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: Instant transportation visually.

EH: Yes. And because you know, the camera is looking at the glass like that, so you… in the theatre you can get away… I mean, I’ve got a wonderful theatre photographs that I love of an actor called Eric Porter playing King Lear at Bristol Old Vic when I was there. [His] was… an extraordinary performance, wonderful, powerful performance. And he’s in costume… and you look at the costume and you can see, if you look closely, that the buttons on the costume are made with bottle tops! And you know, that’s lovely. I think that’s what it’s all about. But film it’s even more extraordinary because you have to cheat in close up.

KH: Yes, yes.

EH: So you know my recollection’s more to do with film really than theatre. Although I would have to say that Olivier was, and remains, and Ralph Richardson, two great idols. And most of things that I remember them for were things I saw them [do] in the theatre.

KH: What was it about Richardson that you admired so much?

EH: Oh just a magic actor. I mean I would say without hesitation that the greatest Shakespearian performance I ever saw was Richardson’s Falstaff, because he had all the bluster, but you just felt… when he’s rejected by Hal at the end of the… you just wept you know, he was just an extraordinary actor to have that kind of… as Hobson said of feeling… making you feel superior. That’s a crude way of putting it but… I just loved it. And he was an eccentric as well. I know and I mean Olivier as I say was just extraordinary…
I mean I think there [are] some wonderful actors who’ve emerged, who are in that category now. And I watched Mike Gambon the other night, who… like when we were all at the National together, we were all kind of doing the same kind of thing. But you know, you can see Tony Hopkins as an old… and the influences of all these people we’re talking about are there. You can sort of sense them a little bit. I think somebody once said that acting… actors are a bit like sheepdogs, they inherit… they kind of pick up something from the past. And they herd sheep automatically, instinctively. And I think there’s something in that. God, I don’t want…! I never stopped talking.

KH: That’s OK, that’s the whole idea of the interview.

EH: Talk a lot of rubbish.

KH: No not at all.

EH: But it was very thrilling being in that company… certainly, you know, a highlight. And particularly in the sixties, because it was when it was sort of starting.

KH: Yes, yes. What do you think have been, for you, the biggest changes in the theatre since you first began?

EH: I think the disappearance of all the kind of rep theatres – local theatre. I think that’s the biggest change, because… it’s become a little bit like opera in that it’s no longer a thing that everybody goes to. You know, if you’re an opera-phile you go to Covent Garden or whatever. But the ordinary person who may go to the movies and watch television isn’t going to go to the opera. I think when I started, everybody went to the theatre. Everybody in Bristol or Nottingham, people who wouldn’t… now think about going. I think that’s the big change, a huge change. And it’s resulted in the fact that really good young actors tend to get thrown into things without having had the advantage of years of experience… And I can remember quite early on when I started, going to see somebody about… I think it was a film part. And believe it or not they said ‘go away and get two or three years experience in rep before you come and see me again’, it was a casting director. But I mean now that would… quite the opposite the case you know. ‘Let’s have somebody we’ve never seen before.’. And I think that can in some instances put a huge unfair demand on people, because they haven’t had the… experience really. It’ll never stop the real… really talented people obviously, but a lot of other actors who would make a good living out of being in the business, I think might suffer from that, missing that experience.

KH: There was one production that I wanted to ask you about, were you in The Royal Hunt of the Sun?

EH: The?

KH: Were you in Royal Hunt of the Sun, or have I just made that up?

EH: Yes I was. I was, I was, I was.

KH: I did want to ask you about that, because I mean that’s historically an extraordinary production.

EH: It was yes. John Dexter.

KH: What was your experience of that?

EH: God where do I start?! First of all the play, I believe I’m right in saying, had been hawked around managements for something like five or six years before it was done by the National. It was done at Chichester, which is very special in that it’s an open stage. And John Dexter, it’s very crafty, what he did was he got another director who was his assistant – and it’s awful because his name’s gone – anyway all the Indians, all the people playing Indians and all the people playing the Spaniards, rehearsed their scenes totally separately for about five weeks.

KH: Oh, how interesting.

EH: And then he threw them together. And I do remember that… my one lasting memory, it’s a personal one, which was that Robert Stephens was playing Atahuallpa, developed this extraordinary delivery, his speech… [accented] ‘Ata huall pa’ Extraordinary, I can’t even begin to do it. I remember Edward Petherbridge and myself were playing two sort of… I used to call my character ‘Supercock’ because I was covered in feathers from head to foot!
I can remember going home one night, desperately trying to find some sort of voice that was suitable for [my] part. And, as one sometimes does, about two o’clock in the morning I suddenly yes that’s it, it’s that… And I realised I’d left the script in my car. I lived up in Highgate, quite a rural… not residential area. And so I got out of bed, put my dressing gown on, and went out to get this script. And I remember one of the lines was, ‘I’m sent by the son of God.’ And I was doing this line. [Raised voice] ‘I am sent by the son…’ And a woman walked past me, walking her dog. [Laughs] It was about half past twelve at night. I’ve never been so embarrassed. So that’s my one recollection…
But the… somewhere I have got… my dear, dear friend who’s now died sadly, Robert Lang, about the time we were doing it the great fad was movie cameras. We all had 8mm movie cam – not sound, just 8mm film. And he made a film all through rehearsals, of the rehearsals.

KH: Gosh, how incredible!

EH: And I’ve got a video somewhere… of the rehearsal period of this play.

KH: Gosh!

EH: But it was extraordinary. And I have to say that Peter Shaffer who… and he’s a terrific writer, but he owes a huge debt to John Dexter for that production, because he really was so imaginative. He threw the ball at the actors, he said, ‘Come on, have you got any ideas?’ And we were… at Chichester he had people all round… behind the main audience, blowing pipes and sort of sounds and things were coming from all over the place. And it was extraordinary. It was a real occasion. I don’t think it worked nearly as well when it went to the Old Vic. But at Chichester it was terrific. And it was very much down to John. Because… the dialogue is ‘white man speak with fork tongue’. I mean, it’s like a… a lot of it’s Hollywood B movie western. It’s a terrific story.
And we all used to… I can remember the other thing; it’s the silly things you remember. We were all covered in this brown make-up, and as the run went on, we used to find ways of removing bits of it during the [performance]. ‘He won’t see that bit’, you know. And I remember one night I got it all wrong and took all the make-up off my face. I had a mask on. And we all used Fairy Liquid to get it off. When Olivier was doing Othello he came round and said ‘I hear you boys are using some… what are you using?’ And we said Fairy Liquid. So he started using Fairy Liquid, to get all the black off his Othello make-up. But that’s the sort of ridiculously unartistic things to do. It was a nightmare act to do, a nightmare.

KH: That’s really interesting. I think I’ve come to the end of my questions that I wanted to ask you.

EH: I’m sure.

KH: But I don’t know whether you’ve got anything that you’d like to add that I’ve…

EH: No. I haven’t stopped.

KH: I’m sure there are things that I’ve not mentioned at all that would be really interesting.

EH: No, no, no. Anyway I just haven’t stopped. [Acting is not a job for grown ups].

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