Advertising and the Actor

Just come off the phone from talking to a certain computer manufacturer. You see, acting isn't only about walking about, speaking your lines and not bumping into things. It's about creating. It's about being open to the muse and giving it form, breathing life into the ideas and concepts that are floating around. And if posssible flogging them to someone.

I well remember Sir Ian McKellan, during fallow periods when work was thin, devising a new advertising scheme for detergent. Long into the night he laboured. Should it be a housewife? Should the lead character be a single man? Should it be a super hero bubble, searching for dirt in a cape? Sir Ian disappeared for a few months and then – in a shock reappearance in the Duck and Sniffers – he appeared triumphant. The pitch itself was brief. Sir Ian was to play the main part, a beleaguered man tortured by a mysterious stain on his codpiece. Try as he might he cannot remove it without Stainaway. Sir Ian demonstrated his characters dilemma by furiously rubbing his codpiece, waving it about and moaning too all and sundry before being asked to leave by a somewhat luddite landlord. I caught up with him in the street and after dusting himself down and getting up Sir Ian explained the whole concept. It was to be set in 15^th Century Italy, and this Duke of Naples had an important meeting with the Pope but had spaghetti stains on his best outfit and therefore was in a quandary about the attention he paid to his personal grooming in front of the Pontif. Many courtiers suggested remedies, but none seemed to fit and with each paltry and superfluous suggestion a courtier met with the blade of the executioners axe. Even his sisters were not immune to his wrath and on the scaffold one gave a heartfelt and well written speech about brotherly love, the joy of life and the importance of bibs. Finally a wizard appears with the detergent and removes the offending stain and is rewarded with keeping his head in the traditional position. And so the Duke finally meets the Pontif, who compliments him on the cleanliness of his codpiece, and awards him six castles and a Earldom.

The actual advertisment was somewhat over the allotted twenty eight seconds, running at roughly three and three quarter hours (minus the music but including interlude).

Sir Alec Guinness once confided in me he wanted to promote Cream Eggs. He had this idea that he doing a Hamlet, and would be in the middle of his oratory, when his stomach would rumble and he would squat down and produce a Cream Egg. The rest of the cast would then abandon their roles and tuck into his newly laid egg. This was - amazingly - turned down. As was Derek Jacobi's Zanussi washing machine idea, David Suchet's DFS Sale and Helen Mirren's Volvo (though the last one may be down to a spelling error in the proposal).

Letters, Bills and The Bill

This morning I received by way of the postman (who was in Eastenders) a letter from British Gas. I know, the part you are intrigued by – my erstwhile eastendian mail deliverance officer towit the indentity of. Well, after a brief discussion which started with him denying what we both knew quite fervantly to an admission of the facts (and the swearing inbetween) I was sworn by said postie not to divulge his name for professional reasons. But I did praise his later work as a gangland documentary maker.

The letter, such as it was, was regarding an underpayment I am 'supposed' to have made regarding my consumption of gas and electricity. I of course dispute this, and it is here that acting comes into it's own. Whereas an ordinary person would not have the tools to make a case with such a powerful foe, an actor is ideally placed to maximise human emotion and reaction to a point where a considerable saving can be reached. I remember seeing darling Thora Hurd once get an entire cruet set from Harrods by simply wailing loudly whilst spinning on the floor knocking things over. As we left, cellars and dispensers in hand, we laughed at how we had outwitted the humble assistant, her manager and the security people and nabbed what Thora called 'A tidy haul'. While I think about this I also recall the lovely late Alan Rickman getting a two for one discount in the Harvester simply by manipulating his eyebrows in a sinister way. He did in fact in the end pay for two though because he had another portion on the same terms. I miss Alan greatly, I can't believe it has been so long since I saw him, and longer since one of those three a.m. Phone calls (he changed his number).

Back to British Gas. I have always found electricity to be a mysterious thing. You can't see it, smell it, feel it but it's there. A lot like the acting in Hollyoaks. I sometimes think it would be good to do a series on BBC 2 about things which have no substance, and when I have put this idea forward I am flattered people consider me to be the ideal presenter. I rang their customer helpline, which is euphemistically called 'Customer Services'. The voiceover telling me my call is important I find impertinent, given as how they have anticipated I and my fellow 'customers' would be on hold and therefore commissioned a voiceover to underline just how important we are. She interrupts the Vivaldi with such rudeness had she been at one of my shows I would surely have had her removed before she'd even thought about advising me that I may find solace and solution in the website they so ably provide. I am put off by computers and this Internal Web because of a mistype I once made for Hotmail. This was not the sort of service I desired, and there was many a blush in the library that day, I can tell you.

