Every Good Boy Deserves Favour
While at sixth form I had been tasked with directing the house play as a part of a one act play festival - these were externally adjudicated.
I was chosen to direct because a one act play I’d written for my Theatre Studies A level The Bedsit, had done well in a couple of national competitions, one for students and one just for emerging playwrights.
The play I was asked to direct, was selected by our housemaster. It was called The Bespoke Overcoat, a gentle comedy set in the east end - and we were a little bit bored by it. I remember closing the book one afternoon in rehearsal and said - “It’s the play, isn’t it?”
Ironic that a piece set in a tailor’s turned out to be such a poor fit. But it was. It was the wrong play. And I felt that we were never going to do it justice.
The cast looked back at me with slightly worried faces - we’d spent weeks on it - but they agreed. And their anxiety was soon replaced with relief. But now we only had nine days before the drama festival. Very few of which could be given over to rehearsal.
I went into the school library and headed for the theatre section - I was drawn to a slim volume of one act plays by Tom Stoppard and in particular Every Good Boy Deserves Favour. I was taken by its revolutionary vibe. And its use of music.
And it was stageable - there was a prison cell that called for just a couple of iron beds with stained mattresses - we had plenty of those to hand - and there were scenes set in a classroom - no problem there - and a doctor’s study. We borrowed a plush chair, some leather bound books (Russian titles) and drinks cabinet which doubled as a globe, and within a day we had a set. It was as though we had built the house. All we had to do now was move in.
Easier said than done. There was a lot of complex drama to get to grips with: and it was rich with comic subtext and political innuendo. The play was cunning and it relied on farcical timing which requires more rehearsal than straight drama. So it was a big undertaking. But as the saying goes: “knowing you are to be hung in a week concentrates the mind wonderfully.”
Working on the play was fun as well as being challenging. When people popped their head round the door they were always struck by the intense focus we had in the room. At times I felt like I was overseeing interrogations while watching the cast run lines. Especially with the stark open white lighting we’d gone for.
Pete McCrum and Amyas Peto had the main parts. And they found something: texture, flavour, character, wit. They caught the soul of the play - they got under the skin of their characters and built some good chemistry and rapport as a pair of unlikely cell mates. By day three it was all coming to life. The doctor scenes were fun and engaging and the classroom scenes were quietly chilling. The final prison scene at the end, which brought all the characters together in the quad was pure farce. But clever farce. And scary. It showed how easily mix ups can happen. And when the consequences are political it’s not only funny but frightening.
The play was quite short but it nevertheless contained some of the longest speeches I’d ever seen in a play. Even to this day. And the cast had to dig deep into those speeches to make them stick. It was a bit of a pressure cooker towards the end. But it helped that we were all friends and more than that we’d become a company that developed a sort of siege mentality: and buoyed by gallows humour, tea and Camel Lights we powered through that last week until somehow it was ready to put before an audience.
It won a number of awards including the audience award. It was, dare I say it, a good show. I can still remember the nerves as the lights went down before the show began and the sounds of the Beatles, Back in the USSR came in. Then a sharp square of tight white light picked out Pete (as Ivanov in a prison gown) as he stood up in shared cell and pissed in a bucket. I don’t think this action was in the script but I wanted to open with a visual and that one seemed to work. It set the scene and the tone somehow.
It was the first time I'd ever directed anything, and it’s still the only time I directed a play that I haven’t written.
The cast was as follows: Peter McCrum, Amyas Peto, Toby Clarke, Jan Fowler, Zach Strickland and Kevin Hewitt.
I wanted to record this experience because it was more formative than I may have realised at the time. It shows that we really do start as we mean to go on. The whole endeavour had a certain subversive quality to it. And our spirit around the play was mainly because of the brilliant and inspirational drama teacher Mike and the visionary and charismatic headmaster, Richard, who believed in the power of drama. And in us.
It is worth noting that the characters in the play rejected received wisdom as state doctrine. They sought out their own books; determined to think for themselves. This resonated with us. But looking back there is horrible irony to the fact that the choice that had imprisoned our characters was the same choice that set us free.