Interviews

Actor. Acting styles; Berthold Brecht; Bristol Old Vic.; The Crucible; John Dexter; film; the National Theatre; the Old Vic, Laurence Olivier; make-up; Othello; repertory; Ralph Richardson; Royal Academy of Dramatic Art; Royal Hunt of the Sun; television; theatre-going habits; Kenneth Tynan; Robert Wagner; the West of England Theatre Company.

Interviewed by Kate Harris on 06/11/07

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Interview continued...

KH: What was it do you think that people didn’t like about it?

EH: Well I think it was because it was… for one thing he made himself… I mean, for one thing now you would never get an actor putting on black make-up. That’s first of all. So you have to start with that.

KH: It’s just not politically correct any more so…

EH: It just would not be done. And he did make himself look West Indian, which is not what Othello is about.

KH: No.

EH: So he physically was doing a sort of completely different thing to what people normally expected with… I think the biggest problem it created in a way was for dear old Frank Finley playing Iago. When you see the film, or the film version of it, Frank’s performance comes right up. And you may well… people may well look at Olivier and think this is operatic and over the top. But in the theatre it was pretty staggering.

KH: When you said that John Dexter had a very interesting idea for the production, could you say a little bit more about that?

EH: God, I’m going back such a long way! We’re talking about… God!

KH: Yes I know, I’m sorry, it’s a long time ago.

EH: No he… the main thing I remember him saying was that it was… that there was an occupying force, so that the relationship between the occupiers and the natives was quite… We should look to what was going on around the world at that particular time. That’s the main thing I remember. And I remember, because I was playing Montano who was part of the occupying, so the kind of behaviour in front of the Venetians as it were you know, would be different. And I can remember he elaborated much more on that. I mean there were much more specific moments that came out. And I thought at the time… I remember thinking how clever that was. But [the production couldn’t] accommodate really in the end, this towering performance, which was, you know, just extraordinary.

KH: How would you describe Olivier’s style of acting? I mean obviously you’d seen him in other things as well at the Old Vic.

EH: Yes, oh yes. Well he was… it’s difficult for me, because he was a massive hero to me. I mean as a youngster, before I even thought of being an actor, I remember being taken to see his Henry V, the film. And… my mother, bless her heart, as I think I said, took me to the Old Vic, I saw him do just about everything that he did at that time. And he was just… he had this enormous, natural authority. I remember, I think it was Harold Hobson who was the critic on the Sunday Times, saying that he and Richardson were interesting in that Olivier always made the audience feel inferior. And Richardson always made them feel superior.

KH: That’s a really interesting…

EH: It’s a very neat way of saying…

KH: Yes.

EH: But it does say an awful lot about Olivier. I mean, you were kind of in awe of him, whereas Ralph would always make you feel sympathy or you know, kind of you wanted to give him a big hug. But they’re both giants in those different areas.

KH: How did you feel… or maybe you didn’t feel… did you feel that acting styles changed?

EH: Oh yes. I think… I think I came into the business at a time when [there were] still… kind of echoes – very dim ones – of Edwardian acting. Very… I mean I think there was still an awful lot of people standing about doing that… you know and hands on the sword in Shakespeare. And I do remember when we got into the rehearsal of Othello, looking around and seeing – because I was doing very little – one or two of the young actors like Derek Jacobi, Frank Finley, who had discarded all that, and were much more today if you like, or as it was then. And that was a revelation to me that you could play Shakespeare… without all the kind of baggage that we’d all grown up with.

KH: Did that make you personally modify your performance?

EH: Yes, to some extent. Although… I never saw myself as a Shakespearian actor… I had no… desire to play Hamlet at some point. I might do now, [Laughs] but I didn’t then. No, I mean I didn’t… It made one realise that you could play what seemed to be this archaic language in a very modern way – or very naturalistic. The words themselves are not right but… truthful I suppose, truthful, yes.

KH: What did you feel…? I’m trying to think of the way to phrase this. What attitudes towards the National like when you were in involved in Othello and early plays like that?

