Did you hear about the very-full-of-himself actor at Bexhill Rep (I swear this is true) who gave himself a grand exit, swept off the stage and straight into the sea? A friend of mine was in the company there – she should know. Sailors and actors tell the best yarns – I am not in touch with any sailors right now, so here are some actors’ yarns we hope will hook you.
The other time an actor threatened to unbalance a show I directed, by altering his character, could have been the most disastrous. Jeremy Kingston, notable Punch and Times critic, had written an extremely witty and moving play, much in the…
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!…
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…
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…
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…
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…
As I was composing the last couple of paragraphs of my recent theatre book… – The Adventure Continues, all I had in mind was how to properly celebrate the evolution of theatre practice into the startling wonders of the Present…
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…