Gavin Esler In Conversation with David Suchet

[Applause] well that was lovely thank you I think maybe we should just quit now because thank you very much for coming let me also add my thanks for your contributions to the Kent opportunities fund I can't tell you how welcome it is to some of our students so thank you very much for those of you who were expecting to see Michael Gove tonight let me explain something we plan these things quite a bit in advance and we've been trying to get David Suchet for a long long time but he's always doing something and but he did say if anything comes up at short notice I could be your man and he yes and Michael Gove sends his apologies he we booked him before he was in the cabinet he's now actually I better be very careful what I say because he was in the cabinet a few minutes ago and given the speed of change in our country who knows he might be Prime Minister all right Nazir I have no idea anyway our guest tonight is here I were very grateful to him I'm a fan so much of your work that Shakespeare to Edward Teller making the atomic bomb to a Koopa hole which we'll get on in a moment and you've never been an understudy to Michael Gove before though have you now it is very nice to stand in and that well I've done well with standing in in my career in fact my my big chance at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Company was at the very last minute I was understudying Orlando in as you like it with Eileen Atkins playing Rosalind and I was just joined the company and it was 48 hours before press night and the principal had an accident and I had to learn the whole role in 24 hours and go on stage to the national press and I moved from dressing room 12 to 1a and I never left there for 13 years so thank you yes thank you Michael Gove who knows what's going to happen after tonight if Theresa Mae wants to call us we'll take the call but in an hour because we've got a lot to to talk about tell us a bit about your family background because it's it's it's fascinating isn't it South Africa Lithuania chaos well I had the great privilege of doing who do you think you are did anybody see who do you think you are well it was wonderful because actually for those who watch the program the question always is do you know what's going to happen the answer is no they said I was flying somewhere and I said listen cold is it warm they said it might be cold I said where are we going they said I'm not telling me and everything that happened actually happened as you would have seen it but I learnt such a lot about my background I learned I knew I thought we had Russian Lithuanian connections but I had learned all about my Kent connections in Sandwich my great-great great-grandfather was a captain of a sailing brig out of Sandwich and brought coals from Newcastle down to sandwich I know I but he did he really did and so I learned - all about that so yes I'm as a sort of half Russian because it was Lithuania at the time half I'm a Kent sandwich really but I have great roots in this part of England which is nothing in terms of your childhood did you see a career as an actor I mean that's not something you normally put down when you talk to your careers teacher no I never I never really saw myself as I was growing up as becoming an actor I wanted to become a doctor because my father was a very renowned gynecologist and obstetrician and when I couldn't do that I wanted to become a photographer and I couldn't become a photographer because you had to have a union card to become a photographer but you couldn't get a union card unless you had a job so so that was catch-22 so that never happened and then I got seen playing am I allowed to say the Scottish King's name in this theatre hi dad you know who I mean [Music] and I was seen it's in a school play and my English master said try try and join the National Youth Theatre and that was the beginning and I sort of developed and went on from there but you know you know how we look back at our lives a certain time in our lives and we see of what even my grandfather who took photographs of me and I would always be dressing up I would always be dressing up as a soldier or or as a cowboy but I was told but my brother that it wasn't just playing games if he was supposed to be dead he was really and I took it very seriously so maybe maybe subliminally that was always in me but I didn't know it but your father was a renowned doctor as you said yeah how did he respond to the young man who ended up in lambda learning to be an actor he didn't respond well he wasn't no he was very he was very upset because and in a sense I I you know I make light of it that I can understand why because when I went to lamda it was in 1966 when I wanted to be an actor it was in the early sixties before I went to lamda and it is what it is now the profession is still very uncertain and my dad came from a sort of Edwardian background and he was a very established figure in in in the medical profession so to suddenly have herbs and John my brother who was a new reading newsreader in our classic fm he was a great intellect and and went to university and then suddenly this livewire comes in says I want to be an actor dad so I found it very very hard he couldn't couldn't quite get on to it in fact he only really felt okay on two occasions once when I joined the RSC the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and then when I became Poirot and I actually invited him on the set and hee hee hee got it you've made it oh yeah tell us a bit about the craft or learning to be an actor because you know the word play the word acting has a not entirely serious connotation no well let me for fear of being too serious