#simon gray

NO, MR BOND, I EXPECT YOU TO GIVE A BOOK!

The only real problem that I had when in rehearsal with 'The Common Pursuit' was, of course, Rik. His voice was still raspy, although the screech had gone, but there was a dreadful assemblage of comic tricks - funny walks, shakings of his body, rollings of the eyes, meaningless mad glares - he'd imported all this stuff into the world of 'The Common Pursuit', which had no room for it. I was in despair. I knew he thought he was offering something valuable, the Rik-original-and-inventive-comic that his fans loved - and I felt there would be a kind of cruelty in refusing him the gifts he was bringing to me. What I didn't realize was that these gifts were self-protective, a disguise, and that Rik was frightened of being seen unadorned by them. [...] It turned out to be both exciting and easy. All I had to do was say, 'Don't', 'Don't do this here', 'Don't do that there', 'You don't need this ', 'You don't need that' - a succession of sympathetic negatives which Rik accepted with a kind of welcoming relief, as if he'd hoped for this, longed for this exposure. And what was exposed, what he exposed to us in the rehearsal room, was not just that he was a true actor but that he could be a great one.