A Decent Interval (6 page)

Even as he had the thought, he found himself smiling at the woman opposite. Late forties, possibly early fifties, hair dyed copper-coloured, she must be playing Gertrude. Very attractive, though. Charles was pleased to see that she smiled back at him. Mind you, he reminded himself, actresses – no, female actors, dammit – smile at anyone.

Another of the ASMs came across to him. Good-looking boy, dark-haired, thin, nervous, probably about twenty. ‘Just wanted to check we've got the right mobile number for you.'

Charles looked at the proffered list. ‘Yes, that's right. And, sorry, your name is …?'

‘Will Portlock.'

‘ASMing, are you?'

‘Yes. But I'm also playing Second Gravedigger.'

‘Oh, great, we'll have our scene together then. Trying to screw laughs out of some of the worst puns in the whole of English literature.'

‘Yes.' The boy grinned shyly but proudly. ‘I'm also understudying Hamlet.'

‘Wow. Congratulations.'

‘Mm. Awful position, really, isn't it? Because, of course, I'd feel terrible if anything were to happen to Jared, but …'

Charles Paris grinned. He'd done the job often enough to know about the conflicts of ambitions and fantasies which the understudy cannot keep out of his mind. He was about to offer words of encouragement to Will Portlock, but was interrupted by the Stage Manager announcing that the read-through was starting.

‘Right,' said Ned English when everyone was seated round the table, ‘let's get this show on the road.'

There was a tremor in his voice and a sheen of sweat on his brow. Charles hoped that the chestnut hair dye wasn't about to run.

But the tell-tale signs made him realize just how much on edge Ned English was. The director kept looking cautiously towards Tony Copeland, who was present with a male sidekick, a man who'd been introduced simply as ‘Doug Haye, from Tony Copeland Productions', without any explanation as to what his role was in the business. Haye was a stocky, pugnacious-looking man with a shaved head and features that ran together like a melted candle. During the entire morning of the read-through Charles Paris did not hear him speak once.

Tony Copeland himself invariably dressed in a pinstriped suit and wore a tie. His dark hair was short with a neat parting. Rimless glasses sat on a face which looked almost bland. But he wore an unmistakable aura of power. No wonder Ned English was afraid of him.

The director also seemed very nervous of Jared Root and Katrina Selsey. The penny dropped for Charles. He wasn't the only ‘solid, biddable' actor who'd been drafted into the production. That was why Charles hadn't recognized many of the other actors. Ned English had cast ‘old mates', people he'd worked with before. He was preparing for possible tantrums and flouncing from his Hamlet and Ophelia, so wanted to be certain he wouldn't get any temperament from the rest of the cast.

There also might well have been a financial reason for Ned's selection of actors. The deal Maurice Skellern had agreed with Tony Copeland Productions for Charles Paris's services had not been lavish, given that the four-week regional tour of
Hamlet
was going to be followed by – or at least there was an option clause in the contract for it to be followed by – a minimum of three months in the West End. Maybe the rest of the cast were employed on comparably meagre terms.

If that were the case, there was an obvious and not very pleasing corollary. Jared Root and Katrina Selsey must be being paid a great deal, which was the reason why money was being saved on the rest of the budget. Charles Paris was long accustomed to being in shows whose stars had been paid infinitely more than he was (and had sometimes also been on a percentage of box office receipts as well), but they had at least been genuine stars. The winners of
Top Pop
and
StarHunt
could hardly be placed in that category. They were media mushrooms which had sprung up overnight, and might equally quickly shrivel and die.

‘All right,' Ned English continued, the tremor still in his voice. ‘Some of you I'm sure have met each other already, but just so's everyone knows each other, let's go round the table and each identify ourselves and what our role is in this production of
Hamlet
. Well, I'll start. In case you don't know – or haven't worked it out – I'm Ned English and I have the great honour of directing this Tony Copeland production. OK, let's go clockwise round the table.'

