Sure Look, It’s Sherlock January 13, 2012
Posted by bazmcstay in Arts, Television.Tags: Andrew Scott, BBC, Benedict Cumberbatch, Daily Mail, Desperate Housewives, Dr Watson, Guy Ritchie, Inspector Morse, James Bond, Jessica Fletcher, Mad Men, Magnum PI, Martin Freeman, Moriarty, Shameless, Sherlock, Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Fratellis, The Sopranos, The West Wing, The Wire
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I’ve been a bit of a Johnny-Come-Lately to many things in my time (but not to THAT thing, Ladies, oh no). In fact, as an Irishman, I’ve always been a Paddy-Come-Lately and it’s only recently that I’ve begun to apply the term Johnny-Come-Lately in such situations. Proof if ever it were needed. Our family insisted on fish-on-a-Friday in the good old Catholic way for many years, although I’m not sure whether God had envisaged fish-fingers when he dictated this particular diktat. I wore voluminous boxer-shorts far beyond the stage where social ideas of sexiness impelled me to boxer-briefs. I was among the last of my friends to invest in a digital camera and the accompanying practice of genital photography without the intrusion of surprised (and, dare I say, damn lucky) chemists in the development process. I didn’t speak until the age of 8.
Not all of the above are accurate. Which aren’t are for you to decide and/or imagine to your heart’s content.
I have had a wildly fluctuating relationship with the cutting edge. Let it be said that on rare occasions I’ve been right there at the incision, whilst more often I’ve arrived so late in the day that the cutting edge has dulled, blunted, rusted and dissolved into nothing, leaving nothing but a forlorn scissors-handle. I know I listened to The Fratellis long before most of my friends. Sadly I think I’m still listening to them long after they’ve all stopped.
The area of my life where this is best illustrated is in the field of television. I watched The Wire (praise be upon it) after I got tired of all my friends making references I didn’t get, mainly based on elongating the word “shit” to breaking point. If you haven’t watched The Wire, you won’t get this reference. SEE!? THAT’S ANNOYING! Similarly, I launched into Shameless a full three years after it first aired. I never saw Desperate Housewives first series and, as a result, the whole narrator-is-dead thing remained unrevealed to me for years. I am still yet to complete The West Wing and The Sopranos or even to see a single episode of Mad Men.
So it was that I was socially pressurised by an avalanche of Facebook statuses and tweets into biting the BBC bullet and I watched ‘Sherlock’. I missed it when it first aired and never got around to catching up, so I decided that I would do it properly: Watch the first series before allowing myself to see the new episode which had everyone in such a lather of cyber-sweat. Which was difficult to do because usually I can’t resist immediately supporting anything that sends the Daily Mail into state-of-the-nation, think-of-the-children, filth-pedlar-witch-hunting overdrive. This episode apparently contained “shocking” pre-watershed nudiness. I had to be patient.
I watched Episode 1 last Saturday. I inconveniently had to spend the following day with friends but got home and watched two more episodes that night. By Monday evening I had seen all five extant episodes. I had caught up with the rest of the British public. I was completely and utterly hooked and hungry for more. I had had the luxury of watching five episodes back-to-back as a complete newcomer without having to wait a week for the next instalment. And now, nothing. I need my fix. I need my Cumberbatch. In fact, I’m now so addicted they may need to invent a medicinal patch to satisfy the cravings – a Cumberpatch?
The joys of ‘Sherlock’ are many. Each 90 minute episode is a film in itself and give the audience the thrill of ‘trying to figure it out’ as all good detective dramas do. The performances are excellent – Cumberbatch is maddeningly magnetic and Freeman is endearingly enduring with a warm chemistry between them. It is interesting how some of the conventions which exist in the new Guy Ritchie cinema adaptations of the Holmes stories also form the basis of the TV series: The sometimes claustrophobic and combative depiction of the relationship between Holmes and Watson; the use of slow-motion and zoom to demonstrate Holmes’ deductive methods; even the honky-tonk soundtrack is familiar and impossibly fitting.
The stories are ripping yarns, the villains devious (Andrew Scott is a truly terrifyingly psychotic Moriarty) and most importantly of all, our central character is beguiling. Sherlock is flawed like all the best of them – they’re always mavericks like Bond, reckless like Magnum PI, have failed personal lives like Morse and are drug addicts like Jessica Fletcher. Cumberbatch’s Sherlock is so engaging precisely because he’s a misfit, a freak, socially incapable while totally unperturbed by it, rude, pompous, self-centred and possessed of extraordinary cheekbones. My, there’s cutting edge. Sigh.
