Delighted to welcome ‘National Treasure Whisperer’ (!) Actor, Director & Author Brendan O’Hea to the Good Listening To Show ‘Clearing’. Brendan and I were at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School together way-back-when.
Encounter the magical world of theatre as we journey alongside Brendan O’Hea, author of the beautifully curated book "Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays The Rent", co-written with his great friend of 30 years, Dame Judi Dench.
A book lovingly curated & co-written over the last 4 years of conversations which all started at beginning of the Pandemic, with his great friend of 30 years, Dame Judi Dench. Written as a 'love letter to Shakespeare' to celebrate her 70 years of Shakesepare and all the parts that she has played.
From the extraordinary tales embedded within its pages to the intriguing process of its creation, this episode promises to engage, inspire, and fascinate. The conversation takes a deep dive into Brendan & Judi Dench's creative process, the necessity of taking mental breaks, the phenomenon of muscle memory in Shakespearean actors, and the profound power of metaphors.
Not only do we delve into the mechanics of theatre but we also explore its transformative influence. Brendan highlights the commendable work of "Scene and Heard", a London-based theatre company that champions children’s creativity. We discuss the role of theatre in education, how it nurtures empathy, and the impact it has in shaping a decent civilization. The conversation also covers the importance of acknowledging the unsung heroes of a theatrical production and the value of collective efforts in a successful production.
But the show's not over yet! Stick around as we navigate through Brendan's unconventional stint as a ‘Fishy Santa’ (!) at Hamleys, revealing the unexpected opportunities life throws at us. We also dissect the fine details that go into directing plays and the parallels drawn with parenting, cultivating an environment wherein creativity thrives. Lastly, for those grappling with the pressure of early careers, we also touch upon overcoming limitations, embracing failure, and transforming it into a stepping stone towards success. So sit back, tune in, and prepare to be transported into an enchanting world of theatre, creativity and the timeless works of Shakespeare in the extraordinarily good company of Brendan O’Hea.
Tune in next week for more stories of 'Distinction & Genius' from The Good Listening To Show 'Clearing'. If you would like to be my Guest too then you can find out HOW via the different 'series strands' at 'The Good Listening To Show' website.
Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW wherever you get your Podcasts :)
Thanks for listening!
Delighted to welcome ‘National Treasure Whisperer’ (!) Actor, Director & Author Brendan O’Hea to the Good Listening To Show ‘Clearing’. Brendan and I were at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School together way-back-when.
Encounter the magical world of theatre as we journey alongside Brendan O’Hea, author of the beautifully curated book "Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays The Rent", co-written with his great friend of 30 years, Dame Judi Dench.
A book lovingly curated & co-written over the last 4 years of conversations which all started at beginning of the Pandemic, with his great friend of 30 years, Dame Judi Dench. Written as a 'love letter to Shakespeare' to celebrate her 70 years of Shakesepare and all the parts that she has played.
From the extraordinary tales embedded within its pages to the intriguing process of its creation, this episode promises to engage, inspire, and fascinate. The conversation takes a deep dive into Brendan & Judi Dench's creative process, the necessity of taking mental breaks, the phenomenon of muscle memory in Shakespearean actors, and the profound power of metaphors.
Not only do we delve into the mechanics of theatre but we also explore its transformative influence. Brendan highlights the commendable work of "Scene and Heard", a London-based theatre company that champions children’s creativity. We discuss the role of theatre in education, how it nurtures empathy, and the impact it has in shaping a decent civilization. The conversation also covers the importance of acknowledging the unsung heroes of a theatrical production and the value of collective efforts in a successful production.
But the show's not over yet! Stick around as we navigate through Brendan's unconventional stint as a ‘Fishy Santa’ (!) at Hamleys, revealing the unexpected opportunities life throws at us. We also dissect the fine details that go into directing plays and the parallels drawn with parenting, cultivating an environment wherein creativity thrives. Lastly, for those grappling with the pressure of early careers, we also touch upon overcoming limitations, embracing failure, and transforming it into a stepping stone towards success. So sit back, tune in, and prepare to be transported into an enchanting world of theatre, creativity and the timeless works of Shakespeare in the extraordinarily good company of Brendan O’Hea.
Tune in next week for more stories of 'Distinction & Genius' from The Good Listening To Show 'Clearing'. If you would like to be my Guest too then you can find out HOW via the different 'series strands' at 'The Good Listening To Show' website.
Don't forget to SUBSCRIBE & REVIEW wherever you get your Podcasts :)
Thanks for listening!
Welcome to another episode of the Good Listening To Show your life and times with me, chris Grimes, the storytelling show that features the clearing, where all good questions come to get asked and all good stories come to be told, and where all my guests have two things in common they're all creative individuals and all with an interesting story to tell. There are some lovely storytelling metaphors a clearing, a tree, a juicy storytelling exercise called 5-4-3-2-1, some alchemy, some gold, a cheeky bit of Shakespeare and a cake. So it's all to play for. So, yes, welcome to the Good Listening To Show your life and times with me, chris Grimes. Are you sitting comfortably here? Then we shall begin. Oh, yes, indeed.
Speaker 1:Welcome to a very, very exciting Good Books series strand episode of the Good Listening To Show Stories of Distinction and Genius. It's the show in which I invite movers, makers, shakers, mavericks, influencers and also personal heroes into a clearing or serious happy place of their choosing to all share with us their stories of distinction and genius. And I'm absolutely thrilled and delighted to have a friend of old here, not trying to call us both old, but this is the lovely Mr Brendan O'Hay, who is a national treasure whisperer because he has lovingly curated over the last four years, the most gorgeous book, and I went to see him and Dame Judy Dench talking about it at the Hippodrome just a few weeks ago and I have to say what a wonderful, warm, evocation love letter to Shakespeare it was and how brilliantly I thought you curated that event. So Brendan O'Hay or O'Hay, it's Brendan welcome. Thank you very much, yes, so how's Mara? What's your story of the day, lovely man? My story of the day.
Speaker 2:Oh, my God, what's my story of the day? Well, we're still in the kind of storm of the eye, of the storm, of publicising the book, so it's just coming into land all of that. So, yeah, I've got a few more interviews tomorrow, do it on the Zoe Ball show and things like that, so it's just prepping for all of that, and then we've got a bit of a lull and then it launches in America next year where it all kicks off again.
Speaker 1:Wonderful, so that will take you across the Atlantic to talk about it some more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, hopefully well. Yes, they want us to go over there, so that would be exciting as well.
Speaker 1:So here it is, and, by the way, thank you, for the lovely touch is that every ticket comes as a free book when you come and see you talk about it, which is just so unexpected actually.
Speaker 2:Well, I think so I mean, I thought the tickets were quite highly priced, but I probably shouldn't say that, but it did get you right. It did include the book, but we've stopped that leg of the tour now, so we did five dates, which did incredibly well, and yeah, so it's yeah, and you're right, you get a kind of free book with it, so a captive audience. You know you're forced to have a copy.
Speaker 1:Yes, and, as I said, it was lovingly curated because you were lucky enough, by the sound of it, to have four glorious years together where you just did it as a slow osmosis and it started out as being something for the Globe Theatre. So you can tell us the story behind the story of the book.
Speaker 2:Well, that's right, it was. I mean, I think that's going to be my life really where I kind of I mean we'll get on to all of this. But I don't really I've never had any ambition and when I have, it's kind of gone a little pear-shaped. But I think maybe somebody clever like Mark Twain said there are two types of people one person who kind of you know, you think of a wonderful river and you think you are either going to see where I've got to swim to against the current, I've got to get to that place over there and there. So those those kind of people who get into the water that way. Or there are other people who just get into the water and just sees where it, where it takes them and you may get caught up in the eddies, or you may get, you may get transported to some wonderful place you could never imagine. And that's kind of been my career really.
Speaker 2:I think, as I said in the introduction, never set out to write a book. It was. It was pre-COVID idea, because almost exclusively I've been working for Shakespeare's Globe since 2012 and and it was about 2016-2017 I thought I wonder if maybe I should just start interviewing June, because she's a mate of old I've known for 30 years. Just talk about all the Shakespeare part she's played since 1957 and so I thought that that might be a good idea. So I just started to dip my toe in the water. And then, of course, what happened? In lockdown? We then had a much more time to be together and to do a lot more kind of deep diving into into, obviously, her career and these plays and both of us I've never not said this publicly before and neither of us have, but she, she's I mean she said that she said this in the Louis Theroux show, so it is out there. She's not very good at being by herself, she has to have company around her. And also, my father was seriously ill at the time, eventually died. It caught COVID and but he had lots of ailments.
Speaker 2:So these these interviews then became a kind of an oasis for us in order to kind of escape the kind of horrors of what was happening obviously globally with the pandemic, but obviously the kind of the private darkness that we were both going through as well. So it was out of that, shakespeare kind of became the light really and and that's how the book formed. But as I said in the intro it was never going to be a book, it was just about these interviews, and then it just started to formulate into a book. I see the intro. That which is true. One of her grandson sons was down there and he was listening to us in the other room. Great, why? Why I all I hear is laugh, laughter and bickering and arguing and you're passionate about something, and it was. It was in that moment that, well, maybe this could have a wider appeal. The other reason why I knew I couldn't hand over these, these tapes to the globe was because, I mean, generally there is so much swearing from her eyes, not from me.
Speaker 1:I've cut 90% of the swearing out that there's such joy of the mischief and the shenanigans which the book uses the word shenanigans a lot, yeah, and I love the fact that you know when any parcels arrive. The packaging has to be fashioned into a hat. There's swearing as well, there's shenanigans, but also what's lovely about it, the sort of existential nature of the fact that it's seven ages of man stroke woman of itself, because it's a testimony of seven decades in the theatre suffused with Shakespeare. So it's a wonderful tone of work in any case.
Speaker 2:Well, well, that's right, I think as well. I mean, I'll get, maybe get into this a bit later, but how important metaphor is and I think what's been interesting. I mean this is why I love your, your podcast, chris is because because I knew I was coming on to it and I thought I'd better listen to a few, and of course I've listened to probably about a dozen now and it's just, it's just an oasis of kindness. It really is, and I love its positivity. But what I like about it it's the metaphor helps people to to kind of go a little bit deeper.
