Working with Animals

Occasionally in this mixed up world, one is asked to do something which one knows one would secretly delight, but which one must hide ones' delight as not to lower ones' fee.

[note to self - lots of ones in that sentence, don't want to sound like Queen Victoria, does one?]

This week I am in Lowestoft Wild Monkey Park, for a commercial representing the Ironing Board Safety Council. They have councils, panels and departments for all sort of ridiculous things these days. You can't move for advisory bodies and Health and safety executives and welfare officials and security personnel. It's all a far cry from one producer, a man working the camera and a ostrich puppet.

People are so demanding now. When I made 'Clifton, The Ostrich Legged Lethario' a few years back (a biopic of Bernie Clifton, whose entire catalogue of stories for his grandchildren seem to increasingly involve an ostrich), it was just me, Michael Gambon, Michelle Dotrice and a ostrich. The four hour script we had (which we edited down from the original nine hours) was packed to the gills with japes and feathery head burying and we knew we could make a film at least as good as Cleopatra, although instead of the pyramids, cast of thousands and romance of the Egyptian landscape, we had a mantlepiece. We took it in turns to film as one of the other two played with form, and I particularly remember the tender and emotional scene towards the end of the film where one of the sticks that work the neck (on the ostrich, not Clifton) broke and caused much eye watering sadness.

We intended to show the film at community centres and old peoples' homes up and down the land, to share in Cliftons' struggles, to show it wasn't all pecking at imaginary bits of trill or attacking Michael Parkinson. Both Gambon and Dotrice were busy, Michael on his stage work and Dotrice had some pottery to be getting on with, and so it was left to me to demonstrate the result of our out pourings to the world. I also too responsibility for the subsequent Public Order offences.

My point though is this; for that production it was three people. For this advertisment we have over six hundred people involved, and I have no idea what any of them actually do. I know what I must do. I must iron a shirt faster than the Orangutan, which I can't see being much of a problem. But all these people... why? Why Lord?

Stage and Television Today

I once again apologise for my lack of entries into this, my online world. I am afraid I got embroiled in a particularly strict game of Farmville, which resulted in broken arms.

On the plus side I must say having your arms broken by a group of otherwise lovely friends is a real eye opener. I have not been able to do anything for myself for a while, and this has made me appreciate my arms all the more. Arms are wonderful things, allowing you to signal, lift, wave and all manner of other activities which normally we take for granted. Where, I wonder, would Magnus Pyke have been in his televisual career had not we evolved arms? He would have been explaining things wobbling around like a weeble.*

 I am not sure how the human race would have developed without arms. Certainly from a performers point of view key works would have been presented in an entirely different way. Shaw's Arms and the Man would have had to have been retitled, Hans Christian Anderson would have another name and I don't even want to mention Goldfinger.

All this thinking got me thinking, and thinking resulted in creativity. Why not, I surmised, why not do a musical based on arms? If Lloyd Webber can do Cats and someone else can do some nonsense connected with engine lubricant, I am sure I can do one about Arms.

I began the laborious project of working out how this would work. How would we have a collection of arms, just arms, on stage, singing songs about being arms?

Would they have left civilization after some catastrophie unknown? Could there have been a disease which makes them fall off or have to be amputated? The obvious problem was how to get them to sing; it would have to be a disease where your mouth ends up on your upper arm, otherwise it would just be a load of severed limbs on stage thrashing about, and I think we've all seen Billy Elliot.

I'll have to think carefully about this. It could be a winner.

So, arms now working as good as ever I am entreated to some marvelous physiotherapy. 

*It's been pointed out to me that Magnus would not have been wobbling at all, due to the fact he had legs. Well, suppose something had happened to those legs? Suppose he had upset Wiltshire Women's Guild during a demonstration game of Canasta? I would venture to suggest his scientific pontifications would not have been quite the profound insights into the universe and the laws governing it, had he been a-wobbling around like an egg, that was my point, but oh no, the lady proof reading this has to point out these things like some spoil-your-conversation Nazi and insist I of all people write a full and hearty explanation of why my comment relating to Dr Pyke was flawed in almost every respect. Like there was going to be any comeback anyway.**

** I have been contacted while I was writing by the estate of Magnus Pyke to the effect that I must make it perfectly clear he was not a weeble, and that any connection between his eminent work in science and wobbling whilst failing to fall down is mine and mine alone. The modern world, eh??

Mysterious NuBold

One is often asked, as one is something of a local celebrity, to attend functions, seminars, lectures. To give an almost papal blessing by opening supermarkets, theatres, sports facilities and museums. Such is the honour which befell myself when I was asked to do the Tombola at St Marigold's.

St Marigold's is one of the most wonderful diocese in the country, boasting over fifteen hundred people in the small Lincolnshire village, and those that had heard of me turned up to see me spin the old tumbler. I hate large crowds anyway.

