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In Over sixty years of playing, what has changed the most? ammcc
My first job, in 1961, was at the Belgrade Stadium in Coventry, the first public stadium in Britain built after the Second World War, with government funding and subsequent support from the Arts Council. My weekly wages were £8, enough to pay for my house, which was three alms, and enough to eat. Every big city of the same size had a rating company, which produced new releases every two weeks, and offered jobs to amateurs who needed to study for a long time with the big players. You learned what you can and cannot do and what you would like. Today, unfortunately, there is no single company in the UK and no uniform approach to training new talent.
My building in Belgrade, which was built to be a member of the dissolved company, now houses the council’s office for outreach and education. What hasn’t changed since 1961 is the audience’s interest in live, classic or newly written plays. Going to the theater is still one of the UK’s most popular pastimes.
Do you still do warm-up yoga before a show in your jockstrap, like you do in a bar Lyric on Dance of Death? Theafterdarkclub
I don’t know about the jockstrap, but I still like to join other performers who warm up physically and mentally before the show. We stretch our muscles, clear our voices and gossip, reminding ourselves that acting is a public activity.
You can create a TV show where you are Patrick Stewart travel around Europe in a private car and check out local events and talk after dinner? Exile Cuchulainn
I’d be interested in it, but I’m not sure about the camper van. Put five star hotels in the deal and I’ll see what Pat thinks.
If you could go back in a time machine and meet Shakespeare, what would you ask him? Dr_J_A_Zoidberg
I would say: “Did you too – did the play and participated in it? I am sure you did, but a few intelligent people do not believe. Also, would you like to draw the schedule of the first Globe theater, which I doubt did not have two confusing passages that prevent the view from the stage of the so-called Shakespeare: “Oh Bank Globe” of Shakespeare
What do you remember that surprised you? 2025 Glastonbury look like you’re playing with the Scissor Sisters – and the crowd is chanting your name after the Seven White Army’s song? brucevayne1000
Unlike many of my friends, I didn’t want to be a pop singer – but it’s very difficult, walking in front of a group of fans. The whole set felt like one long curtain call of love and thanks.
Who would win a fight between Gandalf and Dumbledore? proper name
Why on earth would they fight? But Gandy, of course, would have won. The original wizard.
You see your father – a regular preacher – attracting an audience to inspire you to become an actor? Do you believe in a Creator or are your beliefs human? Charlesosborneprague and Machine2
No. It was the actors – uneducated and professional – that captured my heart. My father’s father was a non-conformist preacher, and he had arms spread out from his small shoulders to emphasize his small Lancashire accent. Once, in his 80s, he was addressing a full assembly in the Houldsworth Hall in Manchester, when he lost his composure – like an actor forgetting his words – and quietly fell behind the lectern. The confused embarrassment all around was mitigated by leaning back in his chair: “This worries you all more than it worries me.” I think he was as at home in the pulpit as his grandson felt on the stage.
And no. I vividly remember the gospel stories I heard over and over in my childhood from the pulpit and Sunday school. But I stopped worshiping when I was young. Since then, the Quakers have been my most admired religious group, for following the sixth commandment and being the first Christians to support gay rights in the UK.
What made you start pantomime? aphaelhoward
Pantomime uses every theatrical device to tell its moral tale – slapstick, emotions, music, dance, verse, cross-dressing, folk singing, fancy and fancy costumes, audience participation. Anything and everything goes. It’s an unparalleled introduction to all that theater can do and is great for kids and family. As a home theater, it didn’t go well. Americans see it as weird as cricket. My patriotism comes from Shakespeare and panto.
Dominic Monaghan He reportedly saw David Bowie in the casting office The Lord of the Rings. Did Peter Jackson ever say he thought of Bowie as Gandalf? McCootykins
I couldn’t get Peter to confirm who had rejected the witch all this time. As for Bowie, he wasn’t the only musician who would have loved to be a movie star but it wasn’t to be. For all of Gandalf’s magical and spiritual knowledge, I was most drawn to the old man’s personality – the kind of goose you’d expect to meet walking the highways of Middle-Earth and byways. Perhaps Bowie’s impressive appearance and voice would have emphasized the spiritual aspects of his character and appearance.
As a restaurant owner, have you ever fired anyone – and they were famous? section 47
Don’t, perhaps because Gandalf’s servants stand strong behind the bar in the Vineyard, preventing bad behavior among Middle-Earth hobbits and Limehouse imbibers alike.
What’s the worst advice you’ve ever been given? TooMuchSpareTime
After 1979’s Martin Sherman’s Bent – the play that taught the world about the persecution of homosexuals in the Nazi concentration camps of the Third Reich – one of Britain’s most famous and respected actors is back. Alec Guinness I sat happily in my dressing room, enjoying the play before he invited me to dinner. I foolishly refused, but ten years later I was given a second chance to meet a great man.
He took me to an Italian lunch in Pimlico, where we chatted about this and that until he told the real reason for his invitation. He had heard about my work to set up Stonewall – a lobby group to present to the government and the world the case for treating gay people in the UK on an equal footing under the law with everyone else. He thought it was inappropriate for an actor to get involved in social or political issues and told me that, if he begged me, I should stop. Advice from the elders, which I did not follow.
This all came back to me watching the current tour of Two Halves of Guinness, a solo show that shows Sir Alec being gay in ways that would have upset him, I think – Zeb Soanes’ flawless imitation though.
Of all the roles you’ve played, have you ever asked yourself: “Why on earth am I doing this?” eternal
Just once, I’m playing Dame Celia Johnson’s son in the BBC version of Noël Coward’s Hay Fever. I was in love with him in his film Brief Encounter, I wrote a fan letter, I got a kind response and I hope to be in a relationship with him during our preparation – my main reason for doing the job. Alas, during a coffee break, lunch, or tea break, he reverts to his Daily Telegraph quote and leaves me wondering: “Why on earth am I playing in one of the most boring parts of the world?”
To be or not to be? If anyone knows, it’s you, Sir Ian. It’s funny
Playing Hamlet in my late 20s, I took “living” to mean “living life to the fullest”, which matched my youthful ambitions. When I returned to Hamlet a few years ago on stage and screen, I realized that he answers his eternal question in the last act, before the bloody consequences, when he tells his best friend: “So be it.” I say so.