Speaker 2:Not that you probably get much of that from me, because I'm not as sophisticated as all your other guests, but but but and that's of course what what Shakespeare does in his plays. He, for instance, shakespeare, never wrote a play. Arguably he the merry-wides is the only contemporary play that he wrote which where he was, but even that is set in in middle England and it's a yeah, it's not really, but he never talked about, for instance, he never did city comedies like his contemporaries did. So all his plays are either set in a far off land or they are set in. There is a distance by place or by time, and what then he is able to do, that is, talk about the politics of the time without kind of being the target of the, obviously, the Puritans, the authorities, and that's something that Bruno Betelheim, the child psychologist, says is you know, there's a reason that that fairy tales, what we're starting, once upon a time, in a far off land, a long, long time ago, you distance the child time, time, wise and spatially, and then they were able to investigate, through metaphor, sibling rivalry or the Oedipus complex and all those kind of dark themes that those kind of fairy tales explore. And I think that's what you've nailed with this, really, because it's a metaphor yes, it's about tree and all that, but you.
Speaker 2:I think it allows people to reveal more about themselves than they perhaps anticipated, and I would say this is why this book, I think, is quite interesting. It's we didn't know what Penguin didn't know where to place it. Is it Shakespeare? Is it theater? Is it memoir? I think it's memoir because through talking about Shakespeare, through talking about these extraordinary Shakespearean women, I think Jude Denchers has revealed more about herself than than she has in, certainly, any other biographies that have ever been written about her, because the focus is not on her, and yet it is on her, but it's through metaphor that she's able to reveal herself yes, there's a lovely sequence about her process and the fact that she's never able to sit with a script and always, always, needs to be doing something distracting, or, as we as actors know, it's called the side activity doing everything else but studying the play and then trusting her machine, as she described.
Speaker 1:You know her instincts to be doing all of the sort of adjustments that are required to get the part nailed. I think well that's right.
Speaker 2:Well, now I'm see God, you, I've read it have new bloody air. Now I feel as though I'm going to be under the couch.
Speaker 2:I've no, but you're at you're, you're, you're, you're absolutely right. My partner, he's a theater designer called student brimson Lewis and he works some where he's worked all over the world. He's worked, I don't know, about 30 productions for the, for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National, or anyway. He's very successful theater designer. But he says something similar, which is you know, he has to go away and not think about designing. In order to design and I suppose there are lots of artists like I myself I have to fill the copies with, with notes and do lots of research. That that's that.
Speaker 1:That is the way I've been doing it for the last 30 years and that's more of a job of a director in any case, because obviously you've got to go, because your own directing credits are incredibly impressive of the canon of Shakespeare that you've done. I know these parents.
Speaker 2:12th night Pericles, tango the shoe yes, no, no, I have, I have. I have done a little bit. I mean I'm doing a bit more now. That that's where I'm taking it. But you're right, her process is because, compared to her husband it's in that same passage in the book Michael Williams he would sit there with the script kind of pouring over it, but she just couldn't. She just gets distracted. Interesting enough I don't know if you noticed I had a friend. We did our little show in the Swan Theatre. We finished at the Swan Theatre a week last Sunday and just before Duke did I left no ring with her the Viola speech from 12th night.
Speaker 2:My friend was saying it's fascinating about. I said, would you mind doing this speech? And she just started to fiddle with her clothes and and kind of correcting things and then she just went into it and my friend said I couldn't believe how she went from fiddling her clothes just. But I said, but that's what those tennis players do, don't they? They've got those little tells. It's let's focus on something kind of minor and then it just maybe it just allows instinct, you access the kind of is it interesting, extraordinary muscle memory evocation.
Speaker 1:It's very, it's. It is wonderful to watch. I know, I remember that sequence and it's wonderful how she's completely captivating whenever she suddenly bursts into the Shakespeare which is, you know, the testament to the, the seven decades of immersion, well, well that's right.
Speaker 2:That's right. You just have to be confident about that. But I remember when we did a little light music together and that's when we first met at the National Theatre 30 years ago, and we'd be sitting, there was a flowery bed in the wings, that she was about to be wheeled on and she with it to descend the clowns, and she'd been laughing and joking. We'd be practicing our stage sneeze and she'd be telling funny stories and and it was interesting, oh great. And then what would happen is she would just kind of, without kind of trying to collect herself, she would just cross into on through through the wings, onto the stage. She'd cross that line and you'd kind of go oh my god, there's Desiree Armfelt, did you think? How? How was that? So there was no.
Speaker 2:Of course, lots of other actors, as we both know. They will need to be there three hours before hand getting into the character, but it is if she needs to distract herself and she just trusts that it will arrive, and I think that's what makes her acting such a high-wile act and so spontaneous. But then each to their own. There's no right way of doing it. That just has to be her way of doing it.
Speaker 1:But she's, yeah, she's, she's got something so it's my great joy to be able to curate you through this journey. Much as you've lovingly curated the book for the last four years, I've been lovingly curating this for the last three years and I'm delighted you're here. So there's going to be a clearing a tree, a lovely juicy storytelling exercise called five, four, three, two, one. There's going to be some alchemy, some gold, a couple of random squirrels, a cheeky bit of Shakespeare, a golden baton and a cake. So it's all to play for. And thank you for saying that you've enjoyed tuning into the metaphor. So let's, let's get into the Brenda know, hey. Metaphors. So where is what is a clearing for you, brendan? Where do you go? What you know? Where is your serious happy place? Where do you go to get clutter free, inspirational and able to think Well?
Speaker 2:I thought about this. I was in my imagination. If I can't get a journey, these places I go to, I can picture it so clearly in my head. There's a place where I grew up in South Wales and there were mountains behind the house and there's a. I just can go there to this place where the stream is coming down the mountains. It's a very, very cold stream and there's a carpet of bluebells that have just come out and if I put my hands in the water it's just icy and clear and there are tadpoles. It must be spring if there are bluebells around.
Speaker 2:But I can just the Ivor Kay, I can evoke it so clearly so I can go to that place. Or that place comes to me sometimes and especially if I'm a little down that I can go there. But the tangible place, because I live in Burmese in Southwark. My partner lives in Stratford, so if it's a physical place I need to go to, I need to kind of see the river so I can walk to the Thames in three minutes. Where I am now here in Burmese, or in Stratford, I can hit the Avan and go for lovely walks along the countryside there and just by chance it just happens that of course, shakespeare was born in Stratford, died in Stratford, and it also just so happens that he worked in Southwark, so and I love the connection to him through these two places.
Speaker 1:You've given us a right old round, all there the round. Almost that's a theatre in the round. Almost you've given us everything but water is the real lovely throughline in that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I suppose it is, and do you know? Yeah, I can't swim very well. I'm a terrible swimmer. Awful, I know. That's how I'll drown. I'll either get punched in the eye by somebody or by an actor who just can't bear my direction. Oh, I will probably drown.
Speaker 1:But yeah, that's interesting I never thought about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, water Maybe.
Speaker 1:I was very blown. I was very enticed by the bluebells and the sense of the valleys and the Welsh countryside really appealed. But then so did Southern and so did Avan. So I'm confused now. But we need to be near bluebells and we need to be plunging our hands into water so you can decide. Where would you like me to appear with my tree?
Speaker 2:Let's go, let's go to the bluebells, because that's, that's my childhood and that's where my, that's where my heart is, I suppose, yeah, in those woods.
Speaker 1:Boom. I'm now going to arrive. A bit waiting for Godot esque, deliberately, existentially with the tree, now to shake your tree to see which storytelling apples fall out. How'd you like these apples? Excuse the occasional comedy prop. So this is where you've now been kind enough to have thought about. We'll get onto your book much more overtly as well later on, but if that comes through at this point, that's really fine too. This is where you've had five minutes to have thought about four things that have shaped you, three things that inspire you, two things that never fail to grab your attention. Borrow from the film up. That's where, oh squirrels, you know what never fails to grab your attention, irrespective of anything else that's going on for you. That could be where some of Dame Judy's shenanigans comes in. And then the one is a quirky, unusual fact about you, brendan. Hey, we couldn't possibly know about you until you tell us. So over to you to interpret the shaking of your canopy.
Speaker 2:Oh God, I do. I went through the houses with this, it's, it's. Yeah, I find this so tricky. I'm also trying to resist talking about shakes, but all the reference but I realized that so many of these references will be will be connected to Shakespeare. The first one I had a wonderful English teacher, as did so many of us, and called James O'Sullivan, and he, he just spotted me one day.
Speaker 2:I was reading the spectacles out loud in the class and he said I should audition for the National Youth Theatre. I did, I got in and that completely opened a whole new world to me and I met the great, legendary founder of National Youth Theatre called Michael Croft. And Michael was, while all the other people were doing all the very exciting stuff like the new plays and the yeah, the big, the big kind of stadium pieces, he just wanted me to focus on the Shakespeare. So I was always in his kind of workshop Shakespeare productions and the last thing I did with him was playing chorus and Harry the Fifth at Regents Park and sadly, shortly after that he died in his mid sixties. But he was a huge influence on me and what was extraordinary about that was, well, I'd always been told that Shakespeare was boring and and of course, the moment I hear somebody say you're not going to enjoy that, I'm then going to be determined to actually enjoy it. And I was told that Shakespeare would be boring.
Speaker 2:But there was a moment in the short theatre where they were doing the production of Othello, with High Cake Azeem and Lloyd Owen playing Iago, high Cake Azeem playing Othello. It was an extraordinary production by Ed Wilson and there was a person named Nicole Jackie Phillips who was playing Amelia and of course I love the production. But the moment she came on and she started speaking, it was just to my kind of 16 year old self she, just I, and she was about 16 or 17 at the time. She just made Shakespeare come alive. For me there's something about seeing another youngster transmitting Shakespeare to me who obviously young at the time, and just this kind of pilot light went on and and and it completely kind of transformed my, my, my life really and certainly introduced me to my my life long love of Shakespeare.
Speaker 1:I love that the pilot light came on. That's so lovely.
Speaker 2:Well, but it does for and it doesn't. It doesn't for everyone. And I know I said this, I think I wouldn't. I mean so that once before, when you, when you come to see us at the Bristol Aberdeen drum. But I think in everything I do, whether I direct, or I teach, or I or or I act, and now with this book, it's just about making that in a child and it could be, you know, somebody's in their sixties, but that in a child, in that, but if I can make, if I can make a youngster feel the power of these words, and and then then you know, jude and I have achieved something in this book, but I do it as acting, I just kind of go, I just got to go. You owe it to that person out there to try and tell the truth or to try and be as sincere as possible. But yeah, so that that was a huge, a huge moment for me and I stayed with the youth theatre for five or six years and then I haven't for a few years now because other things have taken over the globe work, but I I used to do a lot of the additions for the National Youth Theatre. So it's lovely and I've directed a few things for them. So it was lovely to be reunited with that, with that glorious company.
