Christmas at Chez Tarq

With Christmas on the horizon and my unexpected release from Cockmouth Theatre Company’s pantomime, I find myself writing Christmas cards too all and sundry. It really is a marvellous way of both keeping in touch and making sure you are in peoples’ mind when casting their next show. Obviously, the better cards are sent to those who will, at some point, hopefully, reward you with a deep and well written part, maybe a domestic thriller, where someone other than your character is murdered, although initially it looks like they died in a tragic accident while washing up. Or maybe the lead in a show which a policeman from the future solves crimes from the past through time travel because he already knows the culprit. These are but two ideas I have included in a card to Peter Welbourne, the television producer who so kindly cast me as onlooker 3 in an episode of Casualty.

There is an art in looking on at the action. As an actor, one wants to be at the heart of it, the focus of all eyes. The dramaticas Majoris. But one must resist such temptations and look on, with the necessary emotion. Concern. Fright. Admiration. Shifty. All emotions which can be conveyed via body language and tone. I decided to make the character a solicitor, embroiled in a case where his client has gone missing under mysterious circumstances, whose very life may be threatened by the criminal gang he seeks to incarcerate. A man of character, whose life’s work has been largely pro-bono because he believes in the sanctity of the law, yet when he needs the law to protect him, he is found wanting. The Police seem uninterested to help him, and his plan – to hide in that remote country shack until the trial is over and the danger faded – weighs heavy on his mind, not least because he cares for his staff and they would be without income should he have to vanish for a prolonged period. This, along with an ill elderly relative and a penchant for antiques  - one of which may hold the key to the solution of all this business - adds to the weight on his slender yet manly shoulders. Conveying all that in the two seconds I was on screen without words was, I have to say, a feat of acting supremacy, even though I had to peer over someone’s shoulder I like to think the viewers caught sight of me and thought ‘good lord, there’s a solicitor type fellow with an interesting tale to tell. We’d much rather follow this chap than all this medical guff’ but as usual the vultures of the BBC thought otherwise, dug in their talons and edited me out.

I was also fortunate this year in making an appearance on the reality show ‘Falling Stars’, a show where celebrities are voted on by the public to be pushed out of a door of a plane. I pride myself in coming second to receive ‘the shove’ out of fourteen people, the first one being the Go Compare man. God rest his soul.

I would like to point out this is not a show for people who are otherwise unemployed elsewhere. I know for a fact several of these people are in demand. Paul Ross for example has many enquiries from Glazing Firms, while Richard Bacon is swimming in offers from Debenhams’ Ham. I myself had a lucrative advertising contract which, on taking this job, I was unable to fulfil, and consequently handed back the sandwich board.

If you want to send your favourite celebrity something, here’s a list of things some of them really like

Ant & Dec                   : 2 stroke lawnmower oil

Paul Ross                    : Any book of Les Dawson jokes

Claire Balding            : Stout Walking Thong

Gavin Esler                 : One of those things with the sucker on a spring – he can’t get enough of them

Esther Rantzen          : Notepaper scented with onions

John Humphries        : Brilcreme

Ross Kemp                 : Anything with Snoopy on

Dale Winton               : Snails.

Simon Calder             : Buckets

James Corden            : Vouchers for cycling proficiency tests

Of course, you can send whatever you want, but it is always best to stick with the list. I once sent Bill Turnbull something, as a sort of improvised gift, and he put my windows through. I don’t know it was him, but he was smiling a heck of a lot on breakfast the next day. Turnbull can be very bad tempered; rumour has it Shirley Bassey interrupted him once during an interview and off camera he later flushed her head down the toilet.

Anyway, I best get on with writing these cards. Away with you.

Walking (but not in Memphis)

Just come off the telephone after a conversation with Marvin Spules. Fascinating man, who, at 27, has become the latest hot property in the television world. Had I the guile, acumen and raw talent he possesses in droves, I would surely be up there with Gielgud, Pottier or Inman. He says he wants me to front a new show, a reply to the Balding strand 'rambling', called “Tarquins' Trots”. Fronting a television show is difficult for an actor; we are always concentrating on being someone else, and to be oneself on screen is to an actor what climbing K2 with no arms is to a mountaineer.

One must show a side of one that people wish to see, or one is naked and without pretence. As a presentation style, I mean, not literally [note: check not literally with Spules]. Take the late lamented Kenneth Williams. He presented many shows and no one even suspected he spent his spare time beavering away at home writing horrible things about everyone in his diaries. I was mentioned several times, although it was deleted by the censors, presumably because it was a little vague or litigious or gynaecologically inaccurate. It would have been nice to have seen my name in such a book, I remember the thrill when I was mentioned in 'Look In', the popular magazine of the 1970s, where some pop band was referred to as 'as popular as Tarquin McPhereson'. I forget which band it was, but it was there, I have the cutting. And copies are stored at my late-Mothers' house, so any rum cove who says I am imagining it I can prove them wrong.

