Year of the King: An Actor's Diary and Sketchbook - Twentieth Anniversary Edition (36 page)

We get hopelessly behind schedule and it becomes apparent we aren't
going to make the dress rehearsal this evening. Since photographers from
all the national newspapers have come up expecting a full run-through,
we have to hurriedly improvise a photo-call for them. Which means getting
into make-up. I find myself sitting in front of the dressing-room mirror,
wondering what to do. Unusual for me. I end up doing some functional stuff for the large theatre - outlining the eyes, slightly shading the bone
structure - which in the old days would have been called `basic juvenile'.

Sit staring at myself in the mirror. Richard is definitely not a character
job after all. He looks and sounds very much like me. I'm rather pleased.
Maybe this is what Postlethwaite meant when he talked about me eschewing the predictable way I would play the part. Strangely enough, of all the
things that various people have said, his comments have haunted me most.

Despite two mogodon I wake at 6.3o a.m. Fresh, not too frightened.
Today - the dress rehearsal and the first public preview - will be too
chaotic for fear. I think I function better under pressure.

Get up and practise the lines. This is still my greatest worry, a fear so
private that I hesitate to write it even here. At yesterday's tech `the Breton
Richmond' came out as `the Briton Wretchmond', and `to make the wench
amends' became `to make the mench awends' (the first Jewish Richard?).

It's my birthday today. Yesterday, somebody asked how old I'd be and
I didn't know, genuinely didn't know whether it was thirty-four, thirty-five
or thirty-six. Suppose that first blurred birthday happens to everyone
eventually. I've worked it out - I'm thirty-five today. Happy Birthday.

By chance I overhear the Radio Three news this morning for the first
time in weeks. It would seem that the outside world does still exist. And
it's relatively relaxed - the coal strike continues, a new divorce law, voting
for the European Parliament, the cost of living either highest or lowest in
Bradford, a football tour, cricket. Only at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre
in Stratford-on-Avon does a brave little group face Armageddon.

At the theatre a pile of cards - birthday and good luck combined -
await me, as well as a mysterious pink box and telegrams from South
Africa. Mum and Dad's says, `Hope you find your horse, keep your
Kingdom, and conquer the world.' Normally I find their overblown
sentiments embarrassing, but today they're oddly touching. The excitement they must all be feeling back home. Also messages from Esther,
Randall, Verne and, unusually, Joel - which instantly makes me cry. The
pink box opens to let a helium balloon float out with `Dickie III rules
OK' scrawled on it by Charlotte. Also a card to the Animil from Mac.
Another with love to Richard III from Dickie I. And Sara Kestleman has
sent a beautiful print of an engraving of Richard III. The trouble she must
have had finding it moves me terribly. I sit in my dressing-room and again
am unable to stop crying. I'm hopelessly tearful these days.

THE TECHNICAL CONTINUES Racing against time now. A problem
with the death. How to get into the best position for Chris to slide in the
Boar-sword - there's a small gap in the armour to take it, and a metal
sheath inside to keep it well away from my own back. He's behind me, so
I can't tell when he's there.

Guy: `Can't you take a cue off the music?'

Me: `Can't I'm afraid. I'm tone-deaf.'

Bill: `Well, when the singing stops. Even you must be able to tell the
difference between singing and instrumental.'

Me: `Bill, we've worked together long enough for you to know I'm so
tone-deaf I can't tell the difference between music and silence.'

Chris: `Look, I'll nudge you with my toe before I stab you.'

Me: `It's all right, Bill. Chris is going to nudge me before he stabs me.'

Guy: `A killer and a gentleman.'

Everyone says the slaying looks excellent from out front. Bill has ditched
his idea of having the full cast on stage, but seems to have achieved a
coup de theatre similar to the coronation, with just two people, music and
lights.

Odd that I've never been as self-conscious about `A horse, a horse' as
`Now is the winter'. I think it's because the former is so rooted in my
concept of the whole deformity: the man simply can't run away, he needs
that horse desperately. So it's never seemed like a famous quote.

The osteopath has given the go-ahead to the throne-bearers, as long as
they are supplied with weight-lifters' support-belts and padding for their
shoulders.

