The Directing Process.

Stanley Kubrick

Now we come to the directing process and all that goes with it so I am likely to ramble on a little bit here. This is the one where directors will write to me and tell me I don't know what I am talking about and they may be right. As regular readers will know, and there are regular readers, I don't profess to be an expert on anything.
Some of those regular readers, by the way, read this within minutes of publication – how does that happen?
I have directed a few times; the first time was when I was in a film being produced and directed by a fella from the pop music business with plenty of money. He was also starring in it and I was doing a scene with a well known TV actor – I was playing his bank manager and we were talking across a desk.
We did his medium shot, close up and then they started to set up the shots on me; but instead of setting the camera up in front of the other fella they put it behind his head; in other words they crossed the line.
Great directors like John Ford and George Stevens have crossed the line and got away with it but this guy was making his first film.
Now 'the line' comes easier to an actor than it does to most directors and before I go on I'll explain it better – I hope.
If you cross it with the camera you will give the affect that (in our scene) one actor is looking at the other but the other one is looking away.
If you watched a game of tennis from the side or even a football match the camera has to stay on the same side of the field of play all the time, or the audience wouldn't know which person was hitting the ball in tennis or which team was kicking which way in football.
Also when people are moving in films – like someone running after someone else – they should be going the same way from shot to shot. Let's say from left to right; so when they come to a corner and turn it, the camera is always on the other side of the street keeping the subjects moving from left to right.
The audience watching these films are not aware of these rules, which were instilled into film makers by Charlie Chaplin and D.W. Griffith, but they would certainly notice it if they weren't followed.
Anyway – I said I'd ramble – we pointed out to our director that he was crossing the line and he changed the shot.
Later, when he had cut the film together, he showed it to the well known TV actor who said that it – the film - didn't make sense. So the well known TV actor wrote some scenes which he wanted me to direct.
Actors learn a lot about directing from working with directors and the best ones are in the theatre – the live theatre. They do proper directing. The crossing of the line and the other technicalities of actually shooting a film through the camera should be sorted out by the Director of Photography (the DP; DoP in Britain) in consultation with the director. The director should be directing the actors.
In early movies – look at the credits – they had dialogue directors. George Cukor was an uncredited dialogue director or a 'fill in' director on early movies; mostly uncredited.
When they asked me to direct the extra scenes in the movie I looked at the formulaic TV dramas at the time – Kojak etc – and copied those shots more or less: establishing shot, medium shots and close ups.
I also asked for a tracking shot and shot one of the scenes – involving a child – in one continuous shot.
It all worked out well and one shot we did with a mirror turned up on the DP's show reel; the mirror, which I had asked for, changed the dynamic of the whole scene.
All that was great fun – the film disappeared in a mountain of dysentery with all the other crapola films of long ago.
But the hardest part of the whole process is directing actors. As I have said actors work with great directors and terrible directors. They all manage to be there in the mix – in the theatre, in movies and in television and we know the difference.
Most directors in TV don't direct at all; they just set up the shots. It's the same in movies!
I was doing a commercial in Dublin once and, whilst we were having lunch in the Shelbourne Hotel, the DP mentioned he had made a film which was directed by a well known writer Wolf Mankowitz; someone asked him if he was any good and the DP said 'he just said action and cut!'
That film, also, disappeared into a mountain of dysentery!
Some terrible directors sometimes make good films; the DP, the sound crew, the actors and not forgetting the Cinderella men and women in Hollywood, the writers, bring the film in to an acceptable standard.
In the fifties the new wave directors came along and made wonderful French movies which have never been bettered. They advocated the auteur theory where the director is the sole author of the whole shooting match – his vision and his vision alone is what we, the audience, see on the screen – well the DP, the sound crew, the actors and not forgetting the Cinderella men and women in Hollywood, the writers, may have something to say about that.
I mentioned in a post before about famous directors of the past, and Woody Allen in the present, expect actors to direct themselves and come along on the day with their lines learned, their motivation and attitude all there. Their choices already to work with another actor who has also directed them self and come along on the day with their lines learned, their motivation and attitude all there hoping that it doesn't clash with the other guy's.
One of the scenes in Eyes Wide Shut, directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Tom Cruise went into about 90 takes; yes ninety takes.
Is that good directing? A good director may only say one word to the actor which can fix everything but 90 takes? It is quite obvious that this very successful director who knew everything about lenses, cameras, lighting and only auditioned actors via video tape, didn't know what word to use to get the scene right from Tom Cruise.

The Audition Process.

I gave a little talk a couple of weeks ago to my Equity Branch; Equity, as a lot of people know, but not everybody does, is the actors union. It used to be called British Actors' Equity Association – the word union is not mentioned just like SAG (Screen Actors' Guild) and other Equitys or is it Equities? Maybe!!

I didn't take much time to prepare as I was learning lines for my play but, even though it was off the top of my head, I think it went well.

My branch, by the way, is The North West London Branch. The talk was about my time in Los Angeles and the difference between working there and in London – and there is a difference!
First of all when you get there you notice that it is a 'company town' in fact some columns in the Los Angeles Times are called that – Company Town.

There is a lot of help available for professional actors and anybody in the film business and from the Samuel French Bookshop on Sunset Blvd there is everything for the beginner to the old sweat of an actor who has been at it for years – like me.