tonight I have a great philosophy about acting and why I do what I do because Gavin you're absolutely right there there is a certain sense of frivolity about my profession and I felt that myself in my early days and I thought what am I really doing what am i doing and I went into the dictionary and I looked at the word act and I looked at the word actor and I looked at what what do i do what do I do I become a different character well I don't become a different character that's not what I do that's not what I do I become a different person but why do I become a different person and then I had a Eureka moment I had a moment when I was looking at me have a look at a play let me have a look at Shakespeare let me have a look at dramatists and I suddenly realized then this is something that stayed with me for nearly 50 years now without an actor's voice and I mean actors men and women without an actor's voice drama tugs would have no voice they would have stayed with the novel but if someone's going to be brave enough to write something to be performed and to give it away then I have a very important function and my function is to serve my writer to the extent that even though that writer may no longer be with us like Shakespeare to study the play and find try and find why the writer put my character in it and what what is my purpose in the play because once I find that then I can be a very strong spoke in the wheel we call the play and that that has really really served me all my career and given me a really good reason for persisting and continuing and in a very serious way when when you do that and when you read a script for theater or television or whatever it is how far do you become the character or the character becomes you I mean what is the relationship that you have with some of these characters well let me start by saying that when I when I look at a play the last thing I now ask myself is how am I going to play it in relation to what I've just been saying now about serving the writer the first thing I do is to take my character out of the play and find out what's missing you know when you make us do and you're cooking we all taste it don't we but we don't taste it just as we taste it to think what else can I add so what's missing so once I've found that real flavor and that real meaning of the character then it's my job to become that person not to play act but as much as possible to become and represent for my writer the person that they have created they don't write they don't write thin people unless it's a farce or a comedy they write three-dimensional characters or greater so I have to develop that and what happens in that development and over a period of time and preparation and study it infiltrates you can't help it the personality of the person that I want to become I have to get to know that person to such an extent that I can tell you what that person would do when they're not on the stage and I develop a life around that person what was happening before the play because any piece of drama is just a window just a simple window but it's part of a whole life so when I come onstage I don't just bring in what I'm going to be do I bring in a history with me not that you would know what that history was but hopefully when I arrive you will already see a three or four or five or six dimension figure and they can they can invade what what you they can they can actually invade and you have to sometimes it's a be careful well you know does that mean that from time to time your wife has to live with Edward Teller or oh I think I think that you know if I'm being absolutely honest I think I think my wife has had a pretty tough time because we were going to somebody asked me to write my autobiography and I said really should be my biography written by that my wife called the men I've lived with because I think it is as much as I may not think that I become or a facets of the character that I become are there I think she would she would well she's here tonight would you say that yes yes let's talk about quarrel that bears out much of what you've just been saying because there are obviously very many ways in which one can play that character you've a.m. is a multi-layered character rather than a comedic figure he's clearly a person of great intelligence but he has his foibles and so on I mean that than that that's what what makes it work isn't it because it's the three-dimensional character that you were talking about well like you know I had the great honor to take over from Peter Ustinov and he was a he was a wonderful Poirot and when I started reading the books however and there's been many Flora's before and they will be many pourrais after and but when I started reading the books to study the character and I read them pretty much in the order that they were written and I read every single book before we even started filming and I spent months in preparation I saw on the page both physically and personality-wise a character that I had never seen or trade before by other actors and I this was a challenge to me not to suddenly become somebody different that taking what I said right at the beginning of this evening I then would look at that character and take him out of chapters and see what was missing him see the qualities that I needed to fit into that and he although he he did especially in the short stories he was a bit crazy and funny and gaggy and all the rest of it but that was only because he was eccentric it wasn't because he was trying to be funny like eccentrics don't know they're eccentric you know there nobody did the end and Poirot didn't know he was vain when he said I'm the best detective in the world it was said with total