Ascending The West End!
You know when you have succeeded in the eyes of other actors: they send you telegrams. This did not happen to me until I went to the Duke of York's Theater. It is in what is called the West End. . .many of my friends very kindly decided to treat my arrival in the West End as the ascent of a theatrical Mount Everest.
A thriller had been playing at the Duke of York's Theater which, . . had failed so utterly that the management had decided to take it off. . . Apparently even a small theater in London costs £2,500 a week empty. . . This was the situation that brought me face to face with Brian Rix.
'How many people a day did you speak to in Edinburgh?' Mr. Rix asked as we stood in the empty theater.
'About two hundred and fifty,' I replied.
Mr. Rix seemed relieved. 'What is the first thing that you say to them?'
I explained that I used to tell the audience that I was about to deliver a straight talk from a bent speaker but that someone had objected to this opening on the ground that it gave homosexuality a bad name.
'What do you say now?'
'I say that I have been forbidden to say that this is a straight talk from a bent speaker.'
I got the job.
The Duke of York's is what an actor would call a small theater but to me it was big. I could no longer chat. I was compelled in some measure to declaim.
If such a thing is possible, I was becoming more theatrical.
When I was transferred to the Ambassador's Theater, another change overtook the show. Because of the shape of the auditorium there, it was decided that I should arrive on stage from the wings. . . As I stood behind the back drop waiting to go on, inevitably I started to rev up my engine. I shut my eyes so that when I opened them on stage they would be wet and dark. I held my hands high above my head so that when they were first seen they would appear pale and the veins would be countersunk. Most important of all I started to breath deeply. At every inhalation I lowered my diaphragm until it almost touched my pelvic bone. I have no idea if real actors go in for these antics, I merely found myself practicing them.
A thriller had been playing at the Duke of York's Theater which, . . had failed so utterly that the management had decided to take it off. . . Apparently even a small theater in London costs £2,500 a week empty. . . This was the situation that brought me face to face with Brian Rix.
'How many people a day did you speak to in Edinburgh?' Mr. Rix asked as we stood in the empty theater.
'About two hundred and fifty,' I replied.
Mr. Rix seemed relieved. 'What is the first thing that you say to them?'
I explained that I used to tell the audience that I was about to deliver a straight talk from a bent speaker but that someone had objected to this opening on the ground that it gave homosexuality a bad name.
'What do you say now?'
'I say that I have been forbidden to say that this is a straight talk from a bent speaker.'
I got the job.
The Duke of York's is what an actor would call a small theater but to me it was big. I could no longer chat. I was compelled in some measure to declaim.
If such a thing is possible, I was becoming more theatrical.
When I was transferred to the Ambassador's Theater, another change overtook the show. Because of the shape of the auditorium there, it was decided that I should arrive on stage from the wings. . . As I stood behind the back drop waiting to go on, inevitably I started to rev up my engine. I shut my eyes so that when I opened them on stage they would be wet and dark. I held my hands high above my head so that when they were first seen they would appear pale and the veins would be countersunk. Most important of all I started to breath deeply. At every inhalation I lowered my diaphragm until it almost touched my pelvic bone. I have no idea if real actors go in for these antics, I merely found myself practicing them.