Tag: sir ian mckellen

MEDITATION 96

A belated Happy New Year, dear reader!
As I sit here beside my candle I am looking out of my garden window to grey skies and bare branches in my wintry garden, although some of my plants are still green as they are perennials. I am a perennial myself, I suppose, as although I am approaching my winter years, my own leaves are still green! I am still flowering and flourishing! Otherwise these meditations would not exist. I am still writing and occasionally teaching. I am even considering the possibility of a podcast with a much younger friend. So I am still being creative. It is what is important to me.
Sometimes I have found myself adopting an old man persona indoors, shuffling from room to room. I have had to check myself and shake it off. It is so easy to vegetate in an armchair and half watch old movies or ancient TV programmes, especially when the weather outdoors isn’t very inviting. Perhaps I should get on with some winter gardening (when the weather warms up a little) or get onto my exercise bike again (which is gathering dust in the lounge corner). Or take up skateboarding.
I have always been impressed by those who keep working and being creative into their old age. Only a few months ago I saw Ian McKellen (aged 84) onstage. He was in a play – ‘Frank and Percy’ – with Roger Allam (aged 70). They were the only characters in the play and were both continually on stage for over two hours and performing six nights a week. They were both wonderful too. Two years ago, McKellen also played ‘Hamlet’ again (after a 50 year gap) and will play Falstaff in a few months time in ‘Three Kings’: an abridged version of Shakespeare’s two ‘Henry IV’ plays ( a four hour performance apparently!).
I am also reminded of Judi Dench who is now 88 and sadly suffering from macular degeneration. Yet she appeared in several TV programmes (including two major interviews) around the 400th anniversary of the publication of Shakespeare’s First Folio last November. She has been regularly acting in film and TV productions until quite recently including Kenneth Branagh’s film ‘Belfast’ and was onstage in a celebration of Stephen Sondheim’s musicals in 2022.
I am currently reading her book ‘Shakespeare: the Man who Pays the Rent’. Her late husband Michael Williams and herself referred to the Bard as ‘the man’s who pays the rent’ because they were both in so many Shakespeare productions over several decades with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-Upon-Avon and London. In fact in one of the chapters she explains how much Stratford means to her. It is where she and her husband met. She has a great love of the place, nurtured over a number of years. As have I.

The chapters are a collection of dialogues with another actor, Brendan O’Hare, and mainly about the Shakespearean roles she has played. Her memory is quite remarkable. She can remember details of costumes she wore at the Old Vic in the late 1950’s, for example, as well as most the actors and directors she has worked with in the productions she refers to.
Her insights into each role (and often those of the directors she worked with) as she goes through each role scene by scene in each chapter are highly detailed and razor-sharp. Again it is amazing how she remembers rehearsals and performances from decades ago. She is also keen to point out ideas that didn’t work at the time and where she would approach the role or scene differently now with more experience. Hindsight is a humbling thing at times. She can also quote her lines and those of other roles verbatim (which Brendan O’Hare points out). What a prodigious memory she must have.
Of particular interest to me are her comments on acting technique. Interleaved with all her perceptive insights into the roles, her reminiscences and funny stories (of which there are many – it is a very entertaining read!) is an excellent guide to reading, rehearsing and performing Shakespeare: what we call ‘working on the text’. She is in no way didactic. Her advice arises casually out of the conversation.
I was quite gratified to find that I had used many of those techniques myself with my students down the years – and with students of English in Hungary as it happens. I had learnt them on courses with the Royal Shakespeare Company that I attended early in my teaching career. Judi Dench learnt them there herself of course, years before I did. I feel quite proud that I have been passing on that RSC tradition of playing Shakespeare to others. Reading the book has made me realise I am part of that tradition myself.
I have had the privilege of seeing Judi Dench in many plays down the years but one she mentions in her book has stirred up particular memories. As I sit here looking out to my wintry garden, I am reminded of a sultry summer evening in Stratford a long time ago. I was in the Sixth Form and on my first trip to Stratford courtesy of a weekend visit by Teesside Youth Theatre. I had just seen ‘Twelfth Night’ in which she played Viola. I was entranced by the whole production and can remember details from it to this day. Her own description of it has prompted my own memory. (Should I write my own book?)
My school friend Ian and I hovered around the stage door until she appeared. I wanted my programme signed by her I think. I remember Ian saying ‘You can speak to her. You’re the one with the programme.’ He was gruffly shy you see.
Eventually she appeared with a shopping bag in either hand: so different from her romantic Viola earlier! I approached her and was suddenly tongue- tied, even though I had prepared what I would say to her in my mind. She looked at me, then askedme if I

