Falstaff is enormous, gigantic. It makes the love scenes very funny... I hope
HOWZAT! DAVID TROUGHTON TALKS TO MARION McMULLEN ABOUT FALSTAFF, FAT SUITS AND CRICKET
You’ve had to bulk up to play would-be lover Sir John Falstaff in The Merry Wives Of Windsor. How did you manage in a fat suit during the summer heatwave? (LAUGHS) With great difficulty. I did get rather hot.
I actually have two fat suits and one is really heavy. I wear it when I pull my shirt aside and expose my chest.
One is made of foam and various things like that, but the heavy one is made of Latex and rubber.
There is a lot of running around in the last scene and it’s difficult in a fat suit.
I’ve always wanted to play Falstaff and I’d love to play him in the two Henry IV plays ... but maybe I’d get a thinner fat suit and do it in winter.
It’s said Shakespeare wrote the comedy in 14 days because Queen Elizabeth I commanded him to show Falstaff in love. Did you want to play the royal favourite super-sized?
WE DO feature a little recording of Elizabeth I in the production and I wanted to be a big Falstaff.
There are so many references to his size – he sweats a lot, is not good with heat, gets out of breath and his waist is two yards about. I thought I might as well go for it.
This man is enormous, gigantic, and it makes the love scenes very funny, I hope. The costumes we were in are brilliant – a mix of Elizabethan and modern.
I have this Union Jack waistcoat that is extraordinary. It has eight more yards of material than anyone else.
Getting in and out of my costumes for quick changes is quite tricky when you are that size though.
What is your earliest theatre memory?
SEEING my father (Doctor Who actor Patrick Troughton) in a play about Adolf Hitler. I was about 12 and I saw it at Golders Green when he was on tour. I think it was the last theatre he did.
He hated the theatre and called it ‘all that shouting in the evening.’
He got very nervous, which was surprising because he did live television in the 1950s, but he just could not cope with live theatre.
I also remember seeing Frankie Howerd at the Aldwych just playing Frankie Howerd really and he was brilliant.
When did you know you wanted to act?
I WAS 18 and I had thought to go to university and do history. I had a place but decided I didn’t really want to do it.
What I really wanted was to act. I didn’t go to drama school, but worked with Unicorn Theatre for three years and I came up through the ranks.
It was like an apprenticeship and really valuable. Were you surprised two of your three sons turned to acting? NOT really. We knew Sam was an actor about the age of eight.
Wigsy (Will) took a bit longer in finding it and Jim found cricket.
They are all doing what they want. They have always known what acting entails and know that most are out of work and it can be tricky.
I’ve four grandchildren now and Finlay (Sam’s son) is 13 and interested in engineering and things like that so maybe he’ll be a scientist. You never know.
I’m also a cricket umpire in the Birmingham league, but I’ve not been able to umpire this year. Summer is normally my time.
(Laughs) I’d rather be an actor in winter and have the summer off for cricket.
You are an associate artist at the Royal Shakespeare Company. Are there any other Shakespeare roles you would like to play? THERE are lots of parts. I’d like to play Lear one day. I’d like to have a go at that.
I haven’t done Maccas (Macbeth). I’m a bit too old for Maccas, but I suppose I could play him older.
I’ve played so many great roles. Robert Buzzard in A Very Peculiar Practice on the BBC and on stage Richard III and The Tempest playing Caliban. Titus Andronicus last year was very special as well.
There was lots of blood in that and I ended up swallowing a lot of it. It’s nice to play a part like Falstaff after Titus. It’s lovely to a comedy.
What it is like filming live cinema broadcasts?
I DID Lear and Titus last year. It’s weird because half the house is not there because you have got to have space for the cameras. It’s a weird event for the audience as well.
I have never done a comedy broadcast before so it should be interesting.
It is more stressful than a press night because you are playing to thousands, but you try not to think about that and you try to forget the cameras. It’s fantastic that more people can get to see a live show and I hope it then encourages them to go to the theatre.
■ The live broadcast of The Merry Wives Of Windsor can be seen in cinemas nationwide on September 12 and runs at Stratford-upon-Avon until September 22 before transferring to London’s Barbican from December 7.
Go to rsc.org.uk for details.