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Needing a 'rescue device', being part of the original cast of Warhorse and that time he put his head in a fridge. All this and more is discussed in episode 19 of Regrets, I've Had A Few with long term Idiot collaborator, Stephen Harper.
Told by an Idiot's Artistic Director Paul Hunter in free-flowing conversation with friends and colleagues from the theatre industry, delving into what made them the people they are today.
PAUL: Hello, and welcome to Regrets
I've Had a Few.
I'm Paul Hunter, Artistic Director of Told
by an Idiot, and this is a podcast where I
talk to friends and colleagues, delving
into what made them the person
they are today.
Hello and welcome.
And my guest this month is, I think,
one of the greatest clowns that Britain
has produced in the last 30 years.
He is fearless, provocative,
outrageous and very, very funny.
He's been involved in Told by an Idiot almost
from the very beginning and he predates
that. He's worked at theatres including
the RSC, the National Theatre
and with companies such as Improbable.
And he is the best pal
a man could have.
Welcome, Stephen Harper.
STEPHEN: That's very kind, Paul.
Very kind words.
Thank you very much.
PAUL: Well, you're very welcome.
And I'm going to jump straight in because
I mentioned some of your illustrious
career there,
including the National Theatre,
and I'm remembering coming to meet you
for a pint at the Windmill Pub in Waterloo
on The Cut just down
from the National Theatre Studio.
And on that particular day,
you'd been doing the very first R&D,
I seem to remember,
of a show called Warhorse
and we met at the pub and I said to you,
what have you been doing?
And you said,
I'm doing this thing on a children's book
about horses and war and Toby Sedgwick is
there and we're playing with some boxes.
I don't think it'll amount to much...
STEPHEN: I don't remember that!
Typical prescience from me.
PAUL: Yes, exactly.
Finger on the pulse, West End Producer.
STEPHEN:I enjoyed it, but it was like, who was there... The writer
from Mamma Mia was there and Tom Morris,
and the guys who made the puppets,
they're not puppets,
they were just people and objects
and ladders and spades and stuff.
Tom just got me, just threw me
in and said improvise some stuff.
And we did.
Yes.
That's where Corned Beef Croissant,
the story, my family about this corned beef
croissant that we made at one
point in some Easter holidays.
As it was too long for the tin,
I turned into a croissant shape and I told
it to the horse to calm it down
and the writer was just bewildered.
She said, how have you done that?
You've made it so British and so French
and so how... Have you been preparing
for this for a while now?
It's just honestly, it's just
a story she didn't believe.
She dropped out the project.
I put her off by telling the story.
PAUL: We will return to the rather successful
Warhorse and your involvement later.
But first of all, Steve,
obviously we know each other very,
very well, so I kind of feel I know lots
of stuff, but there's probably
some surprises for me.
But I'm going to take you
back to the beginning.
And you were born in Billingham,
a small industrial town in the northeast?
STEPHEN: Yeah.
No, I moved there, I was born in Haverton
Hill, which is even smaller kind of port.
In fact,
one of my first memories is
launching a ship, no I didn't launch the ship.
Obviously.
But the ship launched
from kind of Port Clarence, Haverton Hill
and it was like a big thing, there was some
royalty there and I just, that was like a big thing
I was about four or five maybe
it's not really there anymore. My sister
went to visit and she took me back to it
and it's like a field where we used
to live, just like a field with some cows
and it's all kind of changed but she
remembers it much better. I moved
when I was eight to Billingham.
PAUL: Which I obviously associate Billingham
very strongly with you and I visited,
of course,
in one of our holidays from college, but do
you have any kind of early
memories of theatre?
Did you go to a pantomime or
were you taken to the theatre?
STEPHEN: No.
I did a bit later on when I
showed an interest but I was mostly
in things in primary school I remember
there was the old woman who lived
in the shoe, I was one of the kids
early ensemble role
and then the big one was we did
the plagues of Egypt and
I was one of the Egyptians who had
the plagues visited on us by the girls
in the year above us so they would kind
of come and nip us, we were just in our shorts. I've got a really strong memory of these purple shorts
and they'd come and nip us, they were locusts and
they had big frogs feet.