I had to start all over when I got there; for a start off lots of American actors take classes, have acting coaches and are generally ready for work. They never leave the house without a head shot/résume in their bag and some even have sets of clothes in the car ready for any audition.

The British actors when they arrive might think this is pathetic and in fact a friend of mine said that actual word when we walked into Frenches.

At Samuel Frenches they have books of instructions published monthly on how to audition, what the agents are looking for that month, how casting directors are and what they like, what they don't like or how do they like to be approached.

I remember 2 things from the books and the thing all casting directors seemed to hate was actors coming in to meet them and asking if they could borrow their stapler – you are supposed to arrive with your 8'' x 10'' head shot stapled to the back of your résume and not leave it till the last minute.

Another thing I noticed for one casting director was 'do not touch the CD.' Of course I thought this was something to do with the CD player but no; do not touch the casting director (the CD) in case you pass something on – always wait to see if they want to shake hands with you – now, as my father used to say, what would that give you?

Yes, he would say, a pain in the shite!!

Getting back to the audition process; now when I say this I don't mean all British actors but a lot of British actors are a bit precious when it comes to the audition. A friend of mine went for an audition here in London and there were only 2 other actors up for the job; that would never happen in America. When he got there he noticed written next to one of the other actor's names were the words 'will not read under any circumstances.'

Reading is when you read the script to the director to give him an idea how you would play it – an audition in other words.

Needless to say that actor didn't get the role; I know who he is but I won't mention his name, but the guy who got the part - and it was a Disney film made in Britain - was David Jason; he didn't mind reading.

The basic audition is when you stand up in front of a director and perform a monologue; I don't know anybody who has ever been hired doing this. I did it when I got into drama school and I had to do a Shakespeare piece, a modern piece and recite as poem.

The other times I tried it I failed miserably.

There was a book called For the Actor and one called For the Actress which were full of monologues; I don't know if they're still available.

Sometimes a director will call out 'do you need a chair?' Some actors take it and talk to it.

When you do TV or a film you just meet the director and read.

But in America actors still do that monologue; they don't seem to mind. Some of them have been in series and they still do the monologue and/or read.

The actress Barbara Hershey was brilliant in Hannah and Her Sisters for Woody Allen and ten years later she saw they were casting Portrait of a Lady and the director didn't think she was right for it so she inundated her, Jane Campion, with letters and head shots and was eventually given an audition. Not only did she get the role she was nominated for an Academy Award.

I was on my holidays once in Devon and I made the mistake of calling my agent – no mobiles in those days. She asked me if I could come back to London the following day to meet a director at the BBC and of course I said yes.

When I met him I found the role was tiny and I made the mistake if saying 'You called me all the way back from Devon for this little bit.' Of course I didn't get the part.

Another director told me he didn't take much notice of a reading and I wondered why he had asked me to read.

When I net Ned Sherrin for a job in the theatre he wouldn't let anybody see the script till they got inside his office. When I met him I was supposed to sit back and go through it in my head before reading it to him – didn't get that either. To be honest I got the feeling he had already cast the role and was going through the motions.

I have met directors who have hired me without asking me to read at all and a few times I didn't meet the director till the first day of rehearsals or shooting.

In America you know what you get – unless you are a really big star, an audition.

I went to lots of seminars in Los Angeles to meet casting directors who would say that directors called actors in to read that they knew very well and who they had worked with; they did this because it was for a different type of role and they wanted to see how they would cope with it. I like that idea it's about as far removed from the John Ford typecasting that you can get.

By the way I like nearly all John Ford's films.

In America they like you to be natural, be yourself and behave – not act.

A tip the coaches give is not to keep looking into the eyes of the person you are reading with; this is not natural. People look around when they are talking to others; sometimes you look at people when they are talking but there is nothing so unnatural as staring at someone.

Another thing they like to hear is your natural voice. Some say when an English actor comes in they ask where the character is from and what does he sound like. They will say 'like you.'

I have heard someone say 'put two English actors together and they will be talking about accents in no time.'

The actor in Hollywood, travelling around in their car with a few changes of clothing and a few different head shots, is ready for an audition at a moments notice. When they get the call they will arrange to get the 'sides' from the Internet (it's a union rule that you have to have the sides – the bit of the script you will be reading from – 24 hours before your audition) and then, if they have one, and many do, they will call their coach and have a private lesson with the script.

It's a full time job in Hollywood – it's a company town.

The Rehearsal Process

Rehearsing Julius Caesar.

I have had many a discussion with my film director/writer friends about the subject of rehearsals in movies. Some of them are for it and some against. This is on filmed TV shows too.

If you've ever wondered about the TV Series Dragnet in the 1950s, and why everybody seemed to speak with that same staccato type of delivery, it was because the producer/star Jack Webb wouldn't let anybody see the script before shooting it. They would pin the lines up, next to the camera, and the actors would read them as the scenes were being shot.

I believe Dragnet originated on radio and when they did it on TV, Webb didn't get the same kind of feeling in the dialogue, so he resorted to that technique.

That is what it sounds like without rehearsing at all.

When actors do movies now, or TV, and there is not a rehearsal period, they run through the lines before doing the scene – over and over again. Whilst they do this they kind of direct themselves – they ask each other questions about the character, the arc of the scene, the motivation (a dirty word to some), what the character wants and where they have just been.

As most movies are shot out of sequence it is a good idea to know where you have just been.

The most important thing is 'what the character wants;' everybody wants something all the time and when you've figured that out you're half way there.

