Old Vic Voices - working with Laurence Olivier

[Applause] good evening ladies and gentlemen this has been a very special day for us here at the National it is today our 50th birthday this morning the queen of Duke of Edinburgh visited us backstage and had a 45-minute backstage tour they saw a rehearsal of Amelia detectives they saw a rehearsal of a song from Guys and Dolls which will be part of the 50 years on stage show week on Saturday they visited our new props workshop and they were bade farewell by Joey which was which which which was all of it a huge huge success they plainly enjoyed themselves and we all had a terrific party while they were here after they were here and thus the the star attraction this morning the Queen had was particularly delighted to meet danger and playwright Lady Olivier who was of course part of the very first company that opened the National Theatre at the Old Vic in 1963 and now we have six members of Laurence Olivier's National Theatre six extraordinarily distinguished actors all of you played at the at the Old Vic under Sir Lawrence's direction and one of them was there on October 22nd 1963 and to him I will be asking the first question but they are gone Granger Ronald pickup Sheila Reed James Hayes who has performed in more different productions than any currently living [Laughter] not as many and not anything like as many as Michael Bryant Michael Bryan who has the record he was in 55 different productions Michael Gambon and Geraldine McEwan it was Michael Gambon who was in Hamlet were you not my very first yeah would you remember that night I just remember I don't remember much I bought a new pair of shoes that day I never had to speak I was just at the back of the sphere and had to come on in later scene so I had nothing to do but I was delighted to be in him so depressed you know yeah and I used to walk out the stage door at night wasn't the other road at that time on the main road that stays - or the National yeah ed the over yeah and I used to put myself just behind Sir Laurence as if we're going out into his car seemed as I was one of his friends well any of the other to you others others in the house on that night on the on the 22nd of October no no no no it was it was anybody here in the house on October 22nd 1963 you were what good what do you remember well welcome thank you very much and Steve thank you I think did what all of you onstage with Sir Laurence at some point or another yes yes Sheila what what do you remember being on stage with Sir Laurence hmm well I suppose it's a bit like playing tennis with something better than yourself hopefully you get better I had some extraordinary experiences with Sir Laurence actually yes the master builder was one I was playing his secretary who was deeply in love with him and at one point I had to fall to my knees on the ground and grasp him around his knees and embrace his legs and my wig got caught in his watch-chain so you can imagine what it looked like what's quite embarrassing but we got over that one was quite a lot of laughter he was amazing to be on stage with he just emanated such energy and strength and virility and humor well he was my god and still is Ronnie three sisters I can remember seeing when I did the film and three sisters when I was quite young and what was that like well I was I'd been in the company for a little bit by there so I was a bit more relaxed he he directed it of course and he was be played to boot again the wonderful derek jacobi had was had played the part i was playing in derek then played andre in the film the faring too well as a senior said it was fantastic i mean i was a real oddball at school i'm i hear it was not stanley matthews the footballer which he was so most of my mates I'm afraid it was Laurence Olivier and I'd seen him as Hamlet with my parents they took me to see the film and I was fascinated by this extraordinary creature and from then on I was fascinated by acting and I saw him as Richard the third and I spent the whole day in school imitating which the third which got me a lot of street cred a lot in fact and I thought this is good stuff I'm going to be an actor and I want to work that warrants a review and amazingly at the age of 24 thanks to an audition by very kind set of people at the Royal Court I came here here there to audition for him and rather than being nervous I was just so exhilarated that I was going to meet my my hero and I showed off in front of him and thought I was doing pretty well because youth is brash he said yes sir sorry you've got a lot of tension there and he pulled me up off my feet and he was of course absolutely right two years at RADA they've been trying to tell me that and do something about it and failed but anyway I was here I am rabbiting long and I was here and they're like he did various things before three sisters and it was wonderful being directed by him in the theatre and in the film and his his adaptation from stage to film was REM was remarkable and you realise that he was a master of everything miss attention to detail was wonderful and his he was a life force though I mean as Sheila mentions the energy he was a life force and everything was unpredictable there's more I can say a bit later but I better not go on no no I just said Tanya little bit about three sisters because we did have two streams then there was an a stream and a B stream at the theatre and I remember when we had came to the first rehearsal of three sisters he said directors perks he said I've picked from the a stream and the B stream and I've got you