There is nothing wrong with things being online. I am not adverse to technology. I have a microwave. But I fear many jobs will eventually be replaced by these Al Gore rhythms. I have no idea what they are but I think eventually they will replace live theatre. It will be people sat at home, watching actors sat in their homes doing performances, mark my words. And they lose the essential thing that the theatre is all about. The only plus side as far as I can make out is that the audience will have to clear up their own rotting fruit from behind the screen. But that is of little comfort. Actors need the approval and adoration of their audiences there, in the flesh. We can't rely on tape recordings of tumultuous applause to be triggered to make us feel good. We're not all Michael Winner. We need people to adore us in person, and if possible tell all their friends to come and adore us too, be it matinee or evening performance.

I'll tell you who is good with these computery things though; Biggins. He is a master with them. They are like second nature. To watch those podgy fingers dance a ballet over the keyboard is a joy to watch. He did offer to let me have a go on his laptop, but I totally misunderstood him and we don't talk much now.

Still on hold...

I often think of the times yonder when there was a shop you could go into for such things. You would speak to Terry or Elaine or Yvette and they would listen to your problem and sort it out. It was more personal then, and the gamut of angry or frustrated customers in the showroom would give you so much material for a performance. A glance here. A frustrated thump on a Tumble dryer there. If you were lucky there would be a right to-do and Police would attend and there was all the ingredients for a character piece in the Bill. I miss The Bill. As people may remember, I was Denny Snorkels, a local vicar trying to reintegrate recently released thugs, druggies and murderers into the area with little or no success. The character was sad and lonely and unfulfilled, and I was sadder and lonelier and even more unfulfilled when he was found dead in a Dumpster in only his second episode. I did suggest a spin off, Snorkels of the Dead, where he comes back Jesus-like to continue his work saving lost souls. I told the producer and the Welsh bloke with the big nose and both said they needed to think about it, I haven't heard anything since so fingers crossed. The Bill were a rum lot, really. Very dedicated to their work. When I was leaving, I suggested perhaps we should all go out and have a few drinks and a Chinese to celebrate new opportunities for me, but no one had even thought of this, such was their focus on the show. What could have been a leaving party to really remember ended up as White Lightening and a packet of pringles whilst gazing at Ceefax through a Rumblelows window.

Still on hold....

Now I think about it there was no real investigation into Snorkels demise. I think one of the DCIs mentioned it but I don't think they really looked into it. Now that is a plot hole. Maybe I should call them and mention it.

Easter

Well, another easter has been and gone and let me tell you in acting circles there is no greater time than Easter. Apart from Christmas. And Autumn. And summertime spectaculars. And Winter Wonderland engagements. But apart from all that – and halloween – apart from all that Easter is the number one time to get together with acting brethren and – and Pancake day – relate stories of your exploits in the world of Thespis. And Michaelmas.

To me, Easter holds a special place. For it was Easter when my Nanny, Bess, took me to the theatre for the first time. I was four and, as most four year olds are, very excitable. I remember the smell of the West End, the lights, the action. Oh, the heady days of childhood wonder. It was here I first used a public lavatory.

Nanny Bess has taken me to London because my parents apparently had something to sort out. To this day I do not know what it was but I do know Nanny Bess left our house shortly upon our return.

London was a magnificent place in those days, full of promise and tweed. Before we went to the theatre, we went to see Oxford Street. If there is somewhere which seeped what London was in those days, it was Oxford Street, and I drenched myself in the colourful characters. There was the bus drivers, angry and impatient. The angry taxi drivers shouting as we crossed the roads. The builders always ready with a comment about Nanny Bess which young ears should really never hear and the restrained tutting of ladies as they went by. I was pleased to see Nanny Bess was welcomed to the capital with a picture on the front of the Standard, although I cannot remember what the headline was, I do recall her shyly hurrying away.

The theatre we attended was the Shaftsbury, a place where subsequently I have attempted to work many times. The welcoming foyer and doorman have long since gone, but if you close your eyes you can still hear the sounds of merry theatres goers within. And sometimes you can almost still smell the doorman.