DRESS REHEARSAL Bill and I have agreed that I should take it very
quietly and gently if I'm to have anything left for tonight. He assembles
the cast to warn them not to let this reduce their own energy.

The run-through is basically smooth. Miraculously everything from the
last few days slots together. I sweat fiercely - Blessed said that, by his first
entrance (five minutes into the play), it was like acting with a portable
shower unit. As the afternoon progresses it gets worse. Black Mac bears
the brunt - dripping wet clothes don't lend themselves easily to quick
changes. But despite the heat, it's pleasurable strolling through the
performance using a normal voice. Have to hold myself back from the big
moments towards the end, such a temptation to have a go at them, but
have to keep marking through. A useful discipline and exercise - these
great parts need mapping out like this. Rest camps on the side of Everest.

Hastings' head finally makes an appearance. Despite all our discussions
it is just another prop head, bearing only a passing resemblance to Blessed
and having no weight at all. The poor thing doesn't even have ears. I fly
into a totally unprofessional rage backstage, screaming and swearing while
dressers and actors look on bewildered. Afterwards, I am doubly ashamed
of myself when I am told the man who was making the head had been
rushed to hospital and this was the best they could do in the circumstances.
Now it's over, we have the two-hour wait till 7.30 p.m.

We're going to do it, we're actually going to do it.

I feel a restlessness that is almost uncontrollable. Try to eat, but, as at
lunch time, no appetite. Half a bowl of soup is the most I can manage.
Energy is being supplied by the sportsman's protein mix that Blessed
recommended - a mildly repulsive drink made up of protein powder, milk
and a banana - which I just manage to down. Try chatting to people and
find that helps, particularly if I can joke and seem relaxed to them. Acting
in real life helps quell the screaming voice inside - `Help me, let me go,
let me escape please!'

Selecting a tape for my massage I come across the opera choruses from
that drunken, lazy day on a beach on the other side of the world. I lie
there watching the polite Avon drift by, remembering how improbable it
seemed then that I should come back to England and play Richard III.

Jenny, the masseuse, says, `Your body is bursting with energy today.'
Says it transmits to her through her hands, so that by the end of the
session she is buzzing as well.

FIRST PREVIEW At 6.45 p.m. Mac and Pam O'Halleron arrive to dress
and bewig me. Pam is another friend from my previous season here, which
is a comfort. Joking with them helps calm me again. When Pam has gone,
Mac says casually, `It's gonna be a good show, mate. You can always tell.
They're talking about it round the theatre. Like they did with your Fool.
It's gonna be a fokkin hit, you mark my words.'

Bill never comes round to actors' dressing-rooms. Very unusual this.
It is routine for the director to pop in before, after and sometimes during
first nights. But I think his way helps to defuse the tension. No token
good wishes before and token congratulations afterwards.

But tonight, surprisingly, his voice comes over the tannoy in the manner
of this-is-your-captain-speaking: `Hello everybody, this is Bill ... just
want to say uhm ... good luck, have a good time and uhhh ... that's all.
Right. Thank you.'

I ask Mac to leave me alone for a while. Put on some perfunctory eye
make-up, muttering my rosary, `Now is the winter . . .' Will I remember
the lines? In the profession it is considered a joke that outsiders always
ask the question `How do you learn all those lines?' This is a joke that I
will never again find remotely funny.

Tannoy: `This is your Act One beginners. Mister Sher, this is your
beginners' call please. Elecs and sound operators stand by. Musicians
stand by for cues one and two. Stage staff stand by on O P and Prompt
Side doors. This is your Act One beginners ...'

Waiting in the wings I feel completely calm. Peeking at the audience.
Familiar somehow. Just another show.

But as the house lights dim, I feel the heat correspondingly drain from
my veins. I have to give myself a little shove. Mutter `Come on,' like a
parachutist launching himself into mid-air. Forcing myself to do something
that human beings simply were not intended for.

Scurry on stage and take up the sunbathing pose. Eyes closed. Hearing
the music change, feeling the lights warm on my face. Open my eyes.
There they are. One and half thousand of them. A wall of people. In
Dame Edna Everage's immortal phrase, `hanging off the picture rails'.