Speaker 2:And you know something else that that company taught me, chris, which was I used to dread additional these kids, because of course I want to put all of them through, because they come in with that kind of apple-cheeked optimism. And then somebody said one day a no can be a positive, and that for me was an extraordinary thing to say. Well, what do you think? Sometimes, when a door closes shut, doesn't it? It can offer another opportunity, or it forces you to think, to re-evaluate everything. So that was because I was prepared to put all these kids through, regardless of the kind of standard. So a no can be a positive. I thought that was pretty, pretty wonderful, but I love that organisation and, ultimately, it's not really about learning.
Speaker 2:It's not about learning about Shakespeare. It's learning about how to work as a group and that's why I was going to fight to have companies like that. My God, they need their funding. So many people do. So many organisations for young people do.
Speaker 1:I'm observing you. Your passion is just oozing out for it. You'll talk about being in the right place at the right time with your pilot light still lit. I commend you for your pilot light. It's just lovely to watch.
Speaker 2:Oh well, thank you. And then the other one then is. My second one would be I always wanted to be a teacher. I thought, well, my sister's a teacher and I think teachers are extraordinary and I also wanted to be a teacher. So I went, I applied for five universities and not one of them wanted me. They said you will not get the grades. And that was a real smack in the face. And it was just by chance. I happened to go out with this girl at the time and she said why don't you audition for drama school? And then I got into Bristol of the theatre school, so it was just by default. My intention was never to become an actor. This is what I mean about you know, I've got no ambition to what my ambition was to be a teacher, to swim across the river, but no that that was closed off from me.
Speaker 1:And then so, a sort of test of your metal, of no being an opportunity, no being a positive. Well, that's right. I have five notes to him. Yes, at the Old Vic Theatre School. Well, well, that's right.
Speaker 2:And then that completely changed my life. Because failure is important. It's something that Jude says in the book about. You know, how does a baby learn balance unless it falls over? We have to make mistakes and we mustn't be afraid of failing at things. And that brilliant Mandela quote which I'm paraphrasing, forgive me, but it's don't judge me on my triumphs, judge me on my failures and how I get up again. You know, it's how you recover from failure and where you're, where you're led by that failure. So you can either kind of galvanize you to think you know, I'm going to prove that by the wrong or it can shift you in a completely different direction.
Speaker 2:Again, as Jude says in the book, she went to see the King Lear production. She was determined to be she, that be, she wanted to be a theatre designer. She saw this extraordinary production of King Lear in 53, with Michael Red River, the RSC, and she thought the design was so sublime she'd never be able to get near it. And it was just by chance then that she said, well, maybe I should try acting. So her trajectory took a completely different path.
Speaker 1:And that's so sort of anathema to us. Now the idea of Judy Denson. Maybe I'll try acting. I mean, that's so well exactly.
Speaker 2:Exactly so embrace the failure. This is why I keep on telling these students you have to, you have to make mistakes, and if you can't fail and you can't take risks in a rehearsal room, then what the hell hope is there? You've got to. This will banish this idea of getting it right and all of that. There's no right. Of course there's right in sport, because you know you're either a winner you're either beat somebody else in a race, or you throw the javelin further, or you don't. But in art there's no. I think that's why these nonsense about best actor awards ridiculous. It's like comparing an apple to a banana. Well, it's all a matter of taste. You can't say one actor is better than another. It's all nonsense.
Speaker 1:You made me think the expression fail gloriously as well, the idea of embracing failure.
Speaker 2:Well, well, exactly, and one of your other contributors said, quote to the beckett, quote was the use the beckett, which is fail, fail again, fail better, which is a which is a fantastic Bless you for doing your research as well.
Speaker 1:Actually, thank you, I'm really grateful.
Speaker 2:Well, I researched one and then I got completely hooked on the series, chris, so I'm going to work my way through. Now I God knows 100 plus. I honestly I've been recommended to people. I think in these dark times, my God, do we need some positivity and you kind of bring it out of your guests? Well, you maybe just choose the right people. Or myself accepted, but yeah yeah, but it's a wonderfully positive life affirming piece of podcasting.
Speaker 2:I love it. I love it. I've been listening to three a day, and that's not just because of this. Well, listen to one, yeah, then I'll get the lion a land.
Speaker 1:But that's a lovely expression Go the extra mile. It won't be very crowded when you get there. So thank you for that. That's nice.
Speaker 2:The other thing was, and then my third one was I was in casualty. I was a regular casualty for 10 episodes, living in Bristol with Rudy Shelley, our mutual friend from the Bristol of Indian schools, our teacher, living in his house. Well, for six months I was in casualty and kind of not really a particularly good time filming it. I was a paramedic on it and, by the time, great friends, which is really really nice. And they wanted me to sign on for another six months or another year and a half and they were going to double the pay and that was all good. I thought, yeah, I'll get a flat and I'm my new agent at the time said, just why don't you go in addition for Ipsons ghosts in Cardiff at the Sherman Theater? I don't want to, I don't want to do casually and earn some money and try and buy a flat. And they said, no, no, we think you should. There's a you know youngest director there called Sean Mathias and it's the, it's the Sherman Theater. I went, please, I really don't, I just go please. But because they were new agent, I went, met them, met Sean Phillips who's playing Mrs Alving, really liked her, adored Sean Mathias, the director, and I came back and I said to them I said I really like them, but I want to stay with casualty, I want to do it. And they said, just sleep on it. And I thought, no, I'm not, I'm not going to do, I don't want to go to Cardiff, I don't.
Speaker 2:Anyway, along the short was, I woke up the following morning and I thought, god, I've got to please this agent and I wish I didn't have to and I wanted to stay where the money was. But I made the decision, against all my instincts, and I went to Cardiff and I did Ibsen's Ghosts. Out of that I met Sean Phillips, who became a lifelong friend. I met my partner, stephen, who designed it. I met Sean Mathias, who over the years has given me some extraordinary opportunities. What we did, extraordinary director, I adore him, fellow Welshman. And we did obviously little light music, where I met Judy at the National, and I also did talking to you, waiting for Godotry. I took over from Ronnie Pickup in Wait for Godot and toured the Southern Hemisphere, australia, new Zealand and South Africa with the Emma Kellan and Matthew Kelly and Roger East, and that was a phenomenal experience as well. So, again, against all my instincts, I took that job on my wife, my wife, my life took a completely different kind of trajectory.
Speaker 1:And remember that notion of what's meant for you won't pass you by. That's an incredibly profound realization of that, because everyone was saying sleep on it, wake up, smell the coffee, do something different. So that's right.
Speaker 2:That's right, but it was against my instinct, chris. I didn't want to do it, so, anything, we're meant to trust our instincts, and had I trust my instinct, I'd probably have a nice flat now living in Bristol somewhere, I don't know. I wouldn't be in the series, but it's actually doing cash for me, but it's just yet. It opened a whole new world to me. And also, sean shifted my thinking in terms of acting as well. He's an extraordinary director.
Speaker 1:There's also a notion of sometimes in life there are windows of opportunity that are an extraordinarily lubricated hinge and you don't know it till you go. Oh, and push Well that's right.
Speaker 2:Well, I think that's it. I don't mean you, as in other people think they know what they're doing. I think that I know what I want, but I don't know what I want, and that's why I mean I trust this kind of river metaphor even more going. Well, let's just see what happens, let's see what doors open it's going to be out.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, the Raven touches both Stratford and Bristol, please. So that's a good thing. Well, that's right.
Speaker 2:Well, that's right, I might as well write River.
Speaker 1:Brenda, no, hey we are.
Speaker 2:We're united by water. We are, of course. And then the fourth one was, against my instinct, my agent wanted me to go an edition of Shakespeare's Globe in 2012. And I said, well, do you know it's like, isn't it like a Disney place? I had very strong opinions of it. I think it was kind of, you know, pretty naff and it's just a tourist attraction. Very strong opinions, having never stepped inside the building or seen a production there, but very, very kind of strong, yeah. And I went and I auditioned and I doored John Lee Dromgoole.
Speaker 2:I do, I love him, I love him and and he offered me the part and I thought that it was Flo Well in Henry the Fifth, which at the moment is on BBC iPlayer Nothing you need to watch it, but I did it. And, of course, I fell in love with not not just the building and the architecture and all of that it's and that relationship to the audience, it's just the, it's the democracy there. I mean, unlike, dare I say it I won't mention it, but unlike other major theatres I've played in, where the fourth floor of the management is always completely different. It's very far away from where the actors are. The actors dressing rooms at the globe. There's four of them and you can walk across through the green room into the office and that divide, the fact that there's no division, the democracy of that backstage I absolutely love, and also it's a big kind of circularity, that big kind of warm, democratic embrace of that space.
Speaker 1:It's a theatre in a round, personified and actualised, isn't it?
Speaker 2:It really is. There are four dressing rooms earth, wind, fire and water and that I think might have come either from Sam Wanamika, who was the one who tried to put it all together but sadly died just before it was realised but he knew it was well on its way and then obviously Mark Rylance, who was the first artistic director. So it was either Sam Wanamika's idea or Mark Rylance's idea. It took the four dressing rooms and everybody shared, so you could be playing the stonking great leading part in something. You'd be playing Hamlet, but you'd be sitting next to the person playing Marcellus. So it was very hard then to go on stage and feel that you're any more important than anybody else. Not that you want to be like that anyway. So there was no kind of hierarchy with number one dressing rooms. So it's one of the most democratic spaces I've ever ever played.
Speaker 1:But also backstage. A profound testament to the nature of ensemble, therefore, as well.
Speaker 2:Totally, I mean absolutely, totally. I can't bear all that high, and that's why Jude is extraordinary and she generally doesn't understand it. As you notice, which was really annoying, the scene of getting frustrated when we were doing those interviews with Abertron. People have come to hear you talk. I mean she generally believes that half those seats were sold because they couldn't wait to hear what Brenda had to say, but she believes that that's not self-facing.