We bought peanuts (you were allowed to buy peanuts in those days) and sat in the Gods, watching the action. It was an Ibsen play 'Olaf Liljekrans'. As you can imagine, watching a 19^th century in the original Norwegian didn't long entrance the youthful me, and it wasn't long before I was attempting to flood the stage with ill-aimed peanuts. This lead, I am somewhat ashamed to say to the first and last time I have been forcibly ejected from a Theatre (if you don't include Mother Goose in Southend in 2006. I still say I should have got that part. Damn you, Jacobi!). But the bug was definitely there. For acting, not for being ejected. Although God knows some people have made a big name for themselves being thrown out of entertainment venues of all types. But not me. I like to be in there, on stage, all eyes on me, and if possible, being supposed to be there.

The bug was in me and I immediately pestered my parents to send me to stage school. I wanted to act, to give pleasure. My Father said I gave pleasure whenever I entered another room, so it was obviously something I was destined to do. I was enrolled in Bernie Dintes' Dramatic Academy. One of the advantages of this form of education was that it was self-supporting. We, the students, made saucepans for fourteen hours a day and then would put on a show in what remained of the day (as long as we kept the noise down). Musicals, drama, comedies, they flowed through us in those heady shows like the sauces which were put in the pans we were making. We didn't pay enough attention in the smelting process and thus the school closed down.

Another post

 What a fantastic few months this has been. Work came in at a tremendous rate. And it was an offer to be part of that most lucrative of genres: The adaptation of a book into film form. An adaptation I hear you say? Tolkien had it done with lord of the Rings, Dumar with the Muskateers and C.S.Lewis with his Lions and wardrobes. Well, this was the same sort premise but instead of Lords, Rings, Swords and oversized cupboards, this was a film based on a series of books which promise the rare combination of adventure, intrigue and some more adventure. I refer of course to the big screen version of Delia Smiths' Cooking For The Family.

But how, I hear you ask, could they adapt what is essentially a set of recipe ideas into a (I believe this is the term) blockbuster summer sizzler? This is where the genius of the idea comes in. All the ingredients have an adventure, a journey, overcoming great obstacles and challenges to be included in the recipe. I play Denny, a socially awkward potato cake. Denny's story from his humble origins to his ambition to be draped in sauces and folded into a makeshift sandwich echo many struggles. Look at Billy Elliot. That was more or less Denny's Story, but with a heavier accent on potatoes than in the ballet ridden drama.

It was the first time I have been asked to portray a vegetable. It is always difficult enough to portray my fellow humans, but vegetables? That was a challenge I could not pass up, not least because it would clear my rent. When I told Mrs Ovald, my landlady, about it, she seemed unimpressed. Although this could be because my diction was not all it should have been owing to the headlock her son had me in. After showing her the contract I was a:allowed to stay another six months and b:allowed to breathe.

Preparing to play a vegetable is something I think my fellow actors could benefit from. There is no text, no real guidelines so it is a rare chance to start with a blank canvas – or empty plate you might say!

Firstly, one must study ones' subject. In this case, the humble spud. Where does it come from? Well, it comes from the ground. Humble origins are a clue to it's ambition. When the potato first emerges from it's muddy womb, what future does it visualise? Remember, this is a character without the guidance of parents, so it starts off totally alone. It was difficult actually having had parents (both dead) to imagine how it would be not to have parents, although this was made somewhat easier by the death of Mother and Pappa. How I wish they could share in this moment of triumph. What would I not give to be telling them all about it through their letterbox. I decided on some field work (forgive the pun) and went to work on a farm.

Farming is hard, as anyone who has been in the Archers will tell you. There's all sorts of rules, regulations, equipment and muck all over the place, and that's a radio programme so God knows what farms are really like. The farm I tried first was O'Briens Farm. Gladden O'Brien was a no-nonsense farmer. I explained to him my plight, about being a potato cake and suchlike, and, after making me a cup of tea he went to (what I assumed) get some paperwork. What he was in fact doing was ringing Social Services. After explaining it to the Ambulance people and the two officers, I was allowed on my way.

I decided I would be better off buying some potatoes and studying them. But what sort? King Edwards? The other ones? It's all so confusing. I went to Angus, my local grocer and bought a single potato. He made some crack about having friends in but I paid him and left without riposte. I placed it on the table at home and stared at it. How did it feel? What was it's purpose in life? If it could speak, what would it say? As any actor would, I concentrated all my knowledge into those five hours, ignoring doorbells, the phone or the sirens outside. I wanted to understand the experience.

At some point I fell asleep. I am unsure when, but the dream I had revealed all I needed to know.