belief it wasn't said arrogantly but the person opposite would say such an arrogant man that he wouldn't think that so yeah I wanted to portray him where I was lucky in that I am short and he is short I think he's two and a half or three inches shorter than me he has green eyes I have brown eyes but apart from that whip I could physically resemble him very easily for the fans that read the books and that's an unbeknown to me it's that that my physical appearance and the way I played him then served Agatha Christie which then served her readership who suddenly watched and by the end of the series my viewing figures were a hundred and seven hundred and fifty million and mostly Agatha Christie fan which was lovely that's the greatest compliment I could have had we I'm gonna throw open to the audience just a few minutes and we've had a lot of rather lovely questions that have come in already there's one exactly on this point there these are email questions and so on I like this one very much you talked about the quarrel likened to the death of Poirot to the death of a dear friend how attached do you become to the characters they can play in that sense well for Poirot I played it for 25 years and when you play someone for 25 years and use you know even whatever other roles I may be doing around that time and they were very many and I didn't play him every year so I'd be on stage doing American roads I'd be in Hollywood doing Hollywood pictures I'd be doing radio drama and all this but coming back to him I would then with Sheila watch 12 to 15 hours of previous episodes reread all the books pick him up again and then become him and because I spoke with with an accent him because I had a moustache I would speak like him all day because to suddenly come out of it and go into it on a film set was very different so in answer to your question yeah well I was on the set and and very much you you're living with this this man and this man that I got to know over 25 years I got to know him so well that I couldn't even to this day I can switch in my head to see his world view and go out and I know exactly what he would choose I know what he would eat I know well he was it so yeah when he died it was very emotional for me because I I had done every story and he was then gone and I felt a great loss I'd lost my best friend but I'm trying to think so when you said that you adopted the accent as well do you went into the paper shop then you asked for the tie this is on the set Oh only on the set I mean I was slightly worried I don't only arms in Britain and laughs without the moustache I was fine I was high did you get nervous do you get nervous a live performance or or on a set where I mean not not in film now I don't get nervous in film or television I I still get in sanely nervous before every single theater performance I get insanely nervous is that a good thing do you think for you well they say nerves are a good thing I think that dreadful I hate being mad it's because it gets in the way of what I you know what are you nervous about what are what is an actor nervous about well I'll tell you what he's nervous about or she is nervous about its forgetting your lines if you're on stage you get nervous because you come ight not remember what you have to say you know what you're gonna if you know the person you're going to become it's that fear of suddenly drying and letting everybody down but looking on the bright side it's quite obvious even though we can hardly see the audience you are relating to this audience you that that's the bit that presumably drives you on isn't it a Theatre in a theatre I don't do this I can't embrace my audience like this but we have what is known as the third eye so we'll be playing like a comedy like you know but this this I will be out in the laps of my audience and I'll be feeling where where the silences are where this is it's it's that's that's something that happens yeah well and one for the question then we'll get the lights to come up and see if there's anybody left um your voice yes well it's a beautiful voice may I say do you do you look after it how do you look at I have to look after it I have to look after it here's another piece of thing I discovered that the the the mask through which the actors first spoke through in in Greek drama all those years ago hundreds and hundreds of years ago where the mask which they cut the hole out of and the actors spoke was called the persona and if you look at that in Latin terms have sauna or pair son it's through sound you are a person each individual person you're a person an opossum through sound and there is not one person their son in the world that has the same voice prince is another person and that's why people impersonate people and that's why you have a personality mm-hmm and things like that so the voice my voice I only found my true voice in my third year at drama school my first two years of drama school are speaking up here a bit like that and I remember lying down on the floor and my my voice coach was pressing my diaphragm now now it make headlines of course but I him complain I don't play and she was pressing my diaphragm yes she was pressing my god and she was saying sigh sigh out and I was gay and she did it again a night she said now really relaxing hello what what was that she said we found your voice now now sit on that sound and I developed that and then that became my person and you is part is part of the nervousness I mean do you worry about getting a cold knowing sick all that kind of no voice no play no voice nope no boys no play it's it's the worst thing in the world I had to I was I was in a French series in the summer and they they allowed me to speak