I was working with an actor once who was the Sandy Meisner type of actor; he had studied under someone who followed that kind of technique (Sandy Meisner's) and he would not look at any part of the script that his character wasn't in. I found this ridiculous; what if another character talked about him and mentioned some kind of trait or something that they had done? His book was coloured in with yellow highlighter and those were the only pages he would look at.

It's always interesting to work with American actors who come from many different schools of acting.

I can't remember anything in the bits of Sandy Meisner that I looked at about not reading anybody else's lines.

In Meisner classes students work on a series of progressively complex exercises to develop an ability to improvise, to access an emotional life, and finally to bring the spontaneity of improvisation and the richness of personal response to textual work.

Well that's clear isn't it?

Sandy Meisner was educated at the Lee Strasberg Actors' Studio in New York who adapted his own theories from that and Stanislavsky from Moscow; Meisner developed from that theory.

Marlon Brando, one of the greatest actors of the 20 Century, said he (Strasberg) was a phony and studied under Stella Adler – so much for Sandy Meisner.

But it doesn't matter how you do it as long as the whole cast is on the same page when you open on the first night or shoot the movie.

There are some terrible things that happen on stage; some actors from one discipline or another do things that have not been rehearsed.

Sometimes an ad-lib works – an actor thinks of something on the spot and, tries it, and keeps it in if it works.

I have read Strasberg's book A Dream of Passion: The Development of the Method and Stanislavsky's An Actor Prepares and they are very interesting.

I also read David Mamet's book True and False: Heresy and Common Sense for the Actor and, even though it's been many years since I read it I seem to remember him advising actors not to think – just do it for the audience. I think that's why his films are so neat, clever, tidy and boring. They have no heart; no matter what you might think of Strasberg his acting had heart.

One of the greatest film directors who used rehearsal time was Sydney Lumet; you could tell his films were rehearsed as they had little bits which can only be discovered in rehearsals.

Now what do I mean by that?

Well you discover things in rehearsals; not on the first day but you might come in with a different pair of shoes one day, you may come in scruffy and any of those things will affect the way you move. You may get told to sit behind a desk and that give you and awful lot of authority.

These little things the audience might not be conscious of but they work.

The problem with some directors is that they don't know how to direct.

Some directors will try and tell you how to play the lines – they will literally say 'shouldn't you say it this way' – like a teacher might say to you. Such a director is Roman Polanski and I know an actor who thumped him for it.

It's a wonderfully satisfying period when you rehearse.

Some time ago I worked at the Royal College of Art, London, as a visiting lecturer; sounds very posh but that's how I was categorised – in actual fact I had to be directed by about 12 different student directors. They were more interested in how things should be shot; what angle should the camera take and where would it be.

As an actor I wanted direction. The directors were given a choice of two scenes and I had to play both of them ten different ways.

One of them said, in a scene from Mona Lisa 'I think you should be chewing gum; why?

Another, in a scene from Educating Rita, said 'You're drunk.' Maybe he should have said I had drunk a bottle of whiskey and maybe then I would decide how drunk I should be.

A lot of directors who work with stars, and are a big deal and who do the hiring, cast certain actors because they know their limit and know that they will stay within that limit so they don't have to direct. They have heard that John Ford or Howard Hawkes did this - well phooey!

The Wimbledon Tennis Final.

Roger Federer - tennis player supreme.

The whole of Britain stopped on Sunday to watch the Wimbledon tennis final; I had to nip to the shop to pick something up half way through and there was nobody about; they were all glued to the TV sets.

The reason?

There was a British man in the final for the first time since about 1936 or so. The fact that this British man was a Scot was no matter – it didn't matter a jot, to use the vernacular.

Andy Murray his name is and unfortunately he played, who is arguably, the best player tennis has ever seen; a man from Switzerland call Roger Federer.

The man from Switzerland didn't start too well so the hope of the locals went up; he played a few unforced errors, sending the ball skywards on a few occasions and Murray won the first set but gradually Federer's skill and flair paid off.

There was a slight break for rain and they put the roof over the playing area, filled it with air conditioning and suddenly it was an indoor match.

Murray was winning outdoors but Federer is an indoor specialist – no excuses he was brilliant.

The problem here is that so much pressure is put on to British players at Wimbledon; it is the make up of Britain. There are kind of local capitals but they're more like regional centres. The counties have county towns – York in Yorkshire, Lancaster in Lancashire etc but those places are not the biggest towns or cities in those counties.

Britain is more parochial than America – if Switzerland held the biggest of the grand slam tennis tournaments how would Federer manage?

We nearly didn't watch it as an announcer came on to the BBC and announced, as his job description is described, that the men's final would be at 3:30 pm; I thought this might have been for the west coast American audience but no – it was a mistake.

Then on the day the two-o-clock news on the BBC said - Andy Murray is now on the Centre Court; so the sandwich we were about to eat was scoffed in front of the set.

In American terms the national figures for watching the event was okay at seventeen million which is nearly one third of the total population here but it's like one hundred million compared to America so you can imagine the impact it had.

There were certain omens working – when it was the Queen's Silver Jubilee Virginia Wade, an English girl, won the women's singles at Wimbledon and it seemed that the luck was with Murray in the year of the jubilee this year; but no – Federer won three sets to one.

I am getting my play ready for this Saturday so I will have to cut this short; if you're in London come and see it; the details are below.

Does America Care?

