by Shane Briant
pretty girls to have a few drinks, the chances of some heavy petting in the back seat of a Mini Minor shot up dramatically.
These were the days of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Lonnie Donnegan? Bah, he and Cliff Richard were now old hat. And here's a strange and wonderful story. Kit's husband, Sir Robert, was a board member of Decca at that time, and on one particular day attended a meeting where one of the points on the agenda was to decide which of several pop and rock groups the Decca label would sign. That particular month, amongst the contenders were both the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.
Sir Robert was in his sixties at the time and was hardly a rock and roll enthusiast, so he asked for the opinions of those at Decca who knew a thing or two. They chose the Beatles. The Rolling Stones were discarded. Quite an interesting day at the office, eh?
After five years at Haileybury, I began thinking of University, despite having always been told by my masters that I wasn't 'University material.' I'd been a very late starter – as my Granny used to say. I'd failed my Common Entrance once, and entered Haileybury in the D grade. In my second year I moved up to the C grade, then up to the B and then the A grade by the time I was a senior. But University? The teaching staff didn't see me making it. However, I surprised them all when I was offered at place at Trinity College Dublin having achieved some quite 'tasty' A-level results.
Kit insisted I study something useful. English and Fine Arts were out of the question – utterly useless! And since she was paying the fees, Legal Science it was! I knew I wanted to pursue an acting career, but in the meantime was resigned to be groomed as a barrister – a solicitor 's life was deemed to be a little too vulgar.
I knew I'd little chance of making a financially viable career as an actor – after all, how many actors succeeded in the 'biz'? One per cent? The other 99% chose to think of themselves as actors, while waiting on tables until they gave up and went into business. So when I was offered a place at TCD, I was ecstatic!
My rather too serious school headmaster wrote in my final report; 'He has the air of the dilettante. He will not go far.' Quite why he'd written this blunt one-liner on my report I couldn't fathom, and quite what he hoped to achieve by voicing this miserable opinion baffled me. Dilettante? Me? Because I enjoyed the arts? When I
read my final report, I thumbed my nose at him and laughed. As did my mother and Kit.
"Let's see how far I can get," I muttered to myself.
HALCYON DAYS AT TRINITY COLLEGE DUBLIN.
I am a firm believer in karma. How else can one explain the serendipity of the strong tradition of theatre existing not only at my preparatory school, but Haileybury and at Trinity College Dublin?
Yet again, it was due to Kit Adeane's generosity that I was able to study there. I was given an amount to live on by her lawyers, a man who was always referred to in a somewhat Dickensian way as 'Mister Phillips,' and she provided in her will that if anything should happen to her, her estate would pay for any future studies I should care to take.
I was also given a Mini Moke car, which was the coolest thing around at the time. I would drive all my acting chums into the Wicklow Hills or down to the beach. It was heaven. And in my first term I enrolled in the University Theatre group, named the Trinity Players.
This was the most blissful time. I was soon to experience everything for the first time – personal freedom, living in my own flat, studying law, falling in love with the girl everyone was in love with but very few managed to end up naked with, behaving badly in pubs, and learning how to become a professional actor.
In the mid sixties the snobby thing was to try to get into Oxford and Cambridge. But if you weren't quite up to that mark you did your best to squeeze into TCD. The alternative was to either go to Scotland – far too cold and austere – or put your name down for 'a red brick university.' 'Red brick' was the phrase that made most elitist public school boys shudder in those days – it was Oxbridge or nothing. Well, with the exception of TCD, the college of choice of Wilde, Goldsmith, Yeats, Swift and Beckett.
Things have changed a lot now at TCD – non-Catholic Irish students are in the majority there. In my day it was the first choice of Englishmen and women who had failed to secure a place at
Oxbridge. But don't get me wrong for me it was a huge honour. TCD was then, and still is, a stellar University famous for its medical and law schools. And not only did it have similar scholastic integrity to Oxbridge, it also had a tradition of theatre very similar to OUDS at Oxford, and the Footlights at Cambridge. When I arrived in Dublin in 1967 it was a very different capital city to the one we know today. The standard of living was a shadow of what it would be when the European financial institutions decided Dublin would be the new Zurich, and the city became expensive, boutique and so decidedly hip. Back then the majority of Dubliners living anywhere other than the privileged suburbs were barely able to put meat and two vegetables on the table. Yet despite that, all Dubliners drank like fishes and smoked in a somewhat frenzied way. The pubs were always packed like a sardine tin, and you had to fight your way through a dense fog of cigarette smoke to get to the bar. I loved this fantastic atmosphere reminiscent of J.P Donleavy's 'The Ginger Man.' Sadly, all that is now a thing of the past. Maybe we're all healthier and less likely to die of lung cancer, but as far as I'm concerned, pubs have maybe ten per cent of the atmosphere they had when I was living in Dublin. The Irish Republican Movement was still very much in evidence at that time. There was a pub called 'The Brazen Head' where the English TCD students were not at all welcome. Of course this made having a few pints there a challenge. But each time I sampled a 'Smithwicks' or two in 'The Head,' I'd feel eyes boring holes into my back, and this made my companions and me very uneasy. The last time I returned there I again visited 'The Brazen Head.' It'd changed its name to 'Ye Olde Brazon Head' for the tourists. There were charabancs outside ready to pick up Japanese and American holidaymakers, and inside there was a small Gaelic band playing rather obvious Irish music. I left, depressed.
