|
History ensemble member Nick Asbury on corpsing whilst being a corpse...
Hamming
No matter how down one can get, you can always rely on old Dr Theatre to cheer you up. Now, I'm aware that I sound like an old ham here, but last night's performance of Henry VI Part I was just one of those shows.
 I love performing it, anyway, but a few things happened that made me smile. Firstly, I got blown off the ladder as Salisbury and am there busy dying all covered in blood and hanging 15 feet off the ground, when I remember a note that Michael gave me when he told me to stop 'dying' so much. Let the image do the work. He was right, but I always love that bit because it takes me back to being an eight year old and practicing being shot whilst standing on my bed. Man, I was better than James Bond back then. Anyway, it flits through my mind as I'm hamming it up for England, and I stop shivering, shaking, fitting, gargling and my mind goes into a little blank and I just let out a strange noise like Frankie Howard on a bad day.
"Ooooooheeeehooohmmmmnngghoo....", I go. And at once Chris McGill, who is on the same ladder as me and supposed to be consoling my imminent death, lets out an audible yelp, grabs my head and clasps it to him as he bursts into suppressed laughter. I'm so surprised myself that I start giggling too and pretty soon the whole ladder's shaking for all the wrong reasons and Keith Bartlett as Talbot is busy banging on about my one eye shining at the sun or whatever he says and looking like Mad Eye Moody at us. I get dragged out in to the flies and eventually put out of my misery by the Daves up in the gods with whom I trust my life on a nightly basis giving me questioning looks.
I then have to do a mad dash all down the flights of crazily thin stairs erected just behind the set - which, when you've got one eye and half your face covered in blood and a back scabbard on, is no mean feat a) to survive, and b) to survive quietly - and rush to the quick change area, wipe off said blood, take off the Salisbury costume, put on an English Soldier costume, run round just in time to carry on a ladder from downstage left with Kieran, pull him up to the ladder, chant a bit, pull down a blue silk, run off (last night avoiding Clive as he came a cropper on someone's silk and landed square on his hip and elbow with a loud expletive right in front of the only school kids in the audience), and then rush upstairs to change into the Duke of Somerset's cossie whilst sweating like George Bush playing Scrabble. Then it's rush downstairs, a minute to get myself together, shout a bit when all Talbot's soldiers swing across to ambush the Countess d'Auvergne, and then, whoosh, we're on into the Temple Garden scene.
This is a scene, remember, where all the protagonists pick white or red roses thereby setting in action all the events leading to the so called Wars of the Roses. I storm on, all annoyed with Clive as Richard Plantagenet, being restrained by Geoffrey as Suffolk, when I notice that he's wearing a metal red rose, left on his costume from the last time we did Part II. Obviously this kind of pre-empts the scene. So I mutter out of the side of my mouth 'You've got a bloody rose on,' at which, cool as a cucumber, Geoffrey lets me go; storms upstage towards Clive and, a brief but miniscule swipe at his own chest later, turns round to me to say his line and the offending article is gone. God knows where he put it. We exchange a bit of eyebrow raising and I hold down a brief corpse and we're off. Ah, Doctor Stage.
Then later in the second half over the dead, prostrate bodies of Talbot and his son young John, Katy, instead of saying 'I think this upstart is Old Talbot's ghost', says, 'I think this upstart is Old Galbot's toast'. This not only reduced the listening French to tears, but left Keith and Lex - Talbot and son respectively - in the unenviable position of corpsing whilst being a corpse. They just could not move whilst inside both of them were screaming. I saw them when they came offstage and Keith's head had nearly exploded. He was purple. Lex was doubled over in pain. Such little things are the stuff of nightmares and dreams.
Then Tom has a mental blip and seriously has to ask Geoffrey what came first, the burning of Joan or the wooing of Margaret? Which if anybody knows these shows, is a bit of a major slip up. He was gently reminded and told to go sit down and have long hard think about things.
Poor chap, it could've been any one of us, such is the schedule we've been working to in the last month. And, however up and down the rollercoaster goes, it's evenings like last night that will always keep me going and keep me on a level. Kinda means I can enjoy the rush as my stomach churns with the loop the loop.
 Respond to Nick's blog
Responses to Nick's blog
"Well, hallelujah, I just found your blogs, through fiddling about online. I was in the audience for the Glorious Moment and wasn't it fantastic. It rates up there as one of the best few days of my life.
"I was truly moved and uplifted by all the performances and had a real sense of loss at the end...standing in the Hotel car park on the Sunday evening howling and crying because I didn't want it to end...and if I felt like that, how must you all have felt leaving Stratford and ultimately, giving your last performances at the Roundhouse.
"Anyway, you continue to bankrupt me, as I HAD to return to see Henry V again, and then decided that 1 & 2 H4 were brill too, so I saw them again on 23/5, the last performances of them. I had been miserable for weeks, with no chance of tickets for the last H5, so blow me down, I was delighted the Roundhouse had a return for 23/5. Whoopee!
"I'm a sucker for the plays, for the whole movement of the ensemble, the extra life you create in your having been together and evolving. I'm thrilled to see all the fantastic and well deserved reviews of the transfer to the Roundhouse. Michael Billington in The Guardian loved them, and rightly said that it will remain in the memory of those that attended as a golden moment. Never underestimate the pleasure you have given so many and the inspiration that has fired those who witnessed the plays. The Guardian editor said this week that some-one should step in and film them before they are lost forever - I wish it would happen.
"Please continue blogging. Tell us what the final 2 weeks were like. Where will you all go? I wish you and your fellow actors every success in finding more work...post it on your blog so we can share in your successes.
"Written several days later... well I had the most fabulous day on your last Friday of performances - if anything they were more vibrant than the Glorious Moment. I sat on the Terrace between performances soaking up every last minute of the plays and of the energy of the Ensemble. You greeted a friend sat in front of me - I was the one grinning gormlessly - and I so wanted to say how I'd loved your blogs and the intimacies you had shared with your audience, but didn't want to interrupt you or appear as silly fan type, so just continued to grin gormlessly. Needless to say, thank you to you and your colleagues. You were all brilliant."
Kate
"PS you write really well. Could you write a diary of the History plays...with photos, text, blogs, anecdotes, interviews etc. Consider it."
Watch extracts from the Histories
 View scenes from Henry V and behind the scenes in rehearsals.
|
|
Latest blog posts
- Listen. Time passes. Listen.
- I feel alive
- Things happen to you
- Sleeping on ladders
- Battle of Barnet
- Buckets of blood
- Hamming
- Three and a half weeks
- Letting go
- Unforgettable
- Lighting grids
- A new stage
- Gloriously
- The men in black
- Really listening
- Making history
- Happy birthday!
- Bleeeuurghhh!
- Dead weight
- Card sharks
- Tomorrow I scalded myself with tea
- You stink
- Turning to slush
- The threshold point
- Holidays!
- All change
- Strange things in the bath
- Back to school
- Corpsing
Other blog posts
About blogger Nick
Likes: Cricket and music. Fields and dark pubs with no music
Dislikes: Lager, crowded streets and light bars with music |
