The Rotters' Club

by Jonathan Coe

  Steve’s parents, Lloyd and Connie, came to this country from Kingston, Jamaica, in the mid-1950s. They settled in Handsworth but, like many of their fellow Jamaicans, did not find it easy to assimilate at first. Lloyd was a cabinet-maker by trade but the only work he could find at the time was unskilled. He started as a panel-beater in the Hay Mills plant of what was then the Wilmot Breedon company, and has since worked his way up to become a British Leyland foreman. Steve’s mother Connie works in medical catering. They have another son, Steve’s younger brother Aldwyn, named after Aldwyn “Lord Kitchener” Roberts, one of the most famous exponents of calypso in the Caribbean.

  “Yeah, we’re a close family,” Steve agrees. “It was tough for my mum and dad because they left a lot of relatives behind in Jamaica. So as far as family was concerned, they had to start again from scratch. They’re going to be there to see me on the first night, that’s for sure. And the second, and the last!”

  A few people were surprised, I told him, when it was announced that he had been catapulted straight to this starring role. In a school not exactly overflowing with members of the ethnic minorities, was he not worried that he had landed this plum part simply—to put it bluntly— because of the colour of his skin?

  “Sure, it was the drama committee’s idea that I should read for it,” he answers. “But the bottom line is that I auditioned for this part like everyone else. We’re not talking about tokenism here.”

  Finally, rumours have been flying around the school corridors for the last few weeks about the on-stage (and off-stage) chemistry between Steve and his leading lady, Cicely Boyd. Bad news for the gossip-mongers, though: Steve insists that there’s nothing in it. And when he tells me why, it turns out there’s further bad news for his legions of admirers on the other side of the Founder’s Drive.

  “Sure, Ciss and I have got a very intense rapport going on stage,” he says, “but that’s as far as it goes. I’ve got a girlfriend called Valerie and we’ve been going steady now for about six months. We’ve known each other for years, actually, because we met at Sunday School, which makes it sound really boring, but she’s a great girl and she’s going to be sitting right there in the front row, making sure I don’t cross the line in any of those love scenes!”

  A smart handclap from the show’s director, Tim Newsome (whose “Endgame” proved a bit too austere for some tastes last term) signals that my time is up and Steve is wanted for another run-through of the demanding finale. On my way downstairs I drop in at the Porter’s Lodge and am told that ticket sales so far have been extremely brisk. So one thing at least seems certain: both schools are convinced that this is going to be an “Othello” to remember.

  Cicely Boyd as DESDEMONA

  Interview by Claire Newman

  There’s a certain kind of hair which is just made for tossing, and without a doubt, Cicely Boyd has it in spades. The legendary flaxen locks which cascade over her perfectly formed shoulders have probably inspired more fourth-form poetry, over the years, than the Dark Lady ever managed to get out of the Bard—and they also give her the most expressive repertoire of tosses I’ve ever encountered.

  This girl can toss with disdain, toss in agreement, toss with impatience, and of course (how many English masters have found this out, since joint lessons were introduced?) she can toss flirtatiously, too. No wonder that you often hear her awestruck schoolmates remarking “What a tosser!” whenever they pass her in the corridor.

  Today, though, she is tossing with passion and sincerity, as she discusses the draining experience of immersing herself in the part of Desdemona for Tim Newsome’s upcoming and eagerly awaited production of “Othello.”

  “You have to do a lot of what I call ‘emotional eurhythmics,’ ” she gushes. “On the night of the performance, you have to be at your absolute peak, physically and spiritually. The karma has to be just right. I find that meditation helps enormously. I’ve taught Steve quite a lot about this, and before rehearsals what we’ll often do is just sit cross-legged on the floor, staring into each other’s eyes for half an hour or so.”

  Straight out of the RADA textbook, I’m sure. “Steve,” by the way, is Steve Richards, he of the pulsing thigh muscles and gleaming pecs, who will be making his theatrical debut opposite la Boyd as the insanely jealous Moor. Was she finding it hard, so far, working with a relative novice?