Speaker 1:There's a very charming bit of sort of ping-pong and twing and froing that happens in that regard, because she is so playful and mischievous and, as you say, the word shenanigans comes up a lot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she's so annoying. But out to my experience of the globe. Then I met some wonderful directors. I've made some wonderful friends. The experience of being there for 10 years afforded me to do a lot of teaching there with the Higher Education Department, which I'm passionate about.
Speaker 1:They're extraordinary department, it's even on your Zoom profile title. Today you are globe Higher Education.
Speaker 2:But do you know, I don't know how to get rid of that. I've had that for about eight years and if, after this part, you tell me how to get rid of it, because it's just I don't.
Speaker 1:I think it's part of your DNA now, because, although you resisted it, isn't it Disneyland? And then here you are in Wonderland. That's great.
Speaker 2:Well, that's it. And then, having wanted to be a teacher, not been able to be a teacher, and then, lo and behold, I'm back, not just with the globe, I teach all over the place, but it's lovely to be back there. But then I was doing a lot of new plays there and also my time there. I did a touring production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, where we went to China and we went to Russia and Taiwan, hong Kong, and that was an extraordinary experience for six months. I mean, it was just, yeah, just mind blowing.
Speaker 2:And then I did only did one thing with when Emma Rice was running it, which was I was in the production of Midsummer Night not Midsummer Night and Anthony Cleopatra we took to the Hollywood Bowl of all places. We played with the LA Philharmonic out there, and then when Michelle took over there because I just wanted to give up acting at that point I'd had enough of dressing up and I then was directing more, and Michelle then gave me these extraordinary experiences to direct the international touring productions. So I did that for four years, which another plays.
Speaker 2:I directed other plays there as well, so she kind of fun. Yeah again, the opportunities that place has given me from so many different levels. It's extraordinary. It's a very kind building.
Speaker 1:So, in terms of the curated structure, I believe that's the four shapeages. Now we're on to three things that inspire you, Brenda. No, hey, oh.
Speaker 2:God. Well, I was just. Do you know what? I haven't seen this company for several years and I thought what do you must know about? Seen and heard Chris in Somers-Town in London? No, why should you? You're Bristol based and I have, to my shame, I've not been there for several years. Seen and heard. Based in Somers-Town. They were started by oh God, I can't even remember the founder's name, but I know one of them is Corkay, who was married to my good friend Paul Gieve Chihidi. But they started this place in a quite deprived part of London between Kings Cross and Camden, and it's an extraordinary thing that goes on there.
Speaker 2:What they do is they get professional actors to come in and writers who help and directors to help these kids with their plays. Now, these youngsters will write a play and it will be performed in front of an audience and they'll get professional actors to do it and they tend to be two or three handers, so quite small plays in terms of the size of the cast. And what's interesting is and this is why I think it might relate to your podcast and this thing about metaphor is they won't say to the child you know, talk about what happens in your home life, because you know you don't go there in that kind of way. So they'll say, let's let it'll be a paintbrush having a discussion with a frozen pea, for instance. So you'll get two very good actors turning up rehearsing a play and there'll be some, and one after playing a paintbrush and one after playing a frozen pea, and then they will have an argument about something. And you don't need to do too deep to know that what that discussion or argument is about in relation to the child's life. But it just allows these children to kind of free their imaginations and to put on these plays.
Speaker 2:And what is utterly charming at the end of this kind of 15, 10, 15 minute play is that the actors will take a bow. But then the young writer, nine, 10 years old, will come down the steps and they will take the bow. And it's just seeing this child's face kind of light up, hearing the applause for their work is just something that will just make your heart dance. It's just extraordinary how you give these youngsters a voice through theatre, through writing and again through metaphor. They're able to maybe talk about something a little bit deeper through these kind of auxiliary stories and they are an extraordinary company. They are really, if ever you're in London you ever catch this Goat and Seagings plays, I urge you to go. They're really, really, really good, really good, and they continue the programming as well and they support these youngsters and they follow them and cherish them and nurture them. It's a very, very supportive organisation.
Speaker 2:But the reason I use that and, as I said, to my shame I haven't been there for a couple of years is that there are companies like this throughout the land and they're fighting for funding and it just shows the transformative power of theatre, which is, and also when these bloody governments are going on about we've got to get these kids just to talk about arithmetic and they've got to talk about grammar and you think there are other ways of educating children through theatre. My sister is going through it as a music teacher the lack of funding in schools, the lack of funding for sports in state schools. But that's how we develop as citizens to work as a team, to understand each other, to empathise. It's through art and through sports and we can't, you know, we, cut this funding at our cost. We really really do.
Speaker 1:And I'm very struck with the through line of the young 10-year-old in the scene and herd coming forward and then there's an opportunity for their light to be pilot lit. Because of illumination they give best, trying to play it forward and give back what you experienced back in the day and that still is so important to create the birth of creativity almost.
Speaker 2:Well, that's right. And also, you know these directors and actors, they don't get paid for it, they turn up and they're all volunteers and they do it because they believe in giving these getting a platform, so these youngsters get a voice. I mean, it's just extraordinary. As I say, that's an example of things that are throughout the country. You know there'll be lots of, no doubt there'll be companies in Bristol doing that as well. They're the kind of backbone and the bone of, you know, of creating, I think, a kind of decent civilisation. It's just sad that they have to keep on fighting for funding and schools have to keep on fighting for funding and I just, yeah, anyway, I know this is not meant to be a political programme, but yeah, we have to put money into the arts. We have to. They are not soft subjects. They have transformative effect on children, they transform lives. End of lecture.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I'm being very, no, very eloquently put indeed. So now another inspiration.
Speaker 2:Oh God, well, I mean, I suppose I mean it's all right for me because, as I said, I love teaching, but it's nice to kind of go in and do a couple of weeks, or I do these kind of day workshops and that's all good, and you know, I can dazzle and show off and I'm the new person there, that's all good, and I do my act and say the same jokes and they all go oh, I'm you absolutely marvellous, or I pay to the arts, depending what they think. But you know my.
Speaker 1:That's going to get onto legacy and I'd like to be remembered.
Speaker 2:Oh, he's absolutely marvellous, but a pain in the arse, oh yeah, but you know it's easy to kind of drop in and be there, yeah, the kind of novelty act. So the second people I suppose are the thing that inspire me are just full-time teachers and not just my sister. You know people who've been dedicated their lives to it, not for a huge amount of money.
Speaker 1:And you mentioned your English teacher from the get go, which led you to David Crawford. I remember that, so your English teacher was your first, yeah of A lifetime.
Speaker 2:You know, transformed lives. But it's just, it's as a vocation that they can do it for all these years. And now, with the pressures of you know, kind of marking and writing up reports and the bureaucracy, and you know, so many of my friends are teachers. They're spending so little time in the classroom now because it's all the stuff that's around it. So, yeah, it's just teachers.
Speaker 1:I know you mentioned Rudy Shelley Ray on talking about teaching. He was just one of the most extraordinary human beings I've ever met, actually the Eastern European mystic teacher with us.
Speaker 2:Oh God, Chris, Listen, that could be a whole podcast about Rudy Shelley.
Speaker 1:We'll come back and we'll talk about Rudy Shelley and the oh, can we?
Speaker 2:can we please? I mean extraordinary human being and I, as I said earlier, I lived in his house for two years. After the first year he said you seem like a bit of a loner, would you like to have my flat above his house? Well, and yeah, he's thought of me. I was a loner and I am probably a loner and he, yeah. So I lived in his flat above his house and it was so eccentric and wonderful and well, you must have been round to that house, chris.
Speaker 1:Do you? Yes, he was just. We were very lucky because we had the likes of Nat Brenner and Rudy Shelley, who are a total lost guard of awesomeness now. I know, because they do not make him like that anymore. So I know, I know and I, yes, and there was always. Anyway, we need to have another programme about Rudy Shelley.
Speaker 2:Rudy Shelley, oh God, but yeah, all teachers, and then the. I suppose the last one that inspired me is so when I did this touring show, the touring show. Am I talking too much? I'm not.
Speaker 1:No, I'm loving this. I'm curating you through. We're onto. I know we're out.
Speaker 2:We're on the third shape page now, sorry, it's a third inspiration.
Speaker 2:And so it's just so, this company, this company of eight actors that toured the world, different companies, for over the three years and they just extrored me, these actors. It was just very odd, having given up acting, that I then thought you then kind of watch actors in the rehearsal room and you think, god, you're extro, you're just doing it. You just I'd forgotten that I was an actor. I was once one of that group of people and I just love actors. I love that, in fact, they can throw themselves into it and they can fail in public and I just take my hat off to them.
Speaker 2:But it's not actors I was going to mention about inspiring me. It's all those other people who don't take the bow at the end. So it's the Well, you know, it's the cleanest, the security people and the box office staff and it's the stage management and it's the stewards and it's all those people that never take the curtain call. So, as well as this kind of eight actors that kind of went around the world playing instruments, doing three plays and had three productions in their head and were these two stage managers and the costume supervisor, and this kind of caravan of 11 went around playing vast venues and just put on these plays and it just made me realise. But they're the kind of unsung heroes, as I said. The actors take the curtain call. They're the kind of icing on the cake. My God, we need actors, but it's all those other people who contribute to shout out to the entourage, basically.
Speaker 2:Well, that's what it is I won't tell you the play, I won't tell you the place, but we were touring somewhere and then the person who ran this theatre said I'd love your company to meet it was abroad. I'd love your company to meet some students afterwards and we've got some donors in and then we'll get a drink then as well for all the actors. And I said, oh, yeah, yeah, and obviously the two stage managers and the wardrobe person, oh no, no, we can't afford to go to buy them a drink. And I said, well, yeah, but they're part of the company. Oh, yeah, but it's just the actors they want to meet. And they said I may want to meet you as well.
Speaker 2:And I just said okay, okay, but I didn't go to it and I sat with the stage management and I told the actors that and they didn't. So there was a load of donors one side with these kind of students waiting for the actors to come and say a load to them. And I stayed with the stage management and the suit wardrobe supervisor and the actors as well, because I just thought a company isn't just about what happens on stage, it happens off stage. That wasn't me kind of why, why, why? Why have I said that? Well, why have I said that? It's just, I don't like the way the actors are kind of picked off as if they're the only.
Speaker 1:There was an injustice about to happen. So it's very sort of values driven. There was an injustice about to happen that you didn't want to collude in.
Speaker 2:No, but it sounded as if I was self aggrandising and kind of go oh, aren't I marvelous for sticking up for all those people? And I, yeah, it's just that it's a collective. It's a much bigger collective than what appears on the stage. But yeah, a quote.
