Stupid Government in Britain.

Petrol Pump Chaos in Britain Yesterday.

I have experienced lots of things in Britain; lots of crazy things that you wouldn't think a government capable of; it's great that it's not a banana republic or has a dictator in charge but that is no excuse for stupidity.

I lived through the Thatcher years when they abolished rates on property and introduced the Community Charge, the so called Poll Tax, the dismantling of the railway system in to a group of separate businesses that own various part of the rail network, like Virgin (try and get a train easily in the UK now), and saw the privatisation of many nationalised companies, but nothing can be prepared to what is going on here at the moment.

For people who do not live here there is a tax called Valued Added Tax – VAT or just vat – which is a kind of sales tax which is common in America. From now on I'm going to call it tax for the purposes of what I am talking about here.

Last week the Chancellor of the Exchequer delivered his budget to the House of Commons; this is the government's plan of fiscal action for the next 12 months.

This is where the government raises and decreases taxes and traditionally it's where they raise the price of booze, cigarettes, petrol and road tax. Road tax is the same as the tags you have to put on your car in America.

The budget was a bad budget for seniors and a good one for top earners; they have increased the tax for some pensioners who work and reduced the tax for the so called top earners. Top earners pay 50% of their income on the slice of their income over 150 or 250 grand; the Chancellor lowered that to 45% and paid for it with the pensioners tax increase.

That's by the by.

The VAT – the sales tax – is also applied to hot food and if you buy fish and chips you have to pay tax on the food – because it's hot.

The Chancellor has extended the tax to pasties, and other hot food sold over the counter, when they're hot so when you go to a deli and buy a hot pastie you have to pay the tax. If the pastie goes cold, whilst it's behind the counter waiting to be sold, no tax is applicable – I don't have to comment on that it's stupid; you can see that.

Then last week a cabinet minister went on TV and suggested that people stock up with petrol in case the tanker drivers go on strike. He said as well as filling your fuel tanks you should fill a spare can too.

This has resulted in all the filling stations in the country running out of fuel; lines of cars are queuing in the streets and causing traffic jams; police have had to close some of them because of the disruption to traffic.

It was on the news that the army is being trained to deliver the tankers to the petrol stations in case of an emergency because they don't want to see essential services such as hospitals being affected.

And guess what!!

There is no strike planned; the union for the tanker drivers are talking to the managements about the health and safety of actually delivering petrol – they are in talks; nothing more.

I hope we don't go to war with this lot running the country if those are the tactics they would use – they didn't think that a statement such as 'fill you cars just in case' would panic the country.

I rest my case.

American/British TV writing.

Fawlty Towers title card.

There is a big difference in attitudes between America and Britain; it is said that when you come up with an idea in Britain and talk to people about it they try and talk you out of it; if you want to do a comedy about crooks, for example, they'll say 'what about Bonnie and Clyde?' whereas the attitude in America is that when you come up with an idea they try and find a way of doing it. They will say about the comedy crooks idea 'a new take on Bonnie and Clyde; I like it.'

It's not a bed of roses over there where everything gets made as many a writer has found out; over there you have to learn to pitch an idea to the studios and if you're no good at pitching your script doesn't get looked at.

If your pitch is good and the script is good it still doesn't mean anything till a studio takes it on. There is such a thing over there called the black list. Now the black list in this case is not a bad thing; the black list is a list of the best scripts that haven't been bought by somebody – somebody important that is who are going to actually make the film.

There is also a big difference in the way a TV series is written; in Britain one person, or team, writes all the episodes of a TV series. Julian Fellowes wrote all the episodes of Downton Abbey and his latest hit Titanic; Dennis Potter wrote all the episodes of The Singing Detective; John Cleese wrote every episode of Fawlty Towers with his then wife Connie Booth.

On The Sopranos, in America, they had 12 writers, on Lost they had 23 writers (no wonder the plot went haywire) and on Cheers they had 36.

Sometimes the American series run in to hundreds of episodes so maybe a team of writers is understandable but some of the series in Britain, for example Till Death Us Do Part went in to 53 episodes and all of them written by Johnny Speight; it's interesting that when Till Death Us Do Part was remade in America under the title All In the Family they had 50 – one of them Johnnie Speight.