Which they did. Some of the actors tried to make jokes and get laughs on their introductions. Charles didn't. He just said, ‘I'm Charles Paris – doubling the Ghost of Hamlet's Father and First Gravedigger.'

He was interested when the dishy woman opposite announced that her name was Geraldine Romelle. And yes, he'd been right, she was playing Gertrude.

The other introduction of which he took particular note was for the suited young woman next to the production's Ophelia. ‘I'm Peri Maitland from Pridmore Baines. I'm Katrina Selsey's Personal Manager.'

This was something new in Charles Paris's experience of read-throughs. The expression on Ned English's face suggested that the presence of a Personal Manager at such an event was something new to him too. But at least it explained why the girl didn't look like an actress. And why she kept handing round business cards.

‘It's just,' said Katrina Selsey, ‘since winning
StarHunt
I've had so much media attention, I never go anywhere without Peri.'

‘I've got a Personal Manager too,' interposed Jared Root, a gym-toned, bushy-eyebrowed young man who looked as if he probably needed to shave five times a day. ‘I just didn't think it was appropriate to bring him to a read-through.'

The moment passed, but Jared's remark had undoubtedly been a put-down and potentially a sign of conflicts to come. If the two new stars were going to be constantly at odds about which was the more famous, the ensuing weeks could be incident-full. Charles noticed covert looks and raised eyebrows being exchanged between the ‘solid, biddable' actors who made up the rest of the cast.

After the introductions, Ned English made an uneasy, repetitive little speech about his ‘vision' of
Hamlet
. Basically, it kept coming back to what he'd said earlier, that for him the key line was: ‘
There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so
.'

‘The “rotten” state of Denmark,' he insisted, “is a dystopia viewed through the jaundiced eye of Hamlet. All the action of the play is seen through Hamlet's eyes.'

Charles Paris's view was that this thesis was arguable, but he was prepared to wait and see how it worked in practice. He wasn't too worried. He had been in too many productions where the director's ‘vision' had been lost before the second week of rehearsal and they'd ended up doing a pretty conventional presentation of the text.

Ned then handed over to Tony Copeland, with a deference which bordered on toadyism, to say a few words from the producer's point of view.

Tony welcomed everyone, saying that he did know a few of those present from other Tony Copeland Productions' shows (hardly surprising, given the fact Ned English worked almost exclusively for the company and favoured the ‘old mates' approach to casting). The producer outlined the details of the tour (which those present who had read their contracts, a number that did not include Charles Paris, knew already).
Hamlet
would open at Marlborough's Grand Theatre on a Wednesday and play there till the Saturday of the following week. The show would then do single weeks in Malvern, Wilmslow and Newcastle before – ‘barring accidents' – opening after another week of rehearsal and previews at the Richardson Theatre in London's West End.

Tony Copeland announced that he was ‘very excited' about the production, and expressed his laudable ambition that it would get a younger demographic into the West End theatre audience. The publicity generated by
StarHunt
, not to mention
Top Pop
, would, he opined, guarantee the show's success.

His presentation style was lacklustre, almost dull. The mastery of the acerbic one-liner which he demonstrated on
StarHunt
had been replaced by a manner that was nearly self-effacing.

At the end of his routine he introduced the Company Manager, a motherly woman employed by Tony Copeland Productions. She went through a few practical details, mostly about accommodation for the tour, and handed over to the Stage Manager, who gave the company information about rehearsal calls and that kind of thing.

‘Right,' said Ned English at the end of this litany, ‘let's get reading. From now on, we'll give ourselves up to the magic of the Bard.'

Charles Paris winced inwardly. The director's words had sounded impossibly twee.

But they had nonetheless signalled the start of the reading. The cast all opened their specially printed copies of the script (which had been cut quite considerably – a full-length version of
Hamlet
can easily last over four hours, which might put a strain on the attention span of the remote-control-zapping ‘younger demographic' Tony Copeland was trying to attract).