They had flippers
PAUL: I'm quite intrigued
both by the production as you described,
but also the kind of going for
The Old Testament thing, was this typical of your school?
STEPHEN: Not really it was kind of a Protestant
school so religion wasn't particularly
important I don't think, that might be
a bit controversial but
we had assemblies and we did all
that but it was very relaxed it was a very
relaxed view of religion and my family
certainly wasn't religious.
PAUL: Do you remember any early kind
of going to see anything?
What's the early memories of seeing anything?
STEPHEN: Not really, we'd go to see farces
and things like that and I remember really laughing
a lot but I saw a thing about, when I was about maybe
twelve, Conduct Unbecoming which had
Donald Sinden I think.
it was like, it's a very good film
PAUL: which theatre was it?
STEPHEN: It was
at Billingham Forum yeah.
I went there and it was kind of incredibly
dramatic and very British and just
beautifully done it was like I'm not sure
if I'd like it now but I've seen the film
and it really kind of resonates
like days of the Raj and all the kind
of mystery around it
and very red uniform and the saris
and all the kind of, but really
there's a bit where, I don't want to spoil it
for you but the guy takes his life
at the end its just proper
theatre where the lights go down there's
a gunshot and literally the audience just
didn't clap for about 30 seconds of just
recovering from this very British thing.
PAUL: I suppose you must have
re-encountered Donald Sinden
in the classic sitcom Never The Twain with Windsor Davis.
STEPHEN: Yeah, I didn't really watch that.
I don't know how they got
away with those performances.
PAUL: No, you couldn't get away with it,
certainly couldn't get away with it now,
for good reason, anyway.
So what was the kind of, if it wasn't so
much seeing stuff, where did
the interest in theatre come from?
STEPHEN: It definitely came from this guy,
Andy Murray, who, when I went to senior
school, he was a new English teacher.
We were doing A Midsummer Nights Dream and just
kind of everyone was bored and he was just
trying to shake it up a bit and he was
like I remember there was one bit we read
the bit where Puck falls on his bum.
We were like, amazed.
We said, can you have bum in Shakespeare?
We had a big debate about saying bum in
Shakespeare because we all thought it was thou and that and this
and all the kind of cliched views that kids have.
And then there's a bit where obviously you
played it yourself, where Bottom has
the death scene in Pyramus and Thisbe
and he said, Just go for it.
It just says die several times.
Go for it.
I was quite shy kid.
I didn't really know.
I just went and banged my head on the desk
like Joe Pesci or something
and just scratched against
the wall and wrote Die lots.
And everyone was just like laughing,
but also just stunned.
And he went, you should join this
youth theatre.
And so I just joined and then that's
the kind of, every summer
we did a school production in the summer
and we did a youth theatre and it was
almost like, I usually got girlfriends
and made mates and it was very different.
I was quite sporty.
I was into the football,
but it just took me away
from that just pure sporty lads thing.
There were lots of girls there
just a different bunch of people
who were like really creative.
We used to write our
own plays and devise
very early on. We told the director we
wanted to play about madness,
about mental illness.
We didn't know anything about it.
We did a play
about the Craig and Bentley case.
Very early miscarriage of justice.
It was supposed to be set in Croydon
but we set it in Middlesborough, I think,
so it's all kind of a bit inaccurate
and also we kind of sentimentalised it
hugely I think the director kind of just
wrote all these sentimental letters
which he told us existed and he
lied to us, so we were let down.
But we did some plays, we did
what's that kind of one
boot and... About the critics who go
and see the play and get involved.
Real Inspector Hound.
We did that.
We did a whole variety of stuff.
We just had a great time.
It was just good fun getting
the bus from Billington into Hartlepool.
PAUL: Am I right that as you went through school
for your A Levels,
you did quite a mix of things.
Didn't you do A level math?
STEPHEN: Yeah, I did math, physics and chemistry I
think people were trying to desperately
put me off a life in theatre
it was fair enough.