English mazing it mazing I select English when everybody around me was speaking French thank God I had an English script so I knew when they were famous but and then I had to go to Paris to dump two days before getting to Paris to Durban that set up the studio in Paris and people were employed and everything like there's a big big number I was there gonna be there for three days to dub my whole role two days before I got laryngitis what do you do and I was frantic and of course the more nervous you get the more frantic and yet that's the the more tense you get and the more the voice goes but thank goodness I I have various little tricks and remedies remedy of remedies and it did work thankfully but the voice is so important and you look at any actors dressing-table and there won't be that he'll be lots of vocal zones and this and that than that to keep the voice let's say let's bring up the lights if we may and have asked for some questions from the audience yes there's lots of people out there and we've got a couple of microphones so who would like to be first okay who'd like to be second now I I must say to our suggestions because I'm not coming back so do do it just like friends and family so good yes there's judgment over there hi was the sushi first of all can I say thanks very much for coming to our University it's an absolute pleasure I'm sure your audience will agree and they're just two questions were and first of all the new movie coming out Murder on the Orient Express Doran and Kenneth Branagh which was you know but first of all have you by chance seen a private screening of that movie to see what it's like and second of all and seeing that movie been advertised does it bring back memories for when you pods be in the yeah it's good I haven't seen it I I haven't seen it so I can't I can't comment on the film and I can't comment on Ken he's a wonderful actor and I hope he has a great success of course we do I'd I hope everybody has a great success in this industry it wouldn't be fair otherwise but I it's a wonderful story it's a fantastic story and I'm sure that it will hold up her stories extraordinary that she had the most wonderful mind that I haven't seen it yet so I can't comment on it but I know when I do see it because I did it only a few years ago it will bring back very many happy memories well maybe you will have to come back because somebody's asked who has the better mustache you or Kenneth Branagh and it would be unfair to press you on that no no no no no absolutely mine yes there's a gentleman there if there's any be on that side just give a wave and the lady at the front will find you yes I just wondered if you could tell us just a little about how you worked with Diana Rigg on Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf Wow you've hit you've hit one of the most important roles I've ever played in the theater I saw Ben Gazzara and Colleen Dewhurst play that role in 1974 on Broadway when I was out there with the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Company I sat at the gods and I watched Ben play this role Ben Gazzara and I said to myself how old was I in 1973 in my 20s and I said one day one day I want to play that role and it occurred and I got that role with Dame Diana Rigg and the dear late Howard Davis was directing and that was absolutely an example of real study of the text that gave me my full interpretation because I'd let you into a little secret everybody who does play George usually ends up playing a very drunk and man Edward Albee has him only have one drink and if you study that script carefully you realize that he is the puppet master and if he only has one drink and gets everybody else drunk and the play goes on and the play goes on and then you realizes you realize that he has to for Martha for those who don't know the play this is a very boring session but he he destroys her imaginary child and the reason he destroys it is not out of cruelty it's out of love and I believe and I played George with her as a man saving his marriage and that was my interpretation thank you well I I did see you in that production and I thought that both you and Diana Rigg were absolutely superb thank you and thank you for your answer thank you very much some more thoughts yes good evening mr. Vijay one simple question do you think that Agatha Christie would have been pleased with you good question do you know I I must say she died obviously before I played the role the nearest I got to feeling I'd made it was when her daughter Rosalind Hicks who is now no longer with us actually came up and and they were very well known Rosalind and and indeed her mother of hating anybody that did plot Paro her mother Agatha never enjoyed any any portrayal of Poirot tall rustling came up to me one day and she said I think it's time that I might say that or mother would have been that's a plus as there as I got to it but I tell you this if you told me she was walking in the room now I would leave it's also I mean it is just one of the great characters of literature that you know along with Holmes and Phillip Marlowe yes wow what a gift for a young actor yes who'd be given this some more thoughts yes there's somebody at the back in the gentle at the front yeah I think one of the wonderful things about your Poirot is the way he walks I wonder how long that took to work out a very long time do you know all know the story have you ever oh gosh you're gonna you're going to be horrified when I tell you I and it's it's absolutely true I when I saw we did some takes of me as Poirot you know film tests before we actually started shooting and I watched myself as Poirot and I sort of was okay about it but I thought I'm moving