Training Video pt1

One of the most stimulating jobs I have had in the last year or so I have just returned from. Evington Plastics selected me, based on price, to present ‘The Evington Way’, a training video for their new inductees, featuring health and safety, accounting practices and other sundry office procedures.

It is always a joy to help a young director, who was mainly in charge of the stationary acquisition, to get a foot hold in my industry. Young fellow me lad was quite confused at first, didn’t appear to know who I was, or what I was there for. But a word from his employer soon put him and the two guards back on the straight and narrow.

My brief was this; make a training video which inspires and informs, which enlightens and entertains. Obviously my consummate skills (juggling, comedianing and curious talent on a unicycle) would be called into play in a moments notice. The lack of things to juggle with or indeed a unicycle was shocking, but thankfully there were three items on my ‘list of skills’ and I commenced with my ‘routine’ as we call it.

After just three minutes the Director informed me they had a script, and I was furnished with the document and given coffee and a room to myself for my study.

Certainly the script had the rudimentary elements. Man in office. Talking about the hazards in that office which lay unseen. I started to picture this man in my head; I saw him as a frustrated man. A man whose marriage had long since lost its’ sparkle, whose teenage hopes had been crushed by the mundanity of the ‘machine’, whose spirit had withered with the years resulting in him seemingly spending his time talking to a flower pot on top of a filing cabinet for solace.

I started to dissect the script, as one does. That part about the stapler; obviously a metaphor for his relationship with his daughter, who, though errant and wayward, he still cares for, even if she won’t talk to him after that business in Altrincham with the refusal to buy her an iPod. His son, a deep, bookish boy whose introversion maybe hid a dark secret, a secret which would shock and perhaps revile those around him, only revealed when we get to the bit about the hole punch.

His wife, uncaring and scathing, causing him many late hours in the office, whose secret liason with a Vietnamese Sous Chef is reaching for want of a better word a climax. A woman who has long since lost interest in salvaging their relationship, a woman who wants something better or the illusion of it – this was plainly obviously to be as he demonstrated how to adjust a chair for optimum lumbar support.

I worked on this character. My pen flew across my notepad, almost guided by this mans’ spirit… I do find that sometimes, and a part I am playing will literally talk to me… I find myself talking to them and answering back in character sometimes. Which as you can imagine causes a little bit of a stir in Waitrose, as I argue with both the manager and a Nordic God over reduced sausages.

By the time I had finished I had fifty two pages of notes, detailing this mans’ life. His work, his employer, his friends, his colleagues, his family life, his internet browsing history and his car. I had them all pegged, laid out, like the post death revelation so many of us dread. We lay there, deceased, while people say ‘I never thought he was into that’ and all the time our useless corpse wants to reanimate itself just to say ‘No! It must have been mixed up with my stuff in the Launderette’.

And so the process begins. Over fifty pages of notes, a couple of drawings (although one of them was an angry Colonel) and some rudimentary blocking ideas.

Now I was ready. Now I was prepared. I entered what I call my receptive state. This is a state many actors and performers have; just before we go on stage, we put ourselves into a light trance. We clear our minds of everything that is not related to the job in hand and become what we have been asked to become. A Danish Monarch. A frustrated taxi driver. A seven foot talking hot dog. All require the same process. Although one can overdo and start snoring. You can pass that off as researching how the character would sleep. I know Joanna Lumley does.

Oliver Meeke

Tremendously sad to see the death of Oliver Meeke this week. To think it was only 50 years ago we were on the set of the ‘Oh Go On’ film ‘Oh Go On Give Us a Quick Cuppa Tea’, the eighth in the series of ‘Go On’ films. There were 108 in total, all written by the tremendously hardworking Ric Tickel. Tickel went onto such triumphs as ‘Whoops! Where’s my genitals?”, “Up Your Bottom!” and Panorama.

Of course there were the standard reunions and anniversaries, many of which I missed due to other commitments (dentist, Florist and for some reason a gynaecologist). The films had a charm of their own ; an allegory for a more innocent time, a heroic tribute to an earlier era. Not as some people called them ‘crap’.

