by Simon Brett
The other introduction of which he took particular note was for the suited young woman next to the production’s Ophelia. ‘I’m Peri Maitland from Pridmore Baines. I’m Katrina Selsey’s Personal Manager.’
This was something new in Charles Paris’s experience of read-throughs. The expression on Ned English’s face suggested that the presence of a Personal Manager at such an event was something new to him too. But at least it explained why the girl didn’t look like an actress. And why she kept handing round business cards.
‘It’s just,’ said Katrina Selsey, ‘since winning StarHunt I’ve had so much media attention, I never go anywhere without Peri.’
‘I’ve got a Personal Manager too,’ interposed Jared Root, a gym-toned, bushy-eyebrowed young man who looked as if he probably needed to shave five times a day. ‘I just didn’t think it was appropriate to bring him to a read-through.’
The moment passed, but Jared’s remark had undoubtedly been a put-down and potentially a sign of conflicts to come. If the two new stars were going to be constantly at odds about which was the more famous, the ensuing weeks could be incident-full. Charles noticed covert looks and raised eyebrows being exchanged between the ‘solid, biddable’ actors who made up the rest of the cast.
After the introductions, Ned English made an uneasy, repetitive little speech about his ‘vision’ of Hamlet. Basically, it kept coming back to what he’d said earlier, that for him the key line was: ‘There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.’
‘The “rotten” state of Denmark,’ he insisted, “is a dystopia viewed through the jaundiced eye of Hamlet. All the action of the play is seen through Hamlet’s eyes.’
Charles Paris’s view was that this thesis was arguable, but he was prepared to wait and see how it worked in practice. He wasn’t too worried. He had been in too many productions where the director’s ‘vision’ had been lost before the second week of rehearsal and they’d ended up doing a pretty conventional presentation of the text.
Ned then handed over to Tony Copeland, with a deference which bordered on toadyism, to say a few words from the producer’s point of view.
Tony welcomed everyone, saying that he did know a few of those present from other Tony Copeland Productions’ shows (hardly surprising, given the fact Ned English worked almost exclusively for the company and favoured the ‘old mates’ approach to casting). The producer outlined the details of the tour (which those present who had read their contracts, a number that did not include Charles Paris, knew already). Hamlet would open at Marlborough’s Grand Theatre on a Wednesday and play there till the Saturday of the following week. The show would then do single weeks in Malvern, Wilmslow and Newcastle before – ‘barring accidents’ – opening after another week of rehearsal and previews at the Richardson Theatre in London’s West End.
Tony Copeland announced that he was ‘very excited’ about the production, and expressed his laudable ambition that it would get a younger demographic into the West End theatre audience. The publicity generated by StarHunt, not to mention Top Pop, would, he opined, guarantee the show’s success.
His presentation style was lacklustre, almost dull. The mastery of the acerbic one-liner which he demonstrated on StarHunt had been replaced by a manner that was nearly self-effacing.
At the end of his routine he introduced the Company Manager, a motherly woman employed by Tony Copeland Productions. She went through a few practical details, mostly about accommodation for the tour, and handed over to the Stage Manager, who gave the company information about rehearsal calls and that kind of thing.
‘Right,’ said Ned English at the end of this litany, ‘let’s get reading. From now on, we’ll give ourselves up to the magic of the Bard.’
Charles Paris winced inwardly. The director’s words had sounded impossibly twee.
But they had nonetheless signalled the start of the reading. The cast all opened their specially printed copies of the script (which had been cut quite considerably – a full-length version of Hamlet can easily last over four hours, which might put a strain on the attention span of the remote-control-zapping ‘younger demographic’ Tony Copeland was trying to attract).
The actor playing Bernardo (as well as Osric later in the play) was a young man who, in the round-the-table introductions, had announced himself as ‘Dennis Demetriades’. His Greek heritage showed in his black hair and dark shadow. On the point of his chin was a perfect triangle of beard; above his lips were two thinner, but equally well-trimmed triangles of moustache.