Barack Obama on the hustings.

The answer to the title, in my opinion is. . ..

Well let me put it to you: after all these years of having no national health care the United States have a very intelligent President who is trying to form a National Health Service and at every turning he is stopped.

Maybe he is going about it the wrong way and maybe he should get the actual states to start their own NHS and oversee the whole process but he has tried another way.

He wants to make it mandatory for everybody to have health insurance. Now that is a different kettle of fish. I can't remember all of the details but I believe if you can't afford it the government will subsidise you. 

Obviously this would have to be means tested but that's a whole other discussion.

The opposition say this is unconstitutional and is rather like making the population eat broccoli. Well they have to eat broccoli when they drive a car by buying car insurance, they have to eat broccoli when they go to work as they have to be deducted at source a load of taxes and insurance so if they are existing in the country they have to be available for treatment if they collapse in the street or if they are involved and injured in a road accident.

Last week Obamacare went before the Supreme Court and the court found in favour of Obama and you would think people would be celebrating – but no.

Some are, of course; he has his supporters, but many are chanting 'NO!' in the streets.

Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate for President, has said that 'when' he becomes president he will reverse the law, people are being interviewed in the street and saying they will not vote for Obama because of this, and I ask the question does America care?

Romney, by the way, was the Governor of Massachusetts and introduced a kind of National Health Service – a State Health Service – in 2006 to the state and now he is kind of keeping quiet about it; he is finding it hard to attack Obama on this particular subject.

There are over forty five million people in America without insurance; if they are injured in a bad road accident they could be $45,000 in debt and will probably have to go bankrupt; appendicitis $15,000 - $20,000. Medical bankruptcy is at an all time high in America.

I knew an old lady who died about eight years ago owing Cedars Sinai Hospital in Beverly Hills over $95,000. 

Up to the time of her death she was called many times a day by debt collectors demanding she pay up; asking her if she had any relations she could get the money from and things like that. 

When she died, her daughter was harassed by the same debt collectors and she became ill and needed treatment; her husband was a stroke victim and needed treatment from time to time. Every time the ambulance took him to hospital he was billed for the ambulance ride and then the treatment.

I used to take him to hospital some of the times if I was available but the hospital bills mounted and he eventually died. This didn't stop the calls.

The daughter eventually reached an age when she qualified for Medicare; this was like a national health service for hospital treatment for senior citizens but she had to pay around $110 per month to cover her for the lowest of the low care from a doctor. She had a pain in her chest and went to the doctor; he gave her pain killers, recommended aspirin and sent her away.

I used to call the doctors and was given prescriptions over the phone; the doctor didn't have the time to see me.

My friend went to the doctors many times with the pain in the chest and was sent away each time with pain killer recommendations but she badgered the doctor and eventually after a year he sent her for an x-ray. It was found she had a big mass on her lung so she was sent off for a bronchoscopy; lung cancer was diagnosed and she was given months to live and has since died.

All my friends in Los Angeles were caring empathetic people; they all want a national health service, even though a lot of them don't even know what it is; so who are these people who don't care?

The ignorant!

I have heard people say they don't need another tax – you pay more tax in the USA than here, by the way; not necessarily income tax – and those people seem to think they're going to live forever.

When I came back to London last week I got to the immigration desk; I was in the queue and could see the little notice 'please stand behind the line until you are called.'

When the person in front of me was finished I just sauntered up and showed them my passport.

Going into the USA is different: there are people putting you in to various lines and when the girl who was putting us into one of the three lines available went off somewhere the first person in the queue – the line as they say there – wouldn't move forward and waited till the woman came back before walking forward. And the little notice there said 'wait behind the yellow line until you are summoned by an officer.' Summoned by an officer!!!! No please or thank you, kiss my arse - nothing. Then the said officer summonses you to him with two flicks of his fingers; two flicks, not one or three, but two.

Yes all my friends in Los Angeles are caring but America as a country; does it care?

It gives aid to other countries – it used to be to stop communism spreading so what do they do it now for? Are they that charitable?

I think it was H.L. Menkin who said 'never overestimate the intelligence of the American Public' and it's true in a way.

If they vote Obama out of office in November they will get the president they deserve so let's hope they don't.

I found this little tit-bit from the last election on the Internet from the early stages of the last presidential election which about sums things up:

Likely Republican voters were asked how familiar they were the healthcare plans of all their candidates, even including non-candidate Fred Thompson. The results? In Nevada 29 percent said they were familiar with Thompson’s healthcare plan. In New Hampshire it was 15 percent, in Iowa 18 percent, in Florida it was 22 percent and in South Carolina had 24 percent with some idea about his plan.

Huh?

Thompson makes no reference to healthcare in his short stump speeches and has yet to even enter the race much less offer a healthcare plan. Nonetheless voters in these states told the pollsters at Woelfel Research, Inc that they were more familiar with Fred Thompson’s healthcare plan than they were of Tommy Thompson, Tom Tancredo, Ron Paul, Duncan Hunter, Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback.

My 43 hour stay in Los Angeles.

Carneys on the Sunset Strip.

I had to go to Los Angeles on pressing business over the weekend; it was all arranged at the last minute so I didn't have time to contact any of my friends there but I left London Heathrow at noon on Friday and returned here at noon yesterday (Monday). So I was out of the country for exactly three days – wow!! 10,000 odd miles and all air miles.

