Shakespeare in Idaho
21st June 2009
Being back on the boards to use a rather corny old expression is great and I am thoroughly enjoying my time here. The part I play- ‘Emilia’-in ‘Comedy of Errors’ is small, but key and quite tricky as she comes on late in the play with a biggish speech, which is Shakespeare philosophizing  about people, quite hard to learn after 25 years away from the stage.
Why do I always leave things I want to do late? I have always had a rather bad habit of doing one thing at a time, so when I was looking after the business, I lost focus on my acting career and in turn the profession lost focus or indeed any awareness of me. Therefore time lost! But never mind the deed is done now and I don’t believe in regrets or looking back, so now it’s a matter of looking for or creating my own opportunities to act.
I certainly find it amazing that I am back in the US, working again in the theatre and in Shakespeare!
We all go through phases in life, some welcome, some not. When I was much younger I went through a rather ghastly phase of mental upheaval with attendant panic attacks, complete lack of confidence and anxiety, which lasted longer than I would have wished. The Doctor I was seeing insisted that I just carry on as normal, instead of giving up and just hiding away as I longed to do. It was the best advice she could have given me and it seems now, rather late, I am reaping the rewards. Still better late than never.
 Relaxing with the family
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I have had some really nice emails from people since starting this site and some have been from old friends and acquaintances, which is wonderful.
A very nice fan sent me some stills from a show I did – ‘Bearcats’ with the actor Rod Taylor in beautiful New Mexico. Actually I think he (the fan) is a bigger fan of the car, the Stutz Bearcat, a lovely classic car, which was pretty much the star of the show and rather alarming to ride around in.
I have always had the opportunity to drive, ride in some interesting vehicles, during the course of my career. I drove a very fast sports car round a sort of race track at Crystal Palace in UFO, that was fun and my own little TR2 in ‘The Night of the Big Heat’. I drove a sort of jeep/tank in ‘Six Million Dollar Man’. I do enjoy action scenes, they can be a quite stimulating.
Never had much head for heights though and I remember Bill Bixby, who was by then a good mate, directing me an episode of his series ‘The Magician’. I had to beckon from the front of a clock face in a tower at the famous Inn where the Nixons were married. (forgotten the name). This tower was about 30 feet tall and there was nothing between me and the ground and not much room between me and the clock face. It nearly ruined a beautiful friendship.
The internet has finally grown up and come into its own as I knew it would and proving itself as a force for good. We would never have known what is really going on in Iran without YouTube, Facebook etc. Even the eloquent pictures from past conflicts, the little girl burned by Napalm in Vietnam, the pictures from Kent State University and that of the student standing against the tanks in Tieneman Square in China, do not tell the story as eloquently as Web has done in Iraq. The Internet will unite the world in a way that no other media has ever been able to do. Hooray!
More soon.
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