Exit Pursued by a Badger

An Actor's Journey Through History with Shakespeare

Nick Asbury

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9781840028928
• eBook ISBN: 9781849436830
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Theatre History & Criticism

We are engaged in performing four shows by night and restaging four different shows by day. And restaging all the understudy work as well. This is a lot of work. And my mind has turned to slush.
Nick Asbury was in the ensemble from the Royal Shakespeare Company who, over the course of two and a half years, performed eight history plays by Shakespeare in repertory, beginning with the overthrow of Richard II and ending with the death of Richard III: a sequence of productions both critically acclaimed and watched by over 250, 000 people. To keep a record of his involvement in this extraordinary and ambitious project, Nick wrote a Blog which was posted on the RSC website. This in turn became a massive success, regularly notching up 6, 000 hits a week from avid followers around the world. Through Nick's engaging, observant, often hilarious words, we experience the camaraderie of actors, the terror of forgetting lines, technical difficulties, money problems, finding strange things in the bath, thirty-three broadsword fights and, and, of course, the ever-present threat of being assaulted by demented badgers after a performance.
Nominated as one of 'Six Inspiring Biographies or Memoirs Every Actor Should Read' by Drama Bookshop New York, this really is a must have book for all actors and theatre fans.

THE BLOG

SPRING 2007

LONDON

13 June 2007

THERE are three rehearsal rooms at the RSC’s building in Clapham. We, the Histories company, manage to use all three at the same time. Which is a bit mind-boggling when you have to come out of one room and leap straight into a different play and different character in another. Which King is it? Who’s alive? Who did I kill? And who’s he/she playing in this one? However, in the bottom room there’s also a table tennis table.

This has been a fixture for the Histories for the last year and has been a life-saver. We got it when we all had a whip round and were organised by our chief self-appointed social organiser, Keith Bartlett, who plays Talbot in Henry VI Part I (seven year-old boy in a fifty year-old grizzled façade). It quickly became a focus for a lot of men who were thrown together for a very long time to bond and play. It was hugely successful. It even got to the point of whenever we had a break from rehearsals there would be a race to grab bats and get on before some other guy stole it. Katy Stephens restored order by whipping our hides at it, but then she does that sort of thing…

We still play but time is getting pressing as we are rehearsing three plays at once now. Geoffrey Streatfeild is very good – remaining unbeaten for weeks – and then Clive Wood upped his game and beat him in Stratford where we had the table backstage. I beat Clive, but then Bartlett (crafty) beat me. Patrice Naiambana is a wizard but was beaten by Streatfeild who regained his crown by edging past Clive in a nervy encounter after Clive had died in Part III. As it stands now, I, for only the second time, have beaten Streatfeild in a taut and tense five-setter, but then got whipped by Clive soon after. It’s turning into a parody of the plays we are doing with one person on top and then another in quick succession…

We are all beginning to crank up for one last effort here in London after a four-month rehearsal process before the real work begins when we come to Stratford the first week of July. Michael Boyd is rehearsing Richard II and Henry IV Part I upstairs in the top room. Richard Twyman is rehearsing Henry IV Part II in the middle room. Donnacadh O’Briain is taking understudy rehearsals in the bottom room – when he can get us off the table tennis table.

Today I’m in to re-rehearse the death of Richard II in Act 5 of Richard II. Considering we first rehearsed this in March you might think we’d be getting tired of it by now, but yesterday I was rehearsing Act 2 Scene 4 of Henry IV Part II – a good five hours of stage time later. And about 20 years in History time…

But, strangely, none of this is confusing… I mean it. One of the wonderful things about this project is that, as performers, we are able to expand and take in huge amounts of information whilst PLAYING. And that’s what it’s all about in my book. And hopefully that sense of play and of joy in telling the story communicates itself to the audience and they enjoy and understand and love the experience as much as we do.

And we’re also bloody good at playing at table tennis…

19 June 2007

THINGS are beginning to hot up in time for our move back to Stratford in a week and half’s time. (EEEK!). We were rehearsing Richard II Act 1 sc 1 yesterday morning. Then our first ‘stagger’ through, as opposed to a run through, of Henry IV Part II. It went well. We’ve still got plenty of work to do, and time is of the essence, but we’ve our noses to the grindstone.

