Small Man in a Book

by Rob Brydon

  It was at Porthcawl Comprehensive that I made my first tentative steps towards girls. For a moment there I considered using the word ‘lunges’ rather than steps, for comic effect, you understand, in the hope that it might raise a wry smile. I’m afraid it would be entirely inaccurate to use so forceful a word. I never once came close to a lunge, more’s the pity. With hindsight I was far too cautious and wary of rejection and subsequent humiliation to ever threaten a lunge. Instead, I contented myself with gazing adoringly from afar. I could list you an impressive roll-call of beauties who all managed to remain tantalizingly out of reach during and, on reflection, beyond my time at the school. It would read like this: Katie Davies Williams, Rhian Grice, Meryl Metcalfe, Liza Milza and Helen Phillips. All these enchanting creatures were at one time or another subject to, at the very least, a wistful gaze from the young me, and all of them, as mentioned earlier, went on to successfully complete their schooling without any input from these quarters.

  Katie was the first one I noticed. She was a beautiful, captivating girl – although, as I write these words, I’m sad to discover that I can’t bring up a faithful reproduction of her features in my mind’s eye. I remember the impression she created, though, and the effect she had on me. She was sunny, cheerful and cheeky with just the right amount of hippy to her; that is to say, she displayed a free spirit but her personal hygiene was never in question. She had long hair. Did she use to crimp it into that smoky-bacon Frazzles look? She brought to mind a young Kate Bush and, as Miss Bush herself had done only recently, Katie stirred hitherto unknown sensations deep within. She possessed a wonderfully mysterious gypsy-like quality, giving the impression that when out of my sight she floated wispily from here to there, carried on the breeze like a dandelion seed. She was a delicious mutant hybrid of the health-threateningly exciting Kate Bush and Rumours-era Fleetwood Mac (female members). At that year’s eisteddfod she performed a fantastic, inappropriately erotic piece of interpretive dance to Kate Bush’s ‘Breathing’, with Keith Davies (who was playing Tony in West Side Story). I sat sulking in the audience as the two of them wrapped their young, leotard-clad bodies around each other, creating a shape-shifting ball of togetherness. Or exclusion, depending on your viewpoint. And I knew where I stood on the matter.

  Katie and I got on very well, probably too well. One day, in class, she wrote her name on my arm and I nearly fainted. She was entirely comfortable as the first occupant of my still-pristine pedestal, long before it would become scuffed by the heels of the girls who followed. She worked on a Saturday in Porthcawl’s only health-food shop, where I would spend an inordinate amount of time apparently concerned for my health, browsing the various nuts and berries while secretly pining for the girl at the till. To this day I can’t sniff a dried banana without filling up. I never once told her how I felt, although I often dreamed of doing so, time and again lying in bed at night telling myself that tomorrow was the day. Of course when the moment came I would invariably retreat, afraid that I might spoil the lovely friendship we had. The fear of rejection is a powerful emotion in a young mind and it held a tight grip on me throughout my teenage years.

  ‘One day in class, she wrote her name on my arm, and I nearly fainted.’

  Katie eventually went off to America for a while, perhaps around the end of the sixth form. I knew the time of her flight; it was a warm Sunday afternoon and I was washing the dishes after Sunday lunch, staring out of the window and thinking about her flying away from me. On the radio Jimmy Savile played Frankie Valli’s ‘My Eyes Adored You’. I cried.

  This time of my life comes with its own soundtrack album, not available in the shops. In the midst of my mooning over Katie I heard Gordon Lightfoot on the radio singing ‘Daylight Katy’. I was sure it had been written about her. ‘But she doesn’t have to get up in the morning, With her hair so soft and long …’

  I’d ride around Porthcawl on my bike, often in the rain, listening with a heavy heart to my Walkman and Joe Jackson singing ‘Is She Really Going Out With Him?’.

  Pretty women out walking with gorillas down my street …

  And, in conclusive proof that there was no credibility apartheid on my little cassette player, I would also take comfort from the, at that time, still-undecorated Cliff Richard and ‘Dreamin’. ‘If you could only see through my eyes, Then you’d know just what I’m going through …’

  Poor me! If only I’d had the nerve to make a move … I’m afraid I was far too polite.

