Interviews

Actor. Agents; Birmingham Rep.; censorship; Covent Garden; Equity; finding jobs; Fings Aint Wot They Used T'Be; working in Ireland; Keswick Century Theatre; Harold Pinter; The Homecoming; regional theatre; Royal Shakespeare Company; Shakespeare; Spotlight; television; working in London.

Conducted by Kate McNiven

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Interview continued...

KM: I can imagine that would be really fun.

TR: Yeah, and also they erected a big marquee and they had a bar there so that people coming to the theatre could go into the bar, and all that sort of thing. This was the brain-child of a man called John Ridley who was a kind of, almost a scientist, a mechanic. He had built this theatre and it was his brain-child for many, many, many years and he ran it for many years. But the interesting thing about it was that when it was first designed and used, it would only stop for one week in any place and then it would go on the road like gypsies, going round up to Preston and Doncaster... all these places. Mainly in Lancashire.

KM: And what sort of audiences did you have?

TR: Well I seem to think that you could get about 160 into this theatre, which isn’t a lot bigger than some of the smaller theatres. I was only ever at Keswick, because the idea of it touring round it wasn’t working somehow, maybe they’d fallen on hard times and there wasn’t the revenue coming in. So this year they decided to stop at Keswick for a whole season, like, three months. And it was so successful that they just stayed there: it became economically viable to stay in Keswick and it remained in Keswick. I never went back there, I finished in like, September, and I went into these four plays. I had to learn the parts very quickly because this actor had left.

KM: So what did you do, did you learn one at a time or did you try to learn all four at the same time?

TR: Well, like, I arrived there and they’d say, ‘Well, Twelfth Night is Sunday night, there’s no performance tomorrow, but Twelfth Night start’, I think every actor had one play out, something like that, so they’d say ‘Right, you have to be ready by Tuesday to do the part of Antonio in Twelfth Night, the Shakespeare, you know’. So you’d start to learn Antonio, then you had a little rehearsal, they’d show you when you came on, when you came off, what you did and then, a lot of the directors, there were at least two directors, one, Joan Knight - very important name, Joan Knight - she was like the resident director who was like, on site all the time; other directors like Abraham Assayo, he would go back to London, you know, do his production then go back to London, but Joan Knight and the stage managers, particularly the director, used to spend extra time with you, going over the lines, going over the lines.  It was a one-off situation to have an actor who had seven plays already going suddenly take off, he went to America actually, this guy, to do a special show so everybody was very anxious to help you to learn.

KM: You must have been chained to your script!

TR: Yes.

KM: It never left your sight?

TR: Yes and then of course they would be rehearsing yet another new play you’ve got four going as part of the season and you’d be rehearsing a fifth one, and I think there were six, if not seven, I can’t remember now. So I was also in the next play, so you’d play out and then do the next play, all these plays would be turning over all the time like this every other night.

KM: It’s brilliant for the audience.

TR: Yes, of course it was mainly holidaymakers who would go up to Keswick. It means that every night they could see a different show, it was wonderful, if you were interested.

KM: Definitely. Do you think it’s a shame that it’s not really done any more?

TR: Well of course yes, of course it’s a shame. I suppose that it’s kind of economics. I know that eventually, eventually that theatre, it was called the Century Theatre… the Keswick Century Theatre, it decided to stay there as I think I said, and eventually they built a permanent theatre there and that old theatre is like a museum now and I think it’s in Keswick or near Keswick or somewhere in that area, because occasionally I get a postcard saying it’s an anniversary of the founding of this and will you come to the party or something. I’ve never been able to go, never chose to go. I think that Bob Hoskins was there as well. There must have been dozens of actors who were there over the years I think.  After that season finished I went back to London of course, because that was what one did, you never thought of going on holiday, you never somehow amassed enough money.

KM: Just enough to get you by each day.

TR: Yes that’s right, yes. I said I was paid £12, yes Keswick was £12, and they would give you your rail ticket to get to Keswick and back to London or whatever.