As I write, Ireland is undergoing a downward economic trend. Thanks to the hedge funds, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, Ireland has become an unwitting, innocent victim. I hope things get better; after Australia, my heart remains in Ireland, the Irish are a wonderful people.
'Legal Science' was a superb subject to study at TCD because it required little more than turning up for lectures, making notes, learning them by heart, then spewing them out at exam time. No conceptual thinking was either encouraged or thought useful. So when I enrolled, I looked forward to spending four wonderful years doing exactly as I liked. It was four years at TCD as opposed to three at Oxbridge – another plus for the Irish University! I well remember my first lecture. It was Company Law. By then I had bonded with one of my fellow Law students, John McBratney. As we entered, I nudged John, pointed to the benches in the huge lecture hall and said, "John! Just as I thought. These are de shares and those are debentures." For those unfamiliar with legal terms, I was making a pun on shares and debentures & chairs and the benches." Years later John reminded me of my quip. I was pleased.
Although I made certain I never missed a lecture, my heart was always elsewhere – either in the university theatre or falling for beautiful young students, very few of whom returned my advances. In my first year my dreary expectation was that in four years time I'd be following in my father's footsteps at the Middle Temple, becoming a barrister in the depths of Dorset, ending my days as a Judge at the Bristol Assizes.
However, I'd lived a charmed life for some years now and although I didn't know it, it was to continue.
My first role at the Players was Cassius in a production of Julius Caesar. Martin 'News at Ten' Lewis, played Mark Anthony and I secured the small role of Metellus Cimber.
It was not to be my best moment on stage. On the first night, the conspirators walked on stage and lined up. Each of us was asked our opinion of Caesar until, after a good three minutes of sweating and waiting to speak for the first time, Mark Anth
ony turned to me and asked the question, "What says Metellus Cimber?"
My heart was beating like a jungle drum. I'd been mouthing my first line for the three minutes I'd been on stage. As Martin stared at me, I took one step forward, my tongue turned to plastic, and several seconds of silence followed.
"Line?" I mumbled weakly.
Hey ho, I still wince when I think of that moment. Mercifully I was not to dry again for around thirty-two years.
In my first year at TCD I had digs north of the city near to the abattoir. I shared a room with my late and dear Haileybury school friend Andrew Tozer. Two other young men occupied the bedroom opposite ours on the first floor. Our landlady reminded me of the famous landlady I'd read about in George Orwell's 'The Road to Wigan Peer,' where our hero decides to decamp from his rooming house after seeing his landlady carry a chamber pot down the stairs moments before preparing breakfast 'with her thumb well below the level of the urine.'
During my first year at TCD cult legend director Roger Corman came to Dublin to shoot 'Von Richthofen and Brown.' The average age of the German pilots was very young indeed. I met with Roger and he cast me as one of the Red Baron's pilots. The Baron was played by John Phillip Law. Gene Corman produced. I looked about twelve years old.
The filming was plagued by terrible accidents. On one occasion the chopper containing the D0P and four other crew members flew into the wing of a bi-plane and all died. On another occasion a biplane plunged into the costume trailer – fortunately no one was in inside. However, the pilot died. I remember being on set when the news of the loss of the aerial director of photography was delivered to the producer, Gene. I didn't know what was being said, but I could see by the expressions it was very bad news. I moved closer. The aerial photographer was a Belgium, the finest in the world. I heard Roger say, "Find out who's the next best. Get him over here. Fast!"
My other best friend at University was another Haileyburian by the name of Anthony OBrien. His father was an eminent physician and the family owned a vast Georgian house in Fitzwilliam Square, in the centre of Dublin. When I was hungry I'd show up at Anto's house and together we'd raid the fridge. Anthony was a brilliant
student, yet gave up Medicine to concentrate on becoming a potter. He's the kind of man who can do anything. One time he decided he'd make a violin. Not an easy task, but when finished it was a joy to play. Another time he fashioned a beautiful replica of a medieval crumhorn. Perfect in every way.
That first year was a thrill a minute. Never before had I been the master of my own destiny – there'd always been some adult telling me what to do. Now I was on an allowance to do with as I pleased; not only that, I had a sea between me and my somewhat aberrant family.
Probably at this point it might be helpful to give some family background. When Dermot left school he turned down a place at Merton College Oxford because he thought my father's mother Alice had 'fixed it' somehow, and he disliked her hugely. In fact such an arrangement had been made, but only on the basis of Dermot's outstanding A-Level results. Nonetheless, he turned Merton down, waited to get a Scholarship to Cambridge, and missed out on everything.
