They say just before you die your life flashes before you.
Who says that? The people who would know that to be true are dead for feck sake! Well I had me life flash before me eyes but it wasn't just before I died (I hope you'll be glad to know), it was during a play reading at the Royal National Theatre Studio. Confused? You will be.
But first a history lesson. Back in 2002 I had just been on tour for 8 months with Pirates and needed to get a flat and what do ya know me and my fine friend Mr. Richard (Dickie) Hardwick fell on our feet and got ourselves a flat in the Waterloo area of the London. Now this was a bit of a coup as Waterloo is well central and especially brilliant if you're a starving actor. It meant feck all money on travel as you mostly walked everywhere and then you could fall home after a mental sesúin in Shutts, also the money we were paying for the rent was peanuts compared to what it should be in that area because the landlord was buying it off the council and subletting it to us. Deadly. Theatre wise the Old Vic was around the corner, the Royal National Theatre is up the road and you're 15 minutes swift walk into the middle of the West End. We were on some winner here. It would have been an even bigger winner if either of us had've had a job in the West End, but alas no. Looking back on those mental Waterloo days there's one thing that always sticks out in me and Richard's minds. The Duke of Sussex. This was the pub to end all pubs, exactly what you expect a London pub to look and be like including, and most especially, the perfect landlord; 'Honest Dave'. Now here was a man you didn't mess with and yet had a heart of gold. The first day we walked into the pub, not knowing anyone, I asked for two pints of cider.
'Would you like a nice, refreshing slice of orange in your cider?' he asked.
What was this man on? Orange in me hallowed cider. Not a sign boy!
'No, listen, you WANT a slice of orange in your cider master.'
At that moment I knew he wasn't a man to be messed with, not because he was rough but merely because he was right, me cider tasted lovely. A new local had been found!! And a few weeks after that we had the session to end all sessions which installed us both as permanent fixtures of this establishment. Honest Dave loved his music and you would find karaoke on in there most nights and every Thursday night he had a live piano player. That fateful Thursday night I came in just before closing to meet Richard and a few of the lads, I had just rolled out of work at the London Eye, I thought I'd just be in time for the last one. No way boy! 11.30 and the doors were shut and we were all looking at each other with the same thought in our heads; LOCK IN! Too right! That old piano player, Cliff Hall, was still tinkling the ivories and suddenly Honest Dave was bringing out tambourines from the back of the pub. Before I could realise what was going on I was up the top of the pub mic in one hand tambourine in the other and hollering Mustang Sally. By 1am I had me guitar in the room being played by me mate Gav and I was on the feckin piano (I must have been well pissed so) and Honest Dave was proclaiming;
'If the police come knockin' you know what to tell 'em lads. We're 'avin' choir practice! You lucky people!'
We certainly were, the beer had been free from the minute we opened our mouths to sing. At one stage we ran out of popular songs that we knew so we started singing our audition songs. 3 in the morning and we were still hopping. Honest Dave didn't care. This man was a bona fide legend.
'Would I lie to you, I mean would I lie to you?'
' 'ere I've got a great tip on on 'orse runnin' tomorrow.'
'Bosh!'
He had his fingers in many pies, he was a mason, he used to be a champion amateur boxer and I could go on and on, because in fairness he did go on and on, he was some man for a story. And he loved his music; Sinatra, Deano all the greats he'd sing at his own karaoke. Richard eventually ended up hosting the karaoke there every weekend (although try as he might he could never get me to do a night on the piano). And so we spent the best part of a year frequently frequenting Honest Dave's and many a mad lock in was had all under the hospitality of a character so rich you could nearly write a play about him.
Funny I should mention that.
Lets fast forward over the adverts to the present day then. I'm working the shitty jobs waiting for Much Ado to kick off and Richard is just back from a 14 month tour of Grease. Now for a period when we were in the Waterloo flat Richard considered giving up acting and becoming a writer and he did a couple of courses and wrote a couple of small bits but nothing really substantial. We always joked about doing a play about all the shit that went on in the Duke of Sussex. I jokingly said he should call it 'Karaoke Kings'. When I said that he had a mad glint in his eye which I just ignored because in fairness he's nuts anyway. Nearly two years later when he's telling me that he's been working on some writing while on tour I similarly put it down to slight mental illness. When he finishes the tour he then says that he's going to give up the acting to be a writer at which point I know he's lost his marbles. Then the phone goes and its not the agent for I have two jobs lined up, but it is Richard;
'Hey, I've just had an interview at the Royal National Theatre Studio and they're giving me a four week placement in one of their writer's spaces. They really liked the idea for Karaoke Kings. They're paying me to go in and write every day.'
The jammy bastard! I'm still on the phones and he's getting paid to do what I do in this diary for free; write about his life. The question now was would Richard actually sit down and write karaoke kings or would he just sit messing on the internet every day? Nope, he wrote. He wrote lots. The mad fecker only finished the play in 4 weeks. I have to say I was deeply impressed. I'm not saying that I had me doubts ..... but I had me doubts. Richard you see is a man of many mad ideas, they roll out of him at an alarming rate, but I have trouble remembering many that he's seen through to completion. But he actually wrote a full two act play!