A true measure of a good song is if you find yourself humming it the next day. A measure of ‘Sherlock’s’ brilliance is the fact that on the Tuesday evening I found myself sitting on the tube, considering the peach-coloured paint stains on the suede boots of the straggly-haired, broad-shouldered twenty-something with a posh accent and designer frames and building up a picture of ‘what’s really going on here’. “Wealthy parents, middle-child, former pupil at a rugby-playing public school but he preferred rowing, now wants to be an artist and has just come from a studio – not his own, a girl’s, hence the nice clothes”. Yep. I had him pegged. Now I just need him to commit a crime and I can look like a bloody genius.
In the meantime, I sit here staring at BBC iPlayer impatiently and wishing for Series 2, Episode 3. Soon. Soon.
He Makes My Blood Boyle November 26, 2011
Posted by bazmcstay in Comedy, Latest News, Life.Tags: Blue Elephant Theatre, Colonel Gaddafi, Conservatives, Frankie Boyle, Harvey Price, Have I Got News For You, Ian Hislop, If You Prefer A Milder Comedian, Jordan, Noah's Ark, Paul Merton, Stewart Lee, The Guardian, The Observer, The Sun
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Well, I’ve been busy. Alright? Good enough excuse?
Sorry, I’m just pre-empting the accusatory fingers from you lot and the pile of letters awaiting me on my blog’s doormat. ‘You abandoned us!’ you cry, nay weep even. Well I didn’t. I’ve just been doing other things, having other friends, doing other jobs and spending less time writing articles of little consequence for the benefit of some bored – but greatly appreciated – Googlers. There’s been so much news lately anyway that you won’t have missed me. I notice Colonel Gaddafi was still alive when I last blogged – doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun or indeed a revolution?
I don’t really know what you want from me. Ketchup? Why, I think I’m all out, but I’ve got mustard if you would…oh I’m sorry, a catch-up! Well you should speak more clearly. I’ve been in rehearsals for a play over the last month as it happens, Noah’s Ark at the Blue Elephant Theatre thanks for asking very much. I’ll be playing the Cock, the Lion and Noah’s son Ham. The play is aimed at kids but has taken on an insane life of its own as imaginations have run wild with songs, slapstick and surrealism. It’s also running for three weeks, by which time I expect I’ll have sweated enough water to supply the entire homeopathic industry for the next twelve months and my calves – which are suffering under the pressure of posing like a Cock – will have swollen to the size of medium-sized camper vans. But do come, it’s a good laugh and you get to see me making a tit of myself. Details here: http://www.blueelephanttheatre.co.uk/trumpety-trump-noahs-ark
I would like to congratulate you if you read the entire preceding paragraph without once giggling at my use of the word Cock. If you did so, you get a gold star. If you didn’t, well, I didn’t either. Because it’s a word for penis. And that’s funny.
I’ll tell you what isn’t though: Frankie Boyle. Yep. Brace yourselves folks, I’m about to launch into an ill-informed, bad-tempered, foul-mouthed, self-aggrandizing, gratuitously-abrasive, point-missing, hypocritical and downright offensive rant about a myriad of topics relating to my hatred of all things that aren’t me and my career…oh no wait, hang on. I’m not. Because I’m not Frankie Boyle. Instead, I’m going to offer you this.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/nov/26/frankie-boyle-interview?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
Have a read, if you can bear, of this interview with the Scottish ‘comedian’ from The Guardian. In it he attacks ‘Have I Got News For You’ and misses the point of the blend of Paul Merton’s absurdity and Ian Hislop’s satirical bite entirely. He doesn’t understand Stewart Lee, generally acknowledged by his peers as maybe the greatest stand-up comedian working today, and can’t get his head around a routine based around crisps, despite his own tendency for ‘routines’ based around subjects like drugs, which are…also…things…because that’s what comedians do, Frankie. Make up routines about things. He misses the point of Lee’s deconstructive, self-referential comedy. He thinks his utterly appalling lines about Harvey Price, the disabled son of Jordan, is funny or offensive depending on if you’re Scottish or English – apparently, the Scots have a unique capacity for mocking the weakest members of society – and misses the point of everyone’s outrage over the comment in which he suggested the child would sexually assault his mother. Cutting edge, incisive, state-of-the-nation stuff. He practically absolves the recent London rioters in his annoyance at ‘people’ and accuses the Guardian and Observer of dismissing the rioters as ‘just arseholes’ while Boyle himself writes for The Sun, a vehicle of the Conservative government and one of the least understanding or publicly-minded newspapers in the country. His excuse for writing for The Sun? He can get his jokes and ideas published. Hmm, I wonder why that is. He’s on a mission to change the system from the inside apparently. Missing the point.