‘Who’s there?’ he started, but was quickly interrupted by Ned English.
‘Sorry, hadn’t started the watch.’ The director nodded to Milly Henryson, one of whose responsibilities as Assistant Stage Manager was clearly the stopwatch. She clicked the relevant button. Again Dennis Demetriades asked, ‘Who’s there?’, and this time Shakespeare’s famous enquiry into identity and dithering began.
The read-through got off to a very strong start. Though Charles Paris as the Ghost appeared in the opening scene, his character did not actually speak, so he was able to appreciate the work of the other actors. Ned English may have done his casting from a repertoire of ‘old mates’, but at least his old mates knew how to speak verse. As ever, Charles found himself caught up and energized by the rhythms of Shakespeare’s lines. He luxuriated in the power of the language.
All went fine until the second scene when, at the end of Claudius’s conversation with Laertes and Polonius, Hamlet has his first words: ‘A little more than kin, and less than kind.’ While all the cast up until that point had spoken their lines in a loud, almost declamatory, manner, Jared Root mumbled his, as though he were in a television rehearsal.
No one said anything about his delivery, but it put the other actors off their stride. For them to continue in their full-throttled way looked as if it were showing up their star. So they started to rein back their performances to match his. By the time they reached the stage direction for the end of the scene – Exeunt all except Hamlet – Claudius and Gertrude were also mumbling. And the entire company were waiting with bated breath to see how Jared Root would tackle the first great soliloquy, ‘O! that this too too solid flesh would melt …’
To their surprise, when they got to the cue the winner of Top Pop announced, ‘I’m not going to do this now.’
‘What!’ said a flabbergasted Ned English. Then to Milly Henryson, ‘Stop the watch. Why are you not going to read the soliloquy, Jared? We need you to, to get an overall timing.’
‘I haven’t worked on it yet,’ said the singer.
‘I know you haven’t,’ responded the director. ‘No one else has worked on their lines yet. This is the first day of rehearsal.’
‘Yeah, but I don’t want to do the long bits till I’ve worked on them with my coach.’
‘Coach?’ echoed Ned.
‘My acting coach.’
‘You have an acting coach?’
‘Of course. And I need to work with him on the long bits.’
‘But, Jared, I am directing this production.’
‘Sure.’
‘So I will be telling you how to say the lines, not some acting coach.’
‘But I’ve been working with him since I won Top Pop.’
‘I don’t care whether you’ve been working with him since you were in nappies!’ Ned English was by now looking very angry. ‘This is a read-through for my production of Hamlet. I need the entire script to be read out loud – including the soliloquies.’
‘Is that what the long bits are called?’
‘Yes, Jared, it is.’
‘Well, I’m not going to read them. Not till I’ve done some work on them with my coach.’
‘I think you will find, Jared,’ stormed the director, ‘that, according to your contract, you are obliged to—’
‘Don’t worry,’ interposed a conciliatory voice. ‘If Jared doesn’t want to read the soliloquies now, let someone else read them, just for your timing.’
Ned English began to remonstrate, but he only got as far as: ‘But—’ Then, since the speaker had been Tony Copeland, he instantly kowtowed and said, ‘Very well. Start the watch again.’
He then proceeded to read Hamlet’s first soliloquy as though it were a telephone directory or a shopping list.
Charles Paris exchanged looks with other members of the cast and knew that they were all thinking the same thing. The scene they had just witnessed between the director and the singer had been a power struggle. And if Jared Root had Tony Copeland on his side, then there was no doubt who would really be calling the shots.
The read-through continued rather dismally. Inhibited, the actors held back from giving full-bodied performances. Charles did not feel he could let rip as the Ghost. And each time they came to another of the soliloquies Jared Root sat back and let Ned English struggle through the lines.
