Read Year of the King: An Actor's Diary and Sketchbook - Twentieth Anniversary Edition for Free Online

horse is that is distracts an audience. They sit there thinking, "That's a real horse which might shit any
moment", instead of listening to the lines.'

    `Not if you brought on one heavily armoured, like at the bullfight.'
    `Like a tank.'
    'A huge walking war-machine, a monster.'
    `Of course the idea of lifting him on to it comes from Olivier's Henry
V film.'
    `Does it? Oh ...'
    The unmentionable. Bill leans forward now, and in hushed tones
confesses that he's never seen the Richard III film, and wonders if we
should hire it to have a secret look so as to avoid overlapping. I tell him
that I have already seen the film far too many times and that I would no
sooner see it again at this point in my life than play the part in a black
page-boy wig, long false nose and thin clipped voice.
    `However,' I say, `I think it would be an excellent idea for you to have
a look at it to help guide us in a different direction.'
    `Thanks a bunch. I think I'll remain in ignorance.'
Friday 25 November
    M 0 L I E R E John Bowe's first night after only four days' rehearsal. He does
magnificently well. A very different Bouton from the sad-eyed peasant
that David Troughton plays; John's is like the fussy, bespectacled dwarf
in Disney's Snow White.
    KING'S HEAD PUB, BARBICAN Another hushed conversation with
Bill, heads close together, while actors around us strain to eavesdrop. He
reports on the latest directors' meeting. To mark the tenth anniversary of
The Other Place the season there will be exclusively new plays. In the
Main House the plays in Slots Three, Four and Five are currently Richard,
Hamlet (Ron directing) and Love's Labour's (Barry Kyle directing, with
Roger Rees as Berowne). Apparently I am only available for these three
slots anyway, because the Tartufe and Moliere videos will happen at the
same time as the first two Stratford plays rehearse. Very disappointing
news. Nothing for me in Hamlet, nor, as far as I can remember, in Love's
Labour's. Bill says the latter could still change to Merry Wives.
    `Ford would be of interest,' I say, `but is still not going to make it
worthwhile going back for another two-year cycle.'
    `I know. Everyone knows. Nothing is settled yet. We're all trying to sort
something out for you. At the last meeting Terry said, "You know, this whole problem with Tony could be solved if it wasn't for the Moliere video
in March. What would you say Bill, if I asked you to postpone or cancel
it?" To which I replied, "I would say, Terry, get stuffed." And then Trevor
said, "Well that's the shortest and most effective statement anyone's yet
made at this meeting." '

    Ron Daniels has asked me to lunch on Tuesday. That might throw
some new light. Is there a part for me in Hamlet?
Sunday 27 November
    A quick glance at Hamlet's Dramatis Personae confirms that there isn't.
    Try to read Love's Labour's, looking for something in that. Costard?
God, Shakespeare's Fools are tedious. They joke in code and their
characters are all interchangeable. Costard could be Touchstone could
be Feste could be Gobbo could be ...
    The thing that made Lear's Fool fascinating to me is that his unintelligible jokes add to the nightmare. In the comedies the Fools are usually the
least funny people on stage. The best Feste could never make you laugh
as much as the worst Malvolio.
    Give up on Costard, look at the King of Navarre. Hasn't he been played
by character men? Jacobi at the Old Vic, Richard Griffiths in the last
R S C production. Don Armado?
    Get nowhere. Abandon the play. Cross with myself for not trying harder
or understanding better. Reading Shakespeare is sometimes like looking
through a window into a dark room. You don't see in. You see nothing
but a reflection of yourself unable to see in. An unflattering image of
yourself blind.
    Walk across Highbury Fields. Slush and wind. The sky is a cold white
with harsh bits of grey and black. A season of Shakespearian parts does
not look likely. If I go back