Role Play

I have an interview today for some corporate work (which has been set up by my agent), and since touring looks a little thin on the ground at the moment, I'm hoping this comes off.
The last corporate role-play job I did involved flying to Frankfurt to do some crisis training for the Foreign Office shortly before the 2006 World Cup. By some planning disaster my first flight didn't leave me enough time to connect, and I missed my connection and was forced to take a train instead. As the deadline for arriving drew ever nearer I was forced to shave, wash my hair and finally dress in the loo on the train. I arrived only moments before the exercise started and was then dropped at a deserted football stadium in the persona of a German detective, with a German student as my sergeant.
The diplomats had no idea what was going on - they thought they were there for a jolly; but it was kinda fun being difficult and Teutonic and only revealing tiny snippets of information every half-hour or so. They dealt with it really well, unlike their boss, the British Consul, who apparently started screaming at people in the "crisis centre" in downtown Frankfurt and who presumably got a D-minus for the exercise.

Hard Being a Bard

I'm going to the One Act Plays Festival tonight - well, actually, to the gala evening on which the three successful plays from the week are invited back - with Susi Dalton, who is the chair of the Oxfordshire Drama Network and the busiest lady I know.
The last time I was at this festival I was performing - in a play called "The Inspiration of G'utor Glynn" - playing the titular sheep-herding poet musician hero. Afterwards, the cast all joined the audience for the adjudication, which was always delivered live after the show for these events.
All I really remember him saying was "...moving on to the cast, the actress playing G'utor was clear and..." and then pandemonium broke out. WHAT? ACTRESS! HE-LLO! I even had my arm around Sian Fiddimore (I think) at the time to reinforce my 15 year-old masculine credentials.
I've played many effete men since, but never actually a woman.

Night Shoot

The great advantage of true pros in a situation like this is that they are happy to tear the camera to bits and fix it themselves. And in doing so they undoubtedly save the film, because we couldn't have worn a three-hour loss of time. Aside from serious wrist grazing from the manacles and the constant dribbling of film blood - which NEVER dries - into my eyes, the shoot is efficient and relatively uneventful.
The final shot of the day is the car chase, which is a first for all of us. The producer, Rob HD, has lent his funky 4x4 for this, and he hands the keys to me with a moist eye but without actually crossing himself.
I had no idea how exciting this would be. I mean, we're guerilla shooting which is always good for the heart rate, but driving up and down a deserted stretch of dual carriageway with Toby flashing his lights behind me is quite alarming - and we only ever get up to about 50mph.
The final shot, when I pull up and get out, then Toby pulls up behind me, leaps out with a baseball bat and clouts me seems almost ridiculously pedestrian in the shooting. Watching the results back is chilling, though. The best bit is Toby's almost silent, ninja-style running with the bat, and the gravel scrape of his shoes as he swings it. Fantastic.

Chop Stop

We're on location near Blenheim Palace today, and it's blisteringly hot. Toby, who's driving me, has the most amazing job - he's a product developer for Vtech, the kids toys manufacturer - a job he literally fell into from temping. I'm always amazed at those stories, and I'm tempted to say something like it sometimes, but the truth is I pretty much hated everything I've ever done except this so it's more a question of falling out of all the other jobs until I ended up here.
Anyway, the 9.30 am start is looking ambitious as Becky is held up on the M40 in a bus and won't be here for ages, so we all set about catching a few rays. Only our Aussie AD has the real sun-bug though, so I examine the superb manacles and fake machete. The set is great, too. A bleak empty industrial barn with a huge rough table in the middle. It's all very convincing.
My hand, however, is not. I've somehow contrived to move in the mould, and the bloody thing won't lie flat on the table. It looks a bit like one of those hands in religious paintings when a pope of whatever is giving his holy benediction. Awful.
Just as we're putting the gruesome object away, Becky shows up. We do a rehearsal and shoot an establishing shot over the table before lunch, and just as we're unmanacled to go eat, the camera breaks. It's 3pm and we have one shot in the can, and even that may be useless.