However the Americans make their series for years and Till Death Us Do Part is a good example of the difference in how long series run in the 2 countries. If the ratings drop in America the series gets dropped; not in the UK.

So what's the better way? The Americans will like their way and the British will like theirs.

However when it came to the greatest situation comedy ever the prize would go to Fawlty Towers even though they only made 12 episodes. 12 classic episodes and the writing team of Cleese and Booth said they couldn't write any more.

Before the days of popular videos pirate video tapes of Fawlty Towers were being sold for hundreds of pounds.

There is a series on television at the moment on both sides of the Atlantic called Homeland (12 writers) and I believe it's wonderful. It's everything I would want to see in a series as I have always been interested in the subject matter.

One of my favourite films is The Manchurian Candidate; I can't remember how many times I have seen it but the last time was in Los Angeles with the guy who directed it, John Frankenheimer, and one of the stars, Angela Lansbury.

That's what Homeland is about but the reason I won't watch it is because I really liked Lost when it first came on but because it was so successful they made hundreds of episodes and lost the plot; by the time it finished we were all bored with it and disappointed by the outcome.

That is why The Singing Detective (the TV series not the movie) was better than The Sopranos and Fawlty Towers was better than Cheers – in my opinion anyway.

There's a very interesting page about Fawlty Towers on Wikipedia which gives a few insights into the writing, the submission (the first episode was rejected by the BBC) and the difference between what would would have happened if the Americans tried to make it – here it is

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fawlty_towers you may have to copy and paste.

Acting and Writing.

What is the creative difference between acting and writing apart from the obvious mechanics?

Why would I ask this question, first of all? Because I heard someone discussing it on the tube but I won't bore you with what they said because that's not my opinion – I'll bore you with what I think instead.

There is not a lot of difference at all – actors and writers have their own way of creating characters. Some sit in cafés or pubs and study people and some even go to the zoo.

I was playing a psychopathic murderer in a play once – Night Must Fall by Emlyn Williams – and there was a scene where the stage was bare apart from an old woman sitting in her wheel chair. It was dark and quiet and as she sat there the wind howled from outside and it was very scary then suddenly I poked my head through the curtain and the audience gasped and screamed.

The woman looked at me and was relieved as she knew me – Danny! Danny! she cried, then I came in and talked to her for a while.

As I was talking to her the audience could tell that I was going to kill her, chop her head off and put it in a hat box – at least that's what they thought and by the time the scene closed they knew that's what I was going to do.

There was something about the dialogue that the writer had written which needed something from the actor; I was saying one thing but meaning something else; I couldn't just stand there with my hands in my pockets or try to speak evil or look menacing. People don't pull faces and show their inner emotions if they're trying to trick somebody so what should I do – in my case I usually ask what would I do in that situation?

Then someone – not the director – gave me a note. He said I needed to stalk the woman like a lion or a tiger; and he was right. That's what I meant about going to the zoo!

So I paced around the stage as I talked to her and it worked. I was as charming as I had been in the previous scenes with her but there was something about me which gave the message to the audience that I was up to no good.

Some actors would say, never mind the audience - worry about 'the work' – I know what they mean but we are doing it for the audience; who else?

In that case the writer had given me the bare bones and I had to put flesh onto them.

The lines – or the dialogue – should come last in a characterisation even though you learn them first; you learn them first to get them out of the way but these days with film acting you don't learn anything as you don't rehearse much.

Rehearsals are a learning process and this you do as you rehearse. Sometimes on a film I have only just about got the lines into my head before having to say them; so I deliver them as if that's my raison detre then go away; nothing learned.

Later I might think maybe I should have done them this way or that way and the day after that I had forgotten them altogether.

That's what you have to do as an actor but it's a shame as the chances of you seeing that performance many years down the line and cringing is quite a possibility.

Whereas the performance in a theatre, which disappears into oblivion, is rehearsed, practised and has the benefit of being performed many times to near perfection.

Some of the great film directors, such as Sydney Lumet, would have a period of rehearsals which is why their movies have great performances – I mean look at Dog Day Afternoon.

But back to writing and acting – they are the two things that everybody thinks they can do; they think they can do this because they can put words on a page – writing – and they can speak – acting!

But that's not all there is to it.

The best scripts, movies, books, plays or whatever are character driven; the alternative would be plot driven.

