CONFESSIONS OF A WOULD-BE ACTOR

After playing Joseph in a nativity play at the age of five and a half, -

I can still remember the three lines I had – my theatrical career really took off. I was chosen to be the back end of the pantomime horse in our shool end-of-term Chrismas show. Success there, or rather lack of it – the horse's seams came apart soon after our first entrance – led to my being given the job of stagehand for all future productions. Even scenery falling over in the middle of an Italian light opera and last-minute panic over themissing set for an ancient Greek tragedy failed to persuade our drama teacher that I would be less of a risk on stage than off. (That, in fact, is not strictly true. I did have a walk-on part once in a French bedroom farce – as an apparently dumb police constable – but to everyone's horror I tried to exit with the wrong character at the end of the wrong scene, stage left instead of stage right.)

On leaving school, I joined an amateur dramatic society, full of enthusiasm but rather short on experience, technique and timing. For some years, I was restricted to bit parts in sketches, satirical revues and one or two slapstick comedies. My finest hour came when I had to stand in for a member of the cast who had been taken ill – I was the general male understudy – and take the part of the villain in a Victorian melodrama; lost of overacting and asides to the audience. I had only a very short rehearsal beforehand and I thought my performance was reasonably competent. The producer, however, suggested that I took up some less public hobby, like pottery or rug-making.

Not deterred, I joined a repertory company as stage and costumes manager, also responsible for props and make-up. And I was their prompter as well. During my time with them I wrote a number of scripts, most of wich were rejected, but one of which was accepted and performed. It turned out to be the most terrible flop. I didn't do much acting there – just one part, if I remember rightly, in the chorus of a musical, a revival of West Side Story. Nobody 'discovered' me. What I had aways wanted was to play the hero in something like Romeo and Juliet or to have a leading part in an Oscar Wilde comedy of manners. When I turned fifty, however, I began to accept that it was probably not going to happen.

You can imagine my surprise and delight, then, when some nights ago I learned that I had landed the title role in Shakespeare's classic play Macbeth with the Royal Shakespeare Company. I couldn't believe my luck. Macbeth: that superb monologue before Duncan's murder, the passages with the witches on the heath, that fantastic Tomorrow and tomorrow speech in Act Five, Scene 5. The dress rehearsal, with co-stars Olivier and Glenda Jackson, was a dream. And with the first night to follow – ten curtain calls – bouquets – reviews the next day: "Smash hit!"; "Don't miss it!" " A box office winner!" "Triumph for new Macbeth!" "A Star is …"

And then that horrible ringing sound in my ears…