Rolling

The first film I ever made was shot on a Hi-8 camera that I borrowed from Tessa Gibbs, and my strongest memory is of my good friend Sean Martin doing a tracking shot of me over a polished floor using a wheelchair which had bandages wound round the tyres to stop them squeaking.
Well, Sean's just finishing his fourth feature, "Folie a Deux", so things have moved on a bit. What never changes, though, is the frisson of a the new film project, and it's as strong arriving at the location tonight as it was in Weston all those years ago.
What's evident at once is how professional this is - low budget but high standards. Mike and Martin (DOP and sound) are so slick in their set-ups that we complete interior shots in only a couple of hours. Mike's using a jib in place of tracks - a huge counterweighted arm which gives great variety of movement and superbly smooth action. A glance at the rushes for one of the close-ups tells me that this is going to be a breeze.

The Cowley Road Film Club

"Chop" - the film we're shooting at the weekend - is not actually the project which is closest to the director's heart. It's a pragmatic choice of first film to showcase the various talents of the cast and crew, and so that the production team can cut their teeth before committing themselves to either a more ambitious short or even a feature.
I've never been very good at the long view, and consequently admire this approach hugely. It's just a shame that shorts are such an undervalued genre. Yes, they do well at festivals and exhibitions but there's limited opportunities for general release.
I love them for a number of reasons. They aren't so long that you lose track of where your character is going, they're completed quickly (both shooting and edit, in theory) and they demand a tense, compact narrative with a distinct situation and perhaps a good twist. Here's hoping.
Anyway, I'm taken at high speed tonight to Maidenhead to the producer's home to have my hand cast in plaster by Paul Robbens, who's worked for Spielberg on Indiana Jones and heaven knows what else. Someone's been on a charm offensive because he, like the rest of us, is working for cost, and for props guys that is UNHEARD of. Anyway, after 15 mins in clammy dental alginate it's done. Just the machete and manacles to finish!

In Shorts

I've been cast in an Oxford-based short film called "Chop", which is due to start shooting on the 22nd May. There seems to be a whole film collective which has sprung up around the Cowley Road lately, mainly centred around the house of the director Martin Chalk, who is a master networker and all round good egg.
I haven't made a short film for a couple of years (bizarrely enough, I normally do features) and the last one never saw the light of day, despite being professionally run and having all the hallmarks of potential success. Hitchcock Award winning script, full crew...all came to literally nothing. Not even a screening of the rushes.
Prior to this I did one for LIFS which was madly ambitious and in which I played the lead, an obsessive optician who invents a pair of glasses that can see people's emotions as a distinct entity. This was great except I wore welding goggles for 90% of the action, which tends to muddy things a little. Let's just say it's tricky to convey the full gamut of emotions over protective eyewear.
And before that, I made "Bob" - a film about a fishing trip which was shot over two days, but those days were a year apart. During this time some of the cast had filled out more than a little, the boat had sunk twice and was in dry dock and the lead boy's voice had broken.

Some, you should approach with caution...

Postscript Post

Nothing's ever as squeaky as that ending. There's never a "clean exit with suitcase" is there?

Our disasters start as we enter the terminal building and manage to permanently slow the revolving doors to a snail's pace by repeatedly stabbing the button with a disabled symbol on it. After getting Jenny through these we discover there are no seats within 50 metres, and she's looking white and weak. We beg Information for a swivel chair, which is painfully slowly extricated from behind the desk, by which time Jenny has stopped talking. Slumped on the chair, she says "I'm going to black out" and does so, sliding off the chair into my arms so we look like some bizarre Pieta or something. A doctor is called. Blood pressure taken.

It gets worse. We're almost refused passage by the check-in staff. We're taken to the gate by a nurse (on the plus side, she's so pretty she must have a day job modelling for Armani or something). My laptop is scanned for explosives and Heather's hand luggage is minutely examined before we finally get on the plane.

I look forward to being welcomed back next year as a company.

