Many Lives (5 page)

My first two appearances on stage could have put me off acting for life and, ever since, I've probably just being trying to make up for them.

Out of all the children in school I was specially selected to present our Reverend Mother with a posy of flowers at a farewell ceremony before she left for a sabbatical in France. During the ceremony I had to climb the stairs to the stage with the posy, make my way to where she was sitting and, having presented the flowers to her with a little curtsey, bid her
bon voyage
. How hard could that be?

Well, quite hard when you're only four years old, actually. Trying to retain two words of French when you're that small is like having to learn the entire canon of Shakespeare, and it really didn't help that said posy was not a posy at all but a bunch of gladioli that matched me in height. I got rather fussed about the whole thing. It wasn't helped by the fact that Didi and all her ‘big girl' friends were
watching me and smirking. Under the weight of all the flowers I tripped on the stairs and, by the time I reached Reverend Mother's chair, I'd forgotten my line. I promptly burst into tears in front of the whole school and hid in her voluminous black skirts. Let's just say it wasn't one of my finest moments on stage.

The next ghastliness was playing Chanticleer the cock, a minor role in the nativity play. My mother had sewn a jagged bit of red felt onto a balaclava to represent wattles. The felt flopped over and the hat was so big I couldn't see properly. Maybe that's the reason I've been so fussy about my costumes ever since. There were no floppy wattles for Sable.

I think I was 12 when I conned my way into the National Youth Theatre. My friend Roz and I went for an interview in one of the big white houses in Eccleston Square, near Victoria Station in London. It was number 22. I can't remember exactly how old I was, but I remember the address. Funny, the things we remember. We said we were 15 and I got in, Roz didn't. She said her favourite actor was Alfred Findley; I managed to remember his name was Albert Finney. They said I was too late to audition for an acting job so would I like to do admin or elecs? Since I hadn't a clue what either of those was, I plumped for elecs and hoped for the best. I got a job helping work the electrics board at the Scala Theatre for the summer. Left in charge for five minutes, I managed to fuse the board and cause a blackout in the middle of a scene from
Richard III
when a blackout wasn't needed. Neil Stacey was playing Richard and I had a crush on him. He was very kind about the blackout; it was the only time he spoke to me.

That wonderful actor Kenneth Cranham was friendlier and used to share his sandwiches with me. Years later, in 1979, we'd
do
The London Cuckolds
together at The Royal Court Theatre. We were also at RADA at the same time – he was in the year above me. We had supper together a few months ago when we happened to be in the same city. It's good to know people for over 50 years.

I only performed in one school play: Sophocles'
Electra
. Miss Iliff was in charge of Drama. Her brother Noel taught me radio technique at RADA. They probably came from a theatre background. I was offered the part of Chrysothemis but I didn't want to do that. ‘What's the name of the play?' I asked. ‘
Electra
? I'll do that then.' Hey, if I was going to have to stay in after school and not get to go out dancing I might as well play the big part. I got it, and became obsessed with the role: her plight, her revenge, the tragedy. I should have known then that I'd become an actress.
My sister Didi says she's still waiting for me to do something better.

I left school after taking only Art and English A Levels, and went to Paris to study mime with Etienne Decroux. Decroux had taught Marcel Marceau, but if you asked him about Marceau, Decroux would just pull a long face and say, ‘
Il est mort; il n'existe plus'
– ‘he is dead; he no longer exists.' This was because Marceau had used props and had become what Decroux considered commercial. Serious stuff this mime business. I was entranced for a few weeks.

While in Paris I supported myself by working as an au pair, but the family's maid took a dislike to me. Quite rightly: I was a terrible au pair. One day she threw a boot at my head and I was given a lot of Chanel No. 5 and sent back to England.

I went up to Liverpool to visit my boyfriend at the time. He'd just got a job with the newly established Liverpool Everyman. It was 1964 and Liverpool was happening. The city was alive. It was far more exciting than anywhere else. The Beatles were just one of many bands who, along with singers and beat poets, had made the city into what the poet Allen Ginsberg thought was the centre of the creative universe.

When I arrived, the company's directors, Terry Hands and Peter James, were auditioning for Carlo Goldoni's 1743 play,
The Servant of Two Masters
. It just so happened they were looking for a juvenile lead. I still remembered a Juliet monologue from
Romeo and Juliet
. I'd learned it for my English O Level.

At every stage of my life I've found myself in the right place at the right time – always at the centre of where the energy of the moment was percolating. Without any acting training I auditioned for the part – and got it.

I fell in love with theatre; my passion and openness for
learning carried me. I learned on the job – from Terry and Peter, and from the rest of the company.

As well as
The Servant of Two Masters
, we were doing Shakespeare's
Henry IV Parts 1 and 2
and
Macbeth
, and Kenneth Grahame's
Toad of Toad Hall
. It was the start of my career as an actress. In a review in the
Liverpool Echo
I was called ‘the girl with the golden glow'.

I've treasured that review ever since.