mixed up for the three systems because you're the people I want so we all felt very very special and what about dance of death jodean that must have been that must have been quite as well it was amazing yes amazing I had worked with him before I was in his company I don't have the entertainer with him at the palace so I had kind of worked with him but didn't really know him and when I first entered the company he said to me you can do comedy so you could do anything so I thought oh well that's all right with me and I then proceeded to play the most amazing lot of parts and then dance of death came up and I was amazed that they wanted me to do it because I was actually 35 at the time and we were sent in the play we were celebrating our silver wedding anniversary but he was quite amazing yeah the rehearsals were fascinating and we used to start the play sitting on our own on the stage with the curtain down and then before that he'd always be walking around I'd be still and he'd be walking around and he'd be practicing the dance that he did which he loved doing he loved that sort of thing and the play would start and it was at that time where he'd not I think he hadn't been at all he'd been a little bit of I don't know anyway he'd always said to us all nobody has prompted at the National Theatre if you go wrong you just get out of it yourself so that used to happen with him occasionally and he used to walk around the stage in total control of what he was doing and seeing totally appropriate things but we had this slight joke about it and we do this hour and a half the first act was I mean any other actor who came into it was Robert Stevens and by the end we'd been haranguing each other it's this really ugly relationship and he'd be slits lung in me and I'd be crying and then I'd be doing at him and at the end of the show of the first act the curtain would come down slowly like that with us sitting at this table and I'd be in tears and all that and then we just look at each other when it stopped down there and then we'd look and then we'd smile and then we'd laugh because we knew the various things that had happened during the act and when he'd sort of got a bit you know wrong he didn't make it sound wrong if he was human he was so busy I mean it was all alright but anyway we laugh and we my memory of him is us two walking off the stage for the interval and walking to our dressing rooms absolutely roaring with laughter I think maybe it was because it was such a tense and dramatic play you know and it was wonderful and he was simply marvelous to me when I joined he said you can play comedies everything and I had eleven absolutely fantastic rows major roles in great plays from faders flannery to the white devil webster or you know fantastic but at the end of the dance of death evenings he always had a little bottle of champagne on my place for me at the end his dress had always put it there and he was to give me his driver used to give me a lift home and we taken him we take him to Victoria Station and he'd get out at Victoria Station and there were all masses of people you know getting trains and that and I found him not only such an amazingly creative and strong person but also slightly sad person as great people often are and he used to walk away from me from the car with his you know reasonably old Mac on and a trilby and case walking through all these people to go to his train to get to Brighton and I thought and there you are you've just given his magnificent performance which it was it was absolutely stunning and I was so touched by him he was a remarkable person as well as a remarkable actor Jimmy your memories I went into that dance of death for a short time and in my opinion that was the finest stage performance of his Elia was so yes it was less in less makeup used it simply grounded in something very deep within him and he and I am sure and I'm sure it opened I thought here we go Strindberg I saw it before I went into it I thought oh my causes to be heavy stuff and there was this very clever trick at the beginning where there was quite a bit of humour yes if somebody bought cards and cheating and he put his foot on the rail as if he was in a bar that's right there was a lot of humor yes so you thought oh this is and then of course the real nasty dark relationship and it was it was astonishing and I went into it'll just be a century for a few performs I know Tony Hopkins had been a century Anderson all I did was stand outside the window and he'd come out and salute me and we'd have a bit of a chat sort of and off he'd go but I remember also somebody on stage management had to learn Morse code remember that machine he had a machine that he on that terrible Island Sweden sending messages on this machine and some some stage manager had to learn and return so they did messages over that was was I thought he was astonishing I tell you what he was thanked his back was fantastic whenever you walk behind him particularly in the second act and he was sitting there I mean his back was terrifying it was impressive and his neck yeah it seemed to expand yeah and you you write that because the long day's journey is kind of the legendary performance certainly from the same half of his time with you you reckon duck dance of death higher than long day's journey right I heard I personally do yes what was it like being in long days Benny it's terribly difficult to muster a few articulate words it was the most phenomenal experience of my life yet I knew at the time that if I did nothing else I had sort of died and gone to