Considering Henry IV Part II is now our seventh play in The Histories it is amazing how together it all is. People are remembering most of their lines and everybody else’s too: on top of a busy day today we have an Understudy Line Run of Henry IV Part I until 9.30 this evening. Another 12-hour day for some people. This means that because we’re all understudying each other, and each have a play off within the eight History Plays we’re doing, each person has the text and moves of 14 plays in their heads at any one time.

This is quite a lot of lines.

Some people are understudying sometimes three or four characters in one play so in the course of these two and a half years one person may have played up to twenty different characters. Which is fun. It’s almost like rep. Which of course is what it is.

I was thinking during the stagger through yesterday and marvelling how differently we are working now. We’ve been together a year and a half, and rather like a football team that gels over the course of a season or two, so we have a language of working and ease with each other and an intuition that I find very inspiring.

Got fitted up for Bushy in Richard II and Pistol in Henry IV Part II today. Very exciting. I love it when the costumes start appearing. You can be a kid and start playing. The designers, makers, armourers and leather workers are into overdrive now. It’s a weird feeling just standing there with your arms out, in your underwear, whilst about five people busy themselves around you measuring, pinning, looking askance at you as they try to imagine what it looks like, making decisions, pulling, yanking, pushing, laughing.

God, I love this job.

SUMMER 2007

STRATFORD-UPON-AVON

4 July 2007

WELL, it’s lunchtime on our first day of Technical Rehearsals for Richard II. The circus has come to town and we’re all itching to go. The Dirty Duck’s takings have increased dramatically and we’re all dressed in our Elizabethan finery for this one.

There’s nothing like that first moment, as we had last night, when after so long rehearsing and imagining, everyone gets into their costume and starts playing. It’s always so funny. I’m sure my costume’s shrunk since I was measured for it a month or two ago. I suspect it might get bigger during the run. Last year, doing the HenryVIs I lost a stone and a half during the summer. Man, those costumes stank.

We’ve spent the morning getting the opening scene right. We all move in formation and everything has to be done with pinpoint accuracy. It’s a really precise show compared to the bludgeoning force of the Henries last year – rapier rather than broadsword – so we have to be very disciplined. As Richard falls, so the broadswords start coming back and we can FIGHT MORE! What fun!

19 July 2007

IT’S the first day of tech for Henry IV Part II and as the rain comes down outside so I have thrown myself through another trap door inside The Courtyard. It’s a tricky manoeuvre, and an act of trust, to go head first into a trap and hope that someone hasn’t whipped away the crash mat. But fun anyway.

The first four previews of Richard II came in a flash. The first night felt so good to be let off the leash and performing again for all of us, but we were all shaking with nerves. It’s such a specific show that you’ve got to be right on the money from the start. And we pulled it off. Just.

It’s at times like these that I get all weepy about this company of actors, directors, designers, costume and wigs, props, fly and stage staff. Everyone’s putting in 12-hour days at least to get these three shows on and, we, the actors, take all the applause. But there are so many who are working so hard to fling this thing on. It’s thrilling.

I’ve had Henry IV Part I off. A weird experience. Going to see it on Tuesday night was brilliant. I kept on wanting to jump out of my seat and say, ‘This is the bit where I come on’, but I just sat there bursting with pride instead. Over the last year and a half we have spent the majority of our lives together in one way or another, and to see a snapshot of what the audience experience was exhilarating.

And now Part II arrives. We rehearse this afternoon. Start Technical rehearsals this evening. The production team have a strange ethereal look about them and look vaguely grey. But the theatre lights do a great job of making them appear normal. The actors have all got sprightly after an unaccustomed morning off. And I happened to wander in early and immediately got told to throw myself into the stage.

Could be worse.

30 July 2007

WE’RE now back onto Richard II after having put on Henry IV Part II all last week. Man, that was a tough week.