Parting Thoughts

I've just been to Flohschanze, and I took my time getting back. I mean, I didn't yomp madly like I often do - after all, I'm not going to walk these streets much longer. There's a lot of things which I meant to write about and to remember which somehow didn't make the cut, or seemed a bit minor or irrelevant to post about, but which contribute to the whole. For example, there's a guy who runs the shop where I buy my postcards who always wears an immaculately dapper pale grey suit with co-respondent shoes. And there's a lady in Nur-bacK who knows perfectly well I don't speak German, but who chatters delightedly to me about how she's giving me a small reduction on the pretzel because it's the last one - I think that's what she says. And I have to confess that I avoid the accordion player on the Hoheluft bridge, but only because she really can't play very well.

The drunks who hang around the tube station late at night are a different calibre to English drunks - one of them wears a flat cap and what was once a tweed suit - he looks a bit like Tommy Trinder. And the phrase "sofort bleiden, bitte" which immediately precedes the tube doors closing seems to defy translation. Our next door neighbours, Marc and Sebastian, let us use their wireless broadband. "Tschuss" is probably the most brilliant way of saying goodbye ever invented. Wheat beer and Schwarzwalder ham are just as fantastic as San Miguel and Serrano, and maybe better. And I never found out how you're really meant to eat a krakauer - I mean, it can't be normal to burn your fingers every time.

I've fallen for Hamburg, and there's plenty to love. It's a charming, easy, picturesque, historical city that just happens to house a really good and well-attended English-speaking theatre. Bob and Cliff have found a winning formula, and in Geoff, Sylvia, Kai, Julian, Vera and Annika they have an amazing (if slightly off-the-wall) team. It's still a mystery why the theatre tumble dryer runs all day, every day (we think Geoff takes in washing), but long may ETH continue.

Reading In

Jenny is comfortably ensconced in a wonderful hospital called "Asklepios Klinik Barmbek", which is only a short journey from Emil Jansen Strasse. Her operation was a great success, and now she only has to deal with the boredom and frustration, which is rather more of a challenge. Heather and I take in the Guardian in every day, and I finish her hospital food for her (very nice - can't have it wasted) whilst we try to avoid talking too much about her replacement, who's been flown in at insanely short notice.
When Paul Fields (see posts passim) was called in last year, he had a few days to get familiar with the script, but Kate Glover has had two brief rehearsals and a dress after arriving on Tuesday evening, and she went on last night, 24 hours after she stepped off the plane.
At first the audience was quite restless having someone visibly on book. The usual laughs weren't there and there was a definite tension. However, this dissipated gradually, and by the end of Act 1 (John/Ann) things were the same - but different, of you follow me. Kate's approach is necessarily instinctive, and it's a very different performance because of it. Obviously this means that our attitudes and reactions to Ann are often not as valid; are not based on as firm ground as they were.
What's astonishing is how well they play manages to work despite this pressure. Gurney's evidently a better writer than I thought, but obviously the laurels really go to Kate for pulling it out of the hat so well. She's a wonder.

Random Hamburg

Rory went to Luneburg yesterday, which is a very pretty mediaeval (I think) town near Hamburg. I've seen enough stately homes and architecture for the moment, though. I saw endless Grinling Gibbons carving and Romney portraits in National Trust properties as a kid.

As a "nature philistine" I prefer cityscapes to countryside, anyway. I think it's the way people live that interests me. Like here in Hamburg you see these constructions everywhere:

For ages I thought they were sewer access points like you see in Vienna in "The Third Man", but no. They're storage sheds for bikes. You can fit about eight in, by hanging them from their front wheels.

Also, it may be a coincidence, but there's something familiar about the lettering on the shop below. And the stuff they sell bears a striking resemblance to the range that used to be available in every town in the UK:

And like London, there's interesting sculpture on the most overlooked and unlikely street corners. This is in an isolated position just outside the Planten un Blomen on Gorch Fock Wall. Like much of the public art in Hamburg, it's got something to do with WWII but my German doesn't run to what, sadly:

It's fantastic. Reminds me a bit of "The Burghers of Calais" outside the Houses of Parliament on Millbank.

Break a Leg!