Spules says the show would be myself and a celebrity walking about in various locations, chatting about our careers and memories. It would be so much better than Balding stumbling about all over the place, burbling on about careers and memories. No, we will walk with purpose. With the confidence that five years at RADA and twenty years of rep gives you. Yes, those who come with me will be the doyens, the very cream of their professions. Not the rubbish Balding has. You know she was talking to a man who had an ant farm the other day? Where's the nourishment in that? Unless you eat the ants, which I have read people are thinking about. But she didn't mention that, no. She just droned on and on about how they had their own societal structure. Piffle. If they were so structured as a heirachy, where's their contemporary theatre then? Eh? Where's the improvised avant garde or the Brecht or Shakespeare or Dostoevsky or lloyd-Webber? Tell me that! No, they just collect twigs and stuff and make big hills. And pardon me if I am wrong, Ms Balding, but has any of these hills been cut open to reveal an actors workspace and suitably comfortable auditorium? I doubt it. There's scant evidence of even a green room buffet, and that in itself is evidence enough to dismiss your hypothesis.

While I think about it I will actually make a note that should this series be given the green light, I want to make a requirement from candidates appearing that they walk in a manner befitting such a show. I will personally vet their gait. I can't have them slouching about. Three things. Walking, marching about and strutting.

Walking is vitally important for any actor. A walk indicates a characters intention. For instance, Terry Scott had a wonderful ponderance in his movement, whereas, say, a Nazi guard had a more regimented step. Imagine if they had been swapped around! June Whitfield would have had to deliver her lines constantly avoiding a kick in the chin.

I am on fire with ideas.

Summer comes to a close

I do love the lull in the Summer months which allow one to get centered for the long slog of performances one has to give during the darker months. It also gives one a chance to catch up on the social circuit, with gatherings and get-togethers we thesps whisper in hushed tones the latest in gossip and maybe share the odd precious tip or trick.

There is nothing as rewarding as sharing a little device or inflection which would, in all probability make the difference between an award and a show which is 'going on tour from the West End'.

Let me assure you, tips and tricks are no different in our trade than they are in say, plumbing or TV repair or being an astronaut. In fact the latter is particularly apposite as forget your line as an astronaut and you simply drift off into the endless eternity of space to run out of air. Forget your line in Shepton Mallet Grand Theatre and it's much the same, only with the appearance of old vegetables flying stage-ward at the curtain call, something that would I am sure raise eyebrows at NASA.

While I am on the subject, I have noticed a trade in the foyer of many theatres I have worked in, namely an old fruit and veg stall positioned in the vestibule. I have mentioned this to several of my peers and absolutely none of them have seen the same thing. But there, in the foyer of the Cheadle Avalon, is small table selling a selection of what I can only describe as off-veg. Now I am not one to boast, but I have been informed that this is peculiar to me, that a small following of admirers have developed a cottage industry. To think, that perhaps I have inspired a generation of entrepreneurs and innovators to spot this business opportunity is as humbling as it is flattering.

More proof, if indeed proof were needed, that acting is, in fact, the most inspirational job in the world.

Sad Tarquin

I have been saddened recently about the deaths of my fellow thespians, Derek Mule, Peter Gask and Ricardo Needles. It is always sad when such people leave us, and although I have been helping Police with their subsequent enquiries, I do feel I should share a few memories.

Derek Mule was one of the stalwarts of the now legendary Fenchurch Players. Ask anyone who knows the slightest bit about post-Dada Neo Impressionalistic Brechtian Improvisation between March and August 1964 in Fenchurch Street and they will know exactly what you mean. Derek was brought up by Nuns and, after an unsuccessful boxing career, where he managed to be knocked out not only by his opponents but also by a surprisingly moist sponge, he settled on a career in acting. At 19 he was auditioned to appear in David McKaverkies' seminal production of 'It's The Wife'. In the audience was a young producer called George Givern, who immediately cast him as third mysterious alien two rows back and eight in from the left in scene 26a of his film 'The Hoardes of Aliens'. The role was reprised in the series 'A slightly larger hoarde of aliens', 'A really substantial horde of aliens' and the final installment 'Bloody hell, that's a lot of aliens in one place at the same time'. His television work was manifest and varied. Ne'er a shadowy figure nor worried onlooker would be seen that was not him. In Doctor Who he was a man who sought revenge on Jon Pertwee for standing on his toe by destroying Saturn. Z Cars saw him as Emperor Zang, evil warlord of Dock Green. And of course Jan Francis stunt double in Just Good Friends. But it was the late eighties and early nineties he became a household name, like Hoover or Vim. Travis Naughton was on everyones' lips, as the swarthy shoe salesman with a perchance for detecting murder in the series 'Death is a four letter word'. For eight long years everything was investigated, from the dark mysterious death of a bus conductor on a late night journey from Hull, the demise of a Northern dancer in a hangliding mishap and perhaps the Zenith of his story arc, the deaths of several members of a Sheffield sect of the Yakuzi. I met Derek several times, but his hectic life and career obviously took over, and he never returned my calls. Success makes loners of us all.