But in spite of the circumstances Charles Paris still revelled in the richness of Shakespeare’s language and began to feel optimistic that the play would somehow win through. Maybe Jared Root’s ‘acting coach’ would turn out to be very good at his job and coax a decent performance out of the young man. Or maybe the scene they’d just witnessed had been no more than Jared asserting his power. Having done that, he might knuckle down and work properly with Ned on his interpretation of Hamlet.
Charles was also looking forward to the Gravediggers’ scene. After considerable deliberation, he had decided to go for the voice he’d used as the Head Gardener in some dire stage thriller (‘Charles Paris’s accent was as creaky as the plot.’ – Blackpool Citizen), and he was hoping to get the odd laugh during the reading.
But before they reached his moment there was another hiccup in the proceedings. They had just read Act IV Scene iv and were about to read Ophelia’s Mad Scene when Katrina Selsey said, ‘Oh, I had a thought about this.’
‘Stop the watch!’ said the director. But he didn’t sound too testy. Katrina’s vowels might need a little ironing-out before she could pass as a member of the Danish court, but the reading so far had shown her to be a good little actress (oops – actor). StarHunt’s selection process had been vindicated and with a bit of work she could become a moving – and even memorable – Ophelia.
So it was benignly that Ned asked, ‘What is it, Katrina?’
‘Well, it’s these songs she sings.’
‘Yes, well, they are traditional ditties of the time. But the original tunes have been lost, so …’ he announced, as if presenting her with a rich gift, ‘I’m having new tunes specially composed for them.’
‘But the thing is …’ said Katrina.
‘Yes …?’
‘She’s, like, round the twist, isn’t she?’
‘I’m not sure that I’d put it like that, but she’s certainly suffering from some form of mental illness, yes.’
‘So what she sings is, like, gibberish, isn’t it?’
‘Well, not exactly.’
‘The words don’t mean anything.’
‘No, Katrina, they do have thematic relevance to other ideas in the play and—’
‘But what I’m saying is that she doesn’t really know what she’s singing …’
‘Perhaps not,’ Ned English conceded cautiously.
‘… so she could be singing anything.’
‘We-ell …’
‘So I suggested to Peri – and she thought it was a really great idea – that rather than singing the songs we’ve got here, I should sing some of the ones from my forthcoming album.’
The rehearsal room lapsed into a stunned silence.
‘I have got a record deal,’ Katrina insisted.
‘So have I,’ Jared Root riposted waspishly. ‘And my sales are already bigger than yours are ever likely to be. Pre-orders for my new album are going stratospheric.’
‘I’ve got thousands of followers on Twitter,’ said Katrina with defiance.
‘Thousands?’ Jared Root echoed witheringly. ‘I’ve got millions.’
Charles Paris caught the eye of Geraldine Romelle opposite and was rewarded by a mischievous smile. If they’d ever doubted it, they both now knew for certain that rehearsals for Tony Copeland Productions’ Hamlet were going to be a long, arduous process.
FIVE
‘Frances, it’s Charles.’
‘Hello, stranger.’
‘And what is that meant to mean?’
‘It’s meant to mean it has been a while since you’ve rung me.’
‘Really? A few weeks, maybe.’
‘Make that months.’
‘Oh.’
‘Four months, nearer five, actually.’
‘Oh.’
‘Anyway, to what do I owe this sudden honour?’
‘Well, I have been rehearsing.’
‘Is that an excuse, Charles?’
‘It’s more of a fact.’
‘And a way of telling me that you have actually got some work for once?’
‘I suppose it is that too, yes.’
‘So what is it you’re doing?’
Charles gave his wife the edited highlights of Hamlet’s journey to the Grand Theatre, Marlborough, where the play was due to open in a couple of days’ time. It was Monday and he was in the middle of an interminable Technical Rehearsal (universally referred to in the theatre as the ‘Tech’). The interior-of-a-cranium set, which had looked so splendid in the model, was proving difficult to fit into a real theatre – or at least to fit in such a way that all the required lighting effects could be achieved. And the designer, who saw all the problems as being caused by the local Marlborough stage crew not matching up to West End standards, was not helping to achieve an easy working atmosphere. Ned English was tearing his hair out at the Tech’s lengthening delays.
