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...

EH: That was a memorable production. Rosencrantz was one. I can’t remember really many that weren’t exciting. I suppose I remember being in a rather dreary production of Mother Courage which I wouldn’t much enjoy.

KH: Rosencrantz was quite interesting because it kind of came from a very small Fringe play.

EH: Yes, it did.

KH: And then went to the National.

EH: Yes, it was done at the Edinburgh Festival originally. And I think it was… I’m pretty sure it was Ken Tynan who said ‘you’ve got to do this’.

KH: What did you make of it?

EH: Well I… I loved it. I mean, I eventually went into it, and I can remember thinking ‘God! Now I’m going to do this’. And we were lucky in that we were directed by the author for a while, when I took over.

KH: Oh, that’s interesting.

EH: I remember saying something to him, he said, ‘No, no, no’ he said, ‘it’s Morecombe and Wise, that’s what you’ve got to think of. Just think of Morecombe and Wise and you’ll be all right.’ And the minute he said that then I understood what it was all about. It was enormously enjoyable to do, hugely droll. And it was an enormous success. I mean it ran and ran and ran. I have a book my father started when I was born, and he asked all the sort of interesting people he’d met to write advice to a child. And I tried to keep it going with my children. And I got Tom to write. And he wrote a wonderful piece in it about facts and fiction. And he was terrific to have as a director. And he used to come and watch it quite frequently, and keep an eye on [it], give notes and things.

KH: You mentioned Brecht briefly, and playing in Mother Courage, when did you kind of become aware of Brecht?

EH: Oh very early on, because round about the time, just after I went to Bristol, the Berliner Ensemble was very much the ‘in’ company. And I think they were wonderful. But I think when we did it, and one or two directors tried to kind of mimic what they did, instead of kind of starting from their own standpoint, I found that a bit hard work. But I think the… no, it’s interesting because he’s not done now is he at all?

KH: Not so much, no.

EH: Hardly ever. I mean, I can’t remember…

KH: He’s very much a fixture on university syllabuses but…

EH: Oh really, is he? Yes.

KH: But not… you don’t see as that many productions.

EH: I’m not bright [enough] to give any opinion about it, but working him as an actor, it needed a very specific kind of… I was going to say production, but that’s contradicting what I’ve just said about our production, which was in fact mimicking exactly the Berlin Ensemble. Then I think that Brecht, the direction was very specific… with those plays. And I think without that it was like… I can’t think of… a comparable example. But I think sometimes there are writers who direct there own things, and without them something goes missing. I think that applied a bit with those plays.

KH: That’s interesting.

EH: They’re very specific kind of… quite dry sort of style. And very political.

KH: What made you leave the National?

EH: I wasn’t asked back. [Laughs] I don’t remember now exactly. But you do reach a point in these companies where you think I’m not thinking freshly, I’m just doing… I’ve gone as far as I can go and I’m just repeating what I’m doing.  I went there in 19… when did I go there? 1964, and I left in about ’71. Although I’d had bits out in between.

KH: It’s quite a long period of time though, isn’t it, to stay in one company.

EH: It’s a long period, a long time. But people did in those days… I mean we did all… They had a thing… a three year contract, but you could take six months out of it. And I did that at one point. So you knew you would kind of be taken back in. But you just… In the end you think, ‘no, I want to do something else’. And I think that comes about sometimes because what you’re offered in another season may not be very interesting, ‘I don’t want to do that, I don’t want to do that, I’m going to go’.

KH: What did you want to go into?

EH: What did I go into?

KH: Or what did you want to do?

EH: What did I want to go into? I don’t know, I just wanted to work. I always think that the next thing I want to do is the next job I’m offered, really. You know, you… if you’re a kind of character, jobbing actor, you just want to work. And I don’t remember particularly having any great sort of… I just wanted to do possibly different kind of parts. I don’t know. I don’t know, I can’t… It’s funny it all just disappears in one’s memory now.

KH: How much do you think your time at the Old Vic and the National… what kind of influence do you think that had on the work that you did later in your career?

EH: Oh a lot. A lot, because you were watching and working with some terrific people. Vocally you were aware of people being terrific and having the ability to be heard but not blasting away, and… Olivier was always fascinating to watch, physically what he did, and a lot of other actors. You know there was some terrific people who were the core of that company. There were some great actors – Colin Blakeley, Bob Stephens, Bob Lang – there were a lot of really, really good actors who you couldn’t help but learn from, just watching and being on the stage with them. I don’t think there was a… particular style emerged from the National; in fact I’m certain it didn’t. But I think it had a huge influence on the way people worked. I don’t know, it all gets absorbed…

KH: No that’s OK, that’s great.

EH: Yes.

KH: What other… outside of your own work, what other things were you seeing in the theatre?

EH: Oh God!

KH: That you remember as thinking ‘oh that was great’, or maybe thinking ‘oh that actually wasn’t that great’.

EH: Yes… gosh, that’s difficult. If I’m being absolutely brutally honest I got - and always have been - slightly more interested in film than theatre.

KH: Oh that’s interesting, that’s really interesting.

EH: And I don’t specifically remember… I mean certainly there were performances that… I remember seeing Paul Scofield in… I can’t remember the play, but being hugely impressed by him always. Ralph Richardson, always. Day by the Sea with Gielgud and Ralph Richardson. But there weren’t… now if you asked me about films, there are films that I can say immediately – terrific films. And I think that’s possibly something to do with my generation, because we were the first generation where you could go to the movies. You know, most locals had two shows a week and for 1/9 you could go and see two films, or whatever. And I think we were very influenced by… I was very influenced by film.

KH: That’s really interesting, because in that period as well a lot of… in the sort of late sixties, a lot of theatre things actually became films, and theatre actors went into films.

EH: Yes, that’s quite true.

KH: I always think that’s quite interesting.

EH: Well we were… British theatre has been fortunate in that it’s always sort of provided film actors and directors, whereas in America it’s rather different. But of course I also spent, as a child between the ages of five and ten or eleven, I was in Hollywood with my father. So I’d also grown up going to film studios and things.
I mean, funnily enough I was watching on television last week a film called The Black Swan with Tyrone Power. I remember going to the studio, because my father was working there and knew Ty Power, and being taken round the sets of this film and seeing these… there was a kind of artificial lake, and they [had] galleons which were about as long as this table, in which a guy would lie inside and operate various things, and you know, they’d shoot. And of course to a child this was just total magic, I mean you know, you couldn’t believe…and all the cannons and everything. And I wasn’t interested in the actors, but all that was just fascinating. So film had that kind of magic that it could do all these extraordinary things. And to some extent that stays with you, you know, you’re always astonished at the ingenuity. I mean even in my very adult life, when I was doing the Sherlock Holmes series I can remember at one point we got into a street and Jeremy Brett who was playing Holmes, and I were sitting in a Hansom cab, or some cab, in which there’s a window behind us. The camera was there, and the camera operator said I can see the yellow lines in the road. So there was oh… [slap] right! And immediately the props department came out with a roll like that you know, of tape, with cobble stones. And they just went… ssssshhhh… like that.

KH: Oh that’s great.

EH: And you just thought ‘that’s fantastic, somebody’s actually sat down and thought there may be yellow lines in the road’. And it’s all that I just love, I just think it’s just so exciting. But you know you… I mean that sounds a silly story but… I think film has that kind of feeling.

KH: It’s kind of magical isn’t it?

EH: Yes.

Interview continued...

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