It was something of an honour for me to pull out from the barrel the name of the person who has won the Vosene gift basket. Mr Harrington was delighted and gave a small speech, during which he mentioned my good self, although I had to correct him that I was not in fact Ms Windsor.

Calls - a Tarquin in demand

I have this morning received a call from a 'Lawrence', one of the myriad number of interns employed by Sharon, who seemed to be under the impression I was scheduled for an audition this morning. I dislike when agents schedule you to do something and don't tell you. It makes turning up difficult.

As an actor, and I don't know about other actors but I find this to be the case, I need time to think and consider how I will approach any part. For the role of 'man eating toast' in the Rowntree Jam commercial, for example, I spent a week eating nothing but toast. While doing this, I considered what sort of man I was. Was I married? Was I a professional man or one of the workers? How did I relate to my friends? What car did I drive? What was my relationship to my Mother like? How did I react when the cuts to live theatre in the provinces were announced? All these things were, to me, vital if I was to cram in as much pathos, character and meaning as Rowntree has crammed in real apricots.

You may think a lot of this work is wasted; oh no, I reply, waving a correcting but none-the-less stern finger in your direction, it is a vital and living necessity that I portray something like this to the best I can, breathing in realism to every gesture, conveying the meaning of life to this man to the wider public through the medium of eating toast. They would know his joy, his pain, his very soul, exposed for all to see and savour, the essence of the human condition. Through this medium, and using me as a conduit, he would be revealed to the world.

I attended this particular audition with a 108-page dossier of information on the man, his likes for Chopin and the Chemical Brothers, his passion for Bolton Wanderers, the hidden rage which lies behind all unharnessed talent. The director, who couldn't have been older that seven, tossed my information to one side 'You're only here to eat some toast' he said, not realising he'd missed out on my accounts of the man's jury service where he always thought an innocent man had gone to prison, completely negating the tale of the trouble he'd had with local kids trampling over his tomatoes and the ineffectual response of the local Police. The trials and tribulations of his planning permission application for that new patio. He missed all that. “Just eat the bloody toast, McPhereson” said the prepubescent plebe, and eat I jolly well did. Of course, my diet of six loaves of bread every two hours for a fortnight had given me something of a wheat intolerance, but I soldiered on. I tried to imagine I was one of our brave lads during the first world war, trapped in a filthy trench, facing the Somme and the Germans, knowing their new machine gun was waiting to launch the bullet which would end my life. Only replacing the Germans, the Somme and the gun with some toast and the prospect of slight indigestion.

In all my research I had forgotten to actually decide which sort of jam this man would prefer. I was shocked to find I had been dished up raspberry. “Raspberry?” I pondered, incredulously. “This man would not eat raspberry! He is a strawberry man. Strawberry is his perchant, his raison d'etre. His toast camouflage.” A heated argument ensued in which I stated that to do this character credit and give him any credibility at all, it would have to be strawberry or the whole thing would fall down and the whole of Britain would be laughing at our incompetence and unrealistic portrayal, and he put his point that I either did it or piss off.

I ate the jam, but with every mouthful I slowly and surely sank into a deep and loathful mire of despair.

They never called me back.

Lawrence seemed insistent that I had been told but checking my diary I found nothing to indicate such an engagement. Apparently I was to be a henchman in the new Bond film 'Snookerhips'. Or at least audition for one.

Of course, this all comes at a time for me that has been difficult. I have trouble keeping this blog going, partly because of the lack of suitable acting work for someone of my type, but mainly because I had the electricity cut off. And this after I offered to make their commercials for them. I had it all laid out.

Enter King Richard

“Foresooth, doest this bill of electric accurate my usage reflect? To mine knowledge, this seemeth a bit steep. The morrow I shall go and verily gather knowledge of other competitive tariffs in this the so called sector of domesticity”

It goes on to a battle between the Royalists who support Richard whose throne and future is thrown into doubt also in his quest to obtain a better unit base rate for his consumption of power and British Gas.

They didn't even reply. Is this to be the way of things? When I have a conversation with lovely Dame Judi or charming Charlie Dance or even Pongo Hopkins I expect a reply to my words, not an empty void of silence. But these are professionals; these are people who take parts of other people, mannerisms, affectations and in Hopkins case innerds, and turn them into something people can really appreciate. I dare say if there were a few more of them employed by British Gas I would have no problem communicating my financial problems to their customer services.

I envisage the conversation to go thus:

“Hello, thank you for calling British Gas, this is Sir Anthony Hopkins speaking, can I have your account number please”

There then would follow a conversation peppered with anecdotes, trivialities of acting gossip, snippets of information about upcoming productions he may or may not be involved in, all the while sorting out a better payment plan. And of course, should he be in a bad mood, he could use his Hannibal Lecturn character in awkward calls

“I think you people are blood suckers. You have screwed up my direct debit, taking 120 when you said it would be 80 and this has given me a shit load of bank charges, what are you going to do about it, eh?”