heaven it was I never sounds silly but for an actor who had worshipped this man unit for all those years to be on stage with him for an hour which that final scene is was was quite remarkable and and you learn an awful lot about somebody who is many things in rehearsals and socially the sitting opposite somebody in a scene of that dependence of one another his generosity which people don't always talk about although thank God people have tonight only because we all know it his generosity of playing with you was extraordinary and I mean there was one speech which I have the longest speech I have in the scene as opposed to the two speeches he has where he talks about how he could have been a great actor and I tell him as a sort of almost like a present my complaint was directed it so beautifully as a present to him I tell him about my dream when I go to see and the way he listened was and so much changed in him in his feelings about me I felt it every night I it just fills me up thinking about if that don't mean to be embarrassing but it wasn't remind an example of what a remarkable experience it was and you were in the presence of this savage life fall soon is yes his neck it would expand and his face with red and Lee but he never sweated I said how did you I'm just dripping from just saying although when I was out all he got was a tiny patch literally it was extraordinary and of course it was because he was so physically as you can tell I was rather obsessed by him and that is the experience of my life there won't be one better that's with great respect to wonderful actors armed with and things I've done few things I've done since it could be quite naughty their own number oh yes in in Otello Tony Hopkins and I was spear carriers of atoms and most London bus conductors were black and he was black top as a feather and he used to love it I'm gonna say your fares B is no standing just say that what was interesting about us as a company is that we were all more or less sort of in our early 30s when we I imagine so we'd all done in a bit of a patina and we were all ready to do you know more and the big staff and because he was so demanding and daring of himself he was like that with us and I mean he gave us all these amazingly amazing varied parts and great plays and it was it was fantastic and he was always part of the company he was always in the canteen with us and always ever god help you if you got stuck with him you know you never knew what to say to no fries of it wonderful moment when he would visit us in the rehearsal room raising a player to quiner Street where the actors face that way stage management's are along there and the door into the rehearsal room was facing with a little window in it and around 11 o'clock ish after he got from Brighton and on a mountain of paperwork in his office you would see these are conveniently out but you would see these horn-rimmed glasses behind this window with a coffee cup held a very good centrically high of why I don't know if the absurd didn't spill coffee on his nice white shirt that he would open the door very discreetly shut it very discretely and go over to a chair with a sort of body language of I'm not here don't worry and it was of course the most vivid [Laughter] who ever seen and we all the only jacket our performance rehearsal was going badly it could go even worse but he was there his energy yep do you remember the time Geraldine when we were doing flee and her era with Jacques Chirac brilliant French director from the Comedie Francaise and we were rehearsing in Aquinas Street which is where we used to rehearse it was a terrible place with pillars in all the wrong places and it was like a nightmare but that's where we rehearsed however did have one advantage in that if the weather was good you could have chairs outside there was the sort of yard and we used to go and sit a sit there you know when we weren't on stage and this summer it was very hot and a lot of us had kind of taken quite a few clothes off so we were kind of maybe in shorts and maybe a little vest or whatever and hmm and then suddenly we you were on stage and you were rushing back to get on you know for the rehearsal and this was one of the days when so Lawrence paid us a visit and he sat in front of us and we were all very scantily dressed for this rehearsal he just looked through it as glasses he undid his time took off his shoes he undid his pocket and he said and he sat there and he said no is this the way that you would like to look at me if I were directing you well I don't think your director is enjoying watching you right he was right horshack Cheryl never said of course Aquinas Street was I mean compared to the facilities in this building now Aquinas Street was a lump of wooden huts with low roofs in an old I think an old bomb site and the roof leaked in the rehearse room there were pillars to cut away and that yard outside you could kick a ball around you get message sent out saying can you keep the noise down surrounded by flats and there was a canteen run by two women rose and no nose and wrote Rose was very London very hot wonderful doll can I get you on free summer she'd be dishing up food there and she was wonderful rolls very it the bouillon tan her glass has steamed up and then behind her was Nell who was her assistant now as the bullion Turner as Rose was Nell was this rather shrinking violet in the background very kind of doing things very dangerous and it was you couldn't take your eyes so Rose be doing all that and I remember when Maggie Smith we're all queuing for