This Much Is True

For Christmas, we were at the King’s Theatre in Glasgow. We had a full Christmas season there, which was for about two months, so I stayed with Auntie Eva and Uncle Harold in Pollokshields. After that we were in Aberdeen for January, then on the second-last stop of the tour we played at the King’s Theatre in Edinburgh. The stage was on a revolve — it had a mechanism which meant that it slowly rotated a full 360 degrees — and that was how the scenes changed. We were all on stage in Anatevka when it started its stately turn — and then suddenly lurched to a halt. Several cast members fell off. The mechanism had jammed and we were stuck on stage mid-scene, so they had to stop the show for about half an hour. Those who had kept their balance had to sheepishly go off into the wings and wait for the mechanism to be fixed.

Leeds was the last stop. By the end of a full year on the road we were all extremely tired. It was Passover, and I had taken over the role of the Jewish mother of the company when Thelma Ruby left. As such, I decided that it was my job to find somewhere for me and my fellow Jews in the company to go for our Seder night, the special supper that we all have at Passover. I asked the theatre management to put an advertisement in the local Jewish Echo.

A woman rang up. ‘Oh, hello, I saw your advertisement about finding people to play host to members of your company for Passover. I would like to offer a Seder night meal to Barry Martin.’ Barry had taken over from Lex and was now the star of the show playing Tevye. I said to her, ‘I’m so sorry, Barry has relatives in Leeds, so he will be going there for supper. However, I have got a young lady in the company, she’s a violinist in the orchestra, and it’s the first time she’s been away from home. So, it would be really kind if you could offer her your hospitality.’ ‘Oh, no, I’m sorry. I only want Barry Martin.’ ‘I didn’t realise your hospitality was so selective,’ I replied, and put the phone down.

A few weeks later, when I gave a talk to the local Jewish ladies’ coffee morning, I told the story. Of course, everybody knew who she was. They were suitably shocked. Some people thought I shouldn’t have said anything, but she had behaved badly. If I think somebody has done something wrong, I will expose it. In her case, it was a positive pleasure to do it.

Quite a few of the Fiddler cast have stayed in touch, although it’s fifty years since the show closed. Some have died, particularly the male dancers. John Chester was our Fiddler until one night he was on the roof and got drunk and fell off, and got the sack, God rest his soul. He was a sweet boy. And then there was Rex Stallings, playing one of the grooms. Rex and I kept in touch and when he died in California I was living nearby. His ex-wife asked me if I would bring his ashes back home to London. It was a strange, sad feeling to be sitting on a plane, holding in this little box all that remained of my tall, handsome friend.

During the tour I had been learning to drive. I took my first test in Birmingham, and I failed: I remember my knickers fell off as I opened the driver’s door. It wasn’t a ploy to distract the examiner: the elastic gave out. Then I took another test in Liverpool and passed. Right away I bought a brand-new car — a white Volkswagen Beetle. It cost £850. Now I could leave a party when I wanted, no more waiting around for lifts. This was true liberation.

Going on the Stage: A Masterclass of Sorts

Strangely enough, it was a film rather than a play that made me think that acting might be the profession for me. I was sixteen when I first saw Les Enfants du Paradis at the Scala Cinema in Walton Street, Oxford. It intoxicated me.

Made in the early 1940s, while France was under German occupation, the film deals with love and rejection and the passionate rivalries between different nineteenth-century theatre companies. Jean-Louis Barrault plays a mime hopelessly in love with the actress, Arletty; we see behind his mask and sense the pain of rejection he’s feeling — a most extraordinary piece of acting, with not a word spoken. The film is not so much about individuals as the world they inhabit; it leaves you with a great sadness at the end, a melancholy, that’s very much in keeping with my own nature.

What I found thrilling was the way it portrayed theatre: it made me realise that this was a place where art happened: it wasn’t peripheral, superficial nonsense. It was about the development of the soul: people spent their whole lives in the theatre and relished it and grew in it. And I wanted to be a part of that world.