Speaker 1:I experienced recently, which plays into that sort of equality, is the bicycle chain is a great teacher. No one cog is any more important than the other. So when you're doing a sort of the machine that gets the sand out of the gears to make something awesome, it's important that every cog is the same.
Speaker 2:And I know from your podcast that you're a keen cyclist. So I get up there, for, oh, I have been listening. Oh yeah, yeah, that's a lovely, that's a great analogy, that's lovely, Exactly yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think now we could be on to the squirrels of distraction and this, oh my god. So what never fails to grab your attention? Borrow from the film up it's a bit oh, squirrels, you know what never fails to awkward catch your attention, irrespective of anything else that's going on for you.
Speaker 2:Okay, I love my. I've got a friend. He's called Okay, he's called William Shakespeare. He's a failed guide dog. He's a retriever who's probably the stupidest sentient being I've ever met in my life, but I love him. I love him probably more than anything.
Speaker 1:And anyway I shouldn't say that, but I do Is this your own dog called William?
Speaker 2:Shakespeare. No, it's not my dog. So when my partner lives in Stratford I just happened to be walking into town one day and I saw this seven-week-old retriever puppy being carried in like a papoose and I also had to say hello to him and he kind of tried to bite my hands and bite my ear. And then just by chance I saw about half an hour later this person came down the street and lived about three doors down from where my partner lived. So I became great friends with this puppy dog and we would have play dates, kind of two or three days a week where he'd come over and we would just kind of wrestle with him. I'd get him in a headlock, he'd lick my face like a lolly. He had a toilet but it's weird now as I'm saying it out loud there was nothing sexual, nothing. But I love this. I just love this beautiful, beautiful animal and for that it's so beautiful.
Speaker 1:There's a dog in Stratford called William Shakespeare.
Speaker 2:Well, he was sponsored by the Shakespeare Institute and they put a lot I think it was the Institute and they put a lot of money into this dog's training. And then it came the time where the puppies then get, they get to a year old and they get taken away to Lementon Spa and then they go into, kind of you know, proper training them to be a guide dog. All an extraordinarily worthy cause. And the thing I said to Suzanne, his owner will I see him again? I shouldn't know. You'll never see him again. Oh, my God, oh God. Anyway, you'll never see this dog again.
Speaker 2:What we can do is in the future we can probably see him in training and he might be the other side of the road, but we can't cross over and say load him because it will affect his training and you know that part of his life Now we have it has to close the door on that so he can focus on his future. And of course I cried and cried and cried like I've never cried before. So it was to say goodbye to him. Anyway, six months later she said there's good news and bad news. I said, oh God, what's the bad news? She said he's failed his training. What's the good news? She said I'm taking him back, so he's come back into my life again, this dog, this retriever. He's about seven or eight now and he's yeah, he is, he's a well, I know is a good thing.
Speaker 1:He got no, so he can come back and be with you.
Speaker 2:He got. I said he was a bit thick. Other people say no, he knew exactly what he was doing. I think his report card said he was inconsistent but he's just. But I think I think there's a kind of missing link there. But he's, he's a retriever that can't retrieve. For instance, I've got footage I've got I've filmed him for three and a half minutes trying to try to pick up a frisbee. When you think as a retriever at least he can get some. He couldn't get any purchase on this frisbee. And then he or you'll sit and you look at his reflection in the oven door. But I think he thinks there's another dog. Then he's playing. He's daring, which one will blink first, but he can be sit. He's the most placid, beautiful. I love him. I absolutely.
Speaker 1:He's like your great friars, bobby. He's always going to be loyal to you. I'm sure, and presumably he was. He was happy to be back and, in fact, why haven't you adopted him officially, please, he, he was, he was, and he loves it.
Speaker 2:He comes through the door and and we play, and then after about two hours he's he's kind of had enough of me, because I'm just like kind of wear him out and he just I don't want to kind of keep on mucking about anymore, and then and then he can't wait to go. So I see him now probably every every two or three.
Speaker 1:You've just reminded me. At drama school I was an allergist to being like an untrained. John Hartock called me an untrained Labrador. I can see that I'll lick your face, hump your leg, do a shit in the corner and go get distracted and do something else, just to reassure you. I won't do any of that, but that was. That was sort of the zest for life that I still have in terms of my own inner child and stuff.
Speaker 2:You have. You're a puppy. You're still a kind of Labrador. You are, chris, very tall puppy.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Yeah, I'm the sorry I cut you. Have you finished telling us the story of William Shakespeare the door?
Speaker 2:That's my. Yes, that's my um. That's my.
Speaker 1:Squirrel. I love him there.
Speaker 2:My other squirrel is gogobox, which I'm completely. If gogobox is on, I can't watch like five seconds. I've watched every kind of episode and I've watched the reruns on netflix and on channel four. I can't.
Speaker 1:Oh, by the way, giles brander said yes to being in my show in principle soon, and he's on gogobox, so that could be good. Oh, I'll use this moment to go. Oh, brendon, and what likes gogobox?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, gogobox, I love the celebrity one, but I love the yeah, I love the one where the yeah, we're with the other one as well, where you get to meet the, the public, they're yeah, they're just stars in their own right there. Fantastic, I love it. And it's a great about human psychology and some really good like the siddiquis who live in, I think is it great for people watching, isn't it which, of course, the actors craft.
Speaker 1:Ducky, you should never be bored. Actors can always watch other people people watching. That's exactly again, that's true.
Speaker 2:It has exactly that. It is about people watching, but it's just very, very funny. I, I love it. I know I really really like lovely squirrels. Sorry, Um. So those are my two squirrels.
Speaker 1:Yes, bless you if you're squirrels. And now a quirky, unusual fact about you. By the way, I'm quite excited. It looks like it might be milking two episodes out of you in a one which is great.
Speaker 2:No, no, this is great, this is great.
Speaker 1:This is going exactly as I'd like it to. So now a quirky unusual fact about you, brenda know, hey, we couldn't possibly know about you until you tell us.
Speaker 2:Um, well, you may know this, but maybe you don't. I, um, I am a trained fishmonger and I've been a fishmonger in Bristol.
Speaker 2:I didn't know that Well, as a promise well, it was one of those things I thought, right, I think I might have been vegetarian at the time, um, but I thought, oh, there was a in Clifton Down shopping centre. There was an. There was used to be a fishmonger Is there. They were advertising for a trainee fishmonger and I applied and I got the job and I Loved it, absolutely loved it. So, um, and while I was at Bristol, I would, um, I'd go in in the morning and I'd, I'd kind of prep the fish and all that and do the winter displays, and then on the Saturdays I would, I would work there, and then in the holidays I worked there. And then when I came to London, I worked in it's near to a borough market, but it was. It was a little kind of outlet that we used to supply Harrods and Kettner's restaurants in London so it's driving a van and supplied fish and London's so, and that that was a.
Speaker 2:That was a time where I, um, I hadn't worked for a little bit and I applied for two jobs, one of which was to be Um well, I probably shouldn't say this in case you got children listening, yeah, very young children listening um was to be um father christmas in Hamleys and Um to be a fishmonger and I got both jobs on the same day. So I took both jobs and there was a complaint. So I would go into the fishmongers in the morning and I couldn't get. I really couldn't get. You cannot get rid of that smell.
Speaker 1:You are a fishy Santa. I see what you're saying. Yeah, yeah, they were not.
Speaker 2:That Santa smelled a fish. They're really, really one. I'm not even pretending that, to Say that just for a kind of cheap laugh. The only thing that would get rid of it it would be cold tar soap. You'd have to really kind of rub that soap on it and then, which was probably worse, the worst smell than the fish, but um, yeah, that was the only smell that would get rid of it, that's the common unusual fact I'm a fishy Santa.
Speaker 2:And uh, yeah, oh god, oh god, I'm used to have, um, uh, I, a person who was um, of restricted height, a little person, no, I, well, he, he would say that he had dwarfism. Well, he did a dwarfism and um, and he used to dress as an elf and he Hated it. He hated doing this job in families with me and we'd get these. Often, I have to say, it was drunk office women. It was never the men. They'd come in, they'd want a picture with Santa and there's one day they just got this guy dressed as an after they threw him on the Christmas tree. I mean, it was just, it was kind of mayhem. Absolutely be much more, um, yeah, be much more organized and civilized.
Speaker 1:Was it Henry's sorry London based?
Speaker 2:You're doing fish mongering.
Speaker 1:And then you're commuting smelling of fish to become I tried to get rid of that.
Speaker 2:I didn't intend to smell a fish. I would have a shower and then eventually the coal tar, so but it would always, you know, a broth smokies would kind of break through the smell of coal tar. So it must have been revolting for these kids. Good god, that man really stinks. Put them off Christmas, but yeah. So that's my unusual fact very cool.
Speaker 1:No one's ever said or interpreted that in that way. We have shaken your tree, hurrah. And now this could be where we begin to talk about the work. We're going to stay in the clearing. Move away from the tree now. Next, we're talking about alchemy and gold when you're at purpose and in flow. Brenda Nohey, actor, director and now author I presume this is your first book, isn't it? The?
Speaker 2:yes, hopefully my only one. I don't know, I can't love that woman again.
Speaker 1:So it's a bit. It's a bit of a drop the mic one. It's pretty good if you can catch a National treasure 70 years of Shakespeare in one book. I think that would be a bit of a drop the mic. Good night, but by all means write a second one. Obviously so alchemy and gold when you're at purpose and in flow, brenda. No, hey, what are you absolutely happiest doing in what you're here to reveal to the world? Um?
Speaker 2:I, I love cooking, I, I, and that probably come. Yeah, well, I'd not, probably that comes through. That comes from working as a fishmonger. So they'd say you need to know the but the products. They'd say, right, there's a scape wing, go back, drill it um or saute it in a frying pan um, saute in butter, add some capers. So it was out of that that I got a passion for, for cooking. I love, I love cooking.
