Sir Thomas More
Franco Zeffirelli was
there too. He was casting his very Italian MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING and
surprisingly hadn't yet found, among the young bloods in the company,
anyone suitable to play the juvenile lead. Shallow was a daft audition
piece - and yet that's how I came to play Claudio for the second time. I
wore even more make-up than at Coventry but at least, this time, it was
expertly applied - by the director himself, as he faced me sitting on my
lap! Throughout rehearsals, he had given me only one note of any
substance: 'It's to simple, Jan; you enter in and make all the audience
fall right in love with you, caro'. A fat chance of that, I thought,
with Albert Finney, Derek Jacobi and Bob Stephens in all my scenes, let
alone Michael York as a very glamorous coffee-waiter. Shakespeare's
young lovers must first and foremost be hugely attractive - Franco was
right - although his doll-like make-up did nothing for my face or my
confidence. I went right off Shakespeare and soon left the National to
do a string of modern and new plays elsewhere. I even made a few films. |
A curiosity. At the end of the Nottingham season,
Frank Dunlop (an altogether cosier director than
the
giant) cast me as Sir Thomas More in the Elizabethan play for which
Shakespeare probably wrote just one long speech. This was delightful, as
ours was the first recorded professional production. Assuming that
no-one unearths LOVE'S LABOUR'S WON or HENRY V part 2, I shall forever
be the last actor to create a part by Shakespeare.
Meanwhile, down
south, the National Theatre was well-established and employing every
decent young actor in the country. When Maggie Smith saw me in my first
West End play (A SCENT OF FLOWERS: 1964), she recommended me to Sir
Laurence, who called me for an audition at the Old Vic. For my
Shakespeare piece, I gave him my John Barton imitation: 'Nay, you shall
see mine orchard...' Olivier had played the part famously himself: but
that would have been true, whatever I'd picked.
As Claudio (Coventry, 1962)
As Claudio (Old Vic, 1965)
With Albert Finney (L) as Don Pedro and
Robert Stephens (C) as Benedick
|