like David Suchet I'm not moved how did Paro move move move and then I suddenly remembered there was a quote in one of the books and I actually found it and the quote went something like this far across the lawn in his usual rapid mincing gait with his feet tightly and painfully enclosed within his patent leather boots so I spent a month on briar filming I was on briar in the Isles of Scilly trying to get this mince Ewok and in the end I did a trick this is going to horrify you but it's absolutely true I did and it's it's in my book so I can say it when Lord Olivier was playing Lord fobbing tomb he held between the cheeks of his buttocks a penny so that when he walked and turned corners he couldn't just turn like this because the penny would drop out right so he so he had to go like this so when I did the same I couldn't walk like this because the pendulum so in the end I had to learn to squeeze my very tight because if you do that you can do this going home anybody commuters you may get locked up but you can do it so in the end I could walk I have to tell you Gavin was not expecting this I expect the unexpected and the penny will undoubtedly be in the British Museum with theatrical memorabilia if it's not already been auctioned off there's somebody right up at the back and there was a gentleman at the front you seen the second from the back row and then the gentleman right at the front as well then I'll come over to this side hi I saw you performing the importance Being Earnest a couple of years ago and I was wondering how it was different becoming Lady Bracknell compared to your other characters compared to your other characters being a woman with a voice like mine no that was when I got that the producer came to me and said I think you need a comedy and I think you'd be wonderful in The Importance of Being Earnest I said there's absolutely nothing for me in the programs of Being Earnest except the old Butler I said that the characters are all the young men and things like that and she said think of one other character the most famous character McLaren and I said well who she said think so I sort of the most famous character in the play is Lady Bracknell yes [Music] and I said you're mad you're absolutely mad and it turned out to be one of the most challenging things I've ever done in my life and also you had to be so brave because in rehearsal on the first day I had to ask for a practice skirt something I had never done in my life and also I had to lose as much weight as I could because I had to wear a boned corset so and and little little heels that was alright because I'd played in Amadeus and lots of restoration work but it was it was a it was a real challenge and and actually using my method of working I found a lot about that character and especially the bit about the handbag and being found that I that was very matured to me looking at the scripts and seeing how much work how many words were written about where it was found rather than the handbag that made me realize that the handbag line have been made famous by a particular interpretation by day me DIF Evans but in fact the horrific thing that affected society at that time which Oscar Wilde would have known were cloakrooms in railway stations because they were meeting places for illicit liaison between two men and to be found there would have cast aspersions on the whole of of that young man's pedigree and that's why that's why I played it like I did I threw the handbag away and I said yes what would a handbag handbag but where was this handbag found in a cloakroom and that that's what all the critics picked up on and it was it was fun because it's the audience having read it and having talked to people you could I could feel this moment on the stage I could feel it in the audience there again here we go so yeah thank you nice question there's a gentleman down the frontier and there's somebody on this side up yes there's somebody there too that's maybe yes that if you're here first we'll get to you I promise we'll get to you good evening sir it's a two-part question really one who have you most enjoyed working with either on stage or on screen and the second part is there anybody in the industry that you haven't had the opportunity to work with big you'd love team I think my I think my favorite person has to be Zuri Wanamaker we've done such a lot together over our lives and we first met in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in 1975 and we've been together through many wonderful pieces of drama mainly on stage we've done a couple of televisions together but in really difficult pieces and and and only made possible and the the glory of the way we played them was made possible by our relationship that we got on so well as artists and working together I there are so many people I would still like to work with but the one actor I wish I had worked with it was Paul Scofield and it was him that really influenced me in my early years when I used to go and watch actors including Olivier him everybody else Gill good and Richardson Ralph Richardson but for me Paul Scofield was the epitome of the sort of actor that I would like to become and whether I have become that or not I don't know but it would be invidious I think to say who now would I really like to work with more than anybody else there are so many that I admire and and think of really great artists and indeed the young that are coming up I think a much much better than we were now today I think that we got some terrific young actors I'm very excited about the state of our theater and the potential thank you is there anybody that you wish you hadn't worked with once again the list you can name names later that yes sir