Speaker 2:My hero is is mark hicks hix, who lost his business during covet, I found out, and, and he's, if you get hold of any of his cookbooks, I mean, he's an extraordinary chef. And then I just happened to be promoting the book up in Brema and I sat next to somebody who's who's just bought the groucho club and now he's the consultant chef for Mark Hicks, consultant chef for for their um, their business empire and all their restaurants, I think, I think throughout the world, but certainly in this country. So, because I think he had to go back to scratch and he was working out the out of a van in In corner. But he's an extraordinary chef, mark hicks, and a lot of it is fish based. But he, I think I might say, is he creates all the recipes for the ivy look apriest Sheikies or some brilliant, brilliant. So I love, I love the alchemy of cooking. I love Also it's that thing about. There's a point where when you, I love it, when I, when I cook something, I love spending you know a few days doing a reduction or you know wonderful sauce or something, and I love it when people go, oh, this is nice. But then what I really love is when they forget about the food and the conversation takes over and I love that moment. We're just you sit back and you think, oh, I've brought these friends together and they're enjoying this. I can see they're enjoying this food, but it's not now about the food anymore and and that's also similar to a rehearsal room as well, where, where you kind of you're working with there was a wonderful I very rarely get it.
Speaker 2:There's a wonderful moment when we were rehearsing these plays for for the globe, the international Touring productions, and I think it was a mid-summer night stream, and in the room Everybody was doing something. So somebody doing a bit of choreography in the corner with a movement person. There was somebody working on some lines with the with the head of text, their gels block. There was somebody working the scene with the assistant director. Everybody's doing something and there's just a moment of sitting back and going. Look, all those people are, are being fulfilled and stimulated, stimulated and being creative and I, just patting myself on the shoulder, I've brought these people together and that was. That was quite a nice feeling, and yet it wasn't about me. It was about them kind of getting on doing it and there's a lovely bit Um, I've, you've directed, you've directed Chris, have you? Have you directed plays?
Speaker 1:I very little. I directed my own film, uh, which was quite a strength. I was also in it and I'd written it, so it was a little bit of a big ask, okay okay, but you, you've not worked with a group of actors. Oh, yes, I have. I've done lots of drama teaching because I'm drawing the train. So of course I've directed in that regard.
Speaker 2:So I direct, I facilitate and enable groups a lot because of course no, of course you have, of course you there's a bit. There was a bit when, when, um, there's a, there's a lovely moment that happens when I know it's all right, it's tracking, all right. It's when, of course, I do a lot of prep, and then it's important, once you get into the room, to forget all the prep and just to see what happens. And that was a note that Stephen Pimlock once gave me as a one said to us as a company yeah, when I did King Lear with him in Chichester, with David Warner playing King Lear, and he said I know exactly where everybody should be, whatever we should be wearing the motivation of each line. But I've left all that outside the door. And he said, if we need to go back, I need to look at that or think and bring that into the room. That's fine, but it's all about what you bring. And that was a kind of wonderful note that he I thought he gave us all. And similarly, you know, I tried, I tried to emulate that. I do a lot of prep. And then you've got to see what the actors in the company because the outcome you have, that would bring something, something different, um, and you just got to go with that.
Speaker 2:But what's lovely is there's always a moment then when, when you see the actors performing and you're still giving them notes You've, you've given them notes and you see you need to think about your voice. There isn't great and you need to be in a stronger position there. You need to think more about what the other person is saying. Um, and then there comes a point where you see it and you kind of know that you were involved in that production some time ago and yet they've taken over the company and made it their own. So there's no kind of scent or or or or or residue of me.
Speaker 2:That's that that belongs to them. Uh, that's sorry that that it. They've just made it their own. And I wonder I don't have children. I wonder, chris, if that's similar to being A parent where, of course, they're born, you know they're, they're, they have their own minds and it's Nature and nurture and all of that. But there must be a lovely point where you think, of course I've been, I've contributed to that person's life, but they're their own person and it it kind of you're part of it and yet not part of it Is, is that true, being a parent it's absolutely profoundly is.
Speaker 1:It's the sort of the miracle of alchemy when suddenly that turns to gold and and you were only involved in the in the recipe, and then off it goes. So there's a through line for you as well in curation, because you like to curate and enable the alchemy, and then that turns to gold and then this could be the moment where there's a natural segue into also talking about the book, because that's been a loving curation Of conversation that lasted four years to to release the book very recently, yeah, but yes, it's completely equivalent to being a parent, to you that they Are. Children are gobsmacking in their ability to fly of their own volition in a way that's stunning and, and you know, make sure you almost cry weep on the daily when you realize what's happening.
Speaker 2:Well, I as I said, I'm not a parent, but but I'm 16 and 23, and the miracles keep on giving. Well, that is, that is wonderful, that is well, that is my I. As I said, I'm not a parent, but that that maybe the clue. Of course I've got nebius and I've got god, far too many god children.
Speaker 1:And you've got William Shakespeare the dark as well, will it?
Speaker 2:shake the love of my life? Yeah, um, but it is that they're, they're just, they're, they're, they're part of you and yet they're completely separate and independent and it's, it's just a it's it's. It's wrong to say I have no vanity. Of course I do, because I've just done my eyebrows. I tend to wear a hat to hide my boarding heads. Of course I'm completely vain, but I, I love it when I've got, when there's no trace of me near it. I, I, I kind of. I know that that that's okay. I'm not a huge fan on kind of flashy directors or flashy actors. It's because I think the job of the director is to be, is to empower the actors to be a conduit between the author and the audience. That's the beginning and the end.
Speaker 1:By the way, that does play out when, when I saw the show of you talking about Shakespeare, the man who pays the rent, and the fact that Judy's constantly trying to throw it back to you and you're going no, no, no, it's not about you. You are generally trying to just obviously make it about her, but it is a lovely double-hander in that regard.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, but but that was her being irritating as well, of which she can be. I also want your you know, listeners to know that this isn't kind of, this isn't a kind of love letter to Judy Dench. There are a few walks in there. I bring out the um yeah.
Speaker 1:The other. I wanted to mention your first title, which you rather comically said should have been called herding eels, which, because of how wicked she is, in a good way.
Speaker 2:Well, that's was. That's my fishmonger coming out, isn't it? It was originally herding Elvis, but but I thought people may not know that that's a baby eel, but it is like she's. She is impossible to pin down because she's a child. She's an 88 year old child and a grandson. To say in the book you know, refers to us the most childish person he's ever known. But that's what makes an extraordinary actor.
Speaker 1:It's, it's this ability that she still wants to play and make believe and I love the idea she can't peel an orange without cutting a bit out of it. There's some comedy teeth as well.
Speaker 2:Oh god, she wouldn't let me. You should probably tell me off for saying this, but she wouldn't let me use a picture. There was a. There was a moment where she put the comedy teeth in. And do you remember that canoeists? Uh, remember the canoeists, and his wife was it. And Darwin, remember, remember that canoeist? They said that this told the kids and everybody that he had died, but he was living, that it behind.
Speaker 1:Eddie Marson has been in my show and he was in, I know, yes, I listened to that.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a brilliant episode by Eddie Marson. It's always it. Honestly, it's brilliant. I've been a huge fan of this for years. I thought that was a fantastic episode, as they all are, chris, but that's it. Well, and Darwin, jude put these kind of, she did her orange peel thing and she looked at me. She, oh, my god, I look like that canoeist's wife. So I superimposed their head on a body On and Darwin's body with these kind of orange peel teeth Next to the canoeist, and I said, please can we put this in the show? So she forbid it. She would not let me have it. So there is a photograph somewhere of Judy Dench Looking like Anne Darwin with orange peel comedy teeth.
Speaker 1:And the other lovely thing this is all Juicily in your forward, which you very kindly put in. The number of times you've had to stop Interviewing her because she's working at how many butter kissed she can get in her mouth at one moment I mean it's ridiculous.
Speaker 2:I just sat there and I said you know, the tape's running and she's got four to five for you, and then she laughed and of course she's spitting them all over the place.
Speaker 1:So the Mandingham was 45 before she had two.
Speaker 2:I don't know, maybe that was, but it's just. And I just all about corksing, I've just, I've just put a glass of champagne in there. Yes, I'm coming, I'm coming and coming, and then she don't, you know, she'll get a bit of um, I don't know what is it kind of sat-sumer. You know, there's kind of packaging. It comes in there but a plastic netting and she'll put that in the hat or she'll wear is a scarf, and and you think, oh, my god, you just got to let it run its course.
Speaker 1:You know, it's just, it's just, I think that's why you love William Shakespeare, the the dog as well, because there's something childlike and doglike Clocks. Dogs are so brilliant at being in the here and the now. That's the important, well, that's that's it.
Speaker 2:That's it, but she is annoying with it as well. I've got to go down to there's some junior Zoe Bolshow tomorrow and there'll be. There'll be banana grams and there'll be cards and there'll be give me a Shakespeare quiz and there'll be a right less to a drawing and oh god, it is exhausting. It's absolutely. Once you get through that, I mean she is great fun she's. She is extraordinary. Yeah, she just loves life.
Speaker 1:Love and adoration there. So let's put your book on a metaphorical plinth within the clearing at this point. Now We've been hearing wonderful insights of the story behind the story, so if you're watching on the podcast, you can't. You can watch it instead on the film Judy. Then Shakespeare the man who plays the rent this is obviously a Brendon O'Hare who has lovingly co-curated and authored the book. Would you like to read an extract from it of your choice, brendan?
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, I don't. I didn't know what to do. I thought, do you want my own voice or her voice? But I thought, well, let's get her voice in. So this is a bit.
Speaker 2:It's towards the end, where we talk about the future of Shakespeare and I say to her, why do you love Shakespeare so much? And I I say, why would you fight to have him kept on the school curriculum and performed in theaters? And she says this. She says Shakespeare is an international language, a beacon for humanity and a bridge across cultures.
Speaker 2:His writing encompasses the minutiae of every everyday life. When you come to do the plays, you often recognize something that you've never been able to articulate. He's able to able to express what it is to be human in the most concise way. And she goes on. There's something for everybody in Shakespeare. Everything you have felt, or yet to feel, is all there in his plays Oppression, ambition, loneliness, remorse, everything. If you need to understand jealousy, read a fellow or the winter's tale. If you're in love, listen to Romeo and Juliet.
Speaker 2:And then she says when I was at my lowest during the pandemic, I kept thinking of Richard II's line. I wasted time, and now doth time waste me. Shakespeare has examined every single emotion. His writing has the capacity to make us feel less alone and I just, I think she's kind of nailed it without really. I mean, I think it's just kind of there is. There is something for every, every occasion.
