by Simon Brett
Charles Paris saw Ned about to question this and then think better of the idea. Peri Maitland could have been bluffing, but Tony Copeland’s tentacles reached so far into so many areas of show business that her assertion could be true.
‘Go on,’ she continued, ‘why don’t you call Tony and ask him?’ And she proffered her mobile phone towards the director.
Ned English was basically a weak man, and the way he backed off from the direct challenge was yet another demonstration of that weakness. ‘Right,’ he said, reaching for his script and calling out to the cast, ‘let’s make a start with the scenes involving Ophelia … while we still have her services.’
In spite of Ned’s waspish final words, Charles Paris was left in no doubt that Katrina Selsey had won that particular battle. She left at eleven in a limousine sent by the company who made The Johnnie Martin Show. But, though she might have plenty on Facebook and Twitter, the victory certainly hadn’t increased her number of friends in the Hamlet company.
NINE
Katrina Selsey was back in good time for the Wednesday evening Dress Rehearsal. Well before the ‘half’ (that moment thirty-five minutes before curtain-up by which all professional actors should have checked into the theatre). And she gave a good performance as Ophelia. Whatever criticisms might be made of her approach to other aspects of show business, none could be made of her application to her acting. She was serious about the profession and wanted to maximize her natural abilities. There would always have been something wooden about a performance by Jared Root, but not one by Katrina Selsey. Even those cast members who had been most offended by being called ‘nonentities’ had grudgingly to admit her talent.
Apparently, according to the Green Room grapevine, Tony Copeland had been in the audience for the Dress Rehearsal, but he did not come backstage afterwards. That evening was the first chance to get an impression of how long the show would run in normal performance. Charles was gratified to see that, from a seven thirty start, the last words of the play, ‘Go, bid the soldiers shoot,’ were pronounced by Fortinbras at ten twenty. Ned English’s cutting of the text had had the desired effect – there would be time to get to the pub before it closed! All was well in the world of Charles Paris.
He wasn’t the only member of the company to take advantage of this opportunity, but he hadn’t lost his old skills and was first to the bar, ordering ‘a large Bell’s with some ice’ before anyone else had passed through the Stage Door. This being an evening – or at least half an hour – of social drinking, he had gone to the pub nearest to the theatre, a considerably more cheerful venue than the one he’d been to at lunchtime the previous day.
The landlord’s attitude to licensing hours was commendably lax and Charles managed to fit in three doubles before time was called. He enjoyed the familiar banter of his fellow actors, inflated tales of disasters averted during the evening’s performance. He was also glad to have confirmed that they weren’t all of the mineral water and gym persuasion. Their presence comfortingly presaged more such post-show gatherings during the weeks of touring that lay ahead. Geraldine Romelle wasn’t among the group, though, Charles noted wistfully. Where was she? Back alone in her digs with a bottle of Evian? Thinking about him? Unlikely.
The only slight damper to the actors’ jollity came when first one, then another noticed that they’d received text messages from the Stage Manager. The whole company was to be in the auditorium at nine thirty the following morning for ‘notes from Tony Copeland’.
There was some trepidation and taut laughter amongst the coffee- and mineral water-clutching cast as they sat facing the stage of the Grand Theatre on the Thursday morning. Nine thirty was an early call for a day which was scheduled to end with the first public performance of Hamlet. Not unprecedented – and their Equity representative would ensure they got the union-sanctioned breaks they were due during the day – but unusual enough to jangle their already overstretched nerves. And the mystique surrounding Tony Copeland did make him a rather frightening figure.
Charles Paris was one of the last to arrive. The previous night’s session at the pub had enlivened rather than sedated him, so he’d needed a few more Bell’s at his digs to get properly relaxed. He’d fallen asleep in his chair during some interminable catch-up of the current Top Pop, woken at three, lain wakeful till six and then overslept the alarm. At least it didn’t matter that he hadn’t shaved. He had a false beard for the Ghost (described in the play by Horatio as ‘a sable silvered’) and the First Gravedigger needed to be a bit stubbly.