EH: Well I think we felt we were very privileged to be in what finally, after years and years of everybody wanting, was a national company. And I think also everybody… I mean the thing about Olivier, apart from his acting, was he was a terrific leader. I mean a real leader, and in the sense that he joined in with everybody. [which sometimes was a… I mean you’d be coming out of the stage door, you know with a couple of mates going for a meal, and he’d suddenly be there saying, ‘What are you boys doing?’ ‘Well we’re going to go and have a…’ ‘Oh can I come along?’ You know and he would find… and then you thought I’ve got to be on best… which you didn’t] But he was a terrific leader. We did feel that the breadth of plays that we were doing was a completely new… a new thing with a national company. I mean, I can remember we would be doing for example Othello in the evening, and in the afternoon we’d be doing Feydeau’s Flea in Her Ear. So the kind of contrast… switching from these extraordinary different styles of acting was enormous.
And Ken Tynan, who I think was very much responsible for this… you know, for example in the case of Flea in Her Ear, we had a director from Commedie Français directing it. So we got all the sort of expertise that would come with somebody like that. Then you go and do Othello or Rosencrantz & Guildenstern which was again another different kind of style. So it was thrilling to be in a company all these different things. You know, they were doing Noel Coward, whereas the big national companies before that had stuck to Shakespeare and the classics… it was a bit of an innovation.

KH: What was the training like at the National? Did it differ at all from say Nottingham where you’d been previously?

EH: Well it differed in the sense that you were getting a very glitzy sort of audience. I mean, I can remember walking - and you wouldn’t get this today - but I can remember going into the stage door on several productions, and there were people who’d slept in the street all round the building. Now you know that’s… that gives you a…
I remember Olivier saying… I used to pass him in the corridor when we were doing Othello, he was coming out of his dressing room to do the Senate scene and I’d just done something. I can remember him one night saying, ‘I just can’t do it tonight, I can’t.’ You know, and he knew that the audience, almost entirely, were there to see him. They weren’t coming, with that particular production, it wasn’t the National Theatre, it was to see Laurence Olivier doing this extraordinary performance.
So it was different in the sense that… it was in the spotlight at that time. Now we just take it for granted. But it was very much in the spotlight. And you could get tickets for example off the linkman on the front of the Hilton Hotel. If you were prepared to pay fifty or sixty quid… you know, it was like that. So it was… it was a bit special.

KH: Did it make it at all difficult for yourself or for other performers to kind of work with the knowledge that everybody’s coming to see Olivier, whatever the weather they’re coming to see Olivier?

EH: I’m talking about that particular production, there were other things that were going on which he wasn’t involved in. That particular… I mention because it happened to be the first thing I was in there. You know, you felt thrill… the interesting thing is that… people criticised him for this but… there weren’t many actors of his generation involved in that company. I mean, Michael Redgrave came and did something, there were one or two. But basically the initial National Theatre Company that was got together was very young… or relatively young. And so we were all… I mean it was just very thrilling. You just thought ‘I’m working in a wonderful company, we’re doing all these extraordinary plays, and it’s hugely successful, and getting an international audience’.

KH: What did your parents make of kind of the changes that were taking place, because they were very much part of that other generation that you’ve just kind of mentioned?

EH: Well my father sadly died by the time I went to the National, so he had no knowledge of it at all. He did… he was around when Olivier did the first season at Chichester, which was just before. I don’t know - I never really talked to them about it actually, funnily enough. I never really discussed it. I didn’t see a lot of my father; he was off in America most of the time. And my mum used to talk to me, but she was always… she always thought, like a lot of mother’s do, ‘everything you do is wonderful’…

KH: Oh, that’s nice.

EH: I kind of dismissed anything she said as being rubbish, which was awful because she was a very good actress, and you know… but I just knew that she was always going to be flattering to me.

KH: What other productions for you, from the time you were with the National, stood out for you?

EH: Well Rosencrantz certainly did. Flea in Her Ear was a wonderful experience and became the longest running show in the repertoire. And it was in the repertoire for four years. And I think there were only about two of us who didn’t change, who consistently played the same part. And in fact during four years run it only did 200 performances, which is extraordinary when you think.

KH: That’s amazing.

Interview continued...

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