lunch Maggie Smith was up in the queue for the food and someone said it in Rose marvellous and she said yes she said but Nels the better part very good Ashton gone gone you you became quite friendly with Solaris yes I did he was like a surrogate father to me he was absolutely wonderful what I remember very clearly about working with him and about the his last performance I was in a play with Ronnie called the party Trevor Griffis play and he had a 20-minute speech in it and I remember very clearly on the first night I was sitting next to him on the sofa facing front and at the Old Vic they had an aisle in the middle in those days and I was sitting next to a furnace and it was it was so hot I was getting hot myself and just as he started the speech I saw the back door open and John Dexter was the director and Joan Plowright leave and jump from that remember that and on the last night of it which was his last performance on any stage ever he we split as a company we split and waited for him to come down between us and he had this extraordinary walk it was rather like a sailor he sort of like this as he ambled down and he would come down he came down he came down the house rose and cheered and cheered and cheered and he stood there for a bit of it is this for me and he kissed the stage and that's the last time he was ever on a stage and it was just very very exciting and wonderful to be there wasn't it but we didn't know it was last one ever but you guessed it didn't take long to know when it was I remember you telling me quite a scary story about being about being alone in the canteen at breakfast with the leather the leather case yeah I was so frightened of him I'm so impressed by middle-earth the own suit any chemist had officer me I'm always two hours early for theater work I was a talk in the morning he walked in and he was just staring any of those glasses I don't know what to do and I kept looking down and I saw a wallet on the table further up there and I add on it NL r GE no he was just wanted to sit and relax no it's ignored what I said a time I must have given you that one it when you paid out there in Norway [Laughter] [Laughter] I've got the place but I went to him after I'd spent three and a half years there and I went to his office and asked him for better parts I can't do that but you don't get yourself leave here and go to a provincial theater and I think he got me into Birmingham rep I don't know he got bit the next day will open a season that he must have made a right he was pretty good he could be so kind I remember when I was understudying Geraldine in flea in her ear and it was terrifying because the pace of it was so so fast and hmm I had one run-through with a company and I was really really frightened and the message came from Sir Laurence that I couldn't get ready in my own dressing room I had to come down to her dressing room because that was the star dressing room and I was going to play a star part so I got my little makeup bag and I came down and and that was even more frightening to me in somebody else's dressing room and anyway that was fine and he came in and he actually I mean come on I'm an understudy going on for somebody at a matinee he bothered to come to the performance in the interval I came off went straight for the script he came into the dressing room he said what are you doing darling I said I'm just king of the script for the next bit he said oh we don't do that in the star dress you know he said we have a little spritz of champagne and he said your arms were a little tense he said baby let me give you a little massage he made such demands of himself that he made the mother you knew we were going to do Guys and Dolls at one point yeah and I heard they were going to do Guys and Dolls and I thought how fabulous Union and anyway I passed him into Kramer's Street and he said oh you did you know we were going to go indoors I said yes fabulous mister I'm gonna play Nathan Detroit and I said well that's incredible you know and he said I want you to play Adelaide and I've never been in a musical I've never son I haven't danced so he said yeah that's what he said but you've got to get the accent absolutely perfect information and it was extraordinary because I then went to an American actress in London and I got the accent from her but partly because she started with the physicality of the woman with the hips thrust forward you know and a sort of singer dancer and I did you know I did and then I worked on the accent but then of course it was cancelled so it was a great shame that he kept on to me to rehearse the numbers sue me sue me she'll put it through me I love you and I did and honestly you can imagine can't you he was going to be and I said to him Oh what I can see if I once do get me some dolls yeah it was a just a fantastic poet for him it was really sad wasn't it what are you there with all that yeah it would have been fantastic there well they were different they were different days all through those years he was having to fight with the board like the establishment and of course now we don't have to do that things have changed completely we have it very very easy so he was not only on stage he was not only acting and directing and running the company he was in a running battle with them with with the British establishment who in the way the British stuff it used to be thought they knew how to run theaters better than he did so we just said oh that was we got very far we rehearse some of the numbers and because I thought you might have been in the chorus of the