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.
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