The actor playing Bernardo (as well as Osric later in the play) was a young man who, in the round-the-table introductions, had announced himself as ‘Dennis Demetriades'. His Greek heritage showed in his black hair and dark shadow. On the point of his chin was a perfect triangle of beard; above his lips were two thinner, but equally well-trimmed triangles of moustache.

‘
Who's ther
e?' he started, but was quickly interrupted by Ned English.

‘Sorry, hadn't started the watch.' The director nodded to Milly Henryson, one of whose responsibilities as Assistant Stage Manager was clearly the stopwatch. She clicked the relevant button. Again Dennis Demetriades asked, ‘
Who's there?
', and this time Shakespeare's famous enquiry into identity and dithering began.

The read-through got off to a very strong start. Though Charles Paris as the Ghost appeared in the opening scene, his character did not actually speak, so he was able to appreciate the work of the other actors. Ned English may have done his casting from a repertoire of ‘old mates', but at least his old mates knew how to speak verse. As ever, Charles found himself caught up and energized by the rhythms of Shakespeare's lines. He luxuriated in the power of the language.

All went fine until the second scene when, at the end of Claudius's conversation with Laertes and Polonius, Hamlet has his first words: ‘
A little more than kin, and less than kind
.' While all the cast up until that point had spoken their lines in a loud, almost declamatory, manner, Jared Root mumbled his, as though he were in a television rehearsal.

No one said anything about his delivery, but it put the other actors off their stride. For them to continue in their full-throttled way looked as if it were showing up their star. So they started to rein back their performances to match his. By the time they reached the stage direction for the end of the scene –
Exeunt all except Hamlet
–
Claudius and Gertrude were also mumbling. And the entire company were waiting with bated breath to see how Jared Root would tackle the first great soliloquy, ‘
O! that this too too solid flesh would melt …
'

To their surprise, when they got to the cue the winner of
Top Pop
announced, ‘I'm not going to do this now.'

‘What!' said a flabbergasted Ned English. Then to Milly Henryson, ‘Stop the watch. Why are you not going to read the soliloquy, Jared? We need you to, to get an overall timing.'

‘I haven't worked on it yet,' said the singer.

‘I know you haven't,' responded the director. ‘No one else has worked on their lines yet. This is the first day of rehearsal.'

‘Yeah, but I don't want to do the long bits till I've worked on them with my coach.'

‘Coach?' echoed Ned.

‘My acting coach.'

‘You have an acting coach?'

‘Of course. And I need to work with him on the long bits.'

‘But, Jared, I am directing this production.'

‘Sure.'

‘So I will be telling you how to say the lines, not some acting coach.'

‘But I've been working with him since I won
Top Pop
.'

‘I don't care whether you've been working with him since you were in nappies!' Ned English was by now looking very angry. ‘This is a read-through for my production of
Hamlet
. I need the entire script to be read out loud – including the soliloquies.'

‘Is that what the long bits are called?'

‘Yes, Jared, it is.'

‘Well, I'm not going to read them. Not till I've done some work on them with my coach.'

‘I think you will find, Jared,' stormed the director, ‘that, according to your contract, you are obliged to—'

‘Don't worry,' interposed a conciliatory voice. ‘If Jared doesn't want to read the soliloquies now, let someone else read them, just for your timing.'

Ned English began to remonstrate, but he only got as far as: ‘But—' Then, since the speaker had been Tony Copeland, he instantly kowtowed and said, ‘Very well. Start the watch again.'

He then proceeded to read Hamlet's first soliloquy as though it were a telephone directory or a shopping list.

Charles Paris exchanged looks with other members of the cast and knew that they were all thinking the same thing. The scene they had just witnessed between the director and the singer had been a power struggle. And if Jared Root had Tony Copeland on his side, then there was no doubt who would really be calling the shots.

The read-through continued rather dismally. Inhibited, the actors held back from giving full-bodied performances. Charles did not feel he could let rip as the Ghost. And each time they came to another of the soliloquies Jared Root sat back and let Ned English struggle through the lines.