What makes a professional performer, hired to play a part in a certain way, deliberately break the tacit deal with author and audience? Did a friend of Keaveney’s come round and say ‘I enjoyed the show, but aren’t you horrible!…
Read More
Stewart Parker had written a play with music called Spokesong which ran for six months at the King’s Head. When he came up with another text, we jumped at it. Again, it had a lot of music and he called…
Read More
I, as the resourceful slave, Tranio, had bundled the naughty young people out of sight. My stern master was approaching his house. I greeted him, grovelling suitably as a chattel slave should and began urgently, desperately, to warn him of…
Read More
Yes, most people like to be liked. Most self-help books say so, and have a chapter on it. When I began in the acting trade I never gave a thought to whether or not the character I would play was…
Read More
This scene looks effortless. I doubt if anyone could guess that it took Len Rossiter several rehearsals, and then patient persuasion in the studio, to get his props sorted and the shots to make sense for the comedy to work…
Read More
The title for this site, and the two volumes of Are You Going to do That Little Jump? refers to a timeless, and unforgivable, misdemeanour that every actor confronts – upstaging. There is a splendid moment in Terence Rattigan’s Harlequinade when an actor…
Read More
