Small Man in a Book (10 page)

Sky Masterson in
Guys and Dolls
.

‘I’ve never been in love before …’

Rhian and I compete to see who can wear the most make-up. I win.

I suppose I spent the rest of my time at school trying to get back to that intimacy with Rhian; it had felt so real, but of course it was entirely contrived. We kissed a few more times in rehearsals and also during each of the three performances (who’s counting?) but it never felt like it did that first incredible time. How could it? And so it went. We were great friends in that classic ‘I want to be more than friends’
ménage à un
scenario that breaks so many hearts, and I moped about pining and feeling sorry for myself.

Things reached their platonic peak in the run-up to my eighteenth birthday. We had arranged to go out to dinner and I was
so
excited at the prospect I could hardly wait. The night before, she called to say that she couldn’t come as she had to revise. Looking back, I suppose she realized that this dinner was a very different proposition for me than it was for her, and felt it best to call it off. I certainly didn’t understand at the time; it was the eve of my eighteenth birthday, and I was heartbroken. Still, my birthday arrived and I went to Swansea with David Williams to see Dustin Hoffman in
Tootsie
. We had a good time.

We had a very good time.

I can honestly say that in all these years neither David nor Dustin has ever let me down.

6

It was in the drama studio that I began to feel at home in my new school. I auditioned for
West Side Story
and ended up playing Snowboy, one of the Jets. I think his one line was a loud, sarcastic, ‘It hurts! It hurts!’ which I hoped to imbue with enough passion to mark me out for a bigger role in next year’s show. To do that I had to impress the show’s director, head of the drama department Roger Burnell. Roger was in his late twenties when I arrived at the school. He had trained as an actor at the Cardiff College of Music and Drama and stayed on another year to qualify as a teacher. On leaving the college he worked for a year as an actor before deciding he’d rather teach; and what a teacher he was.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the hours spent under his guidance helped shape the direction my life would take, and we remain friends to this day. He had a way of talking and relating to his pupils that simply inspired confidence; for me it was a hugely liberating experience to work with him and to feel that here was an area of school life in which I might excel. He has said that schools often don’t cater for children who are bright and sharp but do not possess an academic attitude. That just about sums me up at school. In most subjects I felt average at best – often, far worse – but in the drama studio, creating, rehearsing and building a performance, I felt smart, I felt clever, as though I had something to offer the world. This did a great deal for my self-confidence and was a huge factor in finding my feet in the new school, and it was all down to him. Thank you, Roger.

Most of the time, when I wasn’t required to be somewhere else, you would find me in the drama studio, and each year when the big musical production came round I would go for bigger parts.
Sweet Charity
followed
West Side Story
; I played Oscar in a thinly veiled Woody Allen impression. After this was
Guys and Dolls
with the knee-trembling kiss, then finally
Carousel
in which I played Billy Bigelow. Billy is a barker for a carnival, working on the carousel of the title. He’s thought of as a rough, tough, muscular kind of fellow and in most people’s minds he surely peaks at more than my rather disappointing five feet and seven inches. To correct this injustice I borrowed a pair of soft leather zip-up boots from my Uncle Tom. The boots had a generous heel and it was felt this would help lend the required boost to my stature. To a degree it did, shooting me up to a terrifying five foot eight and a half, but the boots brought with them their own problem.

Press intrusion. Why won’t they leave me alone?

Stages are often sloped, running from the back of the stage (upstage) down to the front where the stage meets the audience (downstage); this arrangement is called the ‘rake’ of the stage, and the angle can vary depending on the venue. At the Grand Pavilion in Porthcawl the rake is quite steep and this, combined with my towering new heels, meant that when standing facing the audience I was in great danger of falling over. I felt as though I was standing at forty-five degrees, like Michael Jackson in his ‘Smooth Criminal’ video. It was only through sheer willpower, self-discipline and exquisite calf muscles that I managed to avoid joining the orchestra.

A good luck card from Pete.

Billy is a splendid part and contains the wonderful Rogers and Hammerstein ‘Soliloquy’, often known as ‘My Boy Bill’, which ends with a long-held-out note that would leave me light-headed. I would exit the stage after completing the song and stand swaying in the wings, feeling dizzy, and with the sound of applause rushing around my head. That may have been the moment that I glimpsed what lay ahead for me in my life. Low blood pressure and tinnitus.

It was through the drama department that I met someone who would become a lifelong friend and who, many years later, would be responsible for handing me one of the best roles of my career. And I’ll tell you for why …

Ruth Jones was two years younger than me but shared my love of acting. We became friends through rehearsals, although our respective casting meant that we never really acted together. In
Guys and Dolls
she stole the show as Miss Adelaide, and in
Carousel
she was an excellent Carrie Pipperidge; I can still remember her singing ‘When I Marry Mr Snow’. Ruth was never on my pining list; we were good friends, more like brother and sister, although this didn’t stop my own brother insinuating that something was going on between us. Pete used to love raising his eyebrows at the mere mention of her name. Ruth and I stayed in touch once we’d left school, through the lean years when the acting work was less than forthcoming, and I take some pride now in having once sat with her in a Cardiff café and talked her out of packing it all in and getting a proper job.

Me and Nicola Ball in
Carousel
(1984). Look at those heels!

We’ve both benefited from that decision.

While all the acting and sudden interest in unattainable girls was going on I was also introduced to two things that would have a huge influence on me and stay with me for the rest of my life. Bruce Springsteen and acne.

Bruce came first; I hadn’t thought much about him since hearing ‘Born To Run’ while making my precocious local radio debut as a junior DJ on Swansea Sound (of which more later), but I was now noticing his new record ‘Hungry Heart’ being played on the radio. I liked it enough to set off for Woolworths at the top of John Street in Porthcawl and to invest my hard-saved pocket money in his double album
The River
, essentially my first grown-up record purchase. I had bought ELO’s
New World Record
previously, but that doesn’t count. I’d also had Sparks’ album
Propaganda
on cassette at nine, a record I still love today. But it was when buying
The River
that I felt as though I had come of age. I can still remember the excitement at hurrying the discs home and up to my bedroom. I hid away for a few hours listening to them and studying the glossy printed lyric insert, the first of its kind that I had ever encountered. I read along to ‘Stolen Car’; I’d never heard a song like that before, and found it entirely transporting and captivating. It was the weekend and Nan was staying with us, so I took the sheet of lyrics to show her: ‘Look! It’s like poetry.’ My love affair with Bruce had begun.