PAUL: No, I wanted to ask one of the first
kind of thoughts around regrets.
Do you regret not pursuing
a career in science?
STEPHEN: No, I think I might
have been a pharmacist.
I might have been kind of doling out,
kind of paracetamol.
I don't know, what all these kind
of Dexamethasone things
that you give out.
that's what my sister did.
And so because I was a little bit cleverer
than her so they just assumed I'd go on
and be a pharmacist and I
think it was fair enough
really, but I didn't really apply myself
to my, I didn't go very often to school.
To college.
6th form.
Which is not like me, I was very good at school.
But sixth form it felt like, it's just
the same, I just was really disappointed
that it was so similar
I thought it'd be more parties and more
kind of you know, and I never used to go
on a Thursday to physics because I'd been
out to a club on the Wednesday
night Peppermint Park.
Which had a half rockerbilly -
half kind of independent night and so
there was lots of you'd have the Smiths
and then you'd have some bit
of Rockabilly Rebel song and we'd all
dance to each others and everyone was
dressed up and there's a bit where
the bouncer would come and sing an Elvis
song and that was the kind
of night, so I was just hungover.
So I didn't go in.
I just told my mum I had free
lessons on a Thursday morning.
PAUL: So Peppermint Park was the place to be, mid week
STEPHEN: It was the place, the only
independent night in Stockton.
PAUL: Stockton, of course.
When do you think I'm going
to try and go for it?
I'm going to try and be an actor,
I'm going to try and study drama.
STEPHEN: I suppose it was encouraged through,
I just kept doing youth theatre.
I kind of came and I sort of assistant directed
something at one point and then
he just said, what are you applying for?
And I just applied to Manchester and just
didn't get in, I was so far from getting
into Manchester, and I came to Middlesex
and was just so late, I thought I
didn't want to get on the Tube.
The Tube terrified me.
I thought, I can't go on the Tube,
I got a bus, no buses.
So I got a bus from Victoria to Golders Green, which took hours and I was late
and I remember the librarian calming
me down and me doing this audition.
PAUL: What did you do for your audition?
STEPHEN: What did I do for my audition?
I did a bit from The Long and the Short
and the Tall by Willis Hall.
There's a bit of a guy from actually
from Darlington or Middlesbrough of someone who
does a speech that's kind of quite easy.
Yeah, you had a choice of what to do
but they kept making me do improvisations
where I was quite a posh gentleman
and I realised, because my friend Nicky Boyce
who did it, they kept making her be a tramp.
She's very posh.
So they obviously go for you,
can you do anything else apart
from this broad northern thing?
And then I was worried about essays
because I just did science,
I thought I can't, and so they made me write
an essay about a punk called The Crow.
And so I wrote this essay.
It was like a very weird day.
And then I got back on
the National Express and then I
got a letter saying I was in.
That was the only place I got into.
So I was just lucky.
And I needed like two E's to get
in there and I got a D and an E.
Okay, I did fine.
PAUL: You surpassed
STEPHEN: a lot of people who did much better than
me didn't get into where they wanted to.
But it meant I could celebrate.
PAUL: It's funny, isn't it?
Because we have lots in common.
One of which, I think,
is that we were kind of both the members
of our family that kind of went away
from home in my case, Birmingham.
And I remember, of course, following
you the year later into Middlesex.
Maybe I was a little bit bolder
on the tube, but I think I
shared the same nervousness.
And I remember I was thinking about this
this morning, your year group,
when I first turned up,
and I can see my memory of you looking
quite like a kind of, funny you mentioned
Craig and Bentley,
like a kind of mix of something quite
period, almost like 1950s,
but with a kind of Bowie esque Smiths esque
STEPHEN: Yea, yea
PAUL: Was that conscious, that style that you'd fashioned?
STEPHEN: I don't think so.
I just used to wear a mac all the time
and people were quite trendy and people like Tony Davis would often
dress up for dinner and bring
in a glass of wine for his lunch.