Frankie Boyle said no one over 40 should do stand-up because they lose their edge and focus, a fact Stewart Lee alluded too in his show, If You Prefer A Milder Comedian… Lee has more edge and focus than Boyle could ever wish to possess and is abundantly wittier. What Frankie Boyle is trying to do is cast himself as an anarchic, somehow superior, anti-establishment crusader, while he is in fact simply a crass shock-jock, playing out his own stereotype and thinking people will get the joke he assumes he’s making.
Oh, and he turns 40 next year. I fear his retirement won’t be forthcoming.
I’m done now. Thanks for reading. In the words of Frankie Boyle, I’m off to *insert gratuitously filthy bullying comment about under-privileged minors here*
Marat/Sade June 16, 2011
Posted by bazmcstay in Life.Tags: Chris Meads, Cockpit Theatre, CP Taylor, East 15, Good, Marat, Mike Bradwell, Peter Weiss, Sade
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Well hey there, loyal readers, and a happy Bloomsday to you all. I hope you feasted heartily on kidneys and Guinness this morning, and if you didn’t, then I would question your butler’s literary knowledge and level of commitment to his job. Anyhowdy, hope you have been looking after yourselves – I have taken up a gym regime to counter-act the many biscuits and sweets needed to cope with a busy rehearsal schedule! No,I’m working hard at the moment, honest. That’s the reason for my absence – we are deep into rehearsals for our final productions at my drama school. They are “Good” by CP Taylor, directed by Chris Meads, and “Marat/Sade” by Peter Weiss, directed by Mike Bradwell. I myself personally in person am playing Marat in the latter of these and am loving every minute. It’s a dream to be working on a play with such a top director with a great team of designers and stage crew making everything come together. It all seems worryingly worry-free right now so fingers crossed that continues. We have a couple more weeks before our first performance on June 29th at the Cockpit Theatre, Marylebone at 7.30pm, and there are two further shows on July 1st at 7.30pm and July 2nd at 2.30pm. I am writing a daily blog for the show which you can follow at http://maratsade2011.blogspot.com/ and you can find us on Twitter too, @MaratSade2011. If you want to come see me and my wonderful classmates being lunatics and plying our beloved trade, then visit the Cockpit Theatre website, http://thecockpit.org.uk/. I’ll be back soon.
Alternative Is The New Mainstream April 26, 2011
Posted by bazmcstay in Latest News, Politics.Tags: Alternative Vote, AV, Conservative Party, David Cameron, David Davis, First Past The Post, Great Britain, Kenneth Clarke, Liam Fox, Liberal Democrats, Olly Murs, X-Factor
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David Cameron isn’t the leader of the Conservative Party of The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. David Davis is. In the Tory leadership election of 2005, 4 candidates proceeded to the ballot among MPs which saw Ken Clarke earn 38 votes, Liam Fox 42, David Cameron 56 and David Davis top the list with 62. So surely, under the first-past-the-post system, David Davis should have been elected party leader. The guy with the most votes wins. Right?
Of course not. It would be bloody ludicrous to have declared him party leader when he had won 62 votes and his opponents had won 136 votes between them. A man with less than a third of the support of the party couldn’t be its leader. What they did was eliminate Ken Clarke from the race, making everyone vote again between the remaining three candidates, then eliminating Liam Fox who came last in this second vote before presenting the two grand finalists to the rest of the party members to vote between. And then Dave The D lost to Dave The C. Dave The Massive C.
What happens is this: The Tories elect their leader by postal vote among party members, but they only let the party members choose from between the 2 candidates chosen in the initial poll of MPs. They want the final decision to be a two-horse race – and indeed, many of them do own / look like horses. In this 2-horse race, there is a clear result: One person gets more votes than the other and is the majority choice. That is a satisfactory state of affairs, I think we can all agree.
But hang on. What if there is a third, or fourth candidate? Well then, as the Tory MPs evidently think, it’s not right to just choose the guy at the top because that isn’t the choice by consensus. Instead, they eliminate the guy at the bottom and get people to choose again without him. It’s like getting a second opinion, asking for your second choice if your first choice doesn’t get in. For those of you who need a familiar if distressingly banal reference point, it’s like “X-Factor” – in the final, the lines are frozen, the fourth place person is eliminated, the lines are reopened and we can all vote again for who we want to win from the remaining three, the lines are frozen again, the third person eliminated and so on. If only the eliminations were actual, Bond-Villain eliminations. Ah – the image of Olly Murs strapped to a metal table with a laser slicing up towards his groin just popped into my head. Again.