would help her with taking the bags to her car. So Ian and myself took them from her. Then she politely thanked us and got into the car and off she went. I remained tongue-tied throughout. It was the nervousness of youth, of course. I was meeting a star. I was very gauche then. I still am at times! Stage-struck as I was then, the incident taught me that acting is just another job after all and however magical a production may be, the actors performing in it still have to go shopping and go home! Needless to say I still remained stage struck despite the incident – and for a good many years. I still am at times.
The next time I was in close proximity to Judi Dench was at the Young Vic theatre in London. I was with a group of A level students watching the classic Irish drama ‘The Plough and the Stars’ by Sean O’Casey. It was an entirely Irish cast except for Judi herself. Set in a Dublin street during the Irish Troubles, she was the only person from Northern Ireland in the street. She was very different from romantic Viola: a screeching harridan. In the auditorium, the audience was on three sides with the actors performing in the centre. My group and I were seated on the front row. In the final scene, Judi’s character is ironically shot by a British soldier. She fell and uttered her last words no more than 4 feet away from me. It was so very real and her final words were so moving. She was totally in role of course. Somehow she always gets to my emotions when I see her on stage or on film. Even when she plays comedy, she always finds a serious moment, when the underlying emotions of the character break through.
She has been called a ‘national treasure’ which she dislikes. However it is a sign of her popularity and of the warm regard which the public hold her in. She’s more than that, however: she is one of our greatest actresses and has consistently been so throughout her career.
Incidentally, I also met Ian McKellen once (minus shopping!). We had a charming conversation in a pub many years ago. He still owes me a pint! But that is another story!
Ave atque Vale Neilus Aurelius


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MEDITATION 90

I am seated by my candle recalling memories of my Canadian vacation again. However, I am not remembering breathtaking landscapes as in my last meditation, or revisiting with affection the small town of Sidney on Vancouver Island which is the inspiration for ‘Driftwood’, my collection of short stories. I am recalling gnarled and twisted tree roots, crunchy dead leaves, mud, puddles and small pools, tree stumps and rocks, slippery hillocks and a swaying bridge over a gaping chasm. In short, I am reliving with a wry smile and a modicum of pride an accidental trek through a forest.

My cousin Mark’s son, Justin, was driving us towards Sooke Harbour where we planned to have lunch. He suggested we drive a little further on and briefly visit Mystic Beach beforehand. The name of the beach appealed to my imagination, so I agreed. We soon arrived at a car park and there before us, in all its verdant green splendour was a dense forest. Apparently we had to follow a trail through the forest to get to the beach. As far as I remember, Justin had been on the trail before and told us that it wasn’t very far.

Having spent much of the holiday by the ocean so far, and being eager to give my friend Simon a glimpse of the beautiful forests on the Island as well, I agreed that we should go ahead. I was presumably asked to make the decision because I was the oldest member of the group. Underlying this was probably the others’ awareness that trekking through a forest was not quite my thing. And they were right. (Although I had gone on a mini-trek with Mark several years before).  

So we blithely left water, snacks and my backpack containing my asthma inhaler behind in the car and started the trail, thinking it would be quite short. It turned out that the trail was 2km to the beach and 2km back of course as there was no other way. It became a 3 hour round trip without ‘supplies’ or the right footwear. I must admit to being rather resentful of the cheerful, confident and well-equipped hikers who greeted us with a smile on our way. Especially when they made comments like ‘You’re about half way through’ or ‘It gets more difficult from now on.’  

I am sure the journey would have been been quicker except that I was unused to trekking and was therefore rather slow, needing help climbing over rocks and pools and those ubiquitous tree roots. And help was given I must admit: patient and good-humoured help! I have learnt from the experience that I am not as agile as I used to be.  As I was wearing the wrong footwear I was rather concerned about spraining my ankle or worse in this forest where we were nowhere near medical assistance. I had visions of airlifts and helicopters. I guess I am not the explorer type. Or a hiker for that matter.  In the middle of the trail was a bridge across a deep chasm, which was single file but mercifully made of steel rope with a steel walkway, though it did sway a lot. It looked quite new. I must admit the trail was well signposted with markers in different colours on the trees. There were a few wooden duckboards here and there too, but unfortunately no asphalt footpath through the undergrowth, which I would naturally have preferred. 