The Go On films were tremendously popular. Meeke had a laugh which defined the films. Combining a raspy gaffaw with a cheeky bass note and chirpy chuckle, it was a trademark of his own and kept audiences amused and educational psychologists in work. His face too was instantly recognisable, well defined features which could at once portray grief, mirth, triumph, despair, envy, rage, and an allergy to mayonnaise.

But Meeke was so much more than that. He frequently gave to charity; he once told me off set that more single mothers depended on him than he cared to count.

But off screen his life was a tapestry of human experience. A former eel farmer, he came to this country with nothing but the clothes he stood up in and a trunk full of stolen money. From there he worked his way up from Double Glazing salesman, gravel supplier and window repairman to the lofty position of Head of Goals at Fulham football club. Then he left there and decided to fulfil his ambition to be an actor. I remember him coming to me and asking me how I acted. “I want to act” he opined in that unique way. How fitting he should want to find his own technique, his own centre, his own rhythm. “I don’t want to be like you” he said. Of course! Each actor finds his own way, his own interpretation. His own speed of motion. A line delivered by myself maybe delivered completely differently by one of the so-called greats.

For example, a line as innocuous as

            “A punnet of strawberries please”

Could be delivered in a variety of ways. As mysterious, as loving, as threatening. A line like that could indicate malice. In contextural terms it could indicate villainy, perhaps an errant Lord planning a crime, a serial killer whose trademark is a strawberry left at the scene or someone who simply likes strawberries.

A piece of text wrote thus;

            “Your change”

A line full of potential. What change is this? Metaphysical? Biological? The result of some bizarre imperative? some anomaly hitherto unknown to man but through the effort of the protagonist revealed to be a universal truth resulting in a super power beyond the dreams of men? From a Snickers?

That long path to Thespis Excellence was frought with danger. Drying, corpsing, prop failure & appearing with Bobby Davro all waiting to befall the unsuspecting artist. Acting, I told Meeke, was an exploration of the self, a delve into all we are and all we can be. An awakening of the dormant and an exposure of the soul. Plus the wigs itch.

I imparted my knowledge to him. Performed ad hoc passages. Demonstrated my craft. In that flat I exposed all that it was to act. All that I knew. For him to cherry pick what was useful. After quarter of an hour he said that was fine and good and he had it now and was grateful and borrowed £20 to go down the Furrier’s Arms.

Once he had departed I went to my window to wave to him. To my shock several other actors were outside. Blessed, Guinness, Sellers, Connery and Mike and Bernie Winters. Off they went in a most jovial gait to the pub, leaving moi alone, considering his position and his worth and most importantly perhaps, knowing in his heart he will ne’er see his £20 again.

On set all was good. The Go On films were a success for all of us. Betty Mince had her adverts. Tom Gruelbakker had his deal promoting cars. Lovely Michael Gussett was hardly off the screen with his endorsements from everything from yoghurt to surgical trusses. And of course Meeke had his own sitcom, ‘You Foreign Bastards’, about a man who lived next to some foreigners. This was followed by “You Foreign Bastards of a different hue” and “God, am I surrounded by these people”. Probably three of the greatest sitcoms of their age, although the riots which followed every single screening were, and I continue to insist this, coincidental.

The end of the 70s saw the end of the Go On films. The humour had become dated and a several of the cast members had died (two through the catering) so maybe it was best to put the series gently to sleep.

Meeke then was Hollywood bound; the British sense of humour and timing has always been a draw for American audiences, and with his eyebrows he was a sure fire puller. Film after film after award after award followed. The man soared like an Eagle. Year after year his name became bigger, bolder and instantly associated with a hit. By merely mentioning his name you could make money. His name was on everything. Whiskey, diving boards, resuscitation equipment.

Then it all went wrong. Like so many at the top of his game, enough is never enough. Personally I knew Meeke to like either men or women. I don’t think this was a secret. But to be caught in his car on a Los Angeles boulevard performing a sexual act on a stuffed goose. It was too much. Although defence attorneys tried to claim it was consensual, his name had been tarnished beyond repair and doors slammed in his face. And not just taxidermists. The film industry too. Television didn’t want to risk it, radio couldn’t take the chance and even newspapers would take his recipes.