‘Well, at least,’ said Frances at the end of Charles’s narrative, ‘it’s going to mean another straight play in the West End, which has to be good news. Not another jukebox musical or cobbled-together evening featuring the winners of some television talent show.’
‘Except it is that in a way.’ And Charles told her how Katrina Selsey had come to be playing Ophelia.
‘Ah,’ said Frances. ‘I haven’t seen it, but I’ve heard of that show, StarHunt. A lot of my pupils seem to be hooked on it. Which I suppose is a good thing because at least it means they get to hear some Shakespeare. But it doesn’t sound to me like a good way of casting something like Hamlet. I mean, I can see it might work for a musical, but for a straight play …’
‘I’m right with you on that.’
‘So how is your Ophelia?’
‘She’s actually not bad, you know, as an actor.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Charles. I never thought I’d hear you referring to an “actress” as an “actor”.’
‘You have to be very careful in my profession now, Frances. It’s absolutely crawling with feminists.’
‘Not before time.’
‘Maybe not.’
‘And what about your Hamlet?’
‘What about him?’
‘I read somewhere in the press that he also came up through some television talent show.’
‘Yes, he did.’
‘In fact, I seem to have read quite a lot about him in the press. Him and the Ophelia.’
‘Yes, there has been quite a bit.’
It was true, Charles reflected. He’d been in many productions, quite a few involving big stars, but he’d never witnessed a pre-publicity blitz on the scale that this Hamlet was receiving. Not that the press were interested in anything about the play except for the fact that Jared Root and – to a lesser extent – Katrina Selsey were in it. And their coverage tended to mention StarHunt and Top Pop and Jared’s forthcoming album more than they did Hamlet. But television talent shows clearly did nurture interest in a demographic which didn’t normally go to the theatre. And, although Charles Paris didn’t fully understand what Facebook and Twitter were, he gathered there was a lot of activity there too.
Sti
ll, he shouldn’t complain. The show’s high profile had had a stimulating effect at the box office. The four-week tour was virtually sold out, and the advance in the West End was much higher than for the average straight play.
As presaged at the read-through, there had been more conflict between Hamlet and Ophelia as to which of them was getting the most publicity. Jared Root was winning – he had after all been in the public eye for a year longer than Katrina and his first album was already out – but he was clearly anxious about his rival’s growing popularity. The envy between the two of them had not made for a relaxed atmosphere during rehearsals.
‘But what I want to know about your Hamlet,’ said Frances, ‘is: is he any good?’
There was a long silence. Then Charles said, ‘Pass.’
‘Right. Hamlet without the Prince, is it?’
‘I think it’d be rather better if it were Hamlet without the Prince.’
‘That bad, huh?’
‘Not great.’ Charles thought back to the agonies of the previous four weeks’ rehearsal. ‘Maybe his performance will come up when he’s playing the show with an audience,’ he tried to convince himself. Then, changing the subject, he said, ‘Anyway, I was thinking it might be nice for us to meet up.’
‘Why, Charles?’
‘Well, because we’re married, apart from anything else.’
Bad argument, he realized as Frances responded, ‘For some couples that would certainly be a reason for meeting. I’m not sure that it works with us.’
‘How can you say that? We do have a bit of history, don’t we?’
‘Most married couples have a bit of history.’
‘Well, then …’
‘But with many of them that history is of moments shared, things done together – not a long sequence of separations, failed rapprochements and further separations.’
‘Is that how you see our marriage, Frances?’
‘Is there another way of seeing it?’
‘Well, you know, I’ve always thought, yes, we may have had our ups and downs, but still there’s—’
‘Don’t be fatuous, Charles.’
‘Oh, was I being fatuous?’