Acclaimed classical actor Edward Petherbridge was cast as King Lear, when on the second day of rehearsals he suffered a stroke that left him barely able to move. As he struggled to recover Edward made a discovery: the entire role of Lear still existed word for word in his mind.
From being on the brink of playing one of Shakespeare’s most revered roles, to lying in a hospital bed surrounded by doctors, Edward had never imagined what tragedies and comedies lay in store for him.
Directed by award winning Kathryn Hunter and performed by Edward Petherbridge and Paul Hunter, this is a moving and comic exploration of the resilience of the human spirit through the prism of Shakespeare’s great tragedy.
Told by an Idiot was founded in 1993 by Hayley Carmichael, Paul Hunter and John Wright. Since the company’s first production, On the Verge of Exploding, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, the company has built up an enviable reputation producing work that is moving, comic and utterly theatrical. Now they bring the eagerly awaited My Perfect Mind to the Unity Theatre from next week.
I was able to catch up with Edward Petherbridge’s co-star Paul Hunter as he walked along the famous Plymouth Hoe as he took some much deserved time out from the show. Paul Hunter trained at Middlesex Polytechnic and is co-founder and co-artistic director of Told by an Idiot. He has been involved in all their work to date as director/devisor/performer.
How has My Perfect Mind been received so far?
“We are in Plymouth at the moment and we are just coming into our last week and it obviously opened here. I have to say it has gone rather brilliantly. I mean I sound surprised but with the show it is you are never…I wasn’t quite sure how people would take to it. I hope they would like it but what has been brilliant is the reaction, it has been fantastic and the reaction from the audience from what has been a wide ranging audience, young through to quite old, all seem to have connected with the show. So we are very pleased and looking forward to coming to Liverpool next week.”
It is an usual way to present one of, or indeed in part, one of Shakespeare’s plays
“Yes of course, we are not attempting to put King Lear on stage, in a sense, I suppose what we do with the Lear is that we looked at what happened to Edward and his recovery, the fragility that we all have in life and in that we don’t know what’s going to happen. We look at that through King Lear and we essentialise the Lear down to his relationship with his daughters, the folly with his daughters and the fool. I think it is interesting seeing how people react to the Lear and because that is a thread in the story that goes through it. I was talking to a teacher last night who had some sixth form students with him who were studying it and they loved it and they said they didn’t expect Shakespeare to be approached like that or a take on Shakespeare like that which makes us go back to the play and how we look at it a different way.”
When Edward showed you the piece, could you see the potential in the story when was presented to you?
“Oh we dramatise this in the show, as part the show, in a sense is this strange dreamlike look at Edward’s life where certain characters are real but there are certain things that aren’t real. We do address this moment of when this idea came up. Basically Edward and I met up in an unsuccessful run of a musical in the West End, we played a sort of double act in this show which was on very briefly but we really clicked and even though we are from very different backgrounds, different generations and different theatrical traditions in a sense, we just clicked and I think we respected each other. We said we should do something and as we were finishing this very short run Edward said what if we did a pocket version of King Lear where I play the fool.
Edward had already described to me this extraordinary thing that happened to him in New Zealand where two days into rehearsal for King Lear he had this stroke and never did it and I plucked up the courage at the time and said don’t take this the wrong way but I think there is a more interesting idea where we do a show around what happened to you. All credit to Edward he went with it and I saw the potential for it and I had no idea how we were going to make it happen as that’s all we had, the idea of making a show about a man not doing King Lear because of a stroke. After a period of research and development and bringing Katherine Hunter on board as Director we found together collaboratively, we didn’t hire a writer, we created it, we found this structure we rather liked which as I say is this dreamlike take on Edward’s life in a sense and weaved the Lear through it. Certainly we saw the potential but we didn’t know how we were going to realise it.
It’s gratifying to hear it went well because obviously Mr. Petherbridge is one of our classic actors of the age; it’s going to be very exciting to watch him and yourself on stage at the Unity Theatre. It will be interesting to see him in a two hander here in Liverpool.
“As you say he has this extraordinary pedigree which we sort of playfully subvert in the course of the show. What Edward is brilliant at and what the audience has really enjoyed is that he very good at sending himself and his image up. People find that very endearing I think. There are moments in the show, of course he was part of Olivier’s company at the Old Vic, the scenes where I play Olivier and he is with his old mentor and he happy to send his own image up which I think is also endearing. More importantly than that I find it very inspirational you have an actor who is 76 and is prepared to come and work for a company like ours and do something where you don’t quite know what it’s going to be, there are moments when it is improvised, I think he is a radical performer and he is a good listener and he is more open than a lot of younger actors that I have worked with.”
Really?
“Oh definitely, his ability to improvise, his openness to improvising is extraordinary. At a time when people get written off increasingly younger, you know when they get to 60, oh no he is too old for that or she is too old for this, it becomes a real celebration of what we can do in life rather than oh no you are too old now.”
Did you find it difficult playing every other part in the play?
“I suppose I didn’t really think about it to be honest, I knew that’s what would probably happen but I had no idea of the cast of characters in the piece which ranges from Olivier to a Romanian cleaner, all of these things came through endless improvisations and we tried not to plan anything and be really open in terms of the improvising and then it just emerged that I took on these roles. In some ways at the heart of it is the celebration of a double act, we are an unlikely double act but we are sort of one and I think people love a double act of course, right back through Laurel and Hardy and Eric and Ernie, people love a double act and there is something in that Edward is quite clearly the higher status and I am clearly the lower status that hopefully what people are responding to is the immense warmth between the two of us and a real affection for each other.
In a Stan and Ollie kind of way, Stan isn’t going along to try and foul Ollie up he is trying to help him out, it’s just that Stan is an idiot that it constantly goes wrong. So even the times when I am trying to essentially trying to stop Edward playing King Lear the thing is I am trying to help him do it and in the classic sense of a double act something goes wrong. Even though that’s not it’s about people connect with that. The Unity is the perfect place for it, it is intimate and I think it is really exciting that we are playing the Unity as the company has been playing there for 20 years and it feels wonderful to bring the show to a place like that and I hope people turn out and I am sure they will as the Unity has always been good at experimentation, people doing all sorts of different works.
Liverpool audiences are great as we have played there so many times and had some fantastic evenings there, if Liverpool audiences go for it they really go for it but of course they see a lot of things there and they have a real sharp eye for stuff and Liverpool is really the cultural city and it seems right that before we go to London we come to Liverpool.
Ian D. Hall
*As part of this very special performance by Edward Petherbridge and Paul Hunter there is a special In Conversation with… on Saturday 9th March from 5pm till 6pm at the Unity Theatre. This very special event will see Edward Petherbridge celebrate an extraordinary career which has spanned many decades. He will be sharing his thoughts and experiences of recovering from a major stroke and the impact it has had on his life and work.
Tickets for this even are priced at £3.
**There is also a workshop led by Paul Hunter on Friday 8th March between 12pm and 4pm at the Unity Theatre. Through a variety of games and exercises including narrative starting points, visual triggers and being yourself in performance, this unique workshop for performers and theatre makers will look at new and dynamic ways of creating fact-based drama.
The course is suitable for established and emerging actors and performers.
Ages 18 plus only and tickets are priced at £12 (this includes a ticket for the show.) Booking closes on Wednesday 6th March.