  “Steve was my own choice to play Othello,” she pouts. “And I think I’ve been proved right. For a long time I’ve thought he was just the most intriguing person. He has this very ordinary facade, very upfront and straightforward, but I was sure that when I peeled all of that away, there’d be something enormous and fascinating underneath, which I really wanted to explore.” (She means his talent, I think.) “I just know he’s going to be fantastic in the part. He has a real feeling for the verse.”

  Somewhat nervously, now, I take my life in my hands and suggest that there are critics, in some quarters, who maintain that she has come to wield too much power on the Drama Committee, and that her style of management has been described—again, only in some quarters—as dictatorial. How does she respond to these comments?

  At first she doesn’t respond at all—at least, not in words, but simply with a majestic toss of the hair that could stun a rhino at fifty yards. Then she purrs:

  “I can’t help it if people become jealous. That’s simply not my problem. We’re enjoying a wonderful year and we’ve already put on some wonderful shows. All I can say is that that gives me enormous satisfaction.”

  And this jealousy, I venture, might have something to do with her looks?

  “It’s true, you know, Claire—there is this prejudice that makes people think a woman can’t be beautiful and intelligent at the same time. But the truth of the matter is, I don’t consider myself to be beautiful anyway.” (She looks to me for confirmation, or perhaps disagreement, but I am preserving, at this point, the studied neutrality of the professional reporter.) Now she leans forward, confiding. “Actually, Claire, I’m going to let you into a little secret.” I point out to her that, as I’m interviewing her for the school newspaper, it will hardly remain a little secret for very long, but she tells me anyway. “I have a serious problem with my body-image,” she whispers. “I actually have a kind of loathing of my own body, and the only way I can fight it is by confronting that image daily, hour by hour, minute by minute. Which is why my bedroom wall at home is simply plastered with polaroids of me. Stark naked.”

  At which revelation my cub reporter’s pencil, upon which I have been sucking abstractedly, breaks off between my teeth and I decide it’s time to bring this interview to a hasty conclusion. I thank Ms. Boyd and she heads back to rehearsals with a lovely valedictory toss. Truly, I reflect, she is a magnificent creature sent down to us as a gift from the gods, and no self-respecting pupil of King William’s, male or female, will want to miss next week’s performance. Meanwhile, boys, don’t let the thought of all those polaroids distract you too much from your Greek irregular verbs . . .

  (“Othello” will be reviewed in the first issue of next term by our new drama critic, Benjamin Trotter.)

  LEISURE NEWS

  The Walking Option

  For the third week in a row, the members of Mr. Tillotson’s walking option got hopelessly lost last Wednesday, this time in the grounds of Waseley Country Park. Next term the Option will also be opened to girls. Let’s hope one of them brings an Ordnance Survey Map.

  The Wanking Option

  The first meeting of this group was cancelled owing to mass non-attendance. It’s believed that members were unable to read the relevant noticeboard.

  8

  THE BILL BOARD

  Thursday, 13 January, 1977

  “OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE”

  (Big School, 13, 14, 15 December)

  Reviewed by BENJAMIN TROTTER

  Ah, the mystique of the theatrical life! Here I was, stepping into the shoes of Harold Hobson, Kenneth Tynan and . . . erm, other famous
drama critics. My first foray into the glamorous world of the jobbing reviewer. The stretch limo waiting at the door . . . the coy flirtation with the hat-check girl as I hand over my gloves and topcoat . . . the gentle embrace of the plush velvet as I ease myself into the front-row seat. The audience’s hushed expectancy . . .

  OK, so it was like this. There I was, still waiting at my Lickey Road bus stop at a quarter to seven for a 62 bus which should have turned up half an hour ago. Then, when I reach Big School with 90 seconds to spare, I find I have lost my “press pass”—a crumpled sheet of paper, as it happens, on to which Tim Newsome has scrawled “WE HAVE TO LET THIS PILLOCK IN FOR FREE, APPARENTLY.” Fighting my way past the bouncers on the door, I squat down on one of those wooden benches which seem to have been bought at a job lot from some pensioned-off Dickensian workhouse, and am just in time to catch the end of Scene One.