It's a long way for such a short stay; I was there forty three hours.

The flight over there was via Chicago where I had to change planes and I watched a couple of movies on the way.

One was called Man on a Ledge; it's about a cop who has been framed and to prove his innocence stages a mock suicide attempt on a high building to divert attention from something that is happening across the street – somebody trying to prove the cop's innocence. I think the film was okay but it gave me strange sensations.

It looked very real with the cop standing on the ledge of a Manhattan high rise about two or three hundred feet from the ground and me being actually 38,000 feet from it.

Each time he got near to the edge I felt a kind of vertigo; I had to convince myself that it wasn't real. As I looked to my left I was travelling over clouds and in front of me the movie.

I couldn't get a direct flight, which would have been about eleven hours, so changing at Chicago made the whole journey door to door a twenty three hour jaunt – that is door to door counting the three hour stay at each airport.

But Los Angeles was the same as usual; I left there on June 30^th last year and as soon as I got out into the street on Saturday it was as if I'd never been away. I know every nook and cranny, every stained piece of paving stone and bump in the sidewalk, where the tree routes push through, and I was welcomed at around six on Saturday morning by a familiar sound; a low flying helicopter. The police hovering above the ground looking after their city or a TV chopper checking traffic. Not a sound I find attractive, I have to say.

The sun hit me as I got out of my pal's car on Sunset Blvd and headed north on La Brea; people walking holding paper in front of their faces to hide the sun; others waiting at bus stops with the post from the stop between their face and the sun. It's a local habit but most people wear hats.

Half way up La Brea between Sunset and Hollywood Blvd a woman who was 'out of it' came walking the other way; I'd forgotten about that side of things – maybe Christal Meth?

A bit further up almost at Hollywood Blvd was a young man fast asleep on the footpath. He had some kind of blanket over him so only his head was in view. He seemed to be fairly good looking but out for the count. Maybe he came here to make his fortune and fell at one of the steps – that's the tragedy. People killing themselves trying to make a killing in movies.

There are usually lots of Goths on Hollywood Blvd but I don't think I saw any and when I passed Grauman's Chinese theatre the footpath was blocked off so I had to cross the street.

They usually block the sidewalk off if it's a star having their hands dipped in cement or a premiere; but the premieres are usually in the evening and it wasn't a cement ceremony.

As I passed it on the other side of the street a woman was taking photos of the place and I asked her what was going on: I don't know, she said and carried on taking photos.

A little later I went to one of my favourite eating places – Carneys on the Sunset Strip. You get the best chili dog in Los Angeles and that's what I got.

I like to go to Chili Johns in Burbank too but that's usually for the craic.

Anybody who reads this will know where I went next! Yes The Farmers' Market. It hadn't changed a bit and the Latino girls at Bob's Doughnuts and Patsy's Pizza were just as pretty.

I had hoped to call friends but with the lack of a cell phone and the scarcity of quarters for the pay phone it was a pain.

But I was looked after by my very good friend till I came back to London.

On the way back I had a better choice of movie – The Godfather and Doctor Strangelove – two classics which brought me back to the smoke.

Ulysses indeed!

When you go to another country you pick up a lot of the lingo; little words creep into your vocabulary. In America, I guess, it's I guess. Lots of other words too for example I never heard the word oxymoron used till I got there.

In Ireland there is a phrase “It's allowed.” You might say to someone “I'm going to the pub tomorrow” and they'll say “it's allowed.”

I remember years ago meeting my cousins in Sussex and every time I said I wanted to do something they would say “It's not allowed.”

One word, or expression I have picked up here since our return is the word indeed. “Is that your car?”

“Indeed!”

“Do you plan to go to work tomorrow?”

“Indeed.”

Now why is that?

Before we went away people were saying basically. Basically this and basically that. In fact it got to be a terrible habit to be honest – oh that's another one to be honest; know what I mean?

Of course when I write I try not to use any of these phrases unless it's in dialogue and even then it can be a bore – can you understand why, for instance, the Americans spell that without an 'e' on the end?

One word I try to avoid in my writing is suddenly. I don't know why but it just doesn't mean anything and that's another funny word – just. Paul McCartney said that if there was one thing he learned from John Lennon it was to never to use the word just.

It's true that some words are not poetic.

The other thing I have noticed is that most of the dialogue on British TV is in iambic pentameter – for example that last line: it's true that some words are not poetic.

So when you read Shakespeare don't be put off by the iambic pentameter it's only natural speech; I nearly said it's just natural speech but I resisted the temptation.

We have recently had a tribute on the radio here to James Joyce's famous novel Ulysses. It is one of the best selling novels of the 20^th Century and the least read.

There was a piece in The Guardian about it on Friday and on Saturday the whole of Ulysses was broadcast on the radio with all the 'f' words and 'c' words. Good old BBC; anything goes.

The fact that it is the least read best seller is strange; there are a quarter of a million words in the novel so one read is no good I'm afraid; you really need a few reads. What happens in the plot is not important; it's the style – or styles.

The novel is loosely based on The Odyssey only instead of wandering around the Greek Islands, Bloom wanders around Dublin; there are no chapter titles but the episodes are well known to Joyce scholars. Joyce, himself, put lots of symbols, innuendos and hidden clues to keep college professors busy for centuries; his words, by the way.

He has used many writing styles, first person narrative and third person narrative sometimes on the same page. Betimes it's great to hear it being read out loud but lots of other times the readings are very dreary; it's supposed to be a very lively novel.

