GET READY TO FALL IN LOVE AGAIN
SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE TO THE STAGE
IN 2014 Lee Hall, the writer of Billy Elliott and The Pitmen Painters, adapted the smash hit, awardwinning film Shakespeare in Love for the stage. And now ‘the best British comedy since One Man, Two Guvnors,’ is making its first appearance at the Theatre Royal Bath following a triumphant West End run. The hit film, now a hit play. The winner of seven Academy Awards including Best Screenplay, the film Shakespeare in Love which starred Judi Dench, Joseph Fiennes and Gwyneth Paltrow, became an instant classic. Based on the screenplay by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, the ‘swooning delight’ is described as, ‘an exhuberant and beautiful homage to love, art and theatre itself.’ A witty and epic Elizabethan extravaganza, Shakespeare in Love is about a young Will Shakespeare who is suffering from writer’s block. The deadline for his new play - a comedy called Romeo and Ethel, the Pirate’s Daughter - is fast approaching. He’s struggling to finish the first line of a sonnet and he’s in dire need of inspiration. And then he meets the beguiling Viola de Lesseps, the beautiful daughter of a wealthy merchant. She is prepared to do anything (including risking the frosty disapproval of Queen Elizabeth I) to fulfil her illicit dream of performing on the London stage and pursuing a passionate affair with the greatest playwright of the age. Sounds fun, I remarked, to a wonderfully friendly Bill Ward who is best known for his roles as farmer James Barton in Emmerdale and Charlie Stubbs in Coronation Street. “Well, it’s got everything in it. It’s very funny but also about love so it is touching as well,” he told me enthusiastically. “It’s not a musical but a play with music. And also there’s a fair bit of dancing too,” the Bristol-based actor added. “By modern standards we’ve got a lot of actors - 18 in all. It really is great fun. “I play the Earl of Wessex,” the modern British history graduate from the University of Bristol went on. “In this particular version of the play, I am William Shakespeare’s love rival and we’re fighting over the same woman called Viola. He doesn’t fall in love with her because, this being Elizabethen times, he’s bought her for £5,000 from her father and gets a dowry for marrying her. “But she is deeply in love with Shakespeare who is trying to write Romeo and Juliet which leads to a frantic tussle. There’s a fair amount of Shakespeare in this play, too.” “The play’s written in very modern English as the film was and is a pretty faithful adaptation of the plot of it, “the 52-year old father of two said, adding that the play was adapted by “a very fine playwright” called Lee Hall - “a bit of a hero of mine,” added Bill - who also happens to hail from the same neck of the woods as the actor - Newcastle. So, if the Bard could look down and view the play, would he be happy with it? “I would really hope so,” Bill laughed, “because it keeps very much his spirit which was irreverent. He was also, of course, extraordinarily versatile with great breadth and depth in his writing, producing some of the most tragic tragedies and some of the funniest comedies you could possibly imagine. He wrote with an understanding of humanity and the human condition. And better than any writers before or since.” Back to Emmerdale and Coronation Street. Was it fun? “Yes, I loved both of the shows very much,” Bill replied. “And I had a great time with a great team on the show. Yes, I really enjoyed my time working on both. “The best bit about my job is the variety,” Bill continued. “But the flip-side of it is insecurity which means you’re not sure what you’ll be doing next. They’re two sides of the same coin and you can’t really have one without the other. An actor’s job is very now and that’s the joy of it for me.” Bill’s extensive television television credits include Silent Witness, True Crime, Casualty, Doctors, The Bill, Holby City, Eastenders, Jonathan Creek and Footballers’ Wives. On stage the versatile actor has performed in a range of includ-
ing The Tempest, Spamalot, Million Dollar Quartet, Look Back in Anger, Oh What A Lovely War! A Chorus of Disapproval, The Beggar’s Opera, Antigone, A Christmas Carol and Kevin the Gnome in a muddy field in Glastonbury. He’s also starred in national tours of Legally Blonde - it played the Bristol Hippodrome last year - and Not Dead Enough and Aladdin at the Theatre Royal Bath. Before becoming an actor Bill (he is also a professional landscape photographer) worked for more than a decade in advertising. Co-starring with Bill is Geraldine Alexander who has worked extensively on stage and screen. Her impressive theatre credits include The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, The Welsh Boy, In Praise of Love, Titus Andronicus, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, A Streetcar Named Desire, Present Laughter, Private Lives and Jude The Obscure. “Shakespeare in Love has a vibrancy and energy to it and it just keeps moving. It’s big with fights, music and dancing in it,” a most delightful Leamington Spaborn Geraldine Alexander, who plays Queen Elizabeth I, told me with relish. A great role, I suggested. “Oh I’ve always been absolutely fascinated by Queen Elizabeth so for me it’s a great joy to play the part. I’ve always been intrigued by her as a human being, and by her cleverness to be honest because she was always so ahead of the game. And in Shakespeare in Love there is a chance to glimpse that side of her, the side that makes things happen without seeming to. She’s so clever and an amazing survivor. We could do with her now, I reckon. I really wish that I’d known her, you know.” Any similarities between Geraldine and her latest stage incarnation I wondered. “Well we’re both kind of pale-skinned,” she laughed. “And I think she probably felt a bit outside of things just like the nature of her job which I suppose is, in some ways, like the nature of the job of an actor. I can understand that. “When I take on a role I do become immersed in a character. It’s an extreme double. But, on the whole, I try not to carry the character around off stage, especially some of the parts I’ve played, because they can inhabit you and exhaust you. But, of course, I hope some of this particular play stays with me, like the dancing, because of the stature you adopt for the part and the way you use your body in it. It’s just wonderful.” Geraldine said that she remembered the moment when a life treading the boards became an appealing career choice. “Oh yes, I remember it well. I was really young and did it at school,” the most chatty and friendly actress recalled. “Then I wondered whether you could paid for doing it. And I thought yes, I can do it. Later I was taken on a school trip to Stratford to see Henry V and when he came over the battlement and said ‘once more unto the breech’ that was it for me. It was so exciting and I knew that is what I definitely wanted to do. And that was it. My love for acting has been with me ever since.” And the appeal for Geraldine of her chosen profession? “Well I love being in a company whether it’s a film company or an acting company. I like stepping into someone elses shoes and I love that feeling of becoming someone else. I just love my profession and the variety of jobs it offers me. I’m really so fortunate to be doing something I really enjoy. And get paid for it.” And what a career! As well as her extensive work on stage outined earlier, Geraldine’s TV work includes roles in Marcella, Father Brown, Shetland, Law & Order UK, Eastenders, Casualty, Silent Witness, Jonathan Creek, Where the Heart Is, Taggart, Midsomer Murders, Rumpole of the Bailey, Poirot, Hannay, Doctor Who and Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple. On the big screen Geraldine’s film credits include The Discovery of Heaven, Merchant Garcon, The Wall of Tyranny and The Nightingale Sage. This new production is directed by Phillip Breen, director of the highly acclaimed recent Royal Shakespeare Company production of The Merry Wives of Windsor and The Hypocrite.