This Week’s Flashback -20th anniversary of my first play

Today, March 21st, it's twenty years since I first had a play produced and perfomed –two, in fact, as it was a double-bill consisting of two one-act plays I wrote for The Oslo Players under the umbrella title "Another Place". The two plays were "The Royal Box" –a light comedy about the panic created in a theatre when it is announced that they are to have a royal visit; and "Snail Street" -a tragi-comedy about people living in cardboard boxes on the street. I directed and appeared in the former. God only know show I found the energy and time for all this, because I was also studying full-time and working part-time too. It was a truly gargantuan adventure, and one of the most tiring times of my life, but utterly rewarding. It was also the first production of The Oslo Players –the English-speaking drama group at the university of Oslo, and the start of that whole adventure I later used the process of this production as part of my thesis in theatre studies. Of the two plays my greatest affection is for "The Royal Box", and on re-reading it today, I must say it holds up remarkably well, and is certainly very tightly written, and it is more like a full-length play than a one-acter. I am very fond of it.
Here's part of the prologue to the pair of plays..spoken by a cleaner in front of the stage:

THE CLEANER:
More dust! Don't you ever wonder where the hell it
all comes from? I do. ...Sometimes I wonder whether
there's not a huge cloud of dust, way up there; and
every room in every building in the entire world gets
like a ...a daily dose of dust. A daily dose of dust from
this gigantic cloud! I mean it's all the same isn't it...
dust I mean. The dust of a palace is just as ...dusty as
that of a prison or a church or your sleazy downtown
joint. Kings and housewives fight against it; painters
and surgeons hate it, and bakers and cooks fear it.
Yet it keeps me in a job (pause). Strange though, isn't
it, to think that when we, God forbid, die, we eventually
become dust ourselves. Sure it takes time, but sooner
or later you'll find yourself floating to the floor in a
thousand specks in places like this! That's why I stick
to my job -I come across so many interesting people!

This Week’s Flashback -Sebastion in "Twelfth Night" 1992

I Have been going through old photographs the last few days –the wet weather has been perfect for that sort of thing– and came across this picture from a production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night I performed in way back in 1992 with The Oslo Players. This particular photograph is from a special performance at the British Embassy in Oslo. Unfortunately no one had told the ambassador that there was a sword fight in the play, and he went quite white during the performance -the reason being the stage's proximity to the portrait of Queen Elizabeth in the background. He afterwards told us that the Princess Royal (Princess Anne) was staying at the embassy a day or two later. I couldn't help but wonder what she would have thought if she had arrived to find the picture of her mother slashed! Fortunately my fencing skills proved adequate enough to avoid disgrace! I'm not quite sure about that wig though...

This Week's Flashback -William Shakespeare in "Kings" 1997

It has been a good few years now since I last performed my one-man play about Shakespeare, but over Easter I have been looking through the scrapbook and remember this production with great affection, not least because I had total control of everything –the script, the direction, the production and not least the performance. Essentially it is a 70 minute monologue performed by Shakespeare a day or two before he dies. He sits going through his papers, and conjures up

vivid memories from his life and work, and the characters he created. I learned more from doing this piece than anything else I have done. I am rather tempted to revive it one day too.

This Week’s Flashback -Player in "Hamlet" 1992/1993

"The players are come hither my lord..." and what a collection of ancient-looking ghostly figures we were. Almost like anaemic zombies in Renaissance garb, including the pictured ruff, which I remember itched constantly, as did the straggling (or struggling) moustache. In some of the scenes in which I appeared it was important to remain absolutely still, but the urge to scratch or sneeze made this a task of Hercules. I had a cold at one stage, and a runny nose, which was an absolute nightmare to try and contain –the moustache (and probably the audience) suffered as a consequence. Also all our costumes were covered with powder, adding to the impression of a dusty troupe of traveling players, and every move or gesture was accompanied by a little cloud. Despite all this it was a very successful production, running for over 100 performances, with a revival the following year, and it taught me a great deal about Shakespeare... and moustaches!

This Week’s Flashback -Admiral von Schreiber in "Sound of Music" 2008

A recent flashback this time. I was amazed to discover that it is now exactly a year since I started work on "The Sound of Music" at Edderkoppen Theatre in Oslo. Can it really be a whole year? It seems like yesterday. Perhaps because the memories of this production were mostly extremely good and happy, except for the production company going bankrupt on New Year’s Eve and us not getting paid. (This might explain the severe expression on the picture, though I was playing a German nazi admiral). However, all musicals must have happy endings, especially Rodgers & Hammerstein ones, and just a week ago we finally recouped the pay we were owed. So the hills are once again full of the sound of music, and the prospect of holidays. We did 124 performances in all, and I loved every single one of them –except the time my trousers fell down on stage in the middle of my important little scene ...but that’s a whole story on its own!

This Week’s Flashback -Rev. Chasuble in "The Importance of Being Earnest"

Here’s something I just discovered in the archives of my old student-theatre group: The Oslo Players. Though the group itself no longer exists, the web-page is still out there, and an interesting record of the startling amount of activity we had. Goodness knows how any of us managed to study at all! Anyway, I was intrigued to be reminded of the fact that my recent appearance as the priest in "The Sound of Music"  was not the first man of the cloth I have played. As this rather fuzzy photograph shows, that distinction goes to the part of the Reverend Chasuble from Oscar Wilde’s "The Important of Being Earnest" which I seem to recollect was done as a performed reading at the University of Oslo and some schools way back in the nineties. Come to think of it, apart from reading his stories, this marks the only work of Oscar Wilde I have been involved with. Hmmm. Perhaps something should be done about this!

If you are interested in some of the other things The Oslo Players got up to you can always have a look at the webpage:   www.osloplayers.no/

This Week’s Flashback -Easter Skiing in "Home Sweet Home"

In Norway everybody seems to head to the mountains at Easter time to go skiing. In my play "Home Sweet Home -The English Familiy" from 2004 I dramatised the experiences of a football-mad English teenager and his eccentric mother when they move to Norway in the early seventies. The play was performed over a period of two years, primarily for school audiences, and one of the most popular scenes was our first day on the ski slopes. The character of the mother claims she has learned how to ski from watching the Beatles film "Help!" dozens of times, and here she is trying to convince me that it’s a piece of cake. Happy Easter!

This week’s Flashback -Sarge in "Female Transport"

One of the features I shall be sharing here is a weekly look at some production or project from   the past. Mostly because it’s fun to dig out old pictures and memories, but also (perhaps) to show the variety of things I have been involved in over the years.

This week we go back 15 years to 1994, when I played Sarge   –one of the most brutal characters I have ever done– in the play "Female Transport".  I was still at drama school, and heavily influenced by Anthony Hopkins who had generously just become my sponsor. I was so grateful I rather assimilated his style for the part -which I think the above picture shows!