He checked his watch as he bustled through the Stage Door. Nine twenty-seven. His parched brain cried out for coffee. Maybe there was a pot on in the Green Room …?
But he paused by the half-open door, immobilized by the sound of voices. The first was Katrina Selsey’s. And she wasn’t sounding like the demure, efficient Ophelia of the night before. More like a trader at Romford Market.
‘Listen! I am your first priority! I am your only priority!’
‘No, Katrina, that is not the case.’ The voice was Peri Maitland’s. She was used to keeping her cool – indeed, her job was based on keeping her cool – but her capacity to do so had clearly been tested by the preceding conversation. ‘You are one of a series of clients for whom I’m responsible. And I cannot spend all my time looking after you.’
‘But I’m going to be more famous than any of your other clients!’
‘That may be so. It may not. Let’s wait and see, shall we?’
‘Look, Peri, Tony Copeland has appointed you to look after my interests. Do you want me to tell him that you’re not doing all you should be?’
‘Katrina, that is not an accurate assessment of the situation.’ The Personal Manager’s voice was studiedly cool, but the producer’s name had bought a tremor to it. ‘Tony Copeland employs Pridmore Baines, the company I work for, in many capacities. Managing you is just one of many contracts he has taken out with us. I’ve been assigned the task, but it is not exclusive. I have a long list of other clients who—’
‘Let’s see what Tony says about that!’
Charles Paris heard the voice getting louder as Katrina approached the door. Cheated of his coffee but not wishing to be caught eavesdropping, he scuttled out into the auditorium and sat at the back of the stalls. A moment later Katrina Selsey and Peri Maitland emerged to take their seats. From the expression on their faces no one would have known there’d been a word of dissension between them.
Charles noticed that Ned English was sitting in the auditorium with the cast, which was a measure of the director’s insignificance in the scheme of things. Tony Copeland had made the nine thirty call, and Ned was as much in the dark about what was going to be said as the rest of the company.
Doug Haye from Tony Copeland Productions was also in the stalls, sitting at the end of a row, slightly back from the bulk of the company, watching the proceedings, as silent as ever.
On the dot of nine thirty Tony Copeland swept on to the stage. No chairs this time to give even a mildly casual air to the occasion.
‘Good morning,’ he said brusquely. ‘I saw the Dress Rehearsal last night and was generally quite pleased with it. A few rough edges, but that’s only to be expected with the last-minute change of cast. If you all concentrate and support Sam, Hamlet is certainly in a good enough state to open tonight.’
Such an announcement might in other circumstances have prompted comment or expressions of relief, but the assembled company remained silent. They all seemed to sense that Tony Copeland was simply sugaring the pill, that he had something else to tell them that would be less palatable.
‘But the reason why I’ve called you all in this morning,’ he went on, his tone confirming their fears, ‘is in connection with publicity for the show. That’s building nicely, and though I deeply regret what happened to Jared Root, it hasn’t hurt in terms of column inches.’ To Charles his words didn’t sound callous, just pragmatic.
‘However, it is important that y
ou should all realize that the publicity for this show is being coordinated by Tony Copeland Productions and no one else! We set up the recording Katrina did yesterday for The Johnnie Martin Show.’ His eyes focused on Ned English, sitting uncomfortably in the stalls. ‘And I gather there was some problem with that.’
The director looked even more uncomfortable. ‘I hadn’t been told about it. I hadn’t been told you had sanctioned it.’
‘It was set up at the last minute. Some Hollywood sitcom bimbo dropped out of the Johnnie Martin line-up. We had to move fast.’
‘Well, I didn’t know that,’ complained Ned petulantly. ‘You could have told me.’
‘From what I gather, Peri Maitland did tell you.’
‘Yes, but I thought she was bluffing.’
