Dear
oh dear, I'm sorry I haven't written to you for some time; gawd knows
why, I suppose I've just been busy.
Look:
those
are the books next to my bed which I haven't had time to finish. Some
of them I have finished but I keep them there as they are the ones I
really liked, for example, Marty Feldman's autobiography. I loved it
so it stays there in case I want to dip in to it again. Sometimes I
get bored with novels so a few there are half finished or half
started, depending on which way you look at it, and one, John
Osborne's autobiography, I have been reading for years. It's a must
for all writers and actors as it's well written and interesting and
he was probably one of the most influential writers of the 20th
century.
The first play that startled everybody was Look Back in
Anger and a lot of people these days think that his character
Jimmy Porter is still relevant – it was in the 50s but not now I
don't think.
He
wasn't exactly (John Osborne) the nicest of people; I got to know one
of his wives, Jill Bennett, when she worked in Nottingham and she was
lovely. She was a big star and people in the company (I was working
with at Leicester Haymarket Theatre) would pull my leg and say she's out
front or she's coming tonight because I'd had a few drinks
with her.
I
met her after a play she was in and made her laugh solidly for an
hour or so whilst we were in the pub before driving back to
Leicester.
When
she committed suicide it is reputed that her ex husband, John
Osborne, spit on her grave. Whether that is true or not I don't know
but I have seen it in print before the phrase post-truth was
even imagined. But why did he do that (if he did)?
Maybe because of the suicide and not for anything else. Maybe he didn't like the fact that she had abandoned him after he had abandoned her in life. So why would I want to read his book? Just an interesting read that's all. I don't know if he even mentioned her in his writing; yet!
I
saw in the west end a follow up to Look Back in
Anger but Jimmy Porter wasn't played very well. Jimmy was originated by Kenneth Haigh at The Royal Court and played
by Richard Burton in the movie.
The thing about Jimmy is that he
was/is a wife abuser. He spends all the play trying to play the
trumpet (off stage) and then comes on shouting and roaring. He calls
his mother in law names and describes her as rough as a night in a
Bombay Brothel at one point. And he kicks out at anything and is
a true bully which is what the author probably was; this was in the
fifties when the old guard were going out and classes were changing
and it was in the last days of rationing, national service (the
draft) when a new day was dawning and creativity which was always
stifled by the royal shilling (the draft). John Lennon and Ringo
Starr just missed the draft and we got The Beatles.
I
didn't play Jimmy Porter but I played his Welsh lodger, Cliff, when I
went to night school – night drama school to be precise. They
couldn't afford sound FX and the guy playing Jimmy couldn't play the
trumpet so I played it. Now what made me think I could play a
trumpet? Well I used to be in the army cadets and knew how to get a
sound out of it so it worked.
But
all this, as I ramble on, doesn't give you much of an excuse as to
why I haven't been writing.
Well
I have a new agent after the unfortunate demise of my last one who
sadly died just before my play opened so there we are.
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