And I went back to London and I got - some of this may be chronologically not on the ball! I got myself a room… Oh, yes!  I was living in Islington somehow, living in Islington on everybody’s couch and kitchen tables and all sorts. The way you used to live was crazy, you get back to London and you get to Euston and you wouldn’t know where, where to start. So you go down to a particular pub in the West End and hope to see some of your mates still floating around because they could have gone off.

KM: And say, ‘Do you have a bed?

TR: Yes, ‘Is there a chance to staying for a night?’. They’d say ‘Well, yeah, one night then, alright, one night.’ So you breathe a sigh of relief and everybody gets kind of a little drunk and you know where you’re going to stay for one night; and the next day comes and you’ve got to go, and you’re dragging your suitcase around. It really was living on your wits.

KM: It sounds an amazing life.

TR: Yeah. [Pause]  Oh and then almost immediately, well, not too long afterwards, I heard they were doing a Shakespeare play at Carlisle, Julius Caesar, and I think it was John Malcolm again had put me on to that. That’s right, John Malcolm was living in Islington with a lady-friend and he allowed me to stay, he persuaded the lady-friend to let me stay in one of the rooms for a few nights, and he told me about this job that they were doing, this big Shakespeare in Carlisle, and he got the number somehow for me and I rang this bloke up and I said ‘I’m this sort of age and I’m this tall and I’ve played that part and that part and that part’ and he said ‘Right, fine, you can play this part and that part, we start on Monday’! [Laughs]

It was a big company in Julius Caesar, there were about 17 male roles and two ladies: the wife of Caesar and the wife of Brutus. I got there, couldn’t believe it, everybody, all the 17 people were gay, they were all gay with the exception of one guy turned up a bit late and I thought ‘Thank God for that, he wasn’t gay!’ and he’d actually been in my class at RADA. Maybe there was one other guy that wasn’t gay, but they were gay! Good actors, and I didn’t have any problems and it was quite a nice production, Julius Caesar. There was a young man in it, it was very early in his career, Giles Havergal, who went on to become a famous director up in Scotland, ran the Citizens or one of those eminent Scottish theatres. He was in this Julius Caesar but that just lasted for two weeks, three weeks and back you go to London. Oh, Carlisle, coldest place in the world!

KM: It’s freezing!

TR: Coldest place in the world, before I went to North America it was the coldest place. I’m sure it could even vie with America as well. You know it?

KM: Yeah, I know Carlisle. I think Scotland’s colder; Edinburgh’s freezing.

TR: Yes.

KM: I’m originally from Scotland so…

TR: Are you? Oh right.

KM: But Carlisle, great place!

TR: I remember being fascinated by the pubs in Carlisle because, I don’t know what goes on now but at that time the pubs were run by the state, by the city, they weren’t independently owned.

KM: They were all run by the state?

TR: Yes, and they had tiled walls and big aspidistras, I mean, anything to make you feel ‘Oh, this isn’t a very nice place to be in’.

KM: Not very comfortable.

TR: No, I mean that’s really true, I mean, that is true if you ask or research it, and maybe at some point it changed, but that’s what was going on in the mid sixties up in Carlisle. It wasn’t a nice thing to go into a pub, they used to try and keep people from stopping drinking.

KM: Not like London, very different sort of pubs.

TR: Yes. Well, pleasant places to, kind of be in really, and convivial. So back we come again to London, it’s always back to London! I found myself, by this time I was living in Caledonia Road with another actor, in one room and we were back again on the Royal Opera House cleaning the tables and washing up and all that. Because I knew the people down there and they knew I would go away for so long and then come back, and when it was convenient I would go back. Myself and this other actor we were painting a lady’s house inside to make some money, and I found out from an organisation called Spotlight - by that time, and most young actors used to do this, they would get their picture and put it in a magazine which you had to pay called Spotlight, it’s still going now, it’s a wonderful organisation. It’s a big book all men, big book all ladies; leading man section, younger man section, character actor section, all that sort of thing.

Interview continued...

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