The Stephen Dedalus character on Saturday's broadcast sounded strange; when I looked him up it was played by a very good actor. In fact he was very good in the TV series Sherlock but played Stephen Dedalus the same – so maybe that's him. The same with Mark Rylance (the greatest actor in the world!!); I saw him in Los Angeles in Measure for Measure and I thought it was the greatest Shakespearian performance I had ever seen but when I saw him in Jerusalem there were elements of the Measure for Measure performance in that.

But back to Ulysses; one of the episodes of Ulysses takes place in a maternity hospital; that episode is called Oxen of the Sun and in that episode Joyce writes in forty different writing styles. He traces the English Language from it's beginnings to the present day, parodying most of the famous authors through the various periods: he starts with the Latinate prose, and then alliterative Anglo-Saxon taking in medieval prose, Elizabethan prose, the eighteenth-century style of Oliver Goldsmith and so on and as it is set in a maternity hospital the number of styles he uses is forty - for the forty weeks confinement of a pregnant woman.

It really is a joy to read, talk about and observe – maybe the word joy is short for Joyce?

So read it if you get the chance and if it doesn't go to well read it out loud even if you can't do an Irish accent.

This year marks the year when the works of James Joyce go into the public domain; the first year when his grandson Stephen Joyce doesn't have his hands on them. There will be a lot of squabbling and fighting as to who owns what but at least we can see how the great man formulated his choice of words.

“The National Library of Ireland is marking the occasion by launching free online high-resolution versions of a huge range of Joyce's manuscripts, from letters and notebooks to a draft of Ulysses revealing Joyce's first thoughts about the novel's famous ending.

In the published version of the novel Molly's soliloquy ends the book: "yes I said yes I will Yes". But Joyce originally wrote "would" rather than "will".

In 2004 The Guardian asked readers to come up with a 'modern' Molly and they published what I wrote – and it's still on their web site with more punctuation than I have put in here.

No no no here he is coming in now expecting me to be awake and waiting for him at this hour of the morning after he watched the bleedin football at some bleedin kip it wasn't enough to watch Greece he had to watch the Russians as well well im not going to be ready for him why does he always come home excited after watching bleedin football and drinking the night away with his pals and their women why amnt i allowed to go but not all of his pals were with him tonight he was one pal short one pal that looked for a different kind of sport tonight than the bleedin euro championships that theyre all glued to like bluebottles on a butchers bench its not as if Ireland is in it so why would they want to watch the real sport took place in here tonight and i can still smell his manliness on my sheets can still feel his thrust and strength in me thats left me here flat and relaxed and satisfied and not ready for the gobshite that i can now hear trying to mount the bleedin stairs he will know as soon as he gets in that that will be the only thing he will be mounting tonight here he is now through the door as if it was a hole him bouncing of each side of it come in you shite the bed is here but i am not oh jasus feel him setting his heavy arse onto the side of the bed which would wake me if i wasnt already awake now he cant untie his bleedin laces so i have to pretend to be asleep a bit longer as im not having him on top of me tonight theyre off thanks be to God so now hell struggle with his trousers ah the shite has them off well and good and look i can see a stain on his knicks hes been using that somewhere today more than likely his favourite self inflicted right hand girl friend that he always uses id give everything to know who he fantasises about not me im sure but i dont need him now now that i have had his pal inside my bed and inside me and giving me the satisfaction that this galloot never gave me with his bleedin football and horses and jawing in Maddigans with his cronies whilst im here saying yes to your man and yes if he wants to come again and yes if he wants me to go anywhere but this gobshite has shot his bolt with me so when comes again for me he can use his favourite self inflicted right hand girlfriend again as he has used today and he can watch the football and the like and the next time he comes at me and looks at me with those eyes he will see in my eyes no and he will ask me again and i will say no i will say no he will not have my mountain flower and no i will not put my arms around him again and i wont draw him down to me again and he will never feel my breasts again and he will never smell my perfume again and i dont care how much he gets excited and pants or how mad he goes i will say no and will say no i will No.
Chris Sullivan

Indeed!!

Read my novel, if you get the chance; it's called Alfredo Hunter: the Man With the Pen.

It has a connection to James Joyce and it's on Amazon.

The One Man Show.

A Bit Of Irish.

 The last time I did it on March 17 this year (St Patrick's Night).

