I went to Golden Square in Soho this morning to record a voiceover for an insurance firm. I know that some poets have Blakean ideals about the purity of their art, and would never get involved in the corrupt world of finance and industry, and I did, in fact, look deep into my soul but decided to accept on two counts. One, because I already had a pension with the company I would be advertising, I would not be promoting a product I didn’t believe in. And two, the money was ridiculous. You also get to meet famous luvvies in reception. This morning it was Alison Steadman whom I first met at the Everyman Theatre in the sixties. She was one of a group of actors including Julie Walters, Anthony Sher, Jonathan Price, Bernard Hill, Pete Postlethwaite, Bill Nighy and George Costigan who lit up the stage, as well as being part of the social life that centred around the Everyman Theatre’s bar and bistro. Until then, my experience of grown-up theatre was based on my three-week stint at the Playhouse, down the hill on Williamson Square, an ornate Victorian building, proud of the fact that Noël Coward and Gertrude Lawrence had performed on its stage as children, and catering still for a dwindling middle-class audience. Most of the actors I met while working on Luther lived in London, and after each Saturday night’s performance couldn’t wait to hop into the car and drive back. But a new breed of actor was attracted to Liverpool, not only by the work being done, but by the vibrancy they could sense in the city. With the arrival of young directors like Terry Hands, Chris Bond and Alan Dosser, the Everyman’s mission became to bring in new writers (Alan Bleasdale, John McGrath, Willy Russell, Bill Morrison) whose work, usually political and dealing with deeply-felt local issues, involved comedy and music to make it accessible and entertaining to a bright, working-class audience.
My first full-length play was performed in the main theatre in 1967, directed by Peter James. Out of step with current trends, it was neither political, musical, nor dealt with deeply-felt local issues. Called The Commision, it was about a writer who had been commissioned to write a play and had failed. Having spent the huge advance, he fears that there could be serious, even fatal, repercussions, for dark forces are hinted at. On stage the author, played by Bill Stewart, addresses the audience directly and illustrates by means of a series of sketches, some funny, others sinister, why he’d not been able to deliver the goods. It turns out in the end that the actors themselves had been the ones to commission the play, and with some balleticism and lots of language they destroy the author. If the play were a wine, there would be flavours of Pirandello and Pinter, black undercurrents of Sartre and a Goonish aftertaste. Best laid down and allowed to mature over the centuries, or opened immediately and poured down the sink.
An article appeared in the Liverpool Echo and Evening Express on Wednesday 15 March, five days before the show opened:
The story of Roger’s own commission to write this play for the Everyman is quite amusing in itself. ‘I received the commission back in November. My first reaction? I laughed. Then I wrote the first act in an old exercise book from St Kevin’s Comprehensive School, Kirkby. Then I lost the exercise book. I let it go for a while, then I noticed posters appearing all over the place advertising the play, so I realised it was time to do something. It’s all coming along quite nicely although we’re still waiting for the permission of the Lord Chamberlain. I’ve a feeling he may want to make a few cuts.’
And indeed, the Lord High Chamberlain did get his chopper out and we had to lose two whole scenes, one because it included the following innocuous verse:
HIM You remind me of someone, you know.
HER Someone I know?
HIM No, someone I know. Are you … Are you?
Are you Modigliani’s mistress elongated and pink?
Barbara Hutton in knickers of mink?
Albert Moravia’s Woman of Rome?
Sarah somebody staggering home?
Are you Cleopatra in Cinemascope?
Elizabeth Taylor dressed only in soap?
Anne Boleyn when Henry chased her?
Ann Hathaway the poet-taster?
A vicar’s missus confessing it’s nice?
A geisha girl full of curry and rice?
A woodcutter’s daughter carrying logs?
An old lady knitting socks on the bogs?
An airline hostess with no head for heights?
A fat ballerina bursting her tights?
Are you the first lady of the USA
Joining her husband in congress each day?
Are you a Scottish Duchess racked with desire?
Joan of Arc curled up by the fire?
HER … Er, no.
All harmless stuff and although reasons for cuts were never given, the man with the blue pencil could be mistaken for thinking that I was referring to Sarah Churchill and the Duchess of Argyll, who were often in the news at the time.
In the course of my research while writing the play I did discover an interesting and little-known fact about intervals. I had always assumed, as probably you did, that the word interval as used in a stage production was derived from the Latin words ‘inter’ and ‘vallum’, meaning literally the space between two ramparts. But I was wrong, and so were you. Alain Terval, the son of a famous Belgian brewer, settled in Paris at the beginning of the seventeenth century, where he set up a brewery. His main interest, however, was the theatre and although he wrote several plays none has survived to this day. At that time theatregoing was in decline, and one of the reasons may have been the fact that it was customary for performances to begin at six in the evening and continue straight through until midnight, or the early hours of the morning. Being French, of course, the dramatists favoured lengthy philosophical discourse and soliloquies would run for an hour or more. People were staying away in droves. Then, in the spring of 1632, Terval had an idea that would revitalise theatre. His success as a brewer had enabled him to purchase several theatres on the Left Bank and it was into these that he introduced a break halfway through the evening, during which ale was sold, as well as beignets, and in some halls snails in garlic butter. The breaks proved so successful that they became longer and longer, and the plays consequently shorter and shorter. This period was regarded by many as the golden age of French drama. ‘A quel théâtre allez-vous ce soir?’ someone would ask. ‘Alain Terval’ would be the cry. A l’interval then became synonymous with having a great night out and a useful weapon in the dramatist’s armoury. So now you know.
In the early part of last year I was in a recording studio, this time in Lexington Street, waiting to go into the booth and do my bit for pensions and life insurance. There was a woman already inside reciting one of the poems written especially for the campaign. I didn’t recognise her, but she had a lovely voice, rich and northern. Just the sort of voice we need on Poetry Please, I thought. Since becoming more confident in my role as the programme’s presenter, I was trying to introduce a wider range of voices than some of the overly respectful actorly ones that were sometimes heard. When she came out of the booth to collect her bag from the engineer’s room where I was sitting with the advertising people, I told her how beautifully she had read the poem, and perhaps she would be interested in reading occasionally on Poetry Please. ‘That would be great,’ she said, obviously delighted at the prospect of a little radio work, and I felt pleased about being able to give a struggling young actress a step up the ladder.
The copywriters from the agency obviously knew her better than I did. ‘When are you flying out?’ they said.
‘Friday.’
‘Anywhere exciting?’ I asked.
‘New York, Bombay Dreams opens on Broadway next Monday.’
Meera Syal gave us all a cheerful wave and rushed outside to her waiting Daimler.