Gyles Brandreth on why theatre is best when it goes wrong
As stage stalwart Gyles Brandreth returns with a new one-man show, he reflects on the electricity of unexpected incidents
The other night, at the Trafalgar Studios in London, midway through a performance of Killer Joe, Orlando Bloom stopped the show – twice – to berate a member of the audience for using an ipad. According to one eyewitness, the Lord of the Rings star let fly with some pretty fruity language and the temperature in the theatre – already hot, thanks to the weather – rose still further. I wish I’d been there. I love a drama at the drama.
Such unexpected incidents are at the heart of my own new one-man show, an hour of anecdotes inspired by my life in and at the theatre. For all the great drama and legendary performers I have seen, it’s the unexpected moments that I have cherished most. In 1960, when I was 12, I was taken to the Old Vic in London to see my first Romeo and Juliet with my parents. It was directed by Franco Zeffirelli and starred a young Judi Dench as Juliet. It turned out that Dame Judi’s parents were there, too. When Juliet came on and said to the Nurse (played by Peggy Mount), “Where are my mother and my father, Nurse?” a reassuring voice called out from the stalls, “Here we are, darling, in Row G.”
In my book, theatre is often best when it goes wrong. If you want to see something flawless, buy a box-set. In the movies, no one fluffs their lines and you only get to see what the director wants you to see. It is a film, a fixed record of something pre-packaged and polished to perfection. Theatre is different. Theatre is live and electric: it is happening before your very eyes in the here and now, that’s the essence of it. And when something goes awry – it’s a powerful reminder of just that.
I was there at Cyrano de Bergerac at the Bristol Old Vic when matinee idol Peter Wyngarde’s wig was set alight by a candle and the actor hopped around the stage before eventually yanking off his flaming head of hair to reveal to his aghast admirers that he was actually bald. More traumatically, I was at the Mermaid Theatre in London on the first night of William Trevor’s The Old Boys starring Michael Redgrave, who had a lifelong terror of first nights. Halfway through the play the earpiece feeding him his lines slipped its moorings and clattered to the floor, leaving the great actor bereft and speechless. Killer look: during Killer Joe, Orlando Bloom became angry with an audience member
The element of impromptu drama can, on occasion, be more contrived. I wish I had been there when Ralph Richardson, was appearing in Brighton in the pre-london run of Joe Orton’s What the Butler Saw, and, midperformance came down to the front of the stage and inquired, “Is there a doctor in the house?” A man in the circle identified himself. Sir Ralph looked up and said, “Terrible play, isn’t it, doctor?” before returning upstage and carrying on with it. As for the question of audience interruptions, it’s an increasingly thorny issue, thanks to the conflicts created by technology. As well as Bloom’s explosion, another story that made headlines recently saw some of the cast of Titanic the Musical rage at two audience members who were preoccupied watching England’s World Cup penalty shoot-out while the icy tragedy unfolded; they even cheered at the scoring of each goal.
But, as deplorable as they may seem, should such disturbances be judged so harshly? Sir Ralph defined acting as “the ability to keep an audience from coughing”. If you don’t want them fiddling with their mobiles, make your performance so compelling that they won’t. The theatre is not there for actors: it is there for the audience – and, as the groundlings made plain in Shakespeare’s day, an audience likes to make its presence felt. There is an oft-told story from Victorian times of an actor playing Richard III who appeared on stage drunk. An audience member called out, “You’re drunk!” The actor replied: “If you think I’m drunk, wait until you see the Duke of Buckingham!”
The story is so often repeated precisely because such moments are what we secretly hope for. That’s why the theatrical spoof The Play That Goes Wrong is one of London’s hottest tickets, even if it is confected. People enjoy onstage calamity: scenery coming adrift, telephones ringing, actors forgetting their lines.
Rex Harrison told me he much preferred theatre to film “because you never quite know what’s going to happen that night”. Harrison told me that in his first appearance on stage at the Liverpool Playhouse he had just one line. He had to run on and say, “It’s a baby – fetch a doctor.” Unfortunately, he said, “It’s a doctor – fetch a baby.”
Currently I’m at the Edinburgh Fringe and it’s nerve-racking. Last week, in the heat, an audience member collapsed in the stalls and I did my best to struggle on while the paramedics did their stuff. Yesterday, I noticed a nursing mother in the second row – but I carried on, even as her baby burped and squawked. I do “live theatre” because I’m hooked on the adrenalin rush. So far I’ve not forgotten any of my lines, but I have tripped a couple of times in the opening dance routine. The show’s called Break a leg! And if it turns out that I do, I know it’s the only thing the audience will remember and I’ll only have myself to blame.
Gyles Brandreth is appearing at the Pleasance Courtyard, Edinburgh, until Aug 26: pleasance.co.uk
Break a Leg! A Dictionary of Theatrical Quotations is published by Notting Hill
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