Have you ever wondered what it's like to do a one man show? I call it a one man show but some people want to call it a one person show and that to me is just silly. If it's a woman it should be called a one woman show surely.
And don't call me Shirley!
By the way I tried to raise some money one time for a film, from one of the regional arts councils. When I had an interview with one of the officers he gave me a form which said 'name personnel involved in your project for example camera person’ and he also said “you will need to name who is going to be your camera person.”
He was really pushing the word 'person' which has to be one of the most unattractive words ever invented. I asked him what a camera person was and that I didn’t think there was such a position in a professional film crew.
“Well we are an equal opportunities organization” he said.
But I repeated “There is no such position in a professional film crew.”
“We prefer camera person.” he said.
So than I really put the kybosh on my chances of getting any money from them by saying “Which one shall we call the camera person; the Director of Photography, the Camera Operator, the Focus Puller or the Clapper Loader?”
No I didn’t get the money.
But back to the one man show – have you ever wondered what it’s like?
Well for a start it’s a big ego thing and you have to have the audacity to think you can actually do one by really standing in front of an audience and try to command their attention for an hour and a half.
I don’t know why I suddenly started to do a one man show but I suspect it’s one or all of the above. 
I was in Los Angeles, I had worked in a play at a theatre (and won an award, I hasten to add) and I was chatting to the director one day about one man shows and what I would do if I ever did one and he said “why don’t you try one here?”
The idea hit me and the following week I went in with my guitar to see the director, he sat at one side of the room and I sat at the other and I sang Finnegan’s Wake accompanying myself on my twelve string guitar.
“That’s great” he said (it wasn’t) “why don’t you get your show together and we’ll present it on Saint Patrick’s Night?"
Well that was in 2001; it went very well and since then I have done it so many times that I have lost count.
I had two bad shows out of all of those: one was when I got a touch of 'cotton wool mouth' when I did it at the same theatre later and another when I did it for the first time in London. 
I blame the London one on total jet lag and the fact that I had to change some of the show at the last minute due to copyright problems and didn't get a chance for a run in the theatre beforehand. I learned a lot from that experience and one is never go in unprepared and always have a 'run'. 
That doesn't mean I didn't scrape home by the seat of my pants a few times but I have to say - those seat of the pants shows were fun and exciting!!
It seems quite natural to me when I am in the process of rehearsing and rewriting it but in the patches of time when I am not doing it I wonder where I get the audacity from. 
I mean I never think too much about it just before I go on to the stage; I never think that I am going out there for an hour and a half and I have to remember an hour and a half’s worth of stuff and all those poems and songs and all those lines. 
I go through the first song or poem in my head just before going on but then I kind of 'GO'  from one bit to the next editing in my head as I progress.
One of the highlights, I am told, is when I sing The Fields of Athenry because everybody sings along with it. Well the last time I did the show, nearly three months ago, I forgot to sing it. I just skipped passed it and did something else.
The man doing the lighting cues just skipped along with me and half way through another song or a poem I realized I had forgotten it. 
My wife has seen the show so many times she must be sick of it but she always enjoys The Fields of Athenry so I had to figure out where I was going to put it. This I did and nobody noticed apart from the man doing the lighting cues; he was last seen trying to put all the papers of the script back together.
When you are in a play and things go wrong – you forget a line for example – somebody will usually help you out but in a one man show you are on your own. If I forgot something no one would know what comes next - not even the man doing the lighting cues. 
You are also on your own in the dressing room before the show and that is weird.
Usually in a play you share the dressing room with others and you chat, joke with each other or just ‘be’ in each others company.
When you go out of your dressing room you see other people from the play in all states of undress and you are used to seeing that from both sexes.
I have come off the stage for a 'quick change' on occasions and had a girl strip my clothes off me and help me on with other clothes and dashed back on to the stage; I have even shared dressing room space with girls but when you do a one man show, as I say, you are on your own.
As you are the only person in the play there are not many people backstage to look after you. There is maybe one man walking about letting you know what the time is and then he disappears.
Then it’s back to the silence of sitting in a room full of mirrors.
What I usually do it have a cup of tea at the half – the half is the magic time that you have to be in your dressing room and that is 35 minutes before the show goes up; then you get the quarter, the five and then beginners or in America places. 
In Britain you have to be at the side of the stage five minutes (beginners) before the start and you wait there by yourself when you are doing a one man show – it’s five minutes later in America as their shows go up five minutes late.
When I have finished my tea, in the dressing room, I usually have about ten minutes to go so I take off my shirt and put a bit of powder on my fizzog  - I do this as it stops me sweating under the lights. That takes about two minutes and when the five is called I get dressed.
Once I put my trousers on I never sit down – I got this tip from reading about Nat ‘King’ Cole who would sit in his dressing room in his shorts for fear of creasing his trousers as there is nothing worse than seeing badly creased trousers on stage.
By the way, apparently Frank Sinatra would have a really big man lift him up and drop him into his trousers – that is according to David Jacobs.
That's why I wish the weather man on BBC TV would press his!!
So there I am all the time by myself in the dressing room till I am called.
The only places where this hasn’t happened is when I have done the show at a college: – no dressing at all, I just stand around till the teacher has quietened down the students; at the Edinburgh Festival where you have to share the dressing room with everybody: the dressing room is open all day and as there are shows all day I may be sharing with 100 other people of both sexes and all ages and at all other times of the year that dressing room would be the cloakroom and my part of the dressing room is a space on the hanger. 
By the end of the three week run that place stinks - believe me! 
Once I did my show – three times a day – at the Irish Show at Santa Anita Race Track in California and had to get changed in a tent and do the show in another tent; then half way through the show a pipe band would march passed so I had to stop the show and just watch them marching.
Another time I was doing my show in Edinburgh just by the castle and the big guns would go off every evening.
In Bridgenorth in Shropshire I was sitting back stage and heard the music playing which I was supposed to respond to; I had to make a run for the stage and only just made it.
So now I am going to do another one man show - or a one man play this time; the play I did last year is due to play for one night at the Lord Stanley pub in Camden Town;
it’s a kind of show case to see if I can get it on at another theatre here. It’s on July 14^th at 8:30 pm. Come along if you’re free!!

The Ruling Class, Chavs and Stagflation.

There we are – a picture from Monty Python's Twit of the Year contest. Now that is what a lot of upper class people aspire to be.  In the sketch they are trying to walk along a straight line; I'm sure the upper class twits in real life have seen this sketch (who hasn't?) and yet they carry in being a twit.