He'd have with his cheese toasty,
have a glass of wine and a little and
there was quite an eccentric year ours
I think you lot were a bit more well, I don't know, you had a few eccentricities didn't you, but I think those kind
of courses do attract a sort
of an eccentric bunch of people.
I probably was one of them as well.
I was trying to find myself, really,
because I was so reliant on my family
and friends who are like bubbly and had
lots of energy and would talk
lots and I was a good listener.
Everyone would say I was a good listener,
but then you can't just go and listen.
I just had to kind of step out.
And I was a bit of a professional
Northerner, but I just moaned about
how expensive everything was.
But I put myself out there
and you make friends really quickly.
It's quite defining,
I think you're just thrown in and those
early memories, they stick
with you, don't they?
PAUL: Yea, no, for sure.
And I think I didn't realise quite, I
thought you know, you have an idea of what drama
school thing is and then suddenly all
being thrown in, your year,
and our year in that one
little space, in Hampstead.
And then, I suppose,
meeting you and going to the pub
and feeling a connection and everything.
But then, I suppose,
also the big link for me with you
and a big figure for all of us,
not all of us, but those people who were
into it was obviously John, John Wright's work.
And you had obviously gone the year before
us with John, and I remember
you telling us about him.
And a vivid memory of mine was us as first years
watching your second year production
with John, where you said,
we're doing this clown show.
And I remember, me and Hayley,
I didn't have any idea what a clown was.
What do you mean, like the circus?
And you go, no, it's not like circus.
It's not like big feet and everything.
And then you put this wedding on,
this clown wedding in that
little theatre at Ivy House.
And I remember coming in and John was
sitting in the auditorium, with that massive
drum that he would hit three times.
On the third time you were out.
And I just remember you being absolutely
hysterical, leaping around
the stage as a gazelle.
I suppose what I'm getting to is
how would you describe John's
influence on you as a performer?
STEPHEN: Yeah, I wouldn't be here.
I was really into plays.
I wanted to go and do plays and read plays,
and I was kind of obsessed by it.
And then he just said, make something up.
And I was, like,
going and that's the thing about
the joy of just doing something and people
laughing and then going, I've got this,
I've got them, and then him provoking you further
and then making it harder for you.
I don't know if consciously I felt like I was
on a journey, but definitely it
was something that connected.
And
there's a few of us in our year that really
liked him, and some people were terrified,
but I was never, I was sort of a bit frightened.
But in just that great way,
just before you go on stage, that nervous
energy, it just can't, which I didn't really feel
for some of the other classes,
I was a bit like it seemed a bit
mundane doing voice and things.
It felt very technical,
but this was like discovering stuff and I
thought, and it was all new,
I just never heard of it.
I'd seen one company when I was 16 called
Théâtre Blick, this Polish company
which was in Stockton at the Ark.
It was the Dovecot, called the Arc now,
and they were doing a similar thing.
And I suddenly went, this is what they
were doing, I suddenly get it.
Big, bold visual images,
clowning directly at the audience,
like they were flirting with you.
And I just remember that's something I
really like that,
and that kind of boldness and it just
sounds like I say joyful,
that kind of thing,
when things connect together, also, but then
the next day, just absolutely
falling on its arse.
Just going I haven't got any idea what I'm
doing here because it's just
PAUL: But I suppose, if I think back to that time and watching you in that show for John and with your
friends and stuff and then
it just felt and it's always felt this
when I look at you from a clown
point of view, it felt
as you say
you can fall on your arse one moment
and fly the next, but it always felt
that it was something natural to you.
Do you know what I mean?
And I know that's maybe overused sometimes, he's a natural clown
It did feel natural right from that beginning.
Is that how it felt to you or not?
STEPHEN: I think so.
I just thought about it a lot and it just
seemed natural to kind of work at it.
So I suppose that's how I kind of qualify
a bit because I didn't
just go on and be funny.
It wasn't like that at all.
I had to kind of think about it
and I got a bit obsessed by it.
I really did.
A few of us did,
but I really did and would kind of like
the thing about having a pack
of crisps down my underpants.
I'd just have them ready there
and very rarely use them.