go ahead thank you David I first saw you form in theater or Norwich 20 years ago when you played Salieri with Martin Sheen playing Amadeus and I'm just wondering what was it like to play against Martin Sheen and also have you ever been back to Norwich well yes I have gone back I've been back to Norwich actually in a couple of plays Norwich is wonderful playing with Michael was challenging he was a young actor at the time and he got he got a wonderful mate from Mozart and it's just it's it's very interesting it's rather like a relationship between Iago and Othello and so the relationship between Salieri and Mozart and in rehearsal you can feel the tension between the two characters and we had to work very hard that this didn't rub off when I when I played Iago and Ben Kingsley played a fellow the same the same chemistry was beginning to we have to be very careful but Salieri for me was a most extraordinary experience one of the most extraordinary experiences of my career from the point of view that I did not have I was not only directed by the late great Sir Peter Hall but but Amadeus itself we actually restructured the whole play because I asked I asked the question how what would you feel what do you want the audience to go away feeling about Salieri and he said I I want them to feel that he was horrible to Mozart but that I want them to feel sorry for him as well and I said well interesting because I saw Paul Scofield played the role and he tried very very to bring out a quality of humanity within that role that he almost couldn't stop himself doing what he did because he was so jealous but the melodrama in the play turned it into a sort of pastiche in moments that that we thought were over melodramatic so Peter Schaffer actually as a writer from a successful play took all those out so now you can buy the play as he originally rated and the one I did in London and on Broadway the last third the Peter Shaffer and Peter Hall and myself reshaped and that was an extraordinary experience a wonderful experience for an actor to to go through it was an amazing performance thank you what were you surprised that a writer would do that would listen to your expertise well your contribution and Peter as you've learned tonight I might I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for writers my admiration for writers is such that you know without them I don't have a voice and without me they don't have a voice I mean we are absolutely together and the fact that Peter Shaffer was that genuinely open to the change and really so excited by it because he kept saying yes yes I of course of course and it was the most extraordinary period of rehearsal I think I've ever heard because we'd be in rehearsal and he'd suddenly jump up and say no no no that's melodramatic you're right you're right that's got to go that's got to go you know absolutely wonderful mind you there came a point when you get new pages just where we go on stage be careful what you wish for it's now a wonderful experience thank you a group that was a great question small thoughts yes over there there's couple of people over there hello thank you for coming it's been really interesting so far I just wanted to ask you about something a little bit differently did recently which was the episode of Doctor Who and I actually didn't realize it was you until the very end of the episode so it was good I was just want to ask you about your experience in that and how are you managed to lovely question do did you all get that what was it what was my experience being in Doctor Who and the character that I played let me tell you it's the first role in 48 years as an actor whether my Rea agent rang and said you've been invited to be a guest in Doctor Who would would you like to see the script and I said I don't care she said what do you mean I said I dare me well I'd not interested in the script say yes she said why I said I want the sculpt I want to be in Doctor Who who wouldn't want to be in Doctor Who and then the script came of course I've read this extraordinary character written by Mike Bartlett who's now the writer of writers in fact I'm doing a series now that he's written called press he's a wonderful writer and we and but the character that I played was very complex for a Doctor Who character he was quite quite weird and strange and and I wore this fantastic wig and a lot of people didn't know it was me and I loved that and I really enjoyed that when people say I didn't know it was you at first though that's a great challenge but it was it was such fun and you you enter of course I was great friends with Peter Capaldi who I'd worked with before and got into a Paro as well and we you know we had such a lot to talk about but you enter such a well-oiled machine and I realize that's what people felt when they were coming onto the set of Poirot you know after 25 years it was such a well oiled machine or doctor who's been going for how many years and you sort of enter this world and I have got to see the TARDIS I think they kept saying you've got to leave and I said no I want to play great it was wonderful thank you there's somebody else over there thank you you know you said that some you're a nervous when you go to the theatre how did you get on with long day's journey in tonight oh that was the worst long day's journey and tonight when I say that was the worst it was also the best in terms of an experience again I keep on saying things like the best experience the best experience and I realized tonight as I'm talking to you all I've been given the most amazing roles in my career the most challenging of roles long day's journey into night was never written to be performed it was a gift to to