Peter Gask was a natural in every way. Trained as a weatherman in the army, he often boasted about his missions abroad. His sauntering to Denmark to test the snow. His traversing of the Khyber Pass to see how far dribble could travel at altitudes. And his undercover reports on what the clouds looked like over Berlin. All, he was told, were vital to win the war, although it was to his shame it was 1972. Peter's most famous moment came in the now-infamous drizzle-gate, when he forecast that it would be fine and dry with little chance of showers. However, it drizzled in Rochester for over fifteen minutes. Riots ensued. Society broke down. Gask became a wanted man, looking over his shoulder every minute of every day lest an angry damp Rochester Resident exact terrible revenge. He resorted to disguises, and finally presented the weather as Edith Piaf. Finally the met office employed something few know about – the Weatherman Protection scheme. A weatherman or woman, having made an erroneous prediction, can be reassigned to another locale with a new identity. All ties to the old life are cut. Peter and I stayed in touch, although it was difficult because due to a Met Office typing error, he was assigned the identity of one of the Queens' Corgis. I cannot divulge which Corgi was Peter. Sadly, after 8 years as a Corgi peter was put to sleep after biting the Duke of Edinburgh.

Ricardo Needles was the ultimate gentleman. Suave, generous but with a playboy streak which got him some plum roles in both film and Theatre. Born Ricardo Oliympardi in Rome in 1952, he got his first break in performing during a try out for a spanner commercial. From there, he rose to all sorts of tool promotions. Spanners, trowels, hammers, screwdrivers and ratchets. It was during a promotion for Señor Gulez Wheelbarrows that he was seen by directed Rick Kim, and cast in the now cult horror Wheelbarrow of Blood, part of the oeuvre we now call tacky but which was, at the time, quite the thing to be seen in. Many notables have been in these trashy tales. David Warner, Tom Baker, Peter O'Toole. It was almost a rite of passage. Needles went onto become one of the regular actors in the series, appearing in Pruners of Death, The Sheering of Nellie Potsmould, Ungodly Potting and the now legendary Hose of Horror. From there it was a spell at the National, starting in Needhams' The Closet in the title role, through Brecht and Ibsen, to the Bard. From here he stepped almost effortlessly – but with the help of producer Bunny Fealan – to become Dr Richard Noakes in the daytime drama 'Gloves'.

All three of these fine performers will be missed, not least because they all owed me money.

Resting. Again.

As April becomes more in fashion on the calendar, I find myself once again at a loose end after my one man show was cancelled owing to having more people on the stage than in the audience. But every cloud as they say has a silver lining, and this event has given me some much needed time to catch up on my reading of The Stage.

For those who don't know, the Stage is the newspaper of my trade. Reviews, who is doing what, who has won what and who is reduced to hawking their wares in the small ads. Not that there is any shame in that; many an artist has resorted in desperate times to placing ads selling a collection of wigs or offering to read a script or host a childrens' party dressed as an Ewok.

I once saw an ad for a certain celebrity who I won't name, offering to mend peoples fridges and freezers. People wouldn't expect the former host of a sports programme to be mending white goods, but he must have got some work because I saw him hosting Countdown a little later. Although he did vanish from there again, I am assuming because of the success of his repair business and not because some people were after him brandishing spoiled food.

It is the one thing you learn in this tough, tough business; to have a second fiddle. A trade or skill by which you can earn when parts run thin. Christopher Biggins is a talented man, but no one knows he makes small cuddly toys for Goldfish. Derek Griffiths spends much of his spare time claiming things from lost property, Todd Carty makes sea lion noises at Brighton Marine World, Helen Mirren is a wrestler and lovely Richard Hammond can identify no less than sixteen different types of paving slab. Skills are essential.

They also bring you in touch with that most precious thing, your audience. It is important you never look down on them, simply because you are a successful performer and they have to pay to see you work, whereas in their world you simply turn up and look through a window and as long as you are on public land they can't do a thing about it. I know the law. The important thing is to treat them as equals. They are not of course, but as a performer you use all your guile and skill to make them feel as good as you. To be convincing in life is as important if not more so than being convincing on stage, if only for avoiding a pummelling by an unconvinced co-worker.

I sometimes employ little psychological tricks to 'get them on side'. In the canteen I will make it plain that I am not a celebrity and don't want any special treatment. I will say this loud and, if needs be, thump the table. I have been known to spill soup, such is my gusto. I will add I am just an ordinary man I will say. With ordinary needs and wants. I get up. I go to the toilet. I sing songs to my rubber duck in the bath. Completely normal. This elicits a kind of quiet in them, as the realisation sinks in that I am one of the crew. And, having digested this truth, they turn back to their own table and carry on their respective meals.