But know at some point, I could just
go crunch and get like a laugh.
It was like a little rescue
device, I remember John said
rescue device at one point just have something up your sleeve, just to kind of change the rhythm.
And so people couldn't believe, and said,
did you just put them in today?
And I was like, no, I've had
them in the last three weeks.
Just in case.
PAUL: I'm thinking of obviously very
illustrious performers like Simon
Russell Beale and what their rescue device would be.
But I don't know why it's gone there.
But I think it's brilliant
that you had the crisps
in your underpants for some time.
STEPHEN: Yeah, I put them
in surreptitiously just in case.
I had the idea.
I thought I got something and then I just
had like a series of successes
so you kind of don't have to go.
PAUL: Don't go to your rescue device
when you don't need it.
STEPHEN: No.
Again, it's a natural thing.
Some things you instinctively understand.
PAUL: you don't need teaching,
really, about that do you. Anyway.
Obviously, you and I and a whole bunch
of brilliant friends came
together in that time.
Lizzie and Hayley,
Mick, of course, your year.
And we hung out and we ended up
sharing houses and all that stuff.
And then, of course, you left.
And then I then left.
And that feeling.
I was thinking back to this,
when I went to work at that pub
in Kentish Town, you used to come around
there and we'd all hang out there,
desperately trying to get
a profit share show somewhere.
STEPHEN: because I was in vagabond bags
around the corner from you.
PAUL: Yes, you were.
You worked at the bag shop. With Pat!
STEPHEN: She'd come and have four
points on a lunchtime.
PAUL: Not just four pints, but strong lager. And then take cans back?
STEPHEN: Yea, four cans back. She'd have four in the afternoon.
Yeah.
PAUL: My memory is you always
spoke quite kindly of Pat.
STEPHEN: No, she looked after me, really.
She recognised, because some
people turned up and were late, you know,
I wasn't lazy, I just got with it.
And I was tall, so I could reach
things and so I was useful.
You just have to get on with those things.
And there's lots of, like,
Spanish people and different people,
all kind of a broad variety of people.
We just kind of said,
It's much better if you do the work
and then you get on with it and then
everyone's happy and you
just realise that.
And when she was barred from having her four
cans of lager in the afternoon, we all,
we had to kind of go, obviously,
we're not going to strike,
but it seems like she's doing all right.
PAUL: I quite like the fact that you all got
behind Pat and after her four pints
in the pub, she was being
victimised for the fact -
STEPHEN: I said she only ever has a pint in the pub.
And she went, she was looking
at me like, oh, yeah, good one.
Yeah, let's go with this.
PAUL: And I imagine the cans would probably
be strong, like Kestral or something?
STEPHEN: Yeah, it was like that Skol extra or that
kind of yeah,
PAUL: it wouldn't be the Carling.
Anyway, that's enough of Pat!
That era, of course, when we
were all trying to get going.
And then, very fortunately,
after a couple of years,
I managed to get a break with Trestle.
And my memory, again,
brilliantly supported by John.
John said they were doing some auditions
because Trestle, those listeners who don't
know, were a wonderful British mask
theatre company that John co-founded.
But in typical John fashion, he said they're doing the
auditions, go along, I'll recommend you.
And when I got there,
of course he'd forgotten to mention it,
so no one knew I was turning up.
But of course, you followed into Trestle
shortly after me and it's easy to think
of, you know that was a big time of lots and lots
of touring, but I remember looking back as
a performer,
on reflection, it was brilliant to work
in mask, starting out in acting.
What do you think?
STEPHEN: I think it was a good training and also it's
a good, I don't know, that kind of, you get
practical doing the show
after show,
working out how to kind of travel,
how to get on with people,
how to then get,
warm up for the show,
do the show, consistently,
and then also kind of trying to have a bit
of fun with it because it does get a bit,
for me personally,
it took me a while to learn the show
because it's so complicated.
But once you've got the show.
You could easily drift into this.
But luckily I was with people who were
always kind of interested in trying
to change things and saying,
can we work on the timing of this?
And I was always really up for that.