his wife says this play has been written in blood and it wasn't supposed to be performed at least till 25 years after his death but it was put on within two years or three years after his death and the character actually was the playwrights father and evade a drunk complete drunk and he was an actor and a challenging role and the largest role that I think I ever played onstage in fact it was bigger than Iago in the end because in when you look at the lines of Shakespeare they're short because it's first and you may have three hundred or thousand lines but when you're looking at prose and they're long and they're you have as many as that then it's it's it's very very challenging long day's journey into night I think I was more nervous in that play than any other play I've ever been in right up until the last night fantastic sorry he said you were fantastic well thank you very much one of the most challenging I've heard thank you sir tell us a little bit about press use your press Baron aren't you you're obviously a heart of gold aren't you well no well yes I I play I it says it's not a major role it's I come in and out but I'm the boss of a newspaper but I had the great privilege of him if anybody saw his eye I played Robert Maxwell did you ever see that anybody saw that well that was an insight to being a newspaper magnate or the the owner of the newspaper it's a wonderful script actually it's one of the best scripts I've read as as far as the series is concerned by Marc Mike Bartlett it's about two newspapers that the tend to vie but he goes right into what goes on in the newspaper world and we haven't had that quite on television before it's interesting that if you look back at films about newspapers for example a lot of them up until about the late 70s early 80s reporters tended to be the good guys in the last 20 or 30 years and tended to be utterly despicable yes yes quite an interest it is social change and and the press has changed in our lifetime doesn't it the press has changed and what do we feel about newspapers now what did we feel about newspapers when we were growing up a lot has changed and the headlines that share the sensationalism changed and the power of papers have changed the power of press now I think all can alter elections I think people have really really swayed by what goes on in the press and the press now it include migration press the pardon including the Russian Empress now that's why I think it's great title the title of the series called press it's good do you read your own reviews do you pay attention yes I read my own reviews I wish I didn't I I don't like reading my own reviews because you always get one that's not pursued because I and there's a of actors that don't read their their reviews I like to read by reviews cuz I like to read what you read I like to know what's going out I like to know what my public in the theater mainly I don't really read my film reviews so much or my television reviews in the same way but if you're in a play and you're contracted for say six months I like to know in the first month the audience now the reviews used to be you know what was written in newspapers used to be wrapped in fish and chips the next day and it it was all gone and nobody remembered but now I can go to reviews of my work that go right back to the sixties a lot online online all the reviews are out there for the rest of the world to see and if you go and see a play you can click on it now into Google and read the review of the play that you're going to see where as you know in the when I started acting if you had missed the review that was it you you couldn't catch it so reviews are important and that's why I like to read them because I know I I now know what you have read and what your expectation may be having read it and that's the reason I do it time for a couple more quick yes I've done at the front and is there anybody yes over there will come to you in a second hello hello you just said that you were contracted for a play for six months it just makes me wonder how you say the same words every night and do you make it different does it become a chore do you worry more worry less as it gets on it it just seems to be an old job to have to do the same thing it's a very my father was so right it's the oddest of yep I take the point and actually I have just come to the state now in my life when I don't want a long run anymore because it really wears you out and these great roles that I've played when I had the energy I don't know how many great great honking great roles I have left in the theater to to play because of what it takes out of you and now that I'm in a certain decade I I hope to still do theater of course but I don't know if I could do because for the very reason you say and when you do eight shows a week for six months how do you keep that alive how do you keep you an actor has to learn tricks and I have my own tricks especially on a Wednesday matinee especially after bad reviews for the show when you can hear the audience and you know it's any five minutes to go up and you can hear the audience's voice echoing in the auditorium withing are there's nobody here but then I have a trick like saying there may be one person there that's never ever been to the theater before I get to do it for that one person and you have to then try and pretend on top of that that you've never said this line before that you've never actually so everything has to be fresh and that's part of technique it's not that's not part of artistic creativity that's technique to make it sound as though it's for the very first time because you're coming to see me for the first time I've got to make it seem like it's the first time