs. No one would have noticed had she not heckled me. And critic Damus Lionio. I can’t say I was particularly sorry personally to read of his passing, and I wasn’t surprised to read the lurid details of his demise (even though I will never look at a tangerine the same again).

I hate critics as a rule. I find them terribly ungrateful. Some of them have never even tried to act, and I suspect if they did don the mantel of some Jacobian rogue or errant Victorian ne’er dowell I would venture to suggest they would flounder like they wrongly claimed I did.

Firstly, it was not my fault that the musket didn’t fire on the night they were there. Muskets are notoriously difficult to operate and the five minutes between my ‘Die you Dutch scum!’ declaration and my final shot into Derek Nimmo (who may I say was an absolute dear and waited patiently for me to kill him, and at one point breaking into a song to asway a restless audience). And as for the indecent exposure due to wear and tear while playing Marlo in the 1600s drama ‘Idem eadem idem vetus fabula’ I can only say I carried on, and some in the crowd were impressed with my improvisation of where I wore my hat.

There were however lines to be drawn. These lines are invisible but obvious to all who perform and all who watch. Criticise our work, critique our performance but when the vendetta becomes personal…

Such was the case with Simon Rider, arts editor for the Thames Valley Eye. Never has such a man launched such a personal attack on one of the greatest theatrical treasures this country has ever produced, ie: Me. His death doesn’t sorrow me in the least, although I did have to explain my whereabouts to the Police on the night in question.

Me                   : I was at the Lyric, in Henri Lamarrs’ ‘Voyage Into Damnation’, young man

Officer             : Anyone coroberate that, Sir?

Me                   : The audience, you cretinous plebe.

Officer             : Anyone who knows you?

Me                   : The other cast members, you blundering nincompoop.

Although he did have trouble with the cast confirming I was anything to do with the production (a technical thing, I am sure), he did manage to contact all four audience members and a man who sold me some ice cream. A man who actually short changed me to the sum of thirty nine pence. I did mention this to plod but he seemed far more interested in investigating this ‘murder’ business. My faulty financial transaction was apparently of no interest at all. One of the problems one finds with modern policing is this attitude. I pointed out to the young man, who, by the way probably still had his Geography homework to do – he really was that young – That they have a body and a list of suspects. It’s a jigsaw for them to solve. But while they are waiting for all those tedious tests and cutting up of the body and all that malarkey, I am down thirty nine pence and I know the culprit. I can point him out. I know where he works and dammit he will be there tonight. It’s an easy arrest and a crime which no sane jury in Britain would not convict, and convict hard. An easy case. But no, they prefer a ‘challenge’. I briefly considered vigilante action against this foul stain on the human race, but I suspect I may have given myself away to the Police already as harbouring a grudge and put myself in the frame should anything happen to him. Besides, murder before a performance puts such a crimp on ones’ emoting.

Rider was a man who made many enemies. Of which I pride myself as King. He criticised everything I was in, everything I did, and even had a go at me one night when I was not working about the way I ate spaghetti.

Miss him I shall not.