15 Just Williams

Simon on going live

ONE GREAT ADVANCE in the spreading of cultural jam is the creation of NT Live. For those who dread the kick bollock and scramble, not to mention the price, of going into a city for theatre, ballet or opera, its creation is a godsend – it’s taken some of the privilege out of the arts. For 20 quid you can sit in comfort with a glass of wine in your local cinema and watch whatever is on the menu. Often the camera enhances the shows with close-ups and top-quality sound – a perfect hybrid of theatre and film.

With equipment stealthily placed among the audience, we have recorded Allelujah!, the Alan Bennett play I’ve just finished at the Bridge Theatre, and from next week it is to be shown at a cinema near you – do go. I’m so looking forward to it – I’ve never seen myself ‘live’.

The play is set in an NHS hospital in Bennett’s beloved Yorkshire, the renowned homeland of plain speaking and parkin – and Parky, too. It’s funny and touching and contentious, visiting matters such as NHS funding, Windrush, the Stockport horror and our shaming antipathy to old people. The jokes come thick and fast with a cutting edge – then, to lighten things up, we all break into song and dance. (Bless you, Arlene Phillips, for your patience with my dancing. ‘If you’re going to cock it up, Simon, cock it up with style.’) Packed audiences have laughed and pondered, then sung along with us at the curtain call: ‘Shout ’allelujah! C’mon get happy, We’re going to the Promised Land!’

Being an actor is sometimes like having the best hobby in the world and getting paid for it. For four months I have been one of the 12 older actors playing the inmates of Allelujah!’s geriatric ward. Variously, we’ve had to suffer dementia, ulcers, arthritis, incontinence and ‘dizzy-does’. Off stage, cheek by jowl in the crowded dressing rooms, we’ve shared jokes and cakes and secrets and crossword clues; together, we’ve faced the critics and the claustrophobia. In a theatre company, you have to start loving one another pretty damn quickly. We’ve laughed endlessly, we’ve rubbed each other’s shoulders and pretended not to notice when anyone farts. Ralph Richardson once said that he hadn’t made a close friend since he’d stopped having to share a dressing room.

Now we are all on Whatsapp, pledging to keep in touch. But once you’ve shared a dressing room, baring your soul, your phobias and your bottom on a daily basis, a coffee in Starbucks isn’t quite the same. Two years down the line, we probably won’t remember where the hell it was we worked together. Such is the nomad life of a strolling player. Simon will be appearing in Posting Letters to the Moon at the Rose Theatre, Kingston, from 1-3 November