for you so for me for you so it's a if I play it in such a way oh here we go again you know your cost money to go to the theater and it cost more and more and more so we try and give you the best the other trick I sometimes do which is very morbid I know but it could happen is that this may be the last performance that I ever give and therefore it's got to be the best yes hello sir although as a drama theatre student you've talked about theater changes I'd like to know what you consider the most rewarding part of performing in theatre the most rewarding part of being an actor in being specifically in theater specifically in the theater well I the cliche is true and leashes they're only cliches because they are true they are this you build up a relationship you over an evening of exposing drama and you're in a good play with a good good plot and good characters and you can feel that audience you can literally feel that audience becoming involved a very interesting point I I had when I was at Stratford I remember that that theatre becoming air-conditioned we didn't have air conditioning up until the mid seventies and that changed the whole atmosphere in the theatre because we were no longer sharing and breathing the same air it was continually changing and I some of my greatest experiences especially when I was playing for example I used to terrible I used to give give the technician 20 P or 5p to switch off the air conditioning for the trial scene because it and you felt the audience really share that atmosphere and we were it was wonderful and I think that live performance if it's really when it's really exciting and you can hear that pin drop and you can get to a situation in a stage where all of you felt that all of you would feel that together and why is it in the theater that most people will react as one what is that you're not looking at each other you're not doing anything and yet 9 times out of 10 it's not just because it's a comedy line but that sense of silence that you will felt is as loud to me here as a laugh would be if I was in a comedy that would be as important to me as anything else now that doesn't mean that I'm deliberately manipulating you what it means is the play is having an effect on you and if it has an effect on you it's undeniable that it won't have an effect on me but I can't change what I'm doing but I can get very excited by the thought that you are also involved and you know you'll come off in the interval and you'll start really buzzing and sharing with the actor how what a wonderful house what a wonderful house that's that's exciting that's that's really makes it so worthwhile and that can happen with three people in the audience as well as a full house it's a great gift to be allowed to do what I've done and I wish you every success are you just just on that note are you optimistic about the future of live theater in our country because I know I speak to a lot of musicians and they say it's one of the great things actually because you you music is available all the time on you can sample this and listen to a bit of that actually to go to a live performance is bringing more people in they say and I I get the sense that the theatre there's a great deal of excitement about that because it's live yeah as you say it is that it is that and and every now and again you'll get a play that sort of takes off like at this season it's the ferryman and I've been in place mercifully I've been in plays with that that players been picked up but we are here I go again we are an extraordinary animal aren't we on this planet that that we actually sit like you're sitting now to watch people entertain you and then bring your antenna together to show appreciation we don't have another animal on the planet that does this you know we don't have we don't hold concerts or dance or ballet or music these animals don't play instruments and we are extraordinary creative force on our planet and I think that the arts and I really believe this in my heart of hearts the greater the arts of a nation the greater the arts and the performing arts we can share experiences together in the artistic world I think it is a great healer I really do I really do I think the arts are vital I think they're important I think they're unique to being human and I think as such there will always be the hunger for sharing this live experience I really do on that note our live experience is coming to an end please will you thank David for a wonderful evening thank you as just a very brief final word of thanks from me to you for being here thank you very much there will be some ladies with shaking buckets on your way out should you wish to contribute any more to the Kent Opportunities Fund but thank you very much because it wouldn't be a live performance if you weren't here as yeah yeah wonderful questions tonight really interesting questions that were really seeking into into my world it's been such a pleasure you've been absolutely wonderful thank you for coming really [Applause] thank you very much thank you for watching this recording of in conversation which supports Kent Opportunity Fund

Channel: University of Kent

Views: 165,636

Rating: 4.8836446 out of 5

Keywords: David Suchet, In Conversation, Gavin Esler, interview, actor, acting, orient express, theatre, Poirot, Hercule Poirot, Murder on the Orient Express, Characters, accents, interpretation, voices, walking style, the importance of being earnest, performances, Lady Bracknell, Shakespeare, moustaches, Kenneth Branagh, Agatha Christie, acting techniques, mystery, murder mystery, crime, investigator

Id: loNqMIkoE_c

Length: 57min 58sec (3478 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 07 2017