There are some great films, I'm sure, which are plot driven; I haven't seen the Star Wars films but I am told they are plot driven with lousy dialogue and poor development of character but I am also told they are great films.

Look at the film Avatar – no nothing to do with an Indian deity - which was a pioneering film which everybody thought was the answer to the future, a new way of making films, with 3D and all that; only the characters were one dimensional and the dialogue was terrible but then again – I didn't see it.

A film I did see was Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy which I loved; I loved it because the acting was good, the characters were well drawn, the plot took a lot to figure out and I like to have to work things out for myself.

Of course a lot of people didn't like it, because they couldn't follow it, but people thought the same when the TV series was popular in 1979 with Alec Guinness playing Smiley; I wonder if they'll make the sequel Smiley's People?

So writing and directing are one and the same apart from the logistics of it – they both create characters and some of them even go to the zoo.

Here I am in Night Must Fall – many years ago:

as Danny in Night Must Fall.

Cats.

The smiling cat - El Grande.

We are, unashamedly, lovers of cats. We love their habits, their games and their funny little ways.

We know some people don't like them and prefer dogs as the dogs seem more dependent on them and the cat is independent but that's what we like about them.

Stroking a cat, as you watch television, is said to be good for your blood pressure but the love and pleasure you get from them can make you very happy – and when you lose them they break your heart – just as when you lose a dog.

Of course, some people don't like cats or dogs or any animals even though they give us more than we ever give them – there's something the matter with you if you don't like animals at all and people who are cruel to animals certainly have something wrong with them.

We have had dogs too and dogs at the same time as the cats; one dog we had would let one of the cats sleep on his head – not whilst he was lying down but as he sat up; I can still see him sitting there frightened to move in case the cat fell off.

But I have had cats all my life; when a child I had a kitten called Elvis who suddenly didn't come back one day; he was a black cat with a white breast and I was sure that somebody had taken him till my mother told me that he had been killed on the main road.

That is the problem when you let your cat out – they don't know the highway code and they run in front of cars and lorries.

When we lived in the country we had a dog, and at least 3 cats that were run over, but then went through a good patch when we had 5 at the same time; their names were Graymalkin, Biddy, Biggun, Lamb Chop (or Fluff) and Gizmo.

When we went to the vets they would say 'you're the family with the funny cat's names' – I got the name Graymalkin from the cat that's mentioned in Macbeth!!!

But as I said when you lose one they break your heart.

Our cat – El Grande – died yesterday; he seemed to be as fit as a fiddle 6 weeks ago, jumping over the furniture and the bannisters but suddenly he started falling over, it got so bad that he couldn't walk or even stand; all in 6 weeks.

The vet said it was probably a brain tumour so he was put to sleep.

He came with us from America and only managed to spend 3 months in his new house so now when we come in there is no cat to say hello as we walk through the door.

There he is above - smiling.

Saint Patrick's Day.

Saint Patrick's Window.

In the 18^th century, about 1770, there was a fella called John O'Leary in County Cork, Ireland, who had something to do with my existence.

He was married to Kathleen and one day he was caught stealing sheep and was transported to Australia; poor Kathleen had to stay behind and never saw John again.

However, she remarried and I will presume she had some kind of divorce first; although that seems hardly likely.

Divorce wasn't easy in Ireland in the 20^th Century don't mind the 18^th as it took an act of parliament for women to divorce their husbands in those days as Ireland was still governed by the British Crown.

Kathleen became Kathleen O'Sullivan and eventually some way down the line of Sullivans I arrived.

Now was John O'Leary – or was it O'Laoghaire? - hungry when he stole the sheep or was he just a rustler? Was he out drinking the night he stole into the field and made it away with the animal and did he crouch at the side of the field thinking “Will I take it? Will I? Will I?”

Or did he draw up in his horse and cart with a few friends and load them up on to the back of the cart and distribute them to the poor and was then shopped by a customer?

This was before the famine – but he might have been hungry!!

“Will I take it and will I get caught and if I get caught will I be transported which will give life to a load of Sullivans? What's it to be?”

Whatever the reason or the explanation we will never know; the fact is I'm here; I arrived and the actual act of putting his two hands around that animal was the cause of my existence. So I have been giving sheep a sheepish look ever since I found out about this fact.