And it was great.
As he was writing it he was emailing and giving it to me scene by scene and the more I was reading it the more I was enjoying it, of course the mad thing is that I was kind of reading about an era in my life. There was a bit of artistic license and some of the details were changed (he had me working front of house at the National Theatre rather than the London Eye and I was rehearsing a fringe play called 'The Incredible Hunk' which came straight from his warped imagination) but the two main stories, Dave's continuing estrangement with his son and Dickie's battles with the regular karaoke host had more than a passing semblance to the truth. It was mad, while I was reading it I could see it really clearly, it was a terrific reconstruction of how things worked in the Duke of Sussex but as well as that is was just a good feckin story. And he got Dave spot on. All the catchphrases, the storytelling, the fun, but also this underlying sorrow and regret that you know is there. As I read it it was clear that this is a part that any actor of a certain age would give their left bollock to play. The way he envisioned the play was that there would only be three actors; One playing Honest Dave and the other two playing everyone else. This I thought was a great Idea, I mean it worked brilliantly with Stones in his Pockets and most of all it would mean two big show off roles for me and Richard. Oh yes that was our plan for West End domination. Now that might sound like him doing all the work and me reaping all the benefits but please remember that I did give him the title for the play and that's extremely important. As one casting director once told me;
'Do you know why I think Calico failed? Because of its name. Its too vague. I mean who would be interested in seeing a play called Calico? Not many obviously.'
Strange sentiments but there you go. Anyway Richard had written this great play (with a genius title) but what are a load of lines on a page if no one gets to read them. It was lucky so that part of the deal of his placement was a rehearsed reading at the end. The director that was reading the play while he was writing it was of the opinion that, seeing as the possibility was there, they should use different actors for each part for the reading rather than just two. Ah shite, that was a pity but I didn't mind too much as long as I was part of it in some way. And I would be part of it of course, wouldn't I Richard? Wouldn't I? Richard? RICHARD? Not a worry boy, that buachaill is a buddy for a reason and indeed he hired me to come in to read the small but crucial role of Jamie in the play.
I had some little experience in playing such a role.
On the day of the reading I strolled down to the National Theatre Studio which is ironically only a 2 minute walk from Honest Dave's pub and went in to find myself as part of a troupe of actors, most of whom were currently playing at the 'Nash' themselves. These guys and girls were heavyweights and when we sat down to read the play it fucking hopped off the page. I mean I thought it was good when I read it but now, hearing it out loud, it was on a whole new level all of a sudden. It was so weird as well because I really thought Honest Dave was in the room, the actor playing him (Keith Bartlett) got him so spot on it was scary.
'Bosh! You lucky people.'
And the guy playing the rival karaoke host was unreal. James Corden, who you'd know straight away as a 'me man off the telly' got the sad sack, dickheaded nature of (name withheld for fear of legal action) bang on, and there was even a role in the play which I urged Richard to cut or change that suddenly worked for me when I heard it read aloud by the actor in the room.
And I played meself.
Dave: Drink Jamie?
Jamie: Cheers. Cider please Dave.
Now that's a lot harder than you think. You kind of have to stop acting in a way, but then you can't really do that because what's happening is in the action of the play and not real life so there must be a separate quality to it. Fuck it I haven't clue what I did really, it was such a surreal experience to see (or at least hear) this part of me life (with artistic embellishment) acted out by other people. Me life flashing before me eyes in a play. How feckin showbiz! We read over it in the morning (you could see that the actors really liked it) and then whacked into it properly in the afternoon with a small few people from the National watching, and it was the business. I was pissing meself anew at stuff I had read weeks previous. The people that were watching seemed to really enjoy it. And every so often I catch Richard's eye as he's watching and he's over the feckin moon, he can't believe his luck. Jesus I can't believe his luck, by the end he's pounced upon by the director of the studio and the literary manager of the theatre. They're well impressed and they're giving him some pointers as to what he should look at that when writing his second draft. Second draft? Oh yes! They must be interested if they want to see a second draft. This is just unreal for him. And I was well proud of him. His first full play, written in four weeks, given a reading at the Royal National Theatre studio with some really top actors (and me thrown in for luck). How bad is that! Some of us went for a celebratory drink afterwards to the now famous pub in question but alas we didn't bump into the real star of the show: Honest Dave himself, he was off having his daily late afternoon 'siesta'. So as he slept little did he realise that over the road there was a group of actors reading a play about him. I've told Richard about me worries about that. You see he hasn't told Honest Dave anything about Karaoke Kings and I'm not sure how Dave's going to take it when he finds out.
Surely he wouldn't be pissed off if there was a play on in the West End all about him.
No, and I certainly wouldn't be pissed off either.