men singing these actors who became favored would have become famous we're all singing six see Daniel rocking the boots such a shame I saw a great of another great performance by him in the recruiting officer which was Gaskin directed and it broke the whole mold of the old fashioned way of playing Restoration comedy it was all that fancy stuff people come on with muddy boots if they're written across the country and he played wasn't was a brazen the character is wonderful he kept he and robert stevens every time they met they kissed on the liver remember and he had his wonderful eyes he was kind of stupid to do and he never seemed to focus on their i do not only did it was a wonderful funny funny book we have a tiny tiny snatch of it Vic is gonna be part of the [Music] just a few seconds but you could just get a kind of scratchy scratchy reminder during a restoration commonly just very briefly there was a wonderful moment when a bunch of us Derek and so we used to sit up in the circle watching a rehearsal we were known as the knitting club by John Dexter we were sitting there watching this rehearsal of Tartuffe in which the late Robert Stevens was playing tough to friend Sir John Gielgud had been invited to play organ apart which he was a lot happy I mean he said it's not my past anyway we came to this dress rehearsal and he came on with a terrible wig Jeremy Breton muttered he looks like the goose before which he did sort of he was dreadful he was not happy and he sat down and he did some of the dialogue at the opening he said all area I really I'm finding this too terribly difficult and so Lawrence and tyre and Guthrie to the Giants of the theatre along with yield was standing there in the stores near to the stage and there I said what what's your problem Johnny it really is so stupid of you Europe marvelous and you're going to be marvelous you're marvelous and restoration comedy all you need to do is get up and move around but you know how to do it let me show you that was oh these three Giants to us so what would you say was the most memorable show each of you needed the Olli not necessarily with Salons which which if you did you look back to the old big days to another the first decade of a national theater which which would be the one you remember with most affection that's hard well went maybe in her ear but well and of course dance of death and right Deborah was an enormous favorite of mine thankfully and hariya would was it was it one of the in legend its walls of laughter yeah it was wonderful and we had this not misdirected attraction he didn't speak English and the first day of rehearsal he he because I was stop rehearsing cried sort of gently and he said no no no and he then gave a short because he couldn't speak English or so and he you could tell he was funny from the tip of his toes to the top of his head it was a great performer as well as a great director and he played a little bit of my part and I thought oh god that's it I shall never be able to do it now he's because we all laughed and all that and it was so funny and wonderful and I know that's it never getting bigger wanted to do it anyway I went home and had a good sort of think about it and I thought don't be so stupid you must take from him everything is God and then we really went for it and it was amazing he was terrific he he kind of knew absolutely where all of us should be which is quite important in a far and you know all the characters he defined so marvelously and it was like getting at the beginning of the evening it was like getting on a roundabout and you didn't get off till the end of the play and we all went round and round and round I suppose it was but I was in it for five years on and off Edward hard we can die because you know there were you know Newcomb other people came anyway so we probably rehearsed it more than we played it and Edward hard work and I were the only originals at the end of five years service so you know that used to happen used to hang on to plays for quite a long time what about rural hunters the song you are in that lasted for years he killed us but my favourite is with I'm getting confused it was just on this day like Galileo oh yeah yeah that but that's later yeah Galilei Jimmy what about you I did a production of the misanthrope with John Dexter with Alec McGowan which I thought was really really good but I think the one I love the best was the front page which might be Blakeney right yeah which was such a wonderful play one of the great great comedies and one the great American plays and Michael did an extraordinary production on which he was a great film fan and he had a lot of tricks physical tricks on the set like bullet holes and powder would fly off the walls as bullet holes you know and there was one a bit when someone came through this window and the speed I remember think making us work faster never been worked actually know this Michael playing it that that quick that repartee of those reporters was wonderful but on the missiles Robert John Dexter I tell you funny stories one root word if you don't mind because he is a strange man but he was cuz only ever use that's all you know I was rehearsing a scene with with Alec McConnell with we're kind of pleased with the scene you know we thought was going very nicely and John was very pleased and Dinaric everyone was very pleased it was all going to be a big success so Alec are now doing the scene one day and we would cope see little bit during it and John who could turn very quickly we did have seen we focus was slightly self-satisfied