‘And why the hell should she be bluffing?’ roared Tony Copeland. ‘She told you to check with my office.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Then why the hell didn’t you?’
Ned English shrank into aggrieved silence. Charles Paris tried to think of anything that might be more humiliating for a director than being bawled out in front of his full company, and couldn’t come up with much. He looked across towards Katrina Selsey and Peri Maitland, both of whom were grinning broadly in self-congratulation.
‘But,’ Tony Copeland went on, ‘that was not why I summoned you all here. As I said, all publicity for this show must be coordinated through the office of Tony Copeland Productions. And that applies to everyone. If you’re approached by a journalist, by a television company, before you do anything you check it with my office.’
Charles Paris didn’t think he’d have to bother much about this instruction. The chances of him being approached by a journalist or a television company were … well, ‘minimal’ was probably too strong a word.
‘And what I say,’ Tony Copeland pushed on, ‘applies to every form of publicity – including social media. If any of you are thinking of putting anything about this show on Facebook or Twitter, you check it with my office first. I don’t want my entire publicity campaign wrecked by a self-regarding actor posting some wanky comment.
‘Do you understand that …’ Tony Copeland swung round to face the culprit before saying the name ‘… Katrina?’
The smile of self-congratulation turned instantly to an embarrassed blush as the producer reached into his pocket for a mobile phone, clicked through to find what he wanted. ‘There’s a tweet I’d like you all to hear.’ Flatly, he read out: ‘Fab news! Got out of boring Hamlet rehearsals today to perform my new single on Johnnie Martin!’
Tony Copeland’s eyes skewered the unfortunate girl as he demanded, ‘And do you think that is a responsible comment to post for the whole bloody world to see, Katrina? I’m spending a hell of a lot on publicity on this show, and it doesn’t exactly help the campaign if one of the actors describes it as bloody boring!’
‘But I wasn’t saying the show’s boring. I meant the rehearsals were—’
‘Shut up! One more lapse of judgement like that, Katrina, and you’ll be out of this show!’
‘But I won StarHunt,’ the girl insisted, trembling with emotion. ‘You can’t get rid of me!’
‘You just watch me!’ Tony Copeland snapped back. ‘I can do what I bloody well like! I can cancel this whole show – now, this minute! Pull the plugs – like that!’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Or I can see how the tour goes, and if it’s not up to scratch, I can cancel the West End transfer and fill the Richardson Theatre with the winners of this year’s Top Pop. And don’t any of you forget that!’
His eyes once again bored into the now weeping actress. ‘Particularly you, Katrina. Never for a moment doubt who’s in charge of this production.’
Charles Paris never had doubted it.
TEN
Productions of Hamlet vary as to where the director chooses to place the interval. Those doing the full text frequently follow the now old-fashioned custom of having two breaks, so as not to overstrain the bladders of the audience. For his trimmed-down version Ned English had followed the popular practice of breaking the play after Act IV Scene iv, which ends with Hamlet dragging off the newly murdered body of Polonius.
The general view among the company during the opening at the Grand Theatre Marlborough was that the first half had gone pretty well. The audience had been respectfully silent, seemingly caught up in the unravelling of Shakespeare’s story. Nothing went wrong technically, the lighting in the recesses of the onstage cranium worked well, and when the house lights came up for the interval the applause was long and loud.
Charles Paris also reckoned that he had witnessed the emergence of a new star. Some actors, he knew, however good they were in rehearsal, only came alive in front of an audience. A few improved immeasurably in those circumstances, reaching heights of passion they had never reached before. And Charles reckoned Sam Newton-Reid was a member of that select band.
In the scene on the battlements that the Ghost and Hamlet shared, the boy was mesmerizing. After Charles had said the line, ‘Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder,’ he had been electrified by the way Sam, tears glinting in his eyes, echoed the word: ‘Murder!’