He was finished.

He returned to Britain a broken man, but a wiser one, and it was about this time he met his soon-to-be wife Melissa. Meeting as they did during an incident at the Natural History Museum, she swept him off his feet and, in his words ‘handcuffed my heart as well’.

Following his release from Rehab, the two were married in a private, personal ceremony with just four thousand people attending. Apparently. I couldn’t go anyway, I was having my shoe repaired.

And now this. Meeke no more. I can imagine him now, looking down on me. “McPhereson. It is your duty to uphold the baton” he would be saying, with no real intention of making a pun on my part time job in Subways. “Uphold the baton of what it is to be a British Actor” he would be saying. And I just wish producers could hear him. “You should be on telly in your own series. Look at some of the rubbish they have on now. You’re miles better than that lot” he would be saying “Stupid bloody BBC, bet they haven’t rung you back have they? You want me to have a word with God? Smite their Media City with Gonorrhea

 and scurvy? I can make him reign fire on them or even flood the whole land and kill those who ignore your great talent”. I smile when I think of him saying that. But no, Oliver. No. I shall persevere. I don’t need help or the destruction of Manchester just to get my own show.

“BBC? More like Bunch of twats!” his ethereal spirit is probably shouting.

Rest in Peace, Oliver. Rest in Peace.

Dr Who

I have heard tell there is a new job going in the BBC, that of a show called Dr Who. Apparently this thing has been running for years. How it escaped my notice is beyond me. It’s about a man in a blue box who goes around, apparently, poking his nose (and there have been several noses, if you believe that) into other peoples’ business. Aliens, apparently. The Dereks are his big foe, apparently.

Now, I have heard tell that the main role in this show, the Doctor, is up for grabs and they are looking for an older type gentleman to portray this gent. Who better?

I immediately rang Neville, my agent, and after excitedly telling him how suitable I was to be a time travelling alien, the confused Polish cleaner put me through to his mobile. Neville works strange hours. He never seems to be in the office when I want to speak to him, always away at meetings, at his Son’s barmitzvah or busy with important clients. Well, when you represent such luminaries as John Leslie or a Cheryl Baker lookalike you can expect to be pretty active.

When I finally got through I told him my plan “I would love to be Dr Who” I said.  My reasons for this disclosure followed and must have seemed like incomprehensible babble to him. There was a long pause at the end and Neville said he would pull every contact, call in every favour and harangue everyone involved with the show that he could find to make it so.

Neville can truly work miracles in television. He once represented a well known television newsreader who, after a particularly poorly directed ten o’clock news went on a killing rampage in the directors’ booth. Some of the staff, particularly the cleaners had never seen such carnage. Finally apprehended and tazored to the ground while covered in intestines and bits of intern, the situation was hushed up largely due to Neville’s influence. (Rumour has it they hid the corpses on a Nick Knowles show as contestants. The perfect crime. Although you didn’t hear that from me.) As I say I don’t wish to name any party involved, but as to the newsreader she’s still there and sometimes on Radio Four too.

I sat back in my chair. Soon I would be captain of whatever starship this person drove, issuing orders while clutching some sort of torch which people pretended to die from when I pointed it at them. The ice in my weak orange cordial literally shaking.

Two minutes later he called back. His answer encapsulated all the blinkered thinking, all the prejudice and malice, all the private little club mentality of such a production I have come to expect. ‘No’. I demanded to know why.

Readers my remember my stint in Blackhammer. For those who don’t, Blackhammer was about a android who was sent back from the future to right the wrongs which had been wrongly put down at the time as being right but had, in hindsight, been wrong. Also as Gor in Gor The Revolutionary, about a group of rebels attacking what they felt was wrong with the galaxy. Gor had a dark side to him, but he was essentially a good man caught in a storm. Many TV critics felt it was ‘exceptional’ television, and a few of them went so far as to call me personally a ‘cult’. Finally I told him about Dark Waves, a series in which I played a man who didn’t exist (who did, obviously) and his adventures with an automated canoe. Solving crimes, that sort of thing.

