Year of the King: An Actor's Diary and Sketchbook - Twentieth Anniversary Edition Read Online Free PDF

stunned me that I was
pointing in the wrong direction, expecting her to come down the stairs
instead of up them, and missed seeing her altogether.
    It didn't matter, for I had just brushed shoulders with Richard III.
    This morning, almost two years later, a cleaner is hard at work, polishing
the plaque. I arrive at the stage door. This is run like the reception desk
of a modern hotel. Usually there are a few people standing around
clutching briefcases (journalists, members of the government doing financial surveys) and a queue of members of the public who think they're at
the box-office.
    I will be greeted either by Irish Shamus, large and friendly, `Hillo
Towni,' or by Cockney Ron with tomahawk head, `Aw'ri' Toan?'

    Into the corridors where Radio 3 is piped during the day: it gets
everywhere. The uninitiated may be alarmed, going into a loo to find the
1812 playing. They pee, glancing nervously over their shoulders as canons
explode in the cubicles behind them. On Saturdays Critics Forum might
be on and if you've just opened in something, you might be under
discussion. You hurry along the corridors then, hands clasped over ears,
in an Orwellian nightmare, as disembodied voices tell you what they think
of you, and it's being broadcast all round the building!
    In the evening the show is relayed, Main House or Pit depending on
which corridor you're in. It can change from The Tempest to Moliere, Cyrano
to Tartuffe, with the slapping of a swing door.
    Today it is Maydays, so I move into the Number One dressing-room.
This involves carrying my large cardboard box (containing shampoos,
deodorants, aftershaves, vitamins, glucose, Rennies, Kaolin & Morphine,
dressing gown, towel and little cushion for the quick zizz) from the
communal Pit dressing-rooms down several floors to the individual Main
House dressing-rooms on street level.
    The Number One dressing-room (its number is actually Fifty-One, but
that doesn't have the same ring to it) looks rather like something out of a
motorway motel. Characterless functionalism. Its main feature is a pay
phone fixed on to the wall in a plastic module of almost alarming yellow.
Otherwise there's a sofa, three chairs, work-surface, wash-basin and a
window. Through this you can watch legs and wheels going down the
ramp to the car-parks. You cannot see the sky, but by twisting down and
sideways you can just see a reflection of the sky in the glass building
opposite. This is not to be sneezed at when you're underground for most
of the day.
    Despite all, I love it, the much maligned Barbican. In a hundred years
they will look on it with such affection. `Why can't they build theatres like
the Barbican nowadays?' they will sigh.
Tuesday 22 November
    MAYDAYS Neil Kinnock in the audience. The play was very moving as
a result, like when George Harrison came toJohn, Paul, George, Ringo and
Bert (in which I played Ringo). This fiction you're playing is someone
else's reality, you hear the lines through their ears, as if for the first time,
and they suddenly come out quite fresh. I didn't want my character to
defect to the Right tonight.
    Afterwards I'm summoned to meet Kinnock. The corridor is full of men - Secret Service? Surely not. He is small, has instant charisma, and
is very cheerful; in fact he positively glows with enthusiasm; the light he
gives off is orangey, from his hair, freckles and gums. His wife tells us
how she couldn't get twelve decent seats for the performance. `They
probably thought,' she says in a Welsh accent even stronger than his, `that
I was someone from the sticks bringing in a little charabanc for a night
on the town.' So they all sat right at the back. It seems they go to the
theatre a lot - they recognise Stephanie Fayerman from a feminist fringe
show.

    Ron [Ron Daniels, RSC director] asks him whether he's enjoying his
new role as leader of the Labour Party. `Enjoying it!' he laughs, an
orange firecracker going off, `Enjoying it!