I nodded again.
‘I see,’ replied Liz thoughtfully. ‘I’ll call a cab while you go and change.’
It was good advice, and I trotted off to my room, had a quick shower and tried on almost everything in my wardrobe. I put my hair up, then down again, then up once more, muttered ‘too boyish’ at a pair of trousers and slipped into a dress. I selected some earrings that Landen had given me and locked my automatic in the room safe. I just had time to put on a small amount of eyeliner before I was whisked through the streets of Swindon by a taxi-driver, an ex-Marine involved in the retaking of Balaclava in ‘61. We chatted about the Crimea. He didn’t know where Colonel Phelps was going to talk either, but when he found out, he said, he would heckle for all his worth.
The Ritz looked a good deal shabbier. I doubted whether it had been repainted at all since we were last here. The gold-painted plaster mouldings around the stage were dusty and unwashed, the curtain stained with the rainwater that had leaked in. No other play but Richard HI had been performed here for over fifteen years, and the theatre itself had no company to speak of, just a backstage crew and a prompter. All the actors were pulled from an audience who had been to the play so many times they knew it back to front. Casting was usually done only half an hour before curtain-up.
Occasionally seasoned actors and actresses would make guest appearances, although never by advance booking. If they were at a loose end late Friday night, perhaps after their performance at one of Swindon’s three other theatres, they might come along and be selected by the manager as an impromptu treat for audience and cast. Just the week before, a local Richard III had found himself playing opposite Lola Vavoom, currently starring in the musical stage version of Fancy-free in Ludlow at the Swindon Crucible. It had been something of a treat for him; he didn’t need to buy dinner for a month.
Landen was waiting for me outside the theatre. It was five minutes to curtain-up and the actors had already been chosen by the manager, plus one in reserve in case anybody had a bad attack of the nerves and started chucking up in the loo.
‘Thanks for coming,’ said Landen.
‘Yeah,’ I replied, kissing him on the cheek and taking a deep breath of his aftershave. It was Bodmin; I recognised the earthy scent.
‘How was your first day?’ he asked.
‘Kidnappings, vampires, shot dead a suspect, lost a witness to a gunman, Goliath tried to have me killed, puncture on the car. Usual shit.’
‘A puncture? Really?’
‘Not really. I made that bit up. Listen, I’m sorry about yesterday. I think I’m taking my work a bit too seriously.’
‘If you weren’t,’ agreed Landen with an understanding smile, ‘I’d really start worrying. Come on, it’s nearly curtain-up.’
He took my arm in a familiar gesture that I liked and led me inside. The theatregoers were chattering noisily, the brightly coloured costumes of the unchosen actors in the audience giving a gala flavour to the occasion. I felt the electricity in the air and realised how much I had missed it. We found our seats.
‘When was the last time you were here?’ I asked when we were comfortable.
‘With you,’ replied Landen, standing up and applauding wildly as the curtain opened to a wheezing alarum. I did the same.
A compere in a black cloak with red lining swept on to the stage.
‘Welcome, all you Will-loving R3 fans, to the Ritz at Swindon, where tonight (drum roll), for your DELECTATION, for your GRATIFICATION, for your EDIFICATION, for your JOLLIFICATION, for your SHAKESPEARIFICATION, we will perform Will’s Richard III, for the audience, to the audience, BY THE AUDIENCE!’
The crowd cheered and he held up his hands to quieten them.
‘But before we start—! Let’s give a big hand to Ralph and Thea Swanavon who are attending for their two-hundredth time!!’
The crowd applauded wildly as Ralph and Thea walked on. They were dressed as Richard and Lady Anne and bowed and curtsied to the audience, who threw flowers on to the stage.
‘Ralph has played Dick the shit twenty-seven times and Creepy Clarence twelve times; Thea has been Lady Anne thirty-one times and Margaret eight times!’
The audience stamped their feet and whistled.
‘So to commemorate their bicentennial, they will be playing opposite each other for the first time!’
They respectively bowed and curtsied once more as the audience applauded and the curtains closed, jammed, opened slightly and closed again.
There was a moment’s pause and then the curtains reopened, revealing Richard at the side of the stage. He limped up and down the boards, eyeing the audience malevolently past a particularly ugly prosthetic nose.
‘Ham!’ yelled someone at the back.
Richard opened his mouth to speak and the whole audience erupted in unison:
‘ When is the winter of our discontent?’
‘Now,’ replied Richard with a cruel smile, ‘is the winter of our discontent…’
A cheer went up to the chandeliers high in the ceiling. The play had begun. Landen and I cheered with them. Richard III was one of those plays that could repeal the law of diminishing returns; it could be enjoyed over and over again.
‘… made glorious summer by this son of York,’ continued Richard, limping to the side of the stage. On the word ‘summer’ six hundred people placed sunglasses on and looked up at an imaginary sun.
‘… and all the clouds that lower’d upon our house in the deep bosom of the ocean, buried… ’
‘When were our brows bound?’ yelled the audience.
‘Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,’ continued Richard, ignoring them completely. We must have been to this show thirty times and even now I could feel myself mouthing the words with the actor on the stage.
‘… to the lascivious pleasing of a lute… ” continued Richard, saying ‘lute’ loudly as several other members of the audience gave alternative suggestions.
‘Piano!’ shouted out one person near us. ‘Bagpipes!’ said another. Someone at the back, missing the cue entirely, shouted in a high voice ‘Euphonium!’ halfway through the next line and was drowned out when the audience yelled: ‘Pick a card!’ as Richard told them that he ‘was not shaped for sportive tricks…’
Landen looked across at me and smiled. I returned the smile instinctively; I was enjoying myself.
‘I that am rudely stamp’d…’ muttered Richard, as the audience took its cue and stamped the ground with a crash that reverberated around the auditorium.
Landen and I had never wanted to tread the boards ourselves and had never troubled to dress up. The production was the only show at the Ritz; it was empty the rest of the week. Keen amateur thespians and Shakespeare fans would drive from all over the country to participate, and it was never anything but a full house. A few years back a French troupe performed the play in French to rapturous applause; a troupe went to Sauvignon a few months later to repay the gesture.
‘… and that so lamely and unfashionable, that dogs bark at me…’
The audience barked loudly, making a noise like feeding time at the dogs’ home. Outside in the alley several cats new to the vicinity momentarily flinched, while more seasoned moggies looked at each other with a knowing smile.
The play went on, the actors doing sterling work and the audience parrying with quips that ranged from the intelligent to the obscure to the downright vulgar. When Clarence explained that the King was convinced that ‘… by the letter “G” his issue disinherited shall be… ’ the audience yelled out:
‘Gloucester begins with G, dummy!’