  First, flustered impressions, then: Julian Stubbs as Iago. Great casting. He has the right diabolical sparkle, and he really chews on the verse, audibly relishes the sibilant venom of his lines. Three hours later, he will be on stage again, down the road at The Bournbrook, fronting for King William’s very own punk prodigies The Maws of Doom (in whose birth your reviewer himself had a small part to play), and you can see that he brings the same spiteful energy to both roles. This scene would be fair cracking along, if it weren’t for lacklustre support from Graham Temple, whose Roderigo is wooden by comparison.

  Othello enters, and you can feel a shiver of admiration run through the audience. Steve Richards looks the part. He is massy, imposing; the man has a presence. Emily Sandys’ simple but effective costume enhances his bearing, his easy militaristic swagger. This is a figure to be reckoned with. When he begins to speak, the voice, initially, is a disappointment. He falters, stiffens, seems to mishear the rhythms. He is in fear of the verse, not in command of it. One’s heart sinks: this isn’t going to do. It has been too much to ask, throwing the whole weight of the play on to a first-time actor.

  But this is a false start. A few more speeches, and Richards has gained immeasurably in confidence. He can sense the audience’s respect, and is buoyed up by it. Soon he is into his stride:

  Rude am I in my speech

  And little blessed with the soft phrase of peace, For since these arms of mine had seven years’ pith Till now some nine moons wasted, they have used Their dearest action in the tented field.

  Richards missed none of the tonal ambiguity of this passage: his delivery was courteous, but he caught the undertow of boastfulness, of thinly veiled scorn for the men of peace, which lies beneath these honeyed words. This, you could tell, was going to be a rich, pregnant, multi-layered performance. And so it proved right up until the end.

  Then comes the fatal moment. Act I, Scene iii, line 169. A simple stage direction, “Enter Desdemona.” And suddenly the whole production starts collapsing like a house of cards.

  Later in the play, Cicely Boyd’s Desdemona will ask Iago, “What wouldst thou write of me, if thou should praise me?,” and the wily manipulator replies, “O, gentle lady, do not put me to it, For I am nothing if not critical.” Well, Cicely—sorry and all that, but I’m with Iago on this one.

  The point about Desdemona, surely, is that she has to have some kind of spirit, some kind of pluck and resilience, if she is not just to come across like some annoying little wallflower that the men happen to be fighting over. The grounds for this can be found in Shakespeare’s verse: all any actress has to do is remain faithful to its supple, muscular movements, and the rest will follow. But Miss Boyd, either wilfully or through sheer incompetence, betrayed the verse at every point. One’s heart sank as soon as she opened her mouth and pronounced her first line—“I do perceive here a divided duty”—with two quite meaningless and inappropriate stresses on “do” and “duty.” What could she be thinking of? Sadly, this set the tenor for the rest of her performance. Desdemona can be seen either as a loyal and virtuous wife, or as a saucy temptress who is responsible, in part, for precipitating the play’s tragic denouement. Better still, an actress can try to negotiate a path between these readings, and portray a character of real complexity and contradiction. Instead, all we got from Cicely Boyd’s Desdemona was sing-song delivery and a range of responses to her husband which never stretched much further than moonstruck adoration. This was a performance which let down her fellow-actors, the play itself and, worst of all, Cicely Boyd’s own reputation as one of King Willliam’s most gifted thespians.

  An even worse disappointment was in store with Jennifer Hawkins’ Bianca. This supposedly tough-as-nails strumpet managed to radiate, in Ms. Hawkins’ version, all the erotic allure and raw sexual energy of a comatose mullet.

  Tim Newsome got what he could out of these players and the rest of his sterling crew, but we were left at the end of the evening with an “Othello” which carried absolutely no tragic weight. Given the success the senior Drama Soc enjoyed with “Kiss Me Kate” a couple of years ago, I was left wondering whether an upbeat musical version mightn’t have better suited the lightweight talents involved. I’ll even suggest the title myself, free of charge: “OTHELLO, or ‘The Moor the Merrier.’ ” How about it, Mr. Newsome?

  LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

  From Arthur Pusey-Hamilton, MBE

  Dear Sir,

  I much enjoyed the school’s recent production of “Othello.” I was not previously familiar with the work, but it seemed to me aptly chosen in the present political climate. I found that the climax illustrated, most powerfully, Mr. Powell’s chilling vision of “rivers of blood,” and provided an ample demonstration of the perils of unrestricted immigration, as experienced in 16th-century Venice. Bravo Mr. Newsome!

  I am writing, however, to complain about the shocking display of moral degeneracy which met my astonished eyes at the so-called “cast party” following the final performance.

  My young nipper Arthur Pusey-Hamilton Jnr is a healthy enough lad in his third year at K.W. He was employed on this production in the capacity of scene-shifter and it was a source of some pleasure, both to myself and to Gladys, my good lady wife, to reflect that he was involved in some robust extra-curricular activity which might “bring him out of his shell” (to use the vernacular phrase employed by his child psychologist). Although neither I myself, nor Gladys, my good lady wife, could see that there was much awry with his regular leisure activities (Pusey-Hamilton Jnr likes to sit on his bed, sometimes for hours at a time, rocking backwards and forwards while gazing fixedly at the walls of his bedroom, which he has painted matt black), it was deemed desirable, both by the aforementioned psychologist and by the team of social workers from the City Council who have recently been, to use their own lingo, “looking into his case,” that he should perhaps socialize a little more with his young schoolchums.

  In the light of this, it was with some enthusiasm that we agreed to his attending the small and—we fondly imagined—civilized celebration which was to take place at the home of one of the cast members after the final performance. Of course, this meant that Pusey-Hamilton Jnr would be staying up long past his usual bedtime (5:30 p.m., unless a particularly instructive edition of “Horizon” or “Panorama” happens to be showing), but neither I myself, nor Gladys, my good lady wife, have ever seen any reason to be “stick-in-the-muds,” and we firmly believe that there are some rules which are meant to be broken! (Though not, of course, the rule which dictates that his hands must be firmly cuffed behind his back whenever he is in bed or taking a shower. Oh no.)

  Accordingly, it was well after 10 p.m. and the party had been in full swing for at least fifteen minutes when I arrived at No. 43, Pick-worth Road, B31, on the night in question. I had no difficulty in finding the house, because the primeval, incessant beat of so-called “reggae” music was thumping down the street, for all the world as if Satan’s own timpani were pounding a tattoo at the jaws of Hades. I was immediately concerned about the effect that this infernal cacophony might have on the delicate sensibilities of
Pusey-Hamilton Jnr, who of course is not allowed to listen to so-called “pop” music at home, it being the belief both of myself and Gladys, my good lady wife, that a regular diet of such fine old English classics as Delius’ “First Cuckoo in Spring” makes far more wholesome listening for a lad his age; although we are not averse, occasionally, to his “letting his hair down” with something lighter along the lines of Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance Marches.

  When I rang the doorbell of No. 43, therefore, I was already expecting the worst. And yet the reality was far more appalling than anything my wildest imagination could have conjured up.

  I shall not dwell, in any detail, on the scenes of decadence which I found awaiting me behind the innocent-looking door of No. 43, Pick-worth Road. Suffice it to say that I witnessed acts of depravity which would have brought a blush to the libertines of Caligula’s Rome. So this, I thought, is how aspiring members of the theatrical profession “celebrate” their dramatic triumphs! My heart pounding, my palms sweating, my eyes darting this way and, quite frankly, that, I stepped my way gingerly through a sea of writhing bodies in search of poor Pusey-Hamilton Jnr, whose vulnerable temperament would, I knew, already have been done irreparable damage by his exposure to this degenerate behaviour. Finally I found him, sitting halfway up the staircase, sipping on a can of ginger beer (how quickly corruption sets in!—for at home he is allowed to drink nothing but natural spring water and the occasional tumbler of unsweetened prune juice), while behind him on the stairs, not three feet away, two members of the supporting cast were engaged in an act which I had not seen performed since one regrettable occasion during the last war, when, as a doughty foot-soldier in the campaign against Rommel, I awoke one evening, bound, gagged, naked and indubitably drugged (as I explained to my senior officer during the subsequent court-martial) in the precincts of an Egyptian bordello insalubrious even by the standards of that fetid country.