  It was around this time that I discovered James Dean after watching Rebel Without a Cause on the television one night. The next day I began a considerably lengthy phase of wearing a white T-shirt and not washing my hair for a few days at a time so that it would stand up like his. Nowadays I’d have scoured the Internet for information on him, but back then I made do with hopping on my bike and cycling down to the library, where they had a couple of books on his brief life and career. Looking back, I suspect this was the extent of my teenage rebellion – a refusal to wash my hair for up to three days at a time, a brief interruption of my polite ways, after which normal service was resumed.

  Some of the girls on my list made less impact than others. Meryl Metcalfe, for example, cannot be said to have cast her spell for an extended period but earns her place nonetheless for the sheer delight she has given my children whenever I recount to them the time my teenage self lay on the grass above Rest Bay one summer’s day and gazed at her from afar. She was sitting with her friends, perhaps eating ice cream. Certainly, when they make the film of my life she’ll be eating ice cream. Depending on the certificate, it might even be an ice lolly that she’s getting to grips with. She was sitting on the grass, just being, and I was maybe thirty yards away, also sitting down and, had I only known it then, chillin’. Somewhere in the vast chasm between us a bicycle lay discarded; the wheel framed my view of her, the spokes giving an out-of-focus, softly pornographic haze to her already enticing features. That was it – I just gazed and thought, hoping that telepathy would do the rest and she might glide towards me and make the first move.

  I realize now, that was what I was always waiting and hoping for, that the girl might make the first move. It was a mistake. To any young readers I would thoroughly recommend making the first move yourself. If you’re lucky, the girl will have the second move up her sleeve ready to go. If you’re very lucky, she might show you the third and fourth moves. If you’re not lucky, who cares? You’ll have some stories to tell your kids.

  Helen Phillips was in my English class; her mum was a teacher at the school and involved in the drama productions. We got on famously. I always got on well with the parents of the girls I fancied, especially the mums (always a big hit with the mums). Not in a Mrs Robinson kind of way, although the thought did cross my mind, but just in an, ‘Aw, Rob’s great, isn’t he?’ kind of way. If anything, this made the lack of romantic interest from their daughters even harder to take. I have to stress romantic interest as opposed to interest generally. I got on hugely well with all these girls – not so much with Meryl, who was more your distant, bicycle-framed goddess type – but all the others thought I was an absolute hoot. I would make them laugh like drains with my pithy observations and wry comments scribbled in the margins of their ring binders. That’s not a euphemism.

  This was the case with Helen and with Liza, who sat near me in English classes during my third year in the sixth form. (This extended tour of duty was brought about by an appalling performance at O level – only two passes at the first attempt. This meant that, rather than going back a year, I just hung around and waited for the year behind to eventually arrive, like shoddy guests at a dinner party.) Liza Milza, like Meryl, had a pleasingly exotic name that just added to her already substantial appeal. Again, we got on terribly well and I was sure I detected the green shoots of a relationship sprouting underfoot. Alas, it wasn’t to be. Liza showered my little green shoots not with kisses but with weedkiller in the form of politely declined advances.

 
; But of all these distant glittering prizes it was Rhian who held my heart hostage for the longest during my teenage years. We met at drama class and again got on wonderfully. She was a lovely girl with an exceptionally pretty face, and I was smitten from the start. Just like in Jerry Maguire, she had me at hello. By now it won’t surprise even the most casual reader to learn that any romantic leanings were painfully one-sided. Rhian had a tall, good-looking surfing boyfriend named Mike. My God, I’ve just remembered, it was Mike Metcalfe, Meryl’s brother. That bloody family! What did they have against me?