It’s a very complicated and hard show to get right and we’re getting there. Everyone is knackered. We’ve had more ‘notes’ – the thoughts and suggestions Michael gives us through sitting us all down in a session with our pens and paper at the ready – than a piano. We’ve been in re-rehearsals all day every day and then performing in the evening.

Returning to Richard II, however, was a joy. We really got a lick on it and came out all guns blazing and, I don’t know what the audience thought, but I came off stage buzzing. Which warranted a couple in the Duck afterwards, I felt.

The opening preview of Henry IV Part II was another thrilling little number. A good few underpants were put to the test again, I’m sure. It felt a little by the seat of our pants too, but we did it and had a great time… Some of us were a bit ill. I was bent double with stomach pains all show. No drink in the Duck that night. But by Friday we were all fine and back on all cylinders.

I had a lump on my head all day on Saturday, because I got hit on the head with a bottle.

I must stress that this was during the show. As part of the desire to get the drunken Pistol off stage, we’ve devised a whole routine where I, as Pistol, stagger about a bit after my fight with Falstaff and then Bardolph whacks me over the head with a bottle, whereupon I fall, prostrate and unconscious, through a trapdoor. The bottle is made of sugar glass and is usually utterly painless as it shatters. But you have to get it just right. I was a smidgeon out of position and it gave me a fearful whack. Which warranted another couple in the Duck, I felt.

Tonight it’s Richard II again. We had a rehearsal this morning of Act 2 sc 4 of Henry IV Part II and then rehearsing all afternoon for tonight so you have to get your head round a pretty big landscape.

Which might lead to ANOTHER couple in the Duck, but let’s see how the show goes…

2 August 2007

IT’S August 2nd, my dear late father’s birthday, and I’ve had two days off.

Which, frankly, I didn’t know what to do with. I’m not in Henry IV Part I so it feels like I was put on the bench whilst the rest of the team went out and played. It’s strange because whilst we all really appreciate the time off, we are operating at such a high pitch that I feel as though I’m straining at the leash when sitting at home relaxing. Still, it gave me a chance to finish Harry Potter.

And what’s more I’m gunning to get back to Pistol tonight. We’ve just been rehearsing Act 2 sc 4 this morning. I nearly took off Chris McGill’s head like the top of a boiled egg as he stands in one of the traps and I wave my sword around. He shot down the trap like a Jack-in-a-box in reverse. Michael liked it so much that we kept it in. We had to work on that one to get it right.

One of the great things about this whole project is the odd situations you find yourself in. The area underneath the stage, or ‘sub-stage’ as it’s called, provides access to and from the trapdoors on stage and to various technical wizardry that lies beneath like smoke machines, lights and speakers, and is only about three feet high. You have to crawl around down there. Which, with a sword and a long coat, is easier said than done. The areas below each trap are boxed off to form their own little performance area, where Julius D’Silva and Wela Frasier and I found ourselves laying flat on our backs on a crash mat underneath the main upstage trap waiting to make our entrance. They kept stopping up above as they rehearsed the scene, so we were there for nearly an hour, cooped up in the dark, in a space no bigger than a double bed. It was like a scene from The Great Escape. By the end we just started laughing and laughing as you do when things get silly. And then suddenly we flung ourselves out and we were off. Throwing ourselves about the stage, laughing, fighting, shouting and whispering. Working. Finding out how we can do it better. Each crease and fold in this almighty tapestry we are weaving sewn and unpicked and sewn again.

Warmth. Such warmth.

I’ve just had two days off – it’s right to be rosy. And it’s my dear Dad’s birthday. Would’ve been 76. So I’m allowed to be lyrical. Worth a toast and a couple in the Duck at least…

8 August 2007

WHOAH, these are the hard yards.

We did a show of Richard II last night. We hadn’t performed it for 8 d...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half-Title Page
• About the Author
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• The Histories Cast
• Family Tree of Edward III
• Foreword by Michael Boyd
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• The Histories Time Line
• The Blog
• Responses
• Photographs
• Epilogue
• Who’s Who of the Histories
• Glossary