Neville was very firm on this. ‘Tarquin, this was all years ago.” He whined in that authoritarian whiney way of his “there’s a reason why none of these series are on DVD yet DIY SOS has a boxed set”. I said it was ridiculous and the BBC should put the tapes onto DVD and ship them out to the shows fan base immediately. I was told then, that in the early eighties, with storage being short and tape being expensive they had to make decisions about what to keep. Apparently my epics were top of the list. In fact, had it not been for the tape shortage they were earmarked as central heating fuel anyway.

Shocked as I was, I persisted. I put my case. I knew the show. I knew how to say Doctor in a mysterious way. I knew and remain in full knowledge of how to open the door to a cupboard and go in in a variety of speeds. I know how to hold a small coloured torch up like it’s some sort of weapon and most importantly, I know how to be inside a small space with a woman without subsequent charges.

But I was told no. I was told they had some specific people in mind, and I was none of those people.

The line then dropped and that was that.

Oh, what joy I would have brought to the role. Mysterious, yet approachable. Fun loving yet safety aware. Clever and yet… not quite so clever. I would have brought so much to the role that other actors would have said ‘I could never have done it like Tarquin. He will not be forgotten because of this’.

I would have been up there with the best Doctors like Steve Davis and Richard Baker.

It’s their loss.

The end of June

It’s the end of June and Summer is finally here. Many of my compardres have already departed for sunnier climbs; Connery is in Egypt, Moore has gone to Barcelona and Jacobi is being taken up the Urals by some mountaineers.

Alas, such travel is beyond me these days. Not that I haven’t ventured. I have ventured a great deal personally and professionally. I don’t think there’s a town in the UK which I have not appeared in in some production or another. Certainly many of them still remember me. My appearance in one long dust covered play was described as ‘a tour de force of the eternal human condition. Or it seemed eternal’.

One thing and actor must be able to do is portray the human condition. Be it happy, sad, angry, betrayed, envious, confused or some of the other emotions I can’t think of right now but I am sure they are around. I often use a technique I learned in drama college. “When you want to show sad, Tarquin” said old Macklby, our drama lecturer “remember something sad”. And it worked.  That evening in a production of Antigone, I thought of something sad. In fact, I thought of several of the saddest moments of my life and ended up apologising to the King of Thebes for not doing my technical drawing homework.

But it is a technique I like to pass on to younger actors. “Think of something tragic” I say. This resulted in one of my students performing what I believe modern parlance to be a ‘killing’ performance of Hamlet that very night. I won’t name him, bless him, and I don’t want to imply that his success on television, radio and indeed in films is down solely to my gently coaxing out his inner Thespian. It would be wrong to suggest that all the awards and plaudits and praise should be mine also, and far be it from me to even postulate that his millions of pounds, beautiful wife, luxuary lifestyle is totally and utterly traceable back to advice in that toilet in Grimsby.

For myself it is the art that is important. I have no time to write lectures and acceptance speeches anyway. I simply find that awards and all the glamour and glitz that go with it to be too far removed from the art itself. How many of those awards have resulted in a true portrayal of a down at heel bookmaker, addicted to crack, on the streets forced to service businessmen to glean a small token sum for his next fix? I couldn’t portray that role, even if it were offered, knowing that on my mantelpiece I have a trophy which screams ‘YOU ARE THE BEST’. It would distract me. And then there’s the obvious production and crew who love to see these awards, and you would have to take it in and they would all be in awe and then you would have the extra burden of being convincing on camera/mic/stage/in the marquee knowing they all know this is not the real you, no matter how true to life and tear jerking your performance.

No, keep your awards, I say. Don’t even mention me. For me, ‘tis the art that is important. The ripping of the shroud from the dark corners of the human psyche, the revelation of who we all are, and how far we could all fall, that is the key, the reason, the truth.

I would write further but I have to go as I am on lates in ASDA.