But poor old John; nobody knows what really happened to him – they might have at one time but that is all forgotten; let's hope he had a wonderful life in Botany Bay.

The Irish Rebellion came about 25 years later and the famine came about 50 years after that so he was just as well living in the sunshine for the rest of his life.

The Rebellion, the famine, and all the other trials and tribulations, made the Irish a strong people and the experience of this produced an extraordinary amount of writers from such a tiny isle.

7 Million people were pared down to 4 million in no time at all and Irish writers, like the Jews, made fun of their rulers and colonists and commented further about their plight; maybe this was the reason 4 Irish writers – and I say again – from such a small country, won the Nobel Prize for Literature; and that's not counting James Joyce, Brendan Behan and a host of others.

So this week celebrate Saint Patrick's Day and think how lucky you are that the Irish are here to amuse, enlighten and maybe even educate you.

I will be doing my one man Irish show at a small private theatre here in Eastcote, Middlesex, so for the rest of this week I will be practicing my guitar to get my fingers nimble for the task – so wish me luck.

Seats for the Oscars and Goodbye to a Day Dream Believer.

Peter Tork and Davy Jones.

It's been a week since the Oscars and in that week we've lost Davy Jones who died of a heart attack; there were a few initial stories as to where he died: one version said he died in his sleep another said he was found in his car complaining of chest pains and experiencing breathing difficulties and after being rushed to hospital in Florida he was pronounced dead on arrival and the latest is that he died in his horse riding stable with his horses; the bottom line is he died.

Not a lot of people know this (to paraphrase Michael Caine) but he was the original Monkee – he was cast first and the others had to audition.

Peter Tork said he kind of resented him when he came in to the auditions and swanned straight in to see the producers; then when they had to go in for their auditions they were 'paired' with him.

Of course they got on well later.

And how did they know about him? The producers, I mean.

On the night The Beatles were on the Ed Sullivan Show, when street crime and burglaries stopped for an hour in New York, Davy Jones was in the show with them.
He was playing The Artful Dodger on Broadway in Oliver and sang a song, with Georgia Brown, from the show and the producers saw him.

So he was already contracted to the film company who produced The Monkees but had to meet the producers first.

Before that he was in Coronation Street playing Ena Sharples' grandson and various other British TV appearances and then he trained as a jockey before going into The West End in Oliver and then to Broadway.
I don't think any of the Monkees made money from the re-runs of the show, so when he finished with it he started a street market in New York and then, after losing a lot of money, resumed his career as a jockey.
In tribute to Jones, Lingfield Park Race Track announced that the first two races on the card for 3 March 2012 would be renamed the Hey Hey We're The Monkees Handicap and the In Memory of Davy Jones Selling Stakes with successful horses in those races accompanied into the Winners' Enclosure by some of The Monkees' biggest hits. Plans were also announced to erect a plaque to commemorate Jones next to a Monkee Puzzle tree on the course.
Of course he died in a leap year on February 29^th – a date they will only remember every four years which coincides each year with the Olympic Games and the American Presidential Election.
Changing the subject a lot of people have asked me, as I lived around the corner from The Kodak Theatre, if I ever went to the Academy Awards show or even waited outside to see the stars coming and going; well not necessarily going just coming.

Well no, I never went; it is possible to get an invitation to the actual show if you are a prominent business owner but you'll end up in the gods. My landlady went the first year I was there and it might have been possible to go in those days and stand in the crowd outside.

The Oscars were held at a different place each year; one year it would be the Shrine Auditorium and the next it would be in The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in The Music Center. Since they have been held at The Kodak Theatre in Hollywood all has changed.

As I mentioned before, you can't even walk along Hollywood Blvd without going through security checks, so who are those people outside that greet the stars?

Well you could be one of those if you wanted to be – all you have to do is write to the Academy, tell them you would like to be in the Bleachers Seats– which is what those seats are called – and they will choose so many out of the hat, so to speak, and then you can go.

They will, of course, put you through a very strict security check and, if you are successful, you can go and they will wine and dine you for the day – they even have wheel chair access for those needing it.

They have elevators to get you to your seats, food service and when the show starts they take you across to El Capitan Theatre, opposite, and you see the show on the big screen; there you get hot dogs as opposed to the Wolfgang Puck menu the stars will eat.

So give it a go for next year but don't ask me for any addresses.