I believe the lack of a university education was the catalyst that turned a hugely bright young man into someone who had a grudge against the world in general and he felt he could wreak his particular brand of revenge against society by taking advantage of certain people he referred to a 'smart alecs.' He genuinely thought he could get away with all manner of 'dodgy' deals. More often than not, he did. I'll give one amusing example and then move on.
Dermot bought a book on Egyptology and studied it in 'The Three Pigeons,' for just two weeks. That's when he felt he knew as much as any London dealer in Egyptian and Roman artifacts. He probably did; as I said before, Dermot was very intelligent indeed. He did very well for three years until he made his first mistake. He'd bought a first rate Roman marble statue that was so perfect that none of the London dealers would touch it – the piece was just too good to be true. However, Dermot was adamant that it was genuine. Frustrated, he took a hammer to the statue one night and broke off one foot. He then took it to Hamburg and sold the torso to a delighted German dealer. But Dermot could not let things rest the way they were. No. The foot was sitting around in his flat in Richmond serving no useful purpose, so he decided to sell that too. After dipping the damaged ankle in various acid solutions to make the patina seem plausible, he had me take it in to the Folio Society. We rehearsed everything I had to say. Dermot was convinced that so long as Mister Eade was convinced that I was a gullible idiot, he'd buy it from me. I dutifully played the stooge to please my big brother. Mr. Eade bought it for forty quid, believing it was worth hundreds.
It goes without saying that Mr. Eade at the Folio Society then happened to sell the foot to the very German who had bought the torso from Dermot and at once the game was up. It was the end of Dermot's career as a dealer in antiquities – no one would deal with him again.
My first University year flew by like the Concorde in better days. And contrary to my hopes and inflated expectations regarding sex with gorgeous fellow students – a love affair every five minutes – I found it virtually impossible to interest any of the girls in doing more than hold my hand. I was far too shy.
I remember the 'Freshers Ball,' an occasion where the first year students get together and make friends. I asked about fifty girls to accompany me but only with a day to go locked in a date; a lovely Northern Irish girl called Gillian, whose surname I cannot for the life of me recall. I apologize to her now. I informed her I was attending the costume ball dressed as Henry the Eighth. "Perhaps that might give you an idea as to who you might come as," I said. When I picked up my date on the night of the ball, she was dressed in black tights and a black and yellow top. I looked at her confused.
"I'm a bee!" she told me delightedly.
With Gillian ("I'm a bee!") at the Freshers Ball.
At the start of my second year, I moved into 'digs' in a slightly more salubrious part of Dublin–a delightful house in Ballsbridge that I shared with a philosophy student by the name of Stephen Remington, and Bob Collins, a floor manager at Radio Telefis Eireann, the national television company. Bob had the look of one of Éamon De Valera's revolutionaries. The girls? They just loved him. He played Bossa Nova on his guitar, and could charm them to the bedroom in minutes. He definitely had a way with girls.
By contrast I was gawky. Bob and I shared one vast bedroom (with two beds, I might stress) and Stephen Remington had the single room. Bob had such a 'free' attitude to his sex life that quite often I would wake to hear low excited moans in the bed opposite. And frequently there were knickers and bit's of earrings scattered on the bedroom floor as I made my way to the kitchen in the morning. To this day I can't really understand his huge charisma – he wasn't exactly an Adonis. But that's not the point with the ladies, is it? I think it was his confidence; he had no fear of being turned down because no one ever did. Me, I could never bring myself to make the first move. I well remember taking out a gorgeous girl for many weeks and finally stopping my Mini Moke, looking at her, doe-eyed, and asking, "Would you mind very much if I kissed you?"
She replied "Yes, I would.'
I asked, 'Er…why?'
'Because you actually asked my permission."
I learned from that mstake.
During the four years I spent at TCD I appeared in any number of theatre productions. The production I was most proud of was Michael Bogdan's (I believe he now calls himself Bogdanovic) production of 'Under Milk Wood' in which I played 'First Voice'. This production was so well received by the critics – they reviewed Trinity Players as a professional theatre – that it transferred to one of the most celebrated professional theatres in Dublin, the Gate Theatre, made world famous by Michael Mac Liamoir.
With Cathy Roberts in the Players production of 'The Alchemist.'
Amongst a host of other plays I appeared in were 'The Glass Menagerie' with now famous Sorcha Cusack, daughter o
f the legendary Cyril Cusack, as Laura, 'The Importance of Being Ernest,' 'The Alchemist,' where I had such great fun playing Subtle, and 'Romeo and Juliet' in a production that alternated night by night between two Romeos and two Juliets. One of the Juliets was my girlfriend – not my Juliet, the other one! Incidentally, Sorcha played Brad Pitts mum many years later in the film 'Snatch.'