  Mike surfed, as did many of the cool boys at the school (Porthcawl sitting neatly on the South Wales coast, almost midway between Cardiff and Swansea). I toyed for a while with the idea of surfing. Dad had a friend who owned Pyle Marine, a boat shop next to a garden centre in Pyle, and he had some surfboards in stock. But, explained Dad, they didn’t have fins so I would have to buy a fin myself. The fin, as any surfers will know from their own surfing escapades, is the rudder-like device that juts down from the back of the board and helps with the steering. I went to a surf shop in Porthcawl and bought an exciting-looking fin, made out of glittery red translucent plastic, as well as some wax for the expected board. For whatever reason, I never got the board. There I was, in an effort to impress Rhian, left standing boardless with just a shiny red fin in my hand, bereft and (what was worse) entirely ignorant of the horrific metaphorical implication of my situation. I kept that fin for years, on the off chance that I might one day answer the ocean’s call. I never did.

  I was already very taken with Rhian when we were cast opposite each other in Guys and Dolls as Sky and Sarah. We had been rehearsing for some weeks when we finally arrived at the point in the play where the two characters kiss. It comes at the end of a song; all through that song, all I could think was that in a moment I would have to kiss her. Now, bear in mind that at this point I hadn’t kissed a girl. My God, I was nervous as I sang the last note, looking into her eyes. I think she might have been nervous too; her face looked a little flushed as we leaned in and kissed – a chaste, closed-mouth kiss – and I nearly caught fire. Her mouth appeared to be aflame; anyone watching closely would have witnessed my closed eyes opening and my eyebrows arching in shock. Spontaneous combustion was a real concern. I’d never known a feeling like this – was this what kissing was like? I’d better carry a bucket of sand around with me. I think I looked anywhere but at her as we disjoined, my head reeling as I tried to retain a nonchalant gait and conceal the furnace inside.

  Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls.

  ‘I’ve never been in love before …’

  Rhian and I compete to see who can wear the most make-up. I win.

  I suppose I spent the rest of my time at school trying to get back to that intimacy with Rhian; it had felt so real, but of course it was entirely contrived. We kissed a few more times in rehearsals and also during each of the three performances (who’s counting?) but it never felt like it did that first incredible time. How could it? And so it went. We were great friends in that classic ‘I want to be more than friends’ ménage à un scenario that breaks so many hearts, and I moped about pining and feeling sorry for myself.

  Things reached their platonic peak in the run-up to my eighteenth birthday. We had arranged to go out to dinner and I was so excited at the prospect I could hardly wait. The night before, she called to say that she couldn’t come as she had to revise. Looking back, I suppose she realized that this dinner was a very different proposition for me than it was for her, and felt it best to call it off. I certainly didn’t understand at the time; it was the eve of my eighteenth birthday, and I was heartbroken. Still, my birthday arrived and I went to Swansea with David Williams to see Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie. We had a good time.

  We had a very good time.

  I can honestly say that in all these years neither David nor Dustin has ever let me down.

  6

  It was in the drama studio that I began to feel at home in my new school. I auditioned for West Side Story and ended up playing Snowboy, one of the Jets. I think his one line was a loud, sarcastic, ‘It hurts! It hurts!’ which I hoped to imbue with enough passion to mark me out for a bigger role in next year’s show. To do that I had to impress the show’s director, head of the drama department Roger Burnell. Roger was in his late twenties when I arrived at the school. He had trained as an actor at the Cardiff College of Music and Drama and stayed on another year to qualify as a teacher. On leaving the college he worked for a year as an actor before deciding he’d rather teach; and what a teacher he was.

  It’s no exaggeration to say that the hours spent under his guidance helped shape the direction my life would take, and we remain friends to this day. He had a way of talking and relating to his pupils that simply inspired confidence; for me it was a hugely liberating experience to work with him and to feel that here was an area of school life in which I might excel. He has said that schools often don’t cater for children who are bright and sharp but do not possess an academic attitude. That just about sums me up at school. In most subjects I felt average at best – often, far worse – but in the drama studio, creating, rehearsing and building a performance, I felt smart, I felt clever, as though I had something to offer the world. This did a great deal for my self-confidence and was a huge factor in finding my feet in the new school, and it was all down to him. Thank you, Roger.