I was like going, oh,
are we allowed to do this?
And we'd kind of come in.
Even the direct Sally would come
in and go, let's time that a bit better.
So it felt like it was just
good practice, really.
And for all kind of,
the fact that their history,
they did some really great shows and
they were really popular, that was good.
I mean, I really liked the fact that you
go to Dublin and people couldn't believe
there was like a piece of theatre with no
words in, where they understood
everything, they laughed at everything
and they got it because it's
such a literary culture.
And then you could go to the top of Scotland,
I went all around Holland
and so you get to see a bit.
PAUL: Yeah, I agree.
And also that thing as an actor,
I think everybody,
in a way, would benefit from a period of
time when you're not speaking on stage.
I think that discipline of having to work
without language, I think even now,
30 odd years later,
making the Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel
show, I found myself,
even though we weren't working in mask,
I found myself remembering
certain things from the Trestle days
STEPHEN: Yea, the internal monologue things.
Yeah, I think it's useful because there
will be a bit where you don't have anything
to do, you see people, because they haven't got any text, they switch off a bit.
Obviously, I like a bit of text.
I was desperate to speak and pull faces
and get that mask off and stop being so,
because it becomes a bit of a
claustrophobic thing.
I even did something
just last summer as part of Worthing
Theatre Trail, a little theatre thing.
And I did some mask things with our friend
Abigail and I said, I'll go
on for a bit, I'll, get me up.
You provoke it.
And I hated it so much.
It brought back such, the reason why I
went, I don't want to do this anymore,
I want to be able to kind of be.
So I think it's a bit
of a safety device in some ways.
Also, it releases you to a certain degree
and at some point it kind of doesn't.
PAUL: I think also that sense of anything for too long
in theatre terms, you need, and I certainly,
this partly, I think,
was behind the very beginnings
of Told by an Idiot, and as you know,
that our year at college with John,
you did clown and we did commedia.
I didn't know what commedia was,
but it was the single biggest influence,
I think, on the way I look at performing,
writing, making, and I think that energy
of commedia has always been
at the heart of Told by an Idiot.
And I remember I was thinking about all
the brilliant shows you've
done for us over the years.
And that first one when you came into
I Weep at my Piano and I remember
we'd done it originally at
the Lorca Festival
STEPHEN: yeah, with Darren.
PAUL: Darren.
And then Darren, I think, was having
thoughts about show business in general.
So we had to recast for the tour
in London and Hayley and I thought,
Well, Steve is kind of perfect.
I think it was also that sense of, I
don't think we'd work together properly.
We've done some sketch things,
like Dalí and Lorca
and we'd done a street show, of course,
in Portobello Market with Joey.
But it just felt such a perfect
fit when you joined us.
It just felt like, well, this is
exactly the type of performer, as we started
to bring different performers in.
STEPHEN: It was great to meet like Dicky and Naomi
PAUL: And Iain on that show
STEPHEN: and Iain yea, with the music, which is not my forte.
I spoke about it again just last year,
about him when he first met me,
and he was like, going, you couldn't do
anything, you couldn't clap in time.
Desperately trying to think each night,
go, I'm scratching my head,
why is this guy in here?
PAUL: I like, Iain's honesty and literally
going, well, you can't do anything.
STEPHEN: Can't clap, keep a beat.
It's that kind of challenge, isn't it?
I'm not sure of the order, I'm not sure if we did, what was the first?
PAUL: You're absolutely right.
I've got my own order wrong.
No, you joined first for
Don't Laugh It's My Life. Of course.
STEPHEN: We did all the R&D in Bridport and all that kind of stuff.
PAUL: And your eldest son was born.
STEPHEN: Yeah, he was.
PAUL: During the January of course.
STEPHEN: Course, of course he was, ridiculous. Because we did, because
particularly we chose,
because he was breach,
we went for a Caesarean.
Caesarean.
So we could have it on the Monday night.
Because I think we got Monday nights off.
PAUL: That's right.
STEPHEN: On the Sunday.
I'd be leaving you and Hayley and
Leah and all those people, Rick Katz.