` "Now is the winter -" ' horrifying sense that if I pause at all here they
will all join in and finish the line in chorus so, hurriedly - ` "of our
discontent made glorious summer by this son of York." '

Feeling calm again. The rush downstage revealing the crutches produces an audible gasp. Teasing them with the profile turn, knowing they're
straining to see the hump.

To my surprise, when Blessed comes on I realise my face is quite dry.
As I exit from the scene, a polite round. In with a chance.

The Lady Anne scene goes well. Just before her spit, on the spur of
the moment, I slide one of the crutches under her skirt and between her
legs. Normally, I would never dare try something like this at a first
performance but Penny and I have always had a special rapport in this
scene. Nevertheless it shocks both of us as well as the audience, creating
a rather wonderful moment. Another exit round. But I am starting to feel
exhausted already.

Sucking Nigroid voice tablets as I dash round to the entrance on the
other side. Nigroids are planted everywhere, even on the upstage edge of
the throne. But the voice is feeling strong and whip-like.

In the Queen Margaret scene - the old problem scene - things start to
go wrong. Sense a restlessness in the audience. However, Pat gets a round
on her exit.

From then on, the first half is up and down. Another round after the
Clarence scene. But something is wrong. Am I trying too much for the
comedy, showing too many cards? Or is the play itself darkening as it
should? Or is it simply too long? Should Bill have cut more, or should we
be playing faster?

Win them back on Baynard's Castle and they certainly seem to like the
coronation - the interval applause is thunderous.

I'm soaked through as though a bucket of water has been poured over
me. Mac supplying endless pints of Coca Cola with ice - I drink about
ten during the evening. Later when I pee it's the colour of Coke.

The second half is very good. My voice holding out well. Feel they're
with me now. I'm playing the humour much harsher, less sycophantically
than before, making them enjoy it on my terms.

During the Richard/Buckingham bust-up I bash Mal fiercely on the
chest and spend the rest of the scene worrying about it. Try to apologise
with hand contact, but I feel terrible, getting out of control like that. I
seek him out afterwards. He says he didn't notice a thing.

Jim's Tyrrel takes a terrific leap forward in front of an audience. He
had been experimenting with different accents, but doing him posh now
adds to the seediness.

Queen Elizabeth scene excellent. Frances is very moving in the speech
about losing her children and starts to cry for real. In my current emotional
state I feel my own eyes filling. Have to fight against it. Would hardly be
like Richard. In the screaming, Hiderian `cannot ... will not be avoided'
section I do too much and feel the voice give way. Come off, cursing
myself. The whole of Bosworth and the oration to go. Popping Nigroids
till I risk overdosing.

The Nightmare speech is unfelt and technical. Different funny voices
coming out. I had hoped it might release in performance, but not yet.
Afterwards, in the Ratcliffe scene ('0 Ratcliffe, I fear, I fear!'), my failing
voice cracks badly, giving me a terrible fright. Fear that it won't last and
the relief that we're coming to the end produces a flood of real tears. I
stop it instantly for `play the eavesdropper'. Real emotion is so useful to
act with - wish I had more access to it.

Disaster in the arming ceremony. My soldiers accidentally get the two
arms of the armour the wrong way round; I can't bend them at all. In
between my lines, I mutter `Help me, twist them round', but neither they
nor I am sure what has happened or how to solve it. Can hardly get on
to the horse. A feeling that I could break an arm with the strain of trying to bend against the armour joint. When I do struggle on to the horse I
can hardly gesture at all. This, combined with no voice, turns the oration
into a spectacular non-event.

The applause at the end of the show is vaguely disappointing - a
respectable success perhaps. At least I remembered the lines.

Penny and Frances have bought birthday champagne for the dressingroom afterwards. Then to The Duck where Pam has picked the most
beautiful rose from her garden and put it in water in a brandy glass. `Like
I did for your birthday two years ago,' she says, presenting it to me.

Driving home, on a quiet country road, I take my foot off the accelerator
and let the car gradually slow and stop. Sit there staring at the full moon.
Exhaustion like I've never known.