Speaker 2:I mean, sadly, god, a friend of mine has, has recently lost her child, and I've just kind of go what, what? There are no words. And then there's I haven't got it at hand so I won't even attempt to quote it, but there's an extraordinary piece of writing that Constance has in in in King John, where she talks about the loss of her child and how his, his form, the memory and her love for him fills out his clothes. I mean it's just, it's just kind of all there on those words really. So everything you want, everything you want is, is, is all there in the plays, it's some, but I think she she encapsulates that exquisitely in that little bit. And that's not to say that the whole book is, is, is kind of not that that is po-face or serious, I mean it's, it is well as, hopefully you will test it by credit. I mean I think there's some laugh, laugh out lines, laugh out loud lines in there that are very, very funny, I mean she is, she comes out with some fantastic yeah.
Speaker 1:As it is described, it's a love letter to Shakespeare and of course, the, the, the how he paid the rent for her, and obviously Michael Williams for all those years, which is where the title came from. So I'm glad it was that rather than herding eels in the end.
Speaker 2:I know, I know, I know it's it's good and, as I say it's, it's not, it's knowing where to place it. I don't, you know what's been interesting. Oh, I mean, this is not blowing my trumpet, this is what is out there, but we've we've had phenomenal reviews for it. But what's been interesting is people have. So, for instance, one person interviewed us and he just wanted to talk about the darkness. He wanted to talk about the kind of legacy. I think he was looking for a line about Junes. You know that, you know that she, she's, she was kind of giving up acting now, but of course she wasn't going to give him that line. But but he wanted to talk about, yeah, the kind of the sadness and all of that.
Speaker 2:Another review wanted to talk about all the sex she mentioned in the book. Somebody else wanted to know about you know about it from an acting point of view because he was once an actor. Somebody wanted to just talk about the jokes and I kind of, to begin with I thought I can't control what people think of it, but I thought, but there's also this, there's also that, but what's interesting about that is just, it just shows that people are responding to the book in different, different ways and I just wouldn't want people to think, oh, it's about Shakespeare. I've never liked Shakespeare, but I thought I'd put them off Because I think it's a much more about. I mean, people responded to as a kind of a testimony, testimony about our friendship. I hadn't really thought of that, I hadn't thought about what it's about. But it's about all things. It's about life and it's about love and it's about, it's about these extraordinary words.
Speaker 1:And yeah, and that wonderful writer yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, and it's the seven ages of man, of itself. And that's why I'm delighted to say, obviously there's a bit of legacy coming up, inspired in this series of metaphors, when I award you with a cake, which is what I'm going to do next, if that's all right. Oh, yes, the cake. So now I'm going to award you with a cake, mr Brendon O'Hare, so you get to put a cherry on the cake now. And this is stuff like and including first of all, what's a favorite inspirational quote? I'm just aware of the tome of Shakespeare. It doesn't have to be Shakespeare. What's a favorite inspirational quote that's always given you sucker and pulled you towards your future?
Speaker 2:first of all, Well, of course there are. I mean the one that came to mind, which is I love Miss Piggy. I'm completely in love with Miss Piggy, but this is not the one I was going to choose, but I did think of her one. I think she's been interviewed by Nigel Parkinson, where he asked if she had what was that kind of mantra for life, and her reply was never eat more than you can lift, which I thought was an inspired quote but I'm not going to use that one.
Speaker 2:It's yeah, it's, I mean one I heard recently which I like, which is the great Joan Collins it's amazing how lucky, hardworking people are which I think is a good one to pass on to youngsters. But I think my all-time favorite is a Robert Browning quote I think I'm remembering this correctly which is ah, but a man's reach must exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for? And I think it's about we have to go beyond our own perceived limitations. When I was casting the tours that the casting department, the Shakespeare Globe tours, when I the casting department, we had eight actors who did three plays and where we asked they came up with it that they had to come in prepare a piece they would imagine themselves to be casting and prepare a piece they could never imagine themselves to be casting. Inevitably, the piece that they couldn't imagine themselves to be casting was often much, much more interesting. I don't know why that was. Maybe they just took their imaginations up in another place.
Speaker 2:What profoundly depressed me was far too many people, predominantly girls, young I'm talking about youngsters now in their kind of early twenties would say the part I could never imagine myself playing would be viola in 12th night. I would say why They'd say no? Because I'm the wrong size, or because I'm not attractive enough, or because of my strong accent. I can't tell you how profoundly depressing I found that. And that would be because maybe a bad teacher would have said that, or a parent or a friend, or the pressure of social media.
Speaker 2:But you think, why are these youngsters putting pressure on themselves? And didn't Eddie Marsden say something like it in his podcast that the device of John Thor is don't let people find out who you are, or just keep on footing people and don't let people page. You know he said it much more eloquently than I've just said it now, but I thought that was a great bit of advice. But I just hate the idea that these youngsters, just at the start of their careers, were already kind of closing down opportunities. So but a man's reach must exceed his grasp, or what's heaven for? You have to go beyond your own perceived limitations or the limitations that other people put on us.
Speaker 1:And thanks so much for reincorporating that quote. Was it Robert Browning? Did you say?
Speaker 2:That's Robert Browning. Yeah, Lovely.
Speaker 1:What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given, Brendan?
Speaker 2:Oh God, is this, is this? Oh God, so many Look for the pluses in life. What Jude says in the book I used to love. I always bookend every. It's a rudy quote which is and again it's mentioned in the book which is don't believe a word. I say. So I do love that, maybe, maybe.
Speaker 2:Well, when I was in Ibsen's Goest in Cardiff we had three weeks to rehearse and in the second week we were all fitting a little bit glum Sean Phillips, myself, lisa Paul-Friever, members of the cast, we were all fitting a bit glum. And the guy who ran the theater, called Phil Clark, who wasn't directing the play, said you all all right. And we said, oh, a little bit down. He said, well, of course you're in psyche week, don't you? And we also what do you mean, phil? What do you mean psyche week? He said, well, you know, three weeks to rehearse a play. Week one get him in and block it. Week two psyche week. Week three get on and judge. Now I love that. What I love about that is because the middle period of any bit of creativity, whether you're writing something, whether you're directing something, whether you're acting something, there is always that messy middle period where it starts to do things to your head, psyche week and you're in your own head, and but what the hope is which always happens in the third week there is then that you will start to judge, you will kind of, you will take off.
Speaker 2:But that is the process of all creativity. So, for instance, if I teach kids that are in drama school and they're in their second year, I always tell that story because they are in psyche year and they're all gonna. They get told I know how to. They arrive kind of enthusiastic with their own instincts, and then of course the teachers throw a load of kind of other disciplines at them and then by the year two they don't know what the hell they're doing. And by year three they've kind of assimilated what the teachers have taught them and they've interpreted in their own way and their own instinct starts to come through. And the combination, the alchemy of that, then, my God, they start to judge. But it doesn't have to be a three year course, it's a period. It could be a one year course, it could be a two week rehearsal period, but there's always that middle period where actors, creative people, hit the rapids and that is part of the process and you have to embrace that. You have to embrace that and not be afraid of that.
Speaker 1:And hit the rapids, you're back in your river, the flow of life there again, oh my.
Speaker 2:God yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, and how are we spelling a judge? Please, if we need to ever capture that, how do we spell a judge?
Speaker 2:I've asked all my because I must get a Jewish phrase, and I've asked all my Jewish friends and they all spell it in different ways. Jus, is it Z-H-D-O-Z-H? I don't. I've seen different spellings of it. If anybody could, let you know.
Speaker 1:Tell us yes, yeah, please do. I love the quote. The judge Best piece of advice get on a judge, Get on a judge.
Speaker 2:Love that.
Speaker 1:We're still in the existential zone. What notes, help or advice might you proffer now, with a beautiful gift of hindsight to your younger self, brenda no hay?
Speaker 2:Oh, my God, what advice would I give to my younger self? Oh, I think I wish I'd been. Oh, I don't know, I wish I'd been. I don't wanna say more kind. I was a pain in the ass when I first left drama school. There isn't much. I thought there can't be much more to learn. I knew it all and I lost a few jobs because I was tricky in a rehearsal room, one of which was I worked with.
Speaker 2:My first job at drama school was John Doyle, who ran the Livable Everyone Theater, and he'd give me I got. I played about five parts in a season there and I was just. I just wasn't. I wasn't very good in the company. I was kind of I was gonna just to try to undermine his direction or I was just a pain in the ass. And I always tell the story, because every student I've taught I just say you know, especially if they're being difficult, I'll say you know you can carry on being difficult. Nobody will behave as badly as I did at the start of my career. So I wish I'd behaved better. The nice thing about John Doyle John Doyle said would you never work with me again?
Speaker 2:And then cut to 15 years later where my friend, the later Alan Plater the writer. Alan Plater had written a two-hander for the Watermelon Newbury and John Doyle was directing it. John Doyle did not wanna see me. John Doyle was persuaded to see me and I got the part and we became friends again. So I was able to kind of build that bridge and yeah, and I love that experience with him.
Speaker 2:So I would say, just trying to be a pain in the ass, be kind, read more. And there's something that Peggy Ramsey the writer says. There's a very good book of letters. I can't remember who's curated this book of letters now about Peggy Ramsey, but it's really really good. And Alan Plater, interesting enough, wrote a play called Peggy for you about Peggy Ramsey the literary agent.
Speaker 2:And there's a story in that book where a writer comes to see her and she says to him are you right-handed or left-handed? And he says I'm right-handed. And she says find a skill that you can do with your left hand. And I love that. It means I do something that you're perhaps you're not good at. So, going back to that, with me at drama school I wasn't very good at accents because I thought I had such a fabulous Welsh accent, why would anybody want to hire me for anything other than my gorgeous, malifluous tones. I mean, why an asshole? But again, I lost out a lot of jobs on that. So I wish and now I'm much better at accents. So if you can't play an instrument, learn an instrument. If you can't do accents, learn about accents. Again, reach beyond your own perceived limitations. So that's the advice Kindness.
Speaker 1:I'm really struck with the wisdom that comes from the desire for atonement. I so loved that sense of realization of your own volition. You described yourself as being an asshole back then. I'm watching the Robbie Williams documentary on Netflix at the moment and that's sort of a beautiful, wise but troubled individual who he says the most profound thing about, regretting how he was with Gary Barlow, which is just beautiful because it's the man you can sense they've made it up but there were a lot of baggage. But then there's atonement and there's something really profound is what I'm trying to say about the wisdom of atonement and the desire to seek it.