Anyway, this whole “pick your next favourite” system. What this is, essentially, ladies and gentlemen, is the Alternative Vote. Or AV. Now, of course, it’s not feasible to run an election where you vote for your favourite candidate, then everyone stops while the votes are counted, the bottom person eliminated and then voting begins again.
“Surely, Barry, that’s why AV is so damn complicated. Oh, if only there was a simpler way. Best to stick to first-past-the-post, in spite of the obvious unfairness and unsatisfactory nature of the system”.
Yet again, Imaginary Rhetorical Device Me, you’re conveniently wrong. It’s true that the No Campaign has been telling one and all that AV is complicated. “Don’t bother with AV”, they say, “WE understand it but you all are far too dim to understand it, you barely-evolved, pond-scum-drinking, offspring-eating, hairy-palmed cretins. Now sit quietly in the corner and play with your genitals while we go on mismanaging the country with not-really elected impunity”. But the funny ol’ thing is this: AV is based on a rather simple concept known as “putting things in order of preference”. Or – more colloquially – numbering them. Ranking them. 1, 2, 3.
In the first-past-the-post system, you put an X beside one candidate. In an election under AV, you would have to rank the candidates in your constituency by putting a number in the box beside them, number 1 for your first choice, 2 for your second and so on. Gosh, that’s complicated eh? Think I better have a lie down, sniff some smelling salts or go play in traffic. Something to ease the intense migraine this stunningly brain-melting mumbo-jumbo has induced.
Oh wait. You said put a number in a box? Oh. Now that I can do.
By doing this, it allows your vote to be redistributed if your number one choice is eliminated after the first count. I vote for my favourite Green Party candidate, she comes last, so my vote then passes to my second choice, the Lib Dem. Under the current system, I may WANT to vote Green but my constituency may be a shoot-out between the LibDems and Conservatives so I would be resigned to voting LibDem in an effort to keep out the Tory candidate, rather than voting with my actual preferred first option. Armed with numbers instead of a single X, I now have the chance to make my vote count without such initial tactical concern. And what’s more, if I wanted to, I could just write down a number 1 beside that Green Party member and not number the other candidates – which would be just like voting under the current system anyway.
What it also means, of course, is that when it finally comes down to the last two candidates, one will have more votes than the other and will be the duly elected MP. He or she will be the most satisfactory candidate to the largest amount of people chosen in the most representative way available to them. Of course we’d all love our first choice to be elected but that doesn’t happen and in an area where no one gets over 50% of the first preference votes, surely it’s better to then ask people “Well, if your candidate doesn’t get in, who would you like as an alternative? Who would you settle for?” It’s a far stronger engagement with the electorate than one single vote, no matter what you may be told by the No campaign.
Engagement is the key word here. The British public have been discouraged from engaging with the most important political decision they may have to make for decades by those who want to benefit from maintaining the status quo. It’s rather sickening when you think about it. It’s like being told not to watch political debates because those involved might use words we don’t recognise. It’s terribly condescending and extremely cynical. I’m taking 1,000 words because I felt the need to vent, but for any of you who feel the need to disillusion a friend or enemy when they tell you that AV is complicated, here is the shorthand:
“Under the current system, you put an X. Under the new system, you would put 1, 2, 3.”
Not complicated. For a few more arguments, feel free to add:
“Under the current system, many MPs were voted for by less than 35% of their constituency. Under AV, all MPs would be the most favourable to the largest proportion of their electorate. AV is a more representative, democratic overview of the wishes of the public, forget about whatever your party allegiances are. And for good measure, the Tories, who are campaigning against AV and saying it’s too difficult to understand, USE AV IN THEIR LEADERSHIP ELECTIONS.”
And if the Tories can understand it, anyone can. Isn’t that right, almost-but-not-quite-Prime Minister David Davis?
