Deep Heat: Encounters with the Famous, the Infamous and the Unknown. Robin Soans

from what we gather is one of the prime offenders, but being frank with you I like a bit of salt in a sandwich. I’ve been known to add salt and pepper if they’re to hand, cos I don’t know about you, but a sandwich can be a bit bland…and we are all getting a bit hysterical about this’ll kill you and that’ll kill you. I’m sure a sandwich isn’t going to put the kybosh on me, but then you never know…famous last words. Anyway, then my eye alighted on a prawn in brown bread I think it was…and I thought, ‘Oh a prawn, mmm’, and I looked and it said three pound something or other, and I thought ‘Ridiculous…I’m not spending three pound something or other on a prawn, and a bit of brown bread.’ Then I thought ‘Actually just as well because…’ and I know this isn’t a nice subject but…you know when you go to the seaside, and there’s all this…you know, isn’t there?…and it’s all in pipes going out into the sea…you’ve got actual jobbies floating past on occasions, haven’t you?…and then you think about this prawn inching about on the seabed…I mean what if it’s inching about near the outlet of the pipe?…and that’s not taking into account whether it might be a foreign prawn near one of these industrial plants that’s pouring mercury into the sea, and we haven’t even got to the nuclear waste that’s devastating the ocean floor… what I’m saying is, when you might be called into action at any moment, can you risk eating a prawn at five-thirty in the after- noon? I saw Simon buying a prawn sandwich, and to be honest I thought ‘Rather you than me’, and in the end I just left the shop without anything, came back here, went through the lines just to make sure they’re solid, and thought, ‘Better safe than sorry… I’ll have a cup of tea and a biscuit at curtain up.’ And actually I’ve got half a carrot salad in the fridge at Tony’s, so I can always plug a gap if I’m peckish when I get home.

      One across…British sculptor…eight letters. Well I know that, at least I think I do…just check it with one down…culinary or medicinal plant…four letters…well that’s going to be herb, and the H gives me Hepworth, which is the sculptor. So that’s herb and Hepworth. Two down flower of garden and field…five letters beginning with P. Now there, you see, he’s being sneaky cos you think poppy, but then it could equally be pansy…there is a field pansy, a wild pansy…I have to admit that with the field bit it’s more likely to be poppy, but I’ll leave it til I’ve got the third letter. Talking of pansies…now this is another example of where I think there’s just too much choice nowadays. I’ve got two small raised beds either side of my front door at home in Brockley…and I like a bit of colour as I go in and out, and actually it’s cheery for other people when they knock on the door or deliver a pizza flyer or come to read the metre or whatever it is they’re doing…and I have geraniums and ageratum in the summer, and winter pansies and polyanthus in the winter, and it never seemed a problem to me…I just went down to the local garden centre, and bought a box or two of pansies, and they were either yellow, red or blue, and one year I’d have one colour and another year another and so on…but now it’s almost impossible…there’s so many different varieties, and splodges of this colour, and splodges of that, and pastel shades, and Victorian shades, that was one, and miniatures, and multi-colours, and some which call themselves violas…well I picked up one box and thought ‘Oh no’ and put it down again, and I did this for about twenty minutes by which time I was in such a mither I thought ‘Sod it, I’ll just have the polyanthus then.’ Funnily enough the postman remarked…he always says he enjoys the splash of colour outside my door, first thing he said when I changed the summer bedding to winter bedding, he said, ‘Oh no pansies this year.’

      Oh hang on…see if he gets a good laugh…this is the line about the fart…it usually gets a good laugh…(Laughter over the tannoy.)…there…not bad. I got a good laugh on that in the understudy run which we did in Richmond in week two. There weren’t many there, but a few friends turned up, and I got quite a response on that line. Not that I do it anything like Simon… that’s who I’m understudying…Simon Nicholls…you all know him…he plays that vicar detective on the telly…there’s always a crowd at the stage door, and of course some of them can’t tell fact from fiction and ask him for advice about spiritual problems, or if they’ve got a long-term injury ask him to bless their leg or something. No, there’s no way I can copy him exactly, and anyway I want to bring my own personality to the part. I keep the moves the same…I wouldn’t want to throw the other actors, but you’ve got to bring a bit of yourself on stage, haven’t you?

      Eight across…Indian currency…five letters beginning with R…yes, well that’s going to be rupee…and there you see…that gives you a P third in two down…P blank P…so it’s poppy, thought it was, but I don’t like to fill it in til I’m sure.

      I take my understudy role very seriously as you can tell, and it is a responsible position. I know I don’t get the glory, but they also serve who only stand and wait, and you never know when your hour will come, do you, and it’s no good being thrust into the limelight half-cock, if you see what I mean. I sometimes think people don’t realise the hard work that goes on under the surface. No one goes on ‘krill watch’ do they? ‘Come on everyone, let’s pack up a picnic and go and watch some krill.’ But the truth is there wouldn’t be any whales if there wasn’t krill for them to feed on, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t think krill get the credit they deserve. Whether the audience realises it or not, the understudy is an insurance policy to make sure they get their evening’s entertainment. Children at the circus can only really enjoy the trapeze artists, cos they know there’s a safety net. You couldn’t have some glitter-clad nymphette plummeting to her death every five minutes could you…and that’s what I am…a safety net…and if anything happens to Simon…you know… laryngitis can attack the greatest…or if in mid-performance he gets a peanut stuck in his windpipe, or he trips over a stage brace and concusses himself on the sideboard…there I am to seam-lessly take up the mantle, and carry the audience safely through to Curtain Down.

      Then again, this is only part of my work. I am an actor in my own right. I’ve been head juror on Crown Court, I was the man across the street in One Foot in the Grave…I got a good laugh on that. I had my head chopped off in a thing about The Plantagenets…I was a delivery man in Upstairs Downstairs. I nearly hit the jackpot last year…I got down to the last two for that Specsavers advert where the man and his wife sit down to eat a cheese sandwich…there we are…sandwiches again…it seems to be a recurrent theme this evening doesn’t it?...and actually they sit down on a roller coaster thing and go whizzing about all over the place…funnily enough a friend of mine got that part and I thought he did it very well, so I wasn’t that upset about it.

      There’s something not quite right…listen…that’s not Simon and Gillian…listen…

       He turns up the tannoy. The house manager’s voice.

      H.M.: Ladies and Gentlemen, I regret to inform you that our leading actor Mr Nicholls has suddenly been taken unwell; nothing too serious, just something he’s eaten I’m afraid; but never fear, we have measures in place for just such a contingency, and the performance will continue just as soon as the understudy is ready, and we hope that you will continue to enjoy your evening.

       The stage manager’s voice over the tannoy.

      S.M.: Mr Roper to your dressing room immediately please. Mr Roper to your dressing room immediately.

      PHILIP: (Sits open-mouthed for a few seconds.) Oh my God…it’s me…it’s my moment. Steady, Philip, steady…you know it…all those hours pacing the bedroom carpet; you know the lines as well as your own name or that an orange is an orange…say it to yourself, ‘An orange is an orange. I know the lines. Go on say it.’ ‘An orange is an orange, I know the lines.’ There. ‘And thank your lucky stars you didn’t have that prawn sandwich.’

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       PHYLLIS

       A SHORT HISTORY OF THE TOWPATH

       Phyllis (68) is sitting on a seat by the towpath of the canal in Nottingham. Night. She has two carrier bags.