“Do you remember, when you were a small boy, you had a owl. And the owl would stare at you, night and day. Where ever you were in the house? And when you grew the owl grew until one day the owl was not there, and that was the day the Priest came to your room...”

“I am so sorry”

“Sorry isn't good enough. Remember... I have your account details on screen. Sleep well.”

That would be a change indeed. Of course, I am in no way suggesting British Gas should start actually eating their customers, although if the notion is raised in future years I would like some sort of recognition.

October

I again am forced to apologise for my tardy postings.

Being an actor, one is forced into a set of circumstances; auditions, applying for auditions, doing auditions, asking the director what it is exactly they want, arguing that the vision they have is not one you share, waiting the call back, hanging around the theatre, finding out where the director lives, finally accosting them in Waitrose dressed as the part you auditioned for (in this case a transexual Viking) and then all the legal and custodial events I shall not bore you with.

It really is rude of people not to do the simply thing of letting one know whether one will be able to afford to eat. You pick up the phone, you call me, and tell me “Sorry, Tarquin, we cannot see you are Eugene this time”. I can take it. I'm not a monster. Contrary to what Mssrs Aldkirk and Weston have claimed, I am professional enough to accept defeat.

I must say though the mafia had a good thing of placing a severed horse's head on the pillow next to their intended victim. I couldn't actually find a horse, and I did feel somewhat odd harming an animal just to make a point, so my decision was right, I think, to use sprouts.

Voodoo is also something which I have found to be ineffective, and I have now disposed of all my dolls and pins.

'My Beats' - transcription of my show - By Tarquin

Renee and Renato; which is which remains a mystery.

And so I graduated early from Drama school. It was a proud day, and one which resonates with the fraternity there. Mr Olga, the Head of the College, told me – and I quote “We have nothing we can teach someone with your level of talent”. As I exited the portals of the learned buildings, many of my compatriots and fellow students were so overcome with emotion stayed away, so warped with grief, and the few I did see couldn’t find the words to express their sorrow at my departure, choosing instead to look at a advertisment for a jumble sale in the students’ union rather than meet my gaze.

My work was full and varied. Ne’er a year pass without one part or another. I hate to boast, as you know, but my work was unparalleled in both it’s breadth and girth and quality.

3 Blob Creature in Dr Who

Crowd member in Boys From the Black Stuff

Patient in background in Casualty

Unnamed laughing Cockney Cheeky Chappie in pub in Eastenders

Dead man in Holby City

Pedestrian in The Bill

Plague victim in The Survivors

Slab Occupant in Silent Witness

It was a fantastic time; and the truth and exposure I brought to all the roles meant it may have distracted viewers from the main action, and would explain why I was never asked back.

It was also about this time I was asked to front a campaign and become the face of a product so fundamental to our democratic and quasi political way of life it had become endemic to our national image. When I was first approached by Finchers Crab Paste, the substance had remained largely unknown to me. I had no idea crabs produced paste, let alone what that paste would do. I tended to use Gloy.

I was taken on a tour of Finchers’ factory, and my knowledge of crab paste increased exponentially. “Are you up for it?” said the Managing Director, whose name is lost to me temporarily. “Yes. Yes I am” I replied.

For five years I was the voice of Crab Paste. No one could rival me in terms of enthusiasm for the product. Every event, every public speaking engagement, every after dinner speech I made at the time was festooned with humourous stories relating to, involving or somehow used as a metaphor, crab paste.

But the party came to an abrupt end one cold day in March, when I received the news there was no longer a Finchers Crab Paste to be the face of. The manager, whose name still eludes me, had apparently taken a turn for the worse, and shot eight people in his factory, before turning the gun on himself.

This tragedy touched me deeply. How could I continue to front a company which now was basically a warehouse full of dead bodies and errant shellfish? How would I reaffirm myself into the world of serious acting? My face was known, yes, but was that enough? I rang my agent who appeared to have changed his number and I got through to a Tyre replacement centre. As an actor you learn opportunity knocks but once and asked if they had any plans to stage any theatre in the near future, whether traditional or experimental. I wasn’t bothered. And neither, judging by the reply were they. I did however avail myself of a set of smart radials, with good tread and a three year warranty. Which was handy, a good price and should come in handy should I ever learn to drive.

It was then I entered what is known as my ‘dark period’. A succession of films – none of which I am ashamed of – followed. Again the range was vast. Plumber, gardener, bridegrooms’ best friend, tv repair man, ointment salesman and campanologist. The plots were wafer thin though, and my Spotlight entry that year was deleted on the grounds of the Obscene Publications Act.

There was also the incident with Una Stubbs in Mother Goose in Cirencester.

These were dark times. And my music reflected that.