Prince Harry is not an upper class twit in fact he, like his dad, would laugh at the sketch; twits have been a figure of fun on TV here for years and yet upper class twits still exist.

It was very hard to describe to my American friends just what the class system here is; in America there is no real class system and they don't have an upper class. They associate class with money whereas here the upper classes would never be so vulgar.

For example you would never see the upper classes buying furniture – they inherit it.

But the class system here goes right from the top to the bottom – to the under class.

The middle classes definitely look down on the working classes – even these days.

A lot of the working classes have become middle class and some of the middle classes don't like it so they have invented another class – the Chav.

The Chav, a few years ago, was called a casual or a Sharron, if you were a girl, or a Kevin, if you were a boy.

There is a Chav Test, rather like the 'U ' and none 'U' test which tested people to see if they were upper class or not. You could not be upper class if you were in trade or had to actually 'earn' money – that would never do.

The Chav has to drink cold lager, shop at certain shops, wear Burberry, track suits, shell suits, trainers, American baseball hats and – sounds a bit like an American here – maybe wear a hoodie.

The word Chav. I believe, is Romany for Boy – so you can't call a girl Chav a Chav!

The dictionary definition is informal , derogatory  ( Southern English ) “a young working-class person whose tastes, although sometimes expensive, are considered vulgar by some.”
By some!!!

It is just an excuse for snobbery. One part of society looking down on another part. The English are very good at it. Of course there is snobbery in America but it's more get up and go there; if you have the talent they don't care where you're from; as long as you don't live in a trailer park!!

And people here are not all snobs – there is just this 'class' system.

If you turned up at Buckingham Palace in a shell suit to meet the Queen and the Duke I'm sure 'Phil the Greek' would slip out and put a track suit on to make you feel comfortable.

But look at the experts who are running this country – just look at them. Do people have confidence in a Chancellor of the Exchequer who issues a ridiculous budget and then goes back on some of the things he felt so strongly about a few weeks ago?

What kind of confidence does that give people who want to invest here? Not much but money is flowing in to the country from Greece and Spain at the moment so what are the experts doing with it?

Here are the experts by the way, when they were boys and at the same school. Eton, of course, the famous public school:

(1) the Hon. Edward Sebastian Grigg, the heir to Baron Altrincham of Tormarton and current chairman of Credit Suisse (UK); (2) David Cameron, Prime Minister; (3) Ralph Perry Robinson, a former child actor, designer, furniture-maker. (4) Ewen Fergusson, son of the British ambassador to France, Sir Ewen Fergusson and now at City law firm Herbert Smith. (5) Matthew Benson, the heir to the Earldom of Wemyss and March. (6) Sebastian James, the son of Lord Northbourne, a major landowner in Kent.(7) Jonathan Ford, the-then president of the club, a banker with Morgan Grenfell. (8) Boris Johnson, the-then president of the Oxford Union, now Mayor of London. 9) Harry Eastwood, the investment fund consultant.

This one is from 1992, there are eight famous faces:

(1) George Osborne, now the Chancellor of the Exchequer; (2) writer Harry Mount, the heir to the Baronetcy of Wasing and Mr. Cameron’s cousin; (3) Chris Coleridge, the descendant of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the son of Lloyds’ chairman David Coleridge, the brother of Conde Nast managing director Nicholas Coleridge; (4) German aristocrat and managing consultant Baron Lupus von Maltzahn; (5) the late Mark Petre, the heir to the Barony of Petre; (6) Australian millionaire Peter Holmes a Cour;(7) Nat Rothschild, the heir to the Barons Rothschilds and co-founder of a racy student paper with Harry Mount; (8) Jason Gissing, the chairman of Ocado supermarkets.

Gawd help us!!

Now a word about my last post; I had an email about stagflation. I said it was another story.

Stagflation is when high unemployment coincides with high inflation. According to Keynes, if I remember correctly, it can't happen if Keynesian economics are adhered to correctly but when it did happen, in the 70s, under Keynesian policies, they called it stagflation; someone made up the word: a cross between stagnation and inflation.

It seriously damaged the Keynes economic philosophy and turned people back to Adam Smith. 
But Adam Smith was from the 18^th century and he believed that free market economies are more productive and beneficial to their societies. Did he mean beneficial in terms of profit or beneficial in quality of life. Did he mean it looks after the poor and weak with regards to health care, welfare, education or did he mean it will make a profit for the country and the people making the profit can throw the scraps to the hungry?
I think he meant in the world of profits.
He felt that an invisible hand had a control over markets and I often wonder what his answer to the world economic crisis in 2008 would have been.
But back to stagflation: I remember reading in The Guardian in 1976 (yes I have that kind of memory) that as two million men lost their lives in the first world war there was no baby boom as in 1945.
Sixty years after The Somme, there was no mass retirement in the work force so those millions of vacancies in the job market didn't arise so they had high inflation and high unemployment.
I think the current government here are using Adam Smith's economics and trying to reduce the deficit that way whereas the Americans under Barack Obama are using Keynesian economics and spending their way out of the recession.
And in any case – what's the deficit?
Answers on a postcard to 10 Downing Street.

When we lived there (America) unemployment was over 11% and the economy was on its way out – now unemployment has reduced drastically and the economy is growing; so which is the best way austerity or growth?