SHOW WON’T GO ON
Suranne Jones has pulled out of a West End show. But she’s not the first big star to disappoint devoted fans
IN 1817 an actor known as Mr Cummins was working at the Leeds Theatre in Hunslet. He was in a play called The Tragedy Of Jane Shore, in which a noble husband generously forgives his wife her sins after she repents. The audience loved it. But just after Mr Cummins uttered his very last line he dropped dead centre stage. The medical verdict was “ossification of the heart.”
Those were the days! There’s every chance that Mr Cummins felt unwell before he went on. He might even have had several heart attacks during previous shows. But he wasn’t going to miss a performance. The show must go on even if it meant his corpse got the applause.
I thought of him when I read about Dr Foster star Suranne Jones, who has just pulled out of the last four performances of West End play Frozen due to a mystery illness. She was playing a mother whose daughter is abducted and killed by a paedophile. Not a nice subject but her reviews were fantastic.
One wishes her a speedy recovery and all that. But claiming, as she did, that the part is emotionally too “draining” is surely no excuse. It’s just a part like any other. Moreover people had paid a whopping ticket price to see her performance. This sort of dismal bailing out is now routine in the theatre.
ALEAD actor in the new revival of Chess, the Tim Rice/Abba musical, Tim Howar, missed a preview because his wife had gone into labour. The story was widely reported as though being with his partner while she gave birth was right and natural. But look at it another way: people had paid to see him do his job. Babies appearing inconveniently are no excuse. He had a show to do. Why was he rushing to hospital to sit mopping his partner’s brow? That’s what midwives are for.
The proper response would be to send a good luck text, finish the show, take a bow, then hurtle round to the hospital with a gift for his missus and a cigar for himself. Late for the baby or not, Tim would have had a wonderful anecdote for the rest of his life.
If you’re absent in the lead part then the offence is all the worse. The most famous example of this is Daniel Day-Lewis, who in 1989 fled the stage as Hamlet because when the ghost came on Daniel saw his own father’s ghost – or something. He has never returned to the stage. His performance was actually quite boring so it was no great loss and anyway he was replaced by Chariots Of Fire actor Ian Charleson who was a sensation in the role.
He valiantly performed Hamlet while fighting full-blown Aids. He got through the entire run of the most gruelling of roles. Eight weeks later at the age of 40 he died and the theatre lost one of its best actors.
It’s not always a question of bravery but often a matter of manners. Martine McCutcheon was endlessly not appearing in My Fair Lady to the chronic disappointment of her fans. Compare and contrast her with actress Barbara Windsor. Babs is a trouper of the old school – like the aforementioned Mr Cummins, She’d rather die than not appear. She was schooled by legendary director Joan Littlewood, a ferocious woman in a beret who ran a theatre in the East End of London that trained, among a legion of others, Harry H Corbett (of Steptoe fame) and Brian Murphy from George And Mildred. A committed socialist Joan ran a very tight ship. Anyone late for rehearsal was roasted alive. When one young actor wanted to attend his grandmother’s funeral the next day the answer was a curt: “No, you’ve got a matinee.” The generation that grew up during the war inherited from their parents a spirit of “get on with it”. That spirit was in every walk of life, including showbusiness. Now it’s gone, possibly thanks to namby EU workplace directives and a new creed of me-first spinelessness.
Congratulations are due to Alex Reid, Katie Price’s ex, who went onstage (as the Genie) in panto in Wrexham 30 minutes after his adored father died. “I know how proud my father would have been of me on stage, I felt his strength flow through me. Every second of that performance, every cheer from the crowd, every laugh, every round of applause was, in my heart, loud enough to let him know I honoured him,” he touchingly blogged.
Sheridan Smith could have taken a leaf out of his book since she went absent for weeks from Funny Girl, due in part to her father’s illness, and stress. Honouring his commitment, Reid was doing the right thing by his dear old dad. Actors often deal with bereavement by going on tour. “Dr Theatre” they luvvie-ishly call it.
THE most spectacular bunk was done by Stephen Fry in a play called Cell Mates about British spy George Blake who, ironically, also did a bunk – to Moscow. Fry, who was suffering from depression, faxed apologies to the cast, hopped on a ferry to Bruges, never to return to the show. Not since Agatha Christie went missing for a week has there been such a famous disappearance.
The night that Fry went AWOL his understudy arrived at the theatre 45 minutes before curtain up. Expecting another evening playing patience he was told he would be appearing in a few minutes.
The play, however, never recovered. Fry’s co-star Rik Mayall was livid, the producer lost a mint and the author Simon Gray was so angry he publicly accused Fry of leaving in “the most cowardly fashion”.
Some things you can’t control – and chronic stage fright is one of them. Mind you Laurence Olivier never missed shows even though he would throw up before performances from sheer nerves.
Injury is often cited as a reason for non-appearance. But not if you are Sarah Bernhardt. The most extreme form of trouperism is the example of this great French actress who came to grief while performing Victorien Sardou’s play Tosca (on which the opera is based) in which the heroine hurls herself off a castle wall.
One night it all went horribly wrong. Her leg was shattered and her career was seemingly over. The “Divine Sarah” was, however, nothing if not tough. She made the decision to have her leg amputated, a dangerous operation back in 1915. She tried out several wooden legs, found one she liked and went on appearing on stage right up to her death aged 78. She even played Hamlet to great acclaim.
I am sure theatre producers smile understandingly and in private rant furiously at today’s performers’ drop-of-a-hat absences. For the real pros, having your leg off is no reason to miss curtain up.