And I think Jane Guernier had come to see
the show and you're all kind of, Jo had a little half a Guinness,
the only drink she had over that because
it was happening the next day.
And we were going to be parents.
PAUL: Yeah, and that also,
I think, of a crowd of us,
you were the first to become parents
of all of us, I think Richard
Katz was the same time with Martha.
STEPHEN: Wasn't that first actually, they were
pregnant at the same time.
PAUL: But I remember, of course,
on that Monday you'd been
to the hospital, and coming to see you.
That was an extraordinary thing.
That suddenly one of our gang and I remember
thinking, God,
I'm never going to do that.
Obviously, I did.
That's another story.
And then, of course,
you went on to be such a regular Idiot
and such a brilliant part of so many
companies and I think about so many
memories, but one in particular, a show
that and actually, there's a photo
on the wall behind me that you might
be able to see, it's you and Hayley
in one of my favourite Idiot shows
of all time, I'm A Fool To Want You, which was
when we met the brilliant jazz pianist
Zoe Rahman, a show that was very close to my heart,
because on one level it was about jazz.
And I'll talk about jazz and you and me
and jazz in a minute,
but that show was so special and we
managed, as you said, to do it in London
and we brilliantly went to, were invited
to the festival in Caracas, in Venezuela,
where we worked with a young Wilfredo,
a young Venezuelan trumpet player.
But I remember the opening night
in Caracas and it was packed,
700 seats, an amazing reaction.
But of course it was incredibly
hot and altitude and everything.
And then I remember being
collected by the head
of the British Council and various
dignitaries from the festival
congratulating me, saying,
we'd like to congratulate the actors.
And I led them backstage
and
the first thing they encountered was you in
your underpants
with your head in a fridge.
STEPHEN: It was so hot, 100 degrees Celsius on stage.
So it was really hot and Hayley went
put your head in the fridge,
you're going to pass out. You're going to have heat stroke.
PAUL: Well luckily there were no crisps
inside the underpants.
You didn't need to lie on them on that particular show.
STEPHEN: those times were gone yea.
PAUL: And then, of course,
you've gone on to work with amazing people
and companies, Improbable and Warhorse.
And I have one memory of Warhorse amongst
many, but obviously you were
there at the very beginning.
You were there at the national,
you went into the West End,
you were there for a long time
and saw many casts and played many parts
but I do remember
messaging you when I realised that you'd
actually been in the show
longer than the war itself.
STEPHEN: No, that was significant.
And I was carrying quite
a few injuries there.
So I had my war wounds.
I'd kind of done my knee in.
I had to do a very careful version
of the show because I couldn't run
forwards because the pressure on my knee
would kind of just put such a lot
of strain because of this rubberized floor, amazing
set and design, but it was
quite tough on the actors.
But I could run backwards.
And that's what I did
as the head of the horse.
I could run backwards
because it was less strain
and so they cut me from some of the early
puppets, but I just did the kind
of puppets that I was necessary
for and I could really go for it.
And I had some padding and there was also
acupuncture and all this kind of stuff.
I didn't have any pain killing injections,
but it was close to that.
And so I remember I was coming to an end.
Then I was like, thinking, I can't.
I haven't got another one of these in me.
That'll be it.
I'll just have to retire, put me in a bed. It knackers you out.
PAUL: My other Warhorse memory was when
it was the Jubilee, not this one, the one before
STEPHEN: yeah, 10 years ago yea
PAUL: but she went down on the boat.
On the river and you were operating one
of the horses at the National Theatre.
And the bit that made me laugh,
you said this, but you could see it on TV,
she was clearly quite bored on this boat
until an aide put her arm on and said,
oh, look, ma'am, there's Warhorse.
She looked up and saw
the horses and her face lit up.
Did the Queen come and see the show?
STEPHEN: Yes, she came to see the show.
Yeah.
We didn't see her afterwards.
She left a bit early and she sat
in the same seat as Barbara Windsor,
so that was like Barbara Windsor
was in the weekend after.
