RICHARD JAMES
My first professional theatre job brought me full circle. Just five years previously, I had played the part of Alex in Outside Edge on the amateur stage. Now I was getting paid to perform it at the Derby Playhouse. Since leaving drama school, I had picked up a few days' work here and there on various TV productions, but this was my first experience of stepping on stage since leaving drama school. Time to put all that training to the test!
It was a fun production, with its main selling point being the laying of real grass on the main house stage. At the start of the run it was a luscious green. By the end it had turned a rather forlorn shade of yellow and was beginning to smell. My main memories are of being told off during the dress rehearsal because I hadn't had the time to fix my cricket pads before an entrance, and of spending time in the Derbyshire Dales between performances.
It was also the first time my parents had seen me on the professional stage so I was pleased that, with its cricketing theme, there might at least be something there to interest my dad.
My time with the Birmingham Stage Company went just as well as any actor might hope. And it all began with an audition I didn't think I wanted. Under the auspices of actor and manager Neal Foster, the BSC had gained a reputation for producing high quality entertainment for families and children, and this wasn't a space I thought was right for me. Until the audition. It was playful and relaxed, and Neal's ideas about how to engage a young audience for a two hour show were exciting. I was offered a number of small roles in their production, Gangsta Granny but, after almost 20 years without stepping on a stage, I was eager to retrain those muscles. We toured to practically every town in the UK, playing the biggest and best local venues before finally ending with a run at London's Garrick Theatre (and an Olivier nomination).
Then came Awful Auntie. Gibbon was her bonkers butler, prone to misunderstandings and prat falls. He had only a handful of lines in a few scenes, leaving plenty of time to do the crossword in the dressing room, but was an immediate a hit with our young audiences and critics alike.
I combined the role with understudying the lead character, Awful Auntie herself. After a year on the road, the opportunity arose to take over the title role for the rest of the run - including for a Christmas residency at London's Bloomsbury Theatre.
Going from playing supporting roles to a title character in the space of a couple of years meant I left the company on a high. And there's nothing awful about that.
I had met Sherlock Holmes before. First, playing Inspector Lestrade in a production of The Hound Of The Baskervilles in Newcastle Under Lyme (opposite the peerless Roger Llewellyn as Holmes), then as the Great Detective himself in a play of my own, The Mystery Of Sherlock Holmes, at the Swan Theatre in High Wycombe. But I never thought of myself as a Watson.
Luckily, writer and director Mark Shanahan had other ideas. A Sherlock Carol was a mashup of Sherlock Holmes and Dickens' festive masterpiece, A Christmas Carol, and gave me a chance to stretch myself. Over three consecutive Christmases and 150 performances at London's Marylebone Theatre (situated conveniently just a stone's throw from Baker Street) I played not only Dr Watson but several other roles, including Scrooge's housekeeper, Mrs Dilber.
Luckily the critics were kind, as were the Off West End Awards who shortlisted me for Best Supporting Performance.
God bless us, every one!