The Trinity Balls-Up April 11, 2011
Posted by bazmcstay in College, Ireland, Latest News.Tags: Alcohol, Bell X1, Edmund Burke, Jessie J, Mary Robinson, Oliver Goldsmith, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett, The Streets, Trinity Ball, Trinity College Dublin
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Trinity College Dublin. Ireland’s most respected university. International seat of learning. Beautiful old campus. Alma Mater of many great minds, from Oscar Wilde to Edmund Burke, from Oliver Goldsmith to Samuel Beckett, from Mary Robinson to me. Yes, truly a gem in Ireland’s crown of fine institutions and a source of pride to one and all. A place of elegance and tradition, innovation and inspiration. And last Friday was the date of its annual piss-up, the Trinity Ball.
Calling it a ball probably used to be appropriate, but the only resemblance it bears to that concept now is the continued insistence on black-tie and dresses. Oh, and hundreds of girls will doubtless lose their shoes around – and long after – midnight. The college campus is the scene of a late-night concert and the students, staff, graduates and glitterati boogie their collegial socks off to the popular artists of the day. This year’s line-up included Bell X1, Jessie J and The Streets, as well as the innumerable dance and techno acts of whom I’ve never heard and who sadly don’t comply with my image of a ball, with not a string quartet or a roundel in sight.
This year, as in every year, and as at every festival everywhere, lots of people drank lots of alcohol and got lots of drunk. I wasn’t there. But that happened. Always does. Fact of life, particularly in our little island, it would seem. Nothing to be done about it, eh? Now, cards on the table, I don’t drink anymore (gave up four years ago) and I’ve never been a fan of getting drunk so I may be accused of being ignorant, taking the arrogant moral high-ground or just being a dick, but here goes: I think that’s a shame. Not only that, but I think what happened to Jessie J is a shame.
Jessie J is a young singer, only 23, and she has rocketed into stardom over the last year or so. As a child she was diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat and has also suffered a stroke. She is very aware of how fragile life can be and how precious the human body is. The sight of young girls stumbling and falling about drunk and students trampling each other caused her to stop playing during the Trinity Ball at one point and express her concern, begging them to take care of each other. She tweeted that it was probably her “hardest gig to date”. She was instantly lambasted by some students from the crowd and others, saying she was ungrateful to her fans, moralistic etc. I quote from her ensuing tweets:
“Im not upset they weren’t all listening it upset me to see so many young people so not with it. Not used to it. Its hard to sing when I just wanted to go in the crowd and help all the crying girls being squashed. I was just shocked at how intoxicated they were and I was genuinely worried for them. Im not used to it thats all. And its not just in Ireland its everywhere. As a non drinker. I just wanna spread the msg that binge drinking is dangerous.”
The Trinity Ball is, as we are always reminded, Europe’s largest private party. But it’s not a bloody private party. Tickets do not make it a private party, whatever some people would have you believe – it’s a full-blown festival for a night in a very prominent Irish institution with many international visitors as well as media coverage. The fact that this sort of story makes headlines shows how this “private party” can spill embarrassingly into the public arena. It’s embarrassing that Trinity College Dublin’s, and by extension Ireland’s, good name is tarnished that way. It is embarrassing for a young woman to be so shocked and appalled by the behaviour of some of the – apparently – most gifted people in Ireland. And it’s embarrassing that her pleas for moderation and duty-of-care can be dismissed so callously.
Here’s the thing. People have always drunk alcohol, people always will. Some of us don’t and are just fine with people who do. But what worries me, what worried Jessie J and what should be worrying the whole of Ireland is how readily people just drink themselves into oblivion. Getting legless, shit-faced, blind-drunk, vomiting, blacking out and forgetting vast swathes of the preceding hours between that seventh pint and waking up with a face painted on your arse is not attractive. It’s not healthy. It’s not fun – it can’t be. If people do need alcohol to obliterate them in this way – not just to make them merry but to seemingly drive them to a state of helplessness – then our country, our world is a lot more fucked than we thought.
It’s a natural reaction to defend, to say things like “it’s just students, it’s just a bit of craic, no harm done”. But there is untold harm done to the human body, to the brain and to your inter-personal relationships too – I am not alone in thinking that some people I know, when drunk, can be really hurtful, mean and abusive. And why would you drink so much that you miss out on really appreciating the world about you, the company of your friends, the music that Jessie J and others pour their hearts and souls into?
It is a sad reflection on the people who ridiculed a girl who was simply worried for their health and safety. It’s a sorry state that it ever came to that. Why does being drunk instantly equate with fun? It’s a common thing to hear people say “I can’t enjoy a night out without drink”, and sure alcohol can lubricate the banter, but it’s also distressingly common to hear people state their intention to “get wasted”.
What a waste.
