Night Must Fall

I was listening to Desert Island Discs the other day and the guest was Anne-Marie Duff; now there's a name to conjure with. She is an actress, although she calls herself an actor, and hit all the headlines in her portrayal of Saint Joan at the National Theatre, here in London.

That was about ten years ago and I was still living in Los Angeles in those days so I didn't see it. I have never been to the National in any case I probably wouldn't have gone in any case.

I'm not one of those actors who never go to the theatre as I love it, but she mentioned a quote by Michael Gambon saying he never goes to the theatre as you don't see pilots going to the airport to see their pals taking off. It's a funny quote but the pilots shouldn't be performing despite some of the headlines of late.

In the interview, on Dessert Island Discs, she was asked how she felt when she waited back stage waiting to go on that first night for Saint Joan, was she nervous, apprehensive or anything and she replied that she felt full of energy. It was a huge audience and she felt as if she was going out at Glastonbury like a guitar god about to take the place apart . . . and I got to thinking if I had ever had that feeling and my thoughts went back to when I did a play called Night Must Fall.

I have done a few plays since, where I had a showy leading role, but I never got that feeling again.

Night Must Fall was written by Emlyn Williams who was also an actor so he set it up perfectly for himself: a murderer who chopped off women's heads and kept them in a hat box; plenty of quotes from the bible, in the wonderful Welsh accent, Richard Burton as opposed to Max Boyce, to be played with charm. charisma and everything any actor would die to play. The play is a bit creaky and melodramatic but, even though it's hard work for all, well worth while.

I had first heard of the play when I was at drama school: when some of you go out and into rep you will do 'Night Must Fall' although I doubt of any of you here today will play Danny . . . was the kind of encouragement we got from a very strange teacher at college who would take up about ten blogs to describe; I won't mention him by name but he was called Richard Ryan.

We moved to Northamptonshire to try and get on the housing ladder and be within easy access of London and I contacted the local theatre to see if they were doing any casting.

Some time later they called and asked me to come in for an interview and I was cast in The Alchemist by Ben Jonson – someone must have dropped out for that to happen, I thought, and that is what had happened.

So it was good to drive in to Northampton each day for rehearsals; it was my first job in the theatre after leaving drama school, although I had worked at Birmingham Repertory Theatre, Birmingham Rep, whilst still at college, and since leaving had worked on television in The Newcomers, Crossroads, Z Cars and quite a few others. It did seem at one point that I would have some kind of TV career without ever working in the theatre but it didn't work that way as for the next ten years or so I did more theatre than TV.

When I was doing The Alchemist one of the cast asked me if I would ever consider joining the company for a season and I said I would consider it, of course. A few days later another cast member asked me the same thing and said they would pay me £40 a week; that was good money for those days as I had £10 for my little episode at Birmingham Rep four years earlier. Again I said that that sounded okay.

A few days later I got a call at home to see if I would come in and have a chat with the artistic director and I made the appointment.

After the small talk the director told me that the manager of the theatre bar had been asking him for years if they could do his favourite play Night Must Fall and he would usually tell the guy that he would if ever a Danny came along.

He said 'the bar manager came to see me the other day and said we've got a Danny haven't we?'

That was me, of course; the director said 'Now about money; we always think that £30 is a good wage here' and I said 'What about forty?' he said 'thirty five' and I said 'okay!' and that was it.

I didn't hear from them for a while after The Alchemist finished; I did some filming in Belfast and Bangor in Ireland and round about the end of July, I noticed that the new season had started at the theatre; they published the cast in the newspaper and I wasn't mentioned.

So that was that; I thought I should have accepted the £30 per week.

I also noticed that a guy my age was also in the company so I got to thinking.

Mmnnn!

Eventually I got call to meet them 'in the pub' one of the lunchtimes; I went along and it doesn't take a great deal of skill to notice which ones the actors are in a pub!

I could see the guy of my age and when I was within earshot, although he didn't think I was, he said to the woman he was sitting with 'now we know.' 'yes now we know' she said.

It was quite obvious to me that he thought he was going to play Danny – or Dan as it appears in the cast list; in fact he told me this when I met him on a train about 10 years later.

After this I went to the library and borrowed the play – there were lines upon lines upon speeches on nearly every page and I thought this is going to be hard work.

We gathered on the stage for the first 'read thru' on chairs and one or two people wanted to sit by me – it was quite obvious because one said to another 'I wanted to sit by him' and 'I saw him first!'

So at least two members of the company, including the fella from the pub, thought I had a problem with my hearing.

When we broke for coffee an old grand actor, wearing a black Crombie overcoat came in to the green room to say hello and wanted to know why everybody else had a script except me as I was still using my library book.

'It was different in my day' he said in his wonderful baritone voice 'we would always give the leading actor the script first.'

Of course I remember that after all these years; who wouldn't?

There were indeed a load of lines and I had two weeks to learn them; half way through rehearsals a notice went on the notice board with the cast of the next play; another lead role this time in Alan Ayckbourn's Time and Time Again.

This went on for a further eleven months, apart from a break to do five episodes of General Hospital for ATV and it was wonderful. Going to the notice boards to see what the next play was and what you would be playing is the most wonderful thing for an actor.

But the first night of the play came; I started the play wearing a messenger boy's outfit that a hotel messenger would wear complete with the pill box hat.

The stage direction was that I was to enter smoking a Woodbine cigarette and when I came on to the well to do drawing room of an old lady I flicked ash on the carpet which got a huge laugh – so I was in.

The other thing I wore was a kind of short jacket and a bow tie. I think I had the idea, being a little charmer, that he should be like a ventriloquist's dummy.

The play was set in the 30s.

My pal came to see the first night and was with me back stage before I went on; I remember him saying 'aren't you nervous?' because I didn't look it but I knew I had it all; not in an overconfident way, as I was wary of that, but everybody else slowly left the backstage area. My pal first as he had to go to his seat, and then, one by one the rest of the cast.

The cards were there in their silence, their make up tins laye bare with their good luck charms and paraphernalia and eventually I was ready.

So I stood up and went in front of the full length looking glass in the dressing room and looked very closely in to my eyes and everything came to me; I knew it was a full-house which was just under 600 and, like Anne-Marie Duff, I could see the determination in my eyes as I strode up there to be a Guitar God!