At the end of our second year, a group of us were chosen to appear as extras in the two swan-song productions of the year above us, before they were thrown out into the big wide world fully trained and ready for lights, camera, Action! The first production required us to play lunatics in "The Duchess of Malfi". Suddenly all the ridiculousness of the last few months at the zoo made complete sense as we groaned and grunted our way through the scene where the Duchess is sexually assaulted in an asylum. MJ, I felt, particularly shone and we were shocked at the lengths he went to in the name of authenticity. I was also asked to use my hands throughout the rest of the show, as it were.
As the only drummer in our year, I not only got to feel up Natasha Richardson's legs with impunity, I also provided percussive accompaniment to the various scene changes during the play. After a couple of years of Bang Bang Cracking back in Stratford, I was amazed to discover that it actually was possible to express oneself with a pair of sticks. I composed seven or eight drum fills during rehearsals that somehow reflected the atmosphere of the scenes that preceded them and thoroughly enjoyed the process. Despite this, it goes without saying that the groping scene was, of course, the highlight.
This same motley crew of loons were also cast in the musical of that year, "Sweet Charity". First night was a bit of a personal disaster. We were to be in the scene of the show where "Hey, Big Spender" was sung to us by the girls as they danced suggestively behind a cordon that ran the entire width of the stage. They'd just finished Hey, Big Spendering and, on cue, I walked as coolly as I could with the rest of my mates towards them pretending to choose our favourite. The actress I had been assigned to in rehearsal was the strangely lispingly attractive Diana Blackburn. She was always a bit of a liability and this first night was no exception. She came towards me, all breathy sexuality, and unhooked the heavy braid of the cordon. She walked through and, her eyes burning into mine, reconnected the two ends behind her. I took her into my arms and we began to slink off towards the wings where we were going to get up to all sorts of nonsense and my contribution to the evening would end. As we slow-danced off, all steamy intensity, I saw out of the corner of my eye, one of the brass stands in the centre of the stage that held up the heavy braided rope was being pulled over. With each step we took, it continued to lean and, in a "If I'm going, I'm taking everyone with me" sort of way, as it leaned over, it began to pull on the next one along, creating some sort of catastrophic domino-effect across the entire length of the cordon. Then, to my horror, I realised that, somehow, Diana and I were doing the pulling! Diana continued to act her socks off, emoting sexual tension, blissfully ignorant of the awful scenario playing itself out behind her. It didn't take long for the audience to catch on and a murmur of amusement began to spread through the auditorium. Diana, meanwhile continued her journey offstage in my arms, leading me towards the wings, oblivious to the fact that the guy she was with was now completely distracted with the theatrical armageddon happening behind the both of them. Coolness was immediately replaced with blind panic and a hasty look over her shoulder revealed to me that the silly cow had joined the two brass hooks of the cordon through the very long pearly necklace that fell sexily down her bare back. Now Diana at the best of times lived through her day one step removed from the rest of us and, short of slapping her in the face, nothing was going to prevent her from leaving the stage, dragging the rest of it off with her. Diana eventually realised something was wrong when I extricated myself from her arms and moved around behind her, seemingly sniffing at her bottom like a dog on heat. The entire theatre sat transfixed as this mini-play acted itself out to one side of the stage. Diana twisted round to try to help, but, of course, that just made it worse as twenty fingers and thumbs fumbled to unhook the necklace. By the time I'd released us both, I'd aged thirty years and made a decision never to try to be cool on stage again, a decision I think accurately reflected in my acting career ever since.
That summer break was a bit of a strange one. Having been blessed with a beautiful girlfriend and a lovely home - Naomi and I had been living in her parents' rather swish London flat - I naturally decided to chuck a bomb into it all and develop a crush on a girl in my year. This was not a decision I took lightly. I would wake at night covered in sweat having had a nightmare where this girl's face would stare at me, taunt me and then dissolve into a Baconian image of teeth and grimace. I would sit up with a jerk and see Naomi beside me unaware of the horrors I had been toying with. I remember thinking at the time how arbitrary the whole process was. I knew I was playing with something that could turn and bite me, but, like the desire to understand and experience addiction to all things nicotine, I had to enter the chasm and see if I could get out unscathed...
I didn't, and the final death knell sounded when I was cast that November in our second production of the third year, "Spring Awakening" by Franz Wedekind, (or Spring Awankening, as we wittily renamed it, after the scene in the play where the group of boys have fun with a digestive biscuit). I had already had success as Buck Grangerford in Huck Finn and, thanks to that, was trusted with the lead role in this play which was about burgeoning sexuality amongst a bunch of young Germans. Unfortunately, the young Germans weren't the only ones to have sexuality burgeoning and, when I discovered the object of my misplaced desire was to be cast opposite me, the die was also, so to speak, cast, and the countdown to the evening six or so weeks later, when I didn't come home, began.
At Christmas, we put "Huckleberry Finn" on again and it was during this production, I slept most of a night in my car and found all my possessions on the street outside my mother's house the next morning.
It was a horrible time but I consoled myself by being completely, totally and utterly deliriously happy with a girl I had tried to not fall in love with for eight months or more. Naomi, quite rightly, felt bloody terrible and I will spend the rest of my days examining my actions. It must be said, however, that, a year or so later, she married the man who had been living upstairs from us and has remained married to him to this day, giving him three children and the privilege of spending his life with her. We met up for a coffee a couple of days before her wedding and I felt the sadness that can only be felt by someone who has to lose something before they realise how valuable it is. That Christmas, though, I was on a roll. Things weren't quite as rosy for Naomi but what did I care? I'd had to give her away in order to gain Mandy - for that was her name! - and I was having the time of my life.
After "Spring Awakening", I was cast - with horrible irony - in Strindberg's play about infidelity, "Playing with Fire". The three main characters were played by myself, John Lynch and Amanda Donohoe. I decided to play the part of the slightly dissolute artist with stubble on my face, John played his part using extreme intensity and baggy trousers, and Donohoe decided to play her part without wearing knickers. It was during this production, I overheard the knickerless one talking to an agent on the phone bemoaning the fact she had no help from her fellow actors on stage and that any success she had had in the production was purely down to her own efforts. I took this with complete equanimity and decided to blank her for the rest of my life. John consoled himself by having a successful career in film, but I made a decision there and then to trust her about as far as I could throw her.
In the final three months of my time at Central, I played an Italian in"Saturday, Sunday, Monday", a fabulous production that involved a practical pasta meal in the second half that cut my school canteen bills by half; a homosexual antiques' dealer in "California Suite", where I tried in vain to bring the weary sophistication of a forty year old on to my distinctly unsophisticated shoulders; and finished off playing a stoned drummer in "Teeth and Smiles", a part I played as though I'd been practising for it my entire life.