I'd been in Liverpool for nearly a year when Terry decided not to cast me for their next production, Oscar Wilde's
The Importance of Being Earnest.
He said I didn't have the technique to do Wilde. I'd learned as much as I could with the company, and gone as far as I was able. Terry suggested I audition for RADA. It just so happened that John Fernald, RADA's Principal, was visiting the Everyman. After he had seen the show that night, Fernald asked me: ‘What have you done before?'

‘Nothing,' I replied.

‘What are you going to do next?'

‘Terry says I need technique and should go to RADA.'

‘Then you had better come down and see me,' he said, looking over at Terry.

I did.

Being a student at RADA in the Sixties was a perfect time to be there. The world of theatre was going through a phase of growth and change. When we weren't making it ourselves, or talking about it, we were going to see it. I was passionate about the theatre. I went to see anything I could. There was so much innovation. Through his Poor Theatre – and Theatre Laboratory – Polish director Jerzy Grotowski was revolutionizing the way
people looked at, thought about and experienced theatre. I managed to get a ticket for a Grotowski production, on one of the rare occasions that he was actually in England, and turned up at the venue only to be led to a van and then taken on a magical mystery tour. Eventually we were taken to a basement where we sat, very uncomfortably, for three hours of Shakespeare in Polish. I also remember being amazed by it.

Closer to home, the British director Peter Brook was experimenting with using improvisation to create theatre in innovative ways. I remember, one evening, participating in an event he led at the Roundhouse in Camden Town. Audience participation has never been high on my list of comfortable activities, but it was exciting nonetheless. Experimental theatre was high art and a must-do for a drama student, as was queuing all night for tickets for Olivier's
Othello
when the National Theatre was at the Old Vic. There were a lot of great actors and great theatre. I remember being entranced by Geraldine McEwan in Georges Feydeau's
A Flea in Her Ear
.

The theatre's a sacred place for me; it always has been, and it's never stopped pulling me back for more. It had been its theatre of rituals that had drawn me to Catholicism when I was a child. There's little glamour involved in performing in the theatre, though. It's hard work – and touring with a play is the hardest work of the lot.

I get nostalgic remembering the way theatres used to smell – greasepaint, sweat, cheap disinfectant and dust. The smell I miss most is size. It was used to prime canvas backdrops before painting. Fresh size meant fresh backdrops, a new production and an opening night; good luck cards slipped under dressing room
doors, nerves and last-minute adjustments. Actors' sweat has a sharp smell: adrenaline. Adrenaline's very strong and addictive. I keep being drawn back for more.

There's something quite stressful about Mondays on tour. First of all you have to find the theatre. I don't know why actors are always trusted to turn up. I've always envied pop stars their tour buses, and love the way a car arrives for you when you're working on a film. In theatre there's no such luck – you spend a lot of time buying train tickets and studying Google Maps. You go in and do a sound check, have a try out and a walk through – you familiarize yourself with the stage. Then I prepare my dressing room. I have a collection of sentimental things that I always put in my dressing room. There's a beautiful lace pillow case that I lay my make-up out on and there's my dressing gown. It's seen so many productions it's nearly falling apart, but I won't throw it away; it's my lucky dressing gown – we're a very superstitious bunch, us theatre folk.

Once my little home is set up I make sure I know my route to the stage. I'll make sure my props have been laid out on the props table and that my wardrobe is where it's easiest for any quick changes. It's a new space so there's a lot of organizing and finding out to be done. Then we get to do the show. After that we usually meet ‘Friends of the Theatre'. Then suddenly you're alone. You haven't been to your digs. You probably don't know where they are. You're all by yourself. You haven't got water, you haven't got flowers, and you haven't sorted out anything to eat. Grabbing
the sandwich left over from tea time, with too many bags in your hand you click off the light with your elbow, close the dressing room door and go off into the night. There's no glamour and it's not much fun after the show on a Monday.

Chances are on Tuesday morning you'll wake after having had a rotten night's sleep because by the time you got to your digs you couldn't work out how to operate the heating and hot water. I always travel with a hot water bottle when it's cold, in case I can't sort out the heating. I prefer to be self-catering and not stay in a hotel. If you're in a hotel the restaurant will be closed by the time you get back and the most you would be able to do is charm the porter into rustling you up a sandwich – another sandwich.

On Tuesday, if your name is above the title on the poster you're probably up bright and early to do a local radio show – because the circus is in town and you're part of the elephants' parade. It's certainly not all free time and just the show in the evening. You're probably going to have to do an interview for the local paper for next week's theatre and then you might have a little bit of rehearsing to do, as last night's show didn't go quite right. There was a hitch on your entrance when the door stuck because the stage is on a different rake and the set had gone up just before the show, as if by magic.

One of the best tours I ever did was in the Middle and Far East for the British Council. I was playing Olivia in
Twelfth Night
; Judy Geeson was playing Viola. They're not huge roles so we got to do a lot of sightseeing. Imagine playing Shakespeare to Tibetan refugees in Kathmandu. They didn't understand a word and laughed in all the wrong places. It was a lot of fun. I'm told
I'm the only person ever to have asked to plug in their heated hair-rollers in Kathmandu.