Speaker 2:Well, I think you have to. That's not to say I'm not an asshole now, and a lot of people, especially my nevies and God to them, would probably call me that, and I'm sure lots of people do. But I think, yeah, you have to. Life's too short, there's too much darkness in the world to fall out with the most petty things, just because my partner designed a play called Vanilla, directed by Harold Pinter, with with Sean Phillips and with Joanna Lumley, and he once traveled with her in the back of a taxi and he said to to Joanna Lumley. He said, joe, you're really positive. What's your secret about life? And she said life is all about having a good time and being kind to people. I think that's a pretty good. That's a pretty good maxim for life, isn't it? Kindness, kindness is everything.
Speaker 1:At this moment I'm going to go Just letting a lovely little silence, Lovely. So we're ramping up. Now to Shakespeare. There's two Shakespeare's. This is the actual complete work. It's sort of the first failure, but this is the actual one. I got to go to the Bristol Oldbick Theatre School. So it says here, Chris Grimes, 69, 86. Here, oh, hey. And then of course we've got your book, which is Judy Dench, and Brenda Nohey, Shakespeare, the man who Plays the Rent. So we're just ramping up in a moment to talk about legacy, but just before we do that, this is the rather exciting moment which is called past the Golden Baton, please. So who would you most like to pass the Golden Baton along to, now that you've experienced this show from within? Brenda Nohey, Well, oh.
Speaker 2:I think my friend Finty Williams parents Michael Williams, judy Dench she's, she's an extraordinary success story and, you know, living under the shadow of her parents, forging her own career path, she's an extraordinary person. She's got a part. I can't even, to my shame, I don't even know the name of the podcast. She's a podcast about, about recovery and addiction with John McEwen. That I should sorry, I should try and I try. I should have found the title for you. That's really, really terrific. I just think she's a, yeah, another one of kind of life's kind of life, affirming human beings, who was kind and supportive. So it would be my great friend Finty Williams.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Your mission, should you to accept it, is to furnish me with a warm introduction to Finty Williams. Thank you very much. And now Shakespeare, shakespeare. So I've never before had two Shakespeare books in the same moment. It's very exciting. So don't forget, if you're watching and listening, you must go and buy, or go and see the show and get a free copy. Thank you for the free book. Please, judy Dench and Brenda Shakespeare, the man who pays the rent. But now to the complete works of Shakespeare. This is borrowed from the Seven Ages of Man's speech from all's well that ends well, as you like it. No, I'm confusing myself. Now it's Jake Queese from as you like it Is it yes.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I don't know what you're going to say.
Speaker 1:Oh, I do know what you're going to say yes, so this is inspired by all the world's estate and all the men and women merely players. Each man in his time has blah blah, blah Legacy. How, when all is said and done, brenda Nohei actor, director, author would you most like to be remembered?
Speaker 2:Do you know what? I have no ambition to be remembered. I really don't. Not that I don't care, I just don't mind. In the same way that I can't control what people think of me in life, why should I try to control what people think about me after I'm dead? I just don't mind, because people will think I'm funny and or weird, or annoying or inspiring. Everybody who I meet will have a different opinion on me, of me, and that's fine. That's their choice. I can't control that and I certainly want to control what they think of me after I'm dead. So yeah, I've no ambition to be remembered.
Speaker 1:Yeah, lovely, great answer. Thank you very much. And where can we find out all about you on the old Hinterweb? And, particularly and very specifically, where can we go and buy your wonderful book please?
Speaker 2:So we're no longer doing the book tour. So we did our five dates because I think if it had gone any longer we would have killed each other me and her, jude and myself. So you can buy the book in any leading bookshop. It's on Amazon, it's on Waterstones and, yeah, it's, it's, it's available now. So, in all good booksellers.
Speaker 1:And what we didn't mention it's full of Dame Judy's illustrations as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and she really resisted putting those in. It was only. We were looking at Coriolanus and I saw she doesn't have many copies of her scripts left. But there was Coriolanus where she had all these drawings in the site and in the Coriolanus chapter. They are from the time she did it, I think it was 92. So those drawings there, and then during lockdown she wanted to. I said just try a few more drawings because she has Macla degenerative disease, which is which is she you know everyone is aware of. Her site isn't great.
Speaker 2:And she started doing these drawings and I said can we put them in the book? And she would not put that. She said no, I don't want them in the book. Don't want them in the book. I think they're absolutely exquisite. She puts a block of color down and then very, very closely She'll she'll kind of put in some ink lines where to give the bit of expression, but it's just the texture and the movement in these drawings I think are exquisite. The reason she put them in the book or we managed to persuade her, it was somebody in her after said it may encourage other people or inspire other people with Macla degenerative disease or eyesight problems to either keep on painting or to start painting, and that was the only thing that persuaded her she otherwise we would never have got them in. So I love them. I love the way they break up the page.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it is a wonderful bedtime read because you can dip in and out, in and out, in and out as you go through the week of. You know, it's just been, it's been a pleasure, I'm still in it and I'm loving it, oh that's good.
Speaker 2:Another thing to say, craig, just one for you just to say. But what was nice is I met somebody who looked at it and he's dyslexic and he says he can't read books. And he looked at it and he went oh, I think I can read this. And I said why? He said because because it's broken up with me asking a question. I never give in an answer to this space.
Speaker 2:And then it's kind of it's the whole book is dislocated with these drawings at all points. For instance, jude wanted Julia to be up on a balcony up on the left top on side of one page and the opposite page at the bottom we got Romeo. So Jude has decided where all the drawings appear in the book. But because the kind of rhythm of what it looked like on the page it wasn't just a block of works this dyslexic lad said, oh, I think I can read that. So I love the fact that somebody who's got dyslexia was able to kind of think that they could be open to to reading a book about arguably the greatest writer in English language. That made me really, really happy.
Speaker 1:And as an analogy that I got from it, it's a bit like having a jigsaw on the table which is a jigsaw of the complete works of Shakespeare, and you just pick up these wonderful pieces and they all, they all, tell a story. Well, that's, that's wonderful he tells with the through line of seven ages of woman stroke man in the fact that it's been seven decades of Shakespeare.
Speaker 2:Wonderful wonderful.
Speaker 1:Hence love letter to Shakespeare, which we've said before, but that's just the cherry on the cake in it all. I think, yeah, yeah, as this has been your moment in the sunshine and the good, listening to show stories of distinction of genius. Is there anything else you'd like to say, brendan O'Hey?
Speaker 2:No, no other than yeah, don't believe a word. I say yeah, honestly, just forge your own part, use your own voice, make your voice heard. You use the language to yeah, just draw off the battery of these extraordinary words and, as Jude says, that these plays will make you feel less alone, because he articulates everything we felt or yet to feel. So, yeah, and thank you, chris, for your time.
Speaker 1:You're very welcome. If I could ask a small favor, would you please play your episode to Dame Judy, because I think she'll get an even deeper appreciation and understanding of you from this episode.
Speaker 2:I will if I said anything awful about her. Ha ha.
Speaker 1:No, you absolutely haven't. It's been a complete well, a sort of a love letter and a love episode to the adoration that you very obviously have. Yeah well, she's a good egg.
Speaker 2:And it's I think one of the reviews said it's a document of the kind of the last 70 years of British theater as well, because she's been at the top of her game. I mean it is extraordinary. I can't believe anybody else that's happened to and I've just called her now and mine is still phenomenally sharp and she can remember details gone back to the 50s and it's strongly detailed about costumes and names and where she was on stage, which I have no memory of my own performances. But it is extraordinary. It is a kind of document of the last 70 years of British theater, certainly obviously within terms of Shakespeare.
Speaker 1:Just a final thing. I always ask that question is there anything else you'd like to say? Just in case I'm sort of working out if there's anything I've forgotten to say as well. It's very, very charming when you escort her on stage holding her hand because her eyesight is failing. Would you mind me asking how much of her vision has gone as a percentage now?
Speaker 2:In essence, no, she can. I mean she can obviously still draw if she holds something very, very close. I mean, if you're three, four feet away, unless she heard your voice and she knew you, she wouldn't be able to see you. Yeah, I'm not speaking out of turn by saying all this, but yeah, it's not good. And obviously she's got a very powerful light and she's got big tiles now for banana grams so we can play banana grams and yet she can obviously sign her own signature on things. She needs to be close to the television. It's not great, but she just keeps on going. You know, she just keeps on going. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, ladies and gentlemen, you've been listening to Brendan O'Hay and I've been Chris Grimes. Tune in next time for more stories from the Clearing. Thank you very much indeed, and also thank you for watching on Facebook. If you have been too, and you've got some old chums watching you, I'm sure, on Facebook, the likes of Neil Bette, and there are quite a few that are going, oh, brendan, and so I'll put you in touch with all those people.
Speaker 2:Oh no, don't do that. I don't see any of those people.
Speaker 1:I probably owe them money, and Neil Foster, all these people.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, that's probably vile to them.
Speaker 1:Tim Hudson. No, no, no.
Speaker 2:Oh lovely people, oh my.
Speaker 1:God.
Speaker 2:Oh, how lovely.
Speaker 1:Thank you for spending time. Good luck on the Zoe Ball show tomorrow and happy Christmas. Happy Christmas to you too. I'll be in touch soon. I'll start recording there. You've been listening to the Good Listening 2 show here on UK Health Radio with me, chris Grimes. Oh, it's close up. If you've enjoyed the show, then please do tune in next week to listen to more stories from the Clearing. If you'd like to connect with me on LinkedIn, then please do so. There's also a dedicated Facebook group for the show too. You can contact me about the programme or, if you'd be interested in experiencing some personal impact coaching with me, care of my level up your impact programme. That's chrisatsecondcurveuk On Twitter and Instagram. It's At that, chris Grimes. So until next time for me, chris Grimes from UK Health Radio. I'm from Stan. To your good health and goodbye. So, brendan O'Hare, you've just been given a damn good listening to in the Good Listening 2 show, stories of Distinction of Genius. Could I get your immediate feedback on what that was like for you being curated through this journey?
Speaker 2:As I said earlier, what I love about your show.
Speaker 2:In this dark, depressing world at the moment, where so many wars going on and people falling out, and I just think it's what you have is this beautiful oasis of kindness and positivity in this programme. And the big joy for me is, as I said earlier, is having kind of wanted to listen to one episode, to think about it went. I then become completely hooked on the podcast and recommending and sending it to friends. I think you've got spun gold here. So congratulations to you and your team. It's a beautiful, beautiful, life-affirming kind of 45, 50 minutes. So thank you.