And he found his own performance gaining new intensity as he responded,
‘Murder most foul, as in the best it is,
But this most foul, strange and unnatural.’
It was an experience that had been rare in Charles Paris’s varied theatrical career, but at that moment he felt he was in the presence of genius.
The Ghost in Hamlet is one of those parts which gives plenty of time for thumb-twiddling. The opening scenes are good, but you disappear after Act I Scene v, and have to wait around for your brief appearance in Geraldine’s Closet Scene, Act III Scene iv. And that’s it. Good part for getting to the pub early and getting well stocked-up before you stagger back on for the curtain call … unless, of course, you are also doubling the First Gravedigger, which throws such possibilities out of the window.
Later in the run Charles reckoned he’d get organized with a book or The Times crossword to fill the longueurs, but since it was the opening night, for the rest of the first half he drifted uneasily between his dressing room and the Green Room. The snatches of the play he heard on the tannoy and the comments of other actors confirmed his view that Sam Newton-Reid was giving an exceptional performance.
Charles could feel the heightened dramatic tension between Gertrude and Hamlet when he entered the Closet Scene. Just as he himself had when facing Sam Newton-Reid on the battlements, Geraldine Romelle was raising her game to match the young man’s.
Charles Paris was so impressed that, though he’d never been one of those fulsome actors who spends all their time telling everyone they’re ‘mah-vellous’, he did want to congratulate Sam during the interval. So, as soon as he heard the prolonged applause, he hurried along to the star dressing room.
A tap on the door produced no response. Sam Newton-Reid was probably held up by the congratulations of other cast members. But the door was ajar, so Charles pulled, expecting to find the room empty.
It wasn’t empty. But there was no living thing in there. Katrina Selsey lay on the floor, a chair half-under her, as though she had backed away from something terrifying seen in the make-up mirror.
She was very still. The mascara was smudged about one red eye. But that wasn’t as red as the blood that had soaked her blonde hair and pooled on the carpet around the back of her head.
ELEVEN
‘Was Katrina Selsey popular with the other actors?’
Charles was wary about how he should reply to that, so he resorted to the old trick of answering a question with a question. ‘Why, are you suggesting she was murdered?’
‘I’m not suggesting anything, Mr Paris. Merely trying to ascertain some facts, which will provide a background to the circumstances of her death.’ Detective Inspector Shelley’s manner was as formal as his language. It was impossible to know what he was thinking. He would have made
a good poker player. Nor did the face of his sidekick, the female Detective Constable whose name Charles hadn’t caught, give much away either.
It was the same evening, the Thursday. They were in Charles’s communal dressing room, but the other actors had been sent home. The second half of Hamlet had been abandoned ‘due to an accident to one of the cast’, as the House Manager had told the audience with intriguing imprecision. The theatregoers had all gone home in a state of high curiosity. But the news of Katrina Selsey’s death couldn’t remain a secret for long. Actors thrive on gossip and have a very efficient grapevine for distributing it. In spite of Tony Copeland’s strictures, Charles felt certain that some of the younger actors wouldn’t have been able to restrain themselves from tweeting the news. It was only a matter of time before the Grand Theatre was once again besieged by journalists and television crews.
‘So I revert to my question, Mr Paris. Was Katrina Selsey popular with the other actors?’
Charles was still determined to be cagey with his reply. He didn’t know how much the detectives had heard from other company members. To give full details of Katrina’s misdemeanours during rehearsal might at this stage be unwise. So all he said was, ‘Everyone gets very tense running up to a First Night. Nerves are frayed. People tend to snap at each other.’
‘That’s not really answering my question, Mr Paris.’
‘No.’
‘I’ve heard suggestions from other actors I’ve spoken to that Katrina Selsey was not the most popular person in the theatre.’
‘Well …’ Charles prevaricated. ‘She came from a very different background from most of us. You know, she really had no experience as an actor. So she didn’t know about … certain rules that most of us have, kind of, grown up with.’