Benchmark March 15, 2011
Posted by bazmcstay in Life.add a comment
There are times in your life when you look back and take it all in. You cast your eye across the years you have spent on this Earth, this green and blue globe we call home, and you breathe. You let the time you have passed settle inside you. You rollercoast along the highs and lows. You let the enormity of your existence – and its insignificance – wash over you. And it can either leave you overwhelmed, or it can renew you for the journey ahead.
This all sounds terribly philosophical, and a bit like I’ve been drinking or dabbling in the demon weed. But it has no such root-cause – although I have given up sweets and chocolate for Lent, which may be causing me to hallucinate in a sugar-free frenzy. No, what I’m thinking about is just how lucky I am. And how I really don’t want to fuck it all up. I’ve come to a point in my life where there is still much uncertainty but there is a certain stability which I would be a fool to undermine. I have been blessed with some extremely happy moments over the last 18 months, some wonderful opportunities and I must be fearless in continuing in this vein.
I must infuse my life with love, not fear. I cannot bear to even conceive of losing the good things or retreating from the future I hope is ahead of me. I must love myself and those who make my life the rich treasury it has become. I must continue to value hard-work, determination, conviction and sincerity. I will never put myself down or try to be someone other than the very best me. I will love and honour, cherish and protect. I will not be downhearted, because this life is a big old beautiful life, and I am going to live it, holding your hand and with my head held high.
Fight Club February 24, 2011
Posted by bazmcstay in Arts, Life.Tags: Acting, Downe, Drama School, East 15, Emotion, English Civil War, Gerard Winstanley, Kent, Living History, Oliver Cromwell, Orpington
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I know, I know, I’m not supposed to talk about fight club. But I’m going to talk about fight club. Not the actual fight club I fight in – that’s a secret and will not be up for conversation – but the amazing experience I had last week, doing a living history project at drama school. But by talking about fight club, I’m just going to work myself up into a “Oh, you can’t possibly understand, you weren’t there” frenzy. So maybe I ought not talk about fight club. Nevertheless, talk about it I shall.
East 15, my school, is unique for its living history projects. They are specifically researched historical settings which groups of actors inhabit, in characters who are given secret characteristics to play, for a period of days or weeks. Essentially, this is an amazing chance to improvise for ten hours non-stop, not just creating but living the lives of vibrant characters and witnessing their own private and public dramas unfold. It is an opportunity few actors ever get to experience. In this case, my class lived in 1649 as villagers and Levellers in the post-Civil War England of Puritanism and Cromwell. We decamped to Downe Activity Centre near Orpington in Kent and for three days I was John Dock, 36 years old, estate manager to Sir Henry and Lady Maria Meade, and characterised by my Abrasiveness, Impulsiveness and Voraciousness.
I can’t really explain what occurred – it was three days, a lot happens in three days – but read up about Gerard Winstanley and his diggers. Effectively religious Communists, 200 years before such a paradoxical concept could really have existed, they were persecuted into nothing by those who were fearful of such radical ideas as a classless society living on a land which would be “a common treasury for all”. What living as another human being in such a fashion enables the actor to do is to explore in vivid detail what it is to make decisions we ourselves would never dream of making. John Dock felt emotions which were counter to those Barry McStay would have felt if faced by the same situation. He committed acts which I could not envisage myself committing. He behaved in a way which I would regard as opposite to how I try to behave in my daily life.
And yet, this is the job of the actor: To be everyman and anyman. We have to recognise that the capability lies within each and every human being to strike out violently, to betray the trust of a kind master, to refuse aid to a sick child, to destroy the home of a destitute family – within every one of us is the devil alongside the angel. Naturally, and thankfully, most of us regulate those dimensions of our personalities but the best actor must have access to those rooms within himself where the shadows lurk, must readily unlock those doors in service of a role and not cast judgement on even the most horrible of characters. Once we see what people are capable of, and understand why they act as they do, then we can bring that humanity – or inhumanity – to any role we play. We must recognise all human emotions in ourselves, immense or subtle, and allow ourselves the inner space to let those emotions erupt.
The living history project thrusts you right into someone else’s shoes. You have no other choice but to commit utterly to your character, literally “being true” to them and, in doing so, they come to life and the world around them is full of the drama of human existence. It is by no means a course in reckless acting – at every moment, the “actor” brain must always be alert, aware that this is all just a game, regardless of the subject matter; rather, it is intended to ingrain a sense of uncontrolling but controlled acting. We have a motto in our class: “Human Is Enough”. That’s what living history is. That’s all acting is really. We take a human being and we let them breathe.
