16
Meanwhile, returning to London from Bristol in 1979, my relationship with Pete having come to an end, I embarked on what I consider to be another of the jewels of my acting life: a play at Hampstead Theatre Club to be written and devised by Mike Leigh.
It was for me the ultimate acting experience. To begin with, the actors, Sheila Kelly, Jim Broadbent, Stephen Rea, Ron Cook, Rachel Davies and myself, all worked on their own with Mike. First we made lists of the characters who had peopled our lives, many of them in this book, discussed them with him. Then a shortlist was drawn up and discussed again, and finally Mike picked a person from this list as a basis or springboard for the character that would eventually appear in the play. For several more weeks we worked individually with Mike, doing solitary improvisations, and gradually he started to put the actors together in group improvisations. In the course of these, I found that my best friend was to be Sheila Kelly and then that I was going out with Stephen Rea, whom I subsequently married and with whom I eventually had three children. For sixteen weeks overall, often until late into the night, we improvised continually so that these people became unutterably real, the fabric of their lives and the world in which they lived true and vivid. Now, thirty years later, I still can’t go past the Catholic church on Quex Road, Kilburn, without thinking, Oh, that’s where Mick (Stephen Rea) and I got married.
The play was set in Kilburn in London and so most of the improvisations outside the rehearsal room took place in seedy pubs up and down the Kilburn High Road, with Mike tucked away in a corner listening and watching the goings-on. He had instructed us not to come out of character unless blood was drawn. I played a very rough, feisty, loud-mouthed woman called Dawn, whom I had based on someone who went to my school. On one occasion I rounded, in a Dawn-like way, on a very heavy-looking navvy who was leering at me as I crossed the bar to go to the lavatory.
‘Wharra you looking at?’
‘Sometin’ that needs a good seein’ to.’
‘You should be so bleedin’ lucky! Get fucked!’
‘Exactly my thoughts.’ And then into his pint, ‘Scrubber!’
‘What did you call me?’
‘I called you what you are - a scrubber!’
He was now looking pretty menacing and my heart, that is, Julie’s heart, was pounding in my throat, whereas Dawn was up for a fight. There had to be a compromise here. I turned on my heel, throwing a loud ‘Cunt!’ over my shoulder, and disappeared into the Ladies’ with as much of a swagger as I could muster, whereupon I dashed into a cubicle and locked the door, fearful that the navvy might be in hot pursuit. Once inside I collapsed on to the lavatory, shaking and hardly daring to breathe, as I listened to pub customers coming in and out. Eventually Jean (Sheila Kelly) came to see where I was and as Dawn I had to concoct a story involving constipation to explain my absence.
On the first night of the show, which was titled Ecstasy, at Hampstead, about twenty minutes into the first half a woman stood up at the back and declared in a loud, very middle-class voice, ‘Who are these people? They’re not actors!’ and walked out. Mike was thrilled, indeed we all were, and of course highly amused. It was a compliment as far as we were concerned, a tribute to the realism of the piece.
On another occasion, halfway through the second half, Jim Broadbent suddenly declared, ‘Oh God! I don’t feel very well !’ The audience giggled knowingly at this, obviously thinking they were into an Abigail’s Party scenario, where one of the characters has a heart attack. However, on stage we were in panic mode.
‘Am yer all right, Len?’ I said, staying in character, to which Jim mumbled something unintelligible.
We tried to carry on with the play, each of us trying to ascertain how ill he was by asking questions in character, none of us taking our eyes off him, until suddenly he stood up and blurted out, ‘Oh God, I’m sorry, I think I’m having a stroke!’ and blundered off the stage.
For just a few seconds the place went deadly silent, all of us, actors and audience alike, reeling from being yanked out of Leigh world and plunged shockingly and confusingly into the real one. Sheila Kelly then stood up and said, ‘Is there a doctor in the house?’ About twenty-nine people put their hands up. It was Hampstead after all. There ensued a polite discussion:
‘Well, you go then . . .’
‘No, please, you go . . .’
‘No, really, I think this is more your sort of thing . . .’
Finally one of them came backstage and tended to poor Jim, who was by now lying flat out on the floor of one of the dressing rooms, in extreme discomfort. It turned out to be a very nasty virus from which he recovered in a few days, but more importantly, it was something for us all to dine out on for months - did I say months? no, years - to come.
During the play the characters spent a lot of their time drinking and on the last night, the prop drinks, which were supposed to be vodka and tonic, beer and bottled Guinness, were replaced by the real thing. I’m pretty sure it was Stephen Rea who was responsible, as I seem to remember him confiding in me before the show and swearing me to secrecy lest Mike should find out. But what I remember clearly was the mutual private glee we shared as Sheila and Jim discovered that their normal beverage was rather more warming than usual and that it went straight to the spot. A great deal of near-corpsing took place as Stephen, with the devil in him, insisted on constantly filling up everyone’s glass, with Sheila, ever the professional, realising she was fast getting drunk and trying to stop him, and all of it conducted whilst remaining steadfastly in character. All I can say for my own part is that Dawn liked a drink and Julie was well and truly plastered by the end of the show.