  Most of the time, when I wasn’t required to be somewhere else, you would find me in the drama studio, and each year when the big musical production came round I would go for bigger parts. Sweet Charity followed West Side Story; I played Oscar in a thinly veiled Woody Allen impression. After this was Guys and Dolls with the knee-trembling kiss, then finally Carousel in which I played Billy Bigelow. Billy is a barker for a carnival, working on the carousel of the title. He’s thought of as a rough, tough, muscular kind of fellow and in most people’s minds he surely peaks at more than my rather disappointing five feet and seven inches. To correct this injustice I borrowed a pair of soft leather zip-up boots from my Uncle Tom. The boots had a generous heel and it was felt this would help lend the required boost to my stature. To a degree it did, shooting me up to a terrifying five foot eight and a half, but the boots brought with them their own problem.

  Press intrusion. Why won’t they leave me alone?

  Stages are often sloped, running from the back of the stage (upstage) down to the front where the stage meets the audience (downstage); this arrangement is called the ‘rake’ of the stage, and the angle can vary depending on the venue. At the Grand Pavilion in Porthcawl the rake is quite steep and this, combined with my towering new heels, meant that when standing facing the audience I was in great danger of falling over. I felt as though I was standing at forty-five degrees, like Michael Jackson in his ‘Smooth Criminal’ video. It was only through sheer willpower, self-discipline and exquisite calf muscles that I managed to avoid joining the orchestra.

  A good luck card from Pete.

  Billy is a splendid part and contains the wonderful Rogers and Hammerstein ‘Soliloquy’, often known as ‘My Boy Bill’, which ends with a long-held-out note that would leave me light-headed. I would exit the stage after completing the song and stand swaying in the wings, feeling dizzy, and with the sound of applause rushing around my head. That may have been the moment that I glimpsed what lay ahead for me in my life. Low blood pressure and tinnitus.

  It was through the drama department that I met someone who would become a lifelong friend and who, many years later, would be responsible for handing me one of the best roles of my career. And I’ll tell you for why …

  Ruth Jones was two years younger than me but shared my love of acting. We became friends through rehearsals, although our respective casting meant that we never really acted together. In Guys and Dolls she stole the show as Miss Adelaide, and in Carousel she was an excellent Carrie Pipperidge; I can still remember her singing ‘When I Marry Mr Snow’. Ruth was never on my pining list; we were good
friends, more like brother and sister, although this didn’t stop my own brother insinuating that something was going on between us. Pete used to love raising his eyebrows at the mere mention of her name. Ruth and I stayed in touch once we’d left school, through the lean years when the acting work was less than forthcoming, and I take some pride now in having once sat with her in a Cardiff café and talked her out of packing it all in and getting a proper job.

  Me and Nicola Ball in Carousel (1984). Look at those heels!

  We’ve both benefited from that decision.

  While all the acting and sudden interest in unattainable girls was going on I was also introduced to two things that would have a huge influence on me and stay with me for the rest of my life. Bruce Springsteen and acne.

  Bruce came first; I hadn’t thought much about him since hearing ‘Born To Run’ while making my precocious local radio debut as a junior DJ on Swansea Sound (of which more later), but I was now noticing his new record ‘Hungry Heart’ being played on the radio. I liked it enough to set off for Woolworths at the top of John Street in Porthcawl and to invest my hard-saved pocket money in his double album The River, essentially my first grown-up record purchase. I had bought ELO’s New World Record previously, but that doesn’t count. I’d also had Sparks’ album Propaganda on cassette at nine, a record I still love today. But it was when buying The River that I felt as though I had come of age. I can still remember the excitement at hurrying the discs home and up to my bedroom. I hid away for a few hours listening to them and studying the glossy printed lyric insert, the first of its kind that I had ever encountered. I read along to ‘Stolen Car’; I’d never heard a song like that before, and found it entirely transporting and captivating. It was the weekend and Nan was staying with us, so I took the sheet of lyrics to show her: ‘Look! It’s like poetry.’ My love affair with Bruce had begun.