and there was a pause and John said I suppose you think that scenes funny he said that scene is about as funny as a child's open grave do it again we never smile after Michael was sacked by him wasn't it well yeah I was gonna surely sex I'm gonna yes yes yes I mean nearly psyche oh I was wearing a suit of armor and I took the armor off because I didn't have to appear at the end for bowing yeah and ran up the road and as Dexter coming towards me so I dived back down the side up the stairs he'd already run round the body I had the armor back on came back you through the stage he was furious and he couldn't attack me because he couldn't prove anything are you remembering the story about when you were late two mornings in a row oh yeah my mother yeah I was late and he said if anyone's late here they're out so I was late two mornings running on every day since and on the way up the staircase I started crying at the Old Vic and I really was crying and as I walked into the room to the real house or on the Maggie Smith I was tears streaming down my face and she saw something I said [Music] of course you have it's the only thing that Dexter would restore me I knew I had to say that the next day our decks were happier that is investing that you'll be out when we did Galileo here yeah and John was reminding of that incident with your mother died yes and I graduated you know your mother couldn't come and see the show because she was something special yes that's right until he went back to new you enjoy Canada but he was well back oh it's really hard it's a mixture of either the three sisters or the crucible the crucible I loved I mean he did a brilliant solution a brilliant production of that and I loved doing it and that was another actually a wonderful memory about him and how brilliant and off the country could be we were doing the technical and it was going on and on like they do and there was a message came over the tannoy would all the girls in the courtroom scene come to Aquinas Street because we need to sort something out so we all trooped off to Aquinas Street thinking oh my god a rehearsal and what have we done wrong and how dreadful it's going to be tables with wine and glasses for the bottles of wine sir Lawrence sir say alright girlies we're gonna have a party so we're all drinking wine and it's all wonderful and after we've all been there for about half an hour having a lovely time he says let's do that scene and the courtroom scene that's just a feeling all the weather we can give it and they will take it back and we'll show this voice and we'll blow their heads off and of course by that time they were all absolutely fine and so we did it and it was magnificent and thrilling and we ran back into the theatre and it was just the right moment and we ran on stage and we absolutely hit the roof of the scene and he'd achieved what he'd been trying to get out of us all through rehearsals just by that extraordinarily clever delightful ploy there we never lost it because you had that so that was a pretty good memory but I can't go into that long day's journey into night again because it was my most for me most memorable that there was a moment he's wonderful humour and the fact that he was ever-present I was in royal under the Sun as a lot of us were you were either an Indian or a Spaniard and both were pretty hellish spent on Indian was horrible because you're out but you also understudied sometimes rather inconvenient Lee a Spaniard and this afternoon there was a matinee Dan Kneen a wonderful big man Youth unite actor giant against which are huge was playing the blacksmith got it big I was understood i need i say more and that afternoon he was off he got a flu bug or something he couldn't possibly go on so i was there wasn't even time to remeasure and word went round that there was a bit of a takeover going on and so lawrence was around the building and he came in to watch her face and there i was in the opening scene where Colin Blakely comes on and does the recruiting scene and we all get up and go off and the idli lifts the first half trundled along it was well rehearsed play by them from the dressing-room door at the interval and he think it's it's very stupid that they've given you this part of understudy pricked I was excused understudying down okay I remember Saturday Sunday Monday and thank you towards the end of the the rehearsals Franco Zeffirelli was directing it and there was one huge major Rao when Franco accused and for all of us of doing dreadful send up Italian accents and we were all rubbish and and he walked out and I happened to be a walking in as he was walking the Franco he's gone and so then Laurence invited us all back into the stalls and he sat on the edge of the stage and he said darlings would you mind if I take over the direction and we all said no of course not of course not which he did and then we got to the first night and you could smell success and in the wings was Franco and needless to say Franco won the Evening Standard [Laughter] I wish we could go on all evening but say I have to get ready for bed with the second tonight would you join me in saying thank you to easy [Applause]

Channel: National Theatre

Views: 72,021

Rating: 4.887588 out of 5

Keywords: Laurence Olivier (Author), The Old Vic (Building), theatre, Michael Gambon, Nicholas Hytner, Laurence Olivier, National Theatre, Sheila Reid, Ronald Pickup, Geraldine McEwan (Theater Actor), James Hayes, Gawn Grainger

Id: uZFAPCvxTMc

Length: 46min 24sec (2784 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 25 2013