I was deeply sorry to learn of Sir Ian McKellen’s accident, falling off the stage of the Noel Coward theatre in London on Monday night while playing Falstaff in Player Kings. After following him across the world as his understudy in King Lear in 2007, I know his dread of disappointing his audience. No matter how tired he was or how ill he felt, Sir Ian was always there. He is of the old school of actors who pride themselves on never missing a performance. A vanishing breed.
I only missed one performance in my 50-year sojourn on the stage. It was in 1970 and I was playing Hotspur at the Ludlow festival in Shropshire, peculiarly in the very same play in which Sir Ian has just met his accident. It was also during a major football tournament, in my case the World Cup. The week started inauspiciously when England, the holders, were knocked out by Germany after being 2-0 up.
The play’s director, fresh from Cambridge, had decided to dispense with a fight director, having spent all the budget on the set. If there was one play at Ludlow that didn’t need a set it would be Henry IV Part 1: Hotspur had lived in that very castle. But the designer, another bright university wit, had produced a monstrous arrangement of three separate metal stages which obliterated all traces of the castle behind it. There were 12 edges to fall from, and I managed to do so during the fight scene at the dress rehearsal.
There must be something about that scene. Not only has Sir Ian been injured in it, but in 1961 that fine actor Tony Britton was playing Hotspur at the Old Vic in London, and was conveyed to St Thomas’s hospital in full armour having suffered a severe head wound when Prince Hal mistimed a swipe to his head. He bore the scar on his forehead to his dying day.
My Prince Hal lunged at me, I parried with my dagger, swung round and found myself hurtling off the slippery metal stage on to the ancient stones five feet below. I fell on to to a rock, still holding my sword tightly in my left hand, and broke my wrist. I was borne to the hospital at Shrewsbury like a stricken warrior, my head resting on the lap of my very attractive Lady Percy, who poured copious amounts of brandy down my grateful throat. When we arrived at the hospital, the first thing a forbidding matron asked was if I’d had any alcohol. When I replied in the affirmative – my breath would have told her anyway – she ordered me to go away for three hours until the effects had worn off.
My wrist was throbbing painfully and my dutiful Lady P, still in attendance, suggested we pass the time in a cinema. We found one nearby where the latest James Bond was playing. We had barely taken our seats when the villain twisted Sean Connery’s arm. I shrieked and the throbbing in my wrist became unbearable. I ended up drinking bitter lemon in the appropriately named Falstaff Inn, before Lady P delivered me back to the hospital, where I was examined by a very young and very tired doctor. He didn’t seem to believe me when I explained I’d got myself injured sword fighting at Ludlow Castle.
I was given painkillers at last, my wrist was reset and put in plaster. I played the entire run with my arm in a sling, flourishing it when I said the lines: “I then all smarting with my wounds being cold.” I only missed one performance, when I had to go to London to have my arm reset. I didn’t want to go in case my understudy was better than me.
The craft becomes increasingly difficult for ageing actors. The lines become more difficult to learn, the dread of drying on stage can affect the greatest of actors, although I’ve never suffered it myself. Shakespeare becomes impossible unless you’re playing the king: you spend so much time on your knees and have nothing to grab hold of to help you get up. Your eyesight goes. You find it hard to see steps or the edges of things. You become slightly deaf and have difficultly hearing your cues, especially from young actors who don’t project like they did in your youth. And then there is the bladder. Sometimes you’re on stage for almost an hour, and some costumes are very difficult to get out of quickly – especially if you’re playing Falstaff with all that padding.
Dear Sir Ian, you are the bravest of the brave. I’m sure your Sir John will soon be back on stage, fighting o’ days and foining o’ nights, and patching up his old body for heaven.
David Weston’s book Covering McKellen: An Understudy’s Tale won the 2012 Theatre Book prize