I don't know if anyone's said that to Jenny lately, but like the true professional she is, she's taken it to heart! She's having a hip operation today after breaking it last night shortly after I left Emil Jansen Strasse, poor thing. We're seeing her in hospital later today, going armed with the Guardian and grapes. Get well soon, Jenny!

Making Waves

So anyway, it's my suggestion that we go boating. I've seen craft all over the canals here, and a quick websearch reveals a boathouse very near Saarlandstrasse, where the ladies are living. They bring the food, I bring the beer - as Bradley would say, "it's very pleasant".

Except they don't have a rowboat, which was our preferred launch. They only have alster kayaks which need paddling, and make it difficult for anyone to lounge effectively. Oh, well. We can pretend we're in Hawaii 5-0. For some reason, all our many years of hard-won caution desert us when we're presented with the boat, and Jenny steps in before I know what she's doing. As the Hamburgers look on, she keeps one foot in the boat whilst it drifts away from the landing stage, and she tries to walk on water with the other. This doesn't work, and she steps knee-deep in Alster water. The seafaring credentials of the English are in tatters.

The Hamburg canals all link up with the Stadtpark lake and the two joined lakes of the Aussenalster and the Biennenalster, which means you can paddle through a variety of landscapes, urban and pastoral, and get a whole new Hamburg perspective. I realise that I've crossed many of the bridges we drift under, but dodging the traffic. It's tranquil and charming.

There's a regatta hapening in the Stadtpark lake complete with Dragon boats, so we moor at a landing stage to eat cheese, bread and black forest ham, and drink wheat beer. It's idyllic, especially since the park, though packed, is almost silent at lakeside. As I've said before, there are serious problems with making a living as an actor, but the upsides can be enormous. Thanks, Heather and Jenny - perfectly lovely day.

Cabin Fever

Well, it's either that or we're early demob-happy.

Lately, the minuscule mistakes which we'd normally ignore suddenly seem very, very funny. And once they're funny, their comedy potential has a life beyond the mistake. I don't know if this has a name, but it manifests itself in everyone looking at the floor/walls/curtains - anywhere but in each others' eyes, at certain moments in the play. Perhaps character crash would be good, or Heather suggested fussboden moment. Anyway, it's horribly infectious.
Normally these moments appear in rehearsal, and it's usually where someone's said something filthy by accident. I accidentally Spoonerised "Jigger and Nina" quite early on, with results you can imagine, and trying to avoid actually saying that has always been a bit of an open manhole moment for me.

In the matinee today I nearly missed a line, largely because I was fascinated by a teenager in the front row. I suppose there are more offputting things for a performer than someone head-back, mouth open, blissfully in the land of nod, but I can't think of one offhand. Having said that, they were generally pretty attentive - it can't be easy, watching people who are old enough to be your parents going on about how they weren't loved as kids, whilst the sun's shining outside. I'd probably snooze a bit, too...

Planten un Blomen

I'm a bit of a philistine when it comes to flowers. I mean, I love nature and the whole "red in tooth and claw" thing, but plants cultivated for their appearance leave me a bit unmoved. Actually, they bore the arse off me. I could never understand why my mother and grandma would spend hours wandering round our garden at home discussing the flowers. But in the spirit of the second chance (like trying rice pudding and rhubarb, which I love now) I thought I'd better visit the big open park here near Hamburg Messe.

Like the Fischmarkt, you smell it long before you get to it. And when you do get there, it's remarkable how attractive it is - there's half-naked sunbathers everywhere. I remember Clive James commenting on how some Europeans seem to fling off their clothes at the first glimmer of sun (although I think he meant the Danes) and it really was very, very diverting. So diverting that I almost forgot to look at the flowers - it wasn't a fair contest, really, as the flowers weren't in bikinis.

The botanical greenhouse was the best thing, I thought. Divided into sections like tropical, equitorial and temperate, the plants there are exotic and unusual, and more my thing. I even took a couple of photos:

This is a plant of some desciption. I have no idea what it's called, but it is pretty.

This is some kind of Australian creeper. It made me laugh because it looks like a poo.

Ok, that's the brownie points earned. Can I come out now, Mum?