When we got to the end of the trail, we had to go down a long stairway of rickety wooden steps to the beach. Some of the steps were missing and replaced with virtually vertical boards. Quite treacherous. Needless to say the view from the beach out to the ocean was stunning and there were a couple of beautiful mini waterfalls in the rock below the stairway too. But I would have been glad of a refreshment hut with a few tables and chairs in front of it as well. My appreciation of the beauty of beach was somewhat dimmed as I was hot, sweaty and wheezy by then – not to mention weary and hungry too (as were we all). It is only when I looked at the photos I had taken afterwards that I realised how beautiful the little cove was.  

Fortified with some polo mints from Simon, and an asthma inhaler from Mark, I began the trek back with the others. I am unsure whether the journey back was quicker or slower: quicker because we’d done it once before or slower because I was more weary. I had to stop more often to catch my breath. Simon found me a large branch to help with the walking. As I walked back over the bridge more confidently the second time, I brandished the stick like Gandalf in ‘Lord of the Rings’ (or more accurately like Ian McKellen in the film) shouting ‘You shall not pass!’ which echoed through the trees. I understand a new TV version of ‘Lord of the Rings’ is being filmed. Though I am probably the right height for Bilbo or Frodo, I don’t think I would cope with filming all those endless journeys.They seemed relentless to me when I read the books, and would be even more so if I was heavily involved in recreating them in front of the cameras. We were in an ideal location for filming, I must admit. Fans of the books or the film would love to be wandering through our trail, imagining scenes as they trudged along. 

Trudge we did. It was a bit of an ordeal in some ways, because we were ill-equipped and I was out of my comfort zone, scampering over the rocks and roots. Or was I?  There were moments as I stood briefly to catch my breath, or sat down for a minute to rest, when I could feel the stillness, the mystery of the forest, calming me, refreshing me. It was a good place to be. I would look up to marvel at the sun glowing through the tall tree tops and turning the leaves and the grass from green to silver grey. I would notice this more and more as I trudged on, admiring the deep green lichen too, festooned on the tree branches, as if it were limpidly dripping off them. And the sheer variety of the growth around me and its vitality.

I was reminded then, or rather, for a moment, I could see then as Emily Carr, the Island’s famous local artist, saw the trees and the forests and the life force within them. There is one picture of hers called ‘Dancing Trees’, tall pines and spruces like the ones surrounding me then. They are not only dancing in the wind but they are dancing within themselves. In fact they may not be dancing in the wind at all. But the life force within them is. Perhaps now, I can more fully understand why I love her pictures so much. It wasn’t just that they are a cultural way, an artistic way of remembering my vacations on Vancouver Island, cultural tourist that I am. A connection was made between us, quite a few years ago, through her artwork and her writing.  And now like her, but only momentarily, on this trail which I had struggled with, I was connecting with the forests that she loved so much. And connecting with her again on an even deeper level.

At the end of the trail back in the car park, I found myself telling the others that I would happily do the trail again. But properly equipped of course! I would go back not to trek so much but to sit in the forest, with a notepad, as Emily did; not to sketch, but to write. I would go back to savour the stillness, to let the mystery take over me. To spend a day there even, to admire the natural grandeur of the surroundings, to fully appreciate the variety of the undergrowth, which was then only ground to be clumsily covered. A phrase comes to my mind: ‘not seeing the wood for the trees’. Well during that accidental trek, I was not seeing the trees for the wood – or rather the tree roots, rocks, mud and pools! We struggle and we strive in life (and yes that is necessary) but we don’t stop to enjoy the moment sometimes, to appreciate the natural world we live in and are part of. Sometimes we are too busy with heads down, clambering over the roots and rocks. We don’t connect with the natural world. Or with the spirit, the life force, within us, like Emily’s ‘Dancing Trees’.

In the end I felt a sense of achievement having completed the trail. About half way on the way in, after we had covered a kilometre or so, Justin could see I was struggling and asked me if we should just go back. But something made me determined to go on. In fact, at the end of the trail, he told me he had noticed how determined I was. It took me aback for a moment.  Determined? Yes I am a determined. I would never have achieved what I did in my career, if I wasn’t. But that determination seems to have been on the wane since I retired and through lockdown. I feel as if I have lost it sometimes – or have I? Perhaps it is just lying dormant.

Behind my struggle with the trail, aside from being out of my comfort zone was a feeling of not being in charge, of not being in control, of being taken out of myself. Most of all I didn’t know when the end of the trail was in sight, how far we had to go to get there. That thought nagged at me. I suppose it comes from needing to be in charge, in control, and being conditioned to planning and working to deadlines.

But then, as I have come to understand in my retirement, none of us knows when the end of the trail is in sight. Or how much further we have left to go.

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