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A double vision




Wellesbourne Airfield
Wellesbourne Airfield

So how’s the two-role thing going? Great! Olly [Ryan] is fantastic and we are really enjoying playing off each other. And the cast have been fantastic as they have to recalibrate every time we do a swap over but it’s going to get more stressful when we don’t know who is going to be who until we start the show.

What does that spontaneity bring? A terror! But I think, especially with a long run, it will keep it fresh. Watching someone else play it means that you pick up things off each other. Us both playing the parts, and that spontaneity, seems right for the take that Maria [Aberg, director] has got for this show. And there’s a real pleasure in playing both parts.

You are not going to favour a part: ‘ooh I really fancy playing Faustus tonight’? Probably there will be those times! Faustus is a giant role — you’ve got to get the whole ball rolling at the top of the show — Sandy Grierson gets to saunter in…

So what is the vision for the play? It’s pretty much set in the contemporary period — it’s a man (or indeed our understudies are both women, so could be a woman), an intellectual who is coming to the end of what they feel can be known, and so starts to dabble in black arts. In many ways it’s someone losing their mind. The devilry is very closely linked with a sort of depression. It’s Faustus’ own demons he’s dealing with, the story is rooted in one person’s mind.

Once he sells his soul, Faustus, somewhat oddly, asks for an extra 24 years and to be emperor — is there a better wish? I’m increasingly happy with the small things. The notion of being omniscient just seems horrendous. When I was younger maybe I wanted to know avidly what was going on in the world, but now I’ve got a daughter [he has Suzanna, now three, with partner Leah, an art academic, they live in Forest Gate] I just find myself having to turn the news off. I don’t want to be someone who buries their head in the sand, but sometimes you just don’t want to open the door and let that in — the world, war, materialism. So I block that out and let it all in for the show!

Faustus has lots of opportunity to find redemption but makes rotten choices, do you identify with that? Certainly. You wouldn’t be human if there weren’t things you regretted. There are those voices that start to niggle away at the back of your head too — the good or bad angel, or guilt, whatever they might be. I think of that notion that he’s largely alone, he’s in a dark lonely place is where his issues are rooted.

Back to your past, tell us how you first got into acting and what led you to Stratford? At school, growing up in Edinburgh, I remember it dawned on me that you could swear during drama class if it was in a scene. So that attracted me! I also remember being a sprite in a local am-dram production and enjoyed that. I went to a wee place called the Edinburgh Acting School… Mum would take me to the Edinburgh Fringe, and through seeing some Eastern European theatre stuff there I ended up training with Polish director Zofia Kalinska, and just started jobbing as an actor. When I finished school at 17, I came to Stratford to do a year drama course at the college. There was a lovely lady called Deborah Moody that ran the course, which sadly has now been cut. That was in 1996, as soon as I was 18 I got a job as a barman at the Dirty Duck under Pam [Harris, the notoriously strict landlady]. She was fantastic but frightening! All the actors drank their after the shows, she wouldn’t hesitate to barr you for any misdemeanor, and so you would be excluded from all pleasurable activities! I recently went back for a pint, it wasn’t the same — I missed Pam.

Years later you came back to Stratford to take the RSC stage (appearing as Ariel in the 2012 production of The Tempest and other productions), how did that feel? It’s nice to come back… There’s a few places you come back to and you expect to meet yourself coming back, so I half expected to see this earnest little ginger-haired lad…We probably wouldn’t get on!

WHERE AND WHEN: Doctor Faustus opened at the Swan Theatre yesterday, Wednesday, and runs until 4th August. For tickets call 01789 403493 or see www.rsc.org.uk

See Thursday's Herald for Gill Sutherland's review of Doctor Faustus.



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