So it's like they get
the same seat, they'll also get escorted out.
I think that we saw her leaving during
the curtain call, just so she can leave
nice and easy, because all the others came
and Princess Anne came and hung around
and told us that, very early on,
said it was brilliant,
but she thought the noises weren't right
and so we were called in the next day to
kind of do horse noises, but it was true.
But she was right.
PAUL: She'd know about that.
STEPHEN: Yeah.
So we met a few of them.
PAUL: Another big thing which I wanted to touch
on while we chat is our shared love
and passion for jazz,
which goes right back to us meeting and me
playing you some albums and going off when
maybe both of us were still at college
in various pubs around North London.
And that passion and joy for music.
For jazz has stayed with us.
STEPHEN: recorded and live I
think we would listen to a lot.
You had like, a great album.
I keep trying to find it.
Jazz giants play classic love songs,
but there's so many albums called that.
It's got a great version
of Love for Sale on it.
Unknown Sessions with the brilliant cover
of Ellington, with the kind of grand
piano covered in brown paper and string.
It's just beautiful.
It's got me and Jo at our wedding,
which you were our best man for, we played a song
called In A Sentimental Mood,
beautiful song which we danced to,
which kind of occasionally comes on my
playlist, on my spotify
and it's just, really takes you back.
PAUL: I think more recently, obviously,
the joy the other month, you,
Me, Martin and Sophia going to Love Supreme.
But I also particularly loved last year
going with you to see Charles Lloyd,
the extraordinary saxophonist
at the Barbican, and that gig
in particular stayed with me.
Steve, it's been brilliant
chatting to you.
I'm going to end,
like I do with lots of my guests,
where I'm going to ask eight quickfire
questions which connect
to your life in some way.
You won't have any trouble with this
spontaneity and you won't need your
safety relief with this at all.
I'm slightly overplaying that now.
So you say the first answer
that comes into your head.
Chicken Madras or Lamb Dhansak?
STEPHEN: Lamb Dhansak.
PAUL: This is about a theatre company we both
loved called The Right Size - Moose,
Or Stop Calling Me Vernon?
STEPHEN: Stop Calling Me Vernon. Just.
PAUL: Venice or Reykjavik?
STEPHEN: Oh, that is a hard one.
But go Reykjavik.
PAUL: Crime and Punishment or Moby Dick?
STEPHEN: Crime and Punishment.
PAUL: Is that because of the whaling
section in Moby Dick?
STEPHEN: I think so.
I never finished Moby Dick,
so I always get to the bit where, the whole
bit where it's got all these whales,
it goes on for ages and I kind of go, I
never got to the end, but I've seen the film.
So I do know it.
PAUL: Snooker or pool?
STEPHEN: Pool. Just, again.
PAUL: John Hegley or Jeremy Hardy?
STEPHEN: John Hegley.
PAUL: Young Americans or Life on Mars?
STEPHEN: Life On Mars, because we saw it, it
was part of the Jazz festival.
PAUL: Indeed.
Down by Law or Babette's Feast?
STEPHEN: Oh, that's a very good one.
Down By Law.
I'm actually going to the pictures tonight, going to see
Wings Of Desire, Wim Wenders.
PAUL: Wow, ah yes it's come out again.
Is it playing at your local?
STEPHEN: Yeah.
So that's great.
And Paris Texas next month,
we booked tickets this afternoon, so me and Jo have a date night.
PAUL: You'll have a great time.
Steve, it's been brilliant chatting to you.
I just want to finish by saying, you know,
this, but there are so many people out
there sending you and Jo and the boys so
much love and I will see you very soon.
Yeah, I'll come down and see you there.
STEPHEN: Please do.
PAUL: Or pool, as you prefer pool
STEPHEN: no, I think I'd like a game of snook with you,
but its quite good to play snooker
and then finish with a game of pool
because it feels a bit easier
PAUL: and the pockets look like buckets then which is perfect.
Steve, take care, mate.
STEPHEN: Cheers
PAUL: Enjoy the movie
STEPHEN: Cheers, thanks a lot, bye.
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