My bit of Britain

Actor Derek Jacobi Puts Devon and West Sussex under the spotlight...

I've always been a city boy and I love London even though I'm afraid I

don't find some of it very pretty anymore. It's the convenience of all that

I like--being able to leave the theatre or the studios at night and get home

to Haverstock Hill within a short space of time.

My two favorite places in Britain are both associated with memories. The

first is all about childhood and the second about my first real job in a posh

theatre and the work I'm doing now.

Babbacombe in Devon was where my Mum and Dad used to take me as a youngster and I think we must have gone there for about 10 years on the trot. Before my father bought his first car, which was a Hillman, we used to take what was the old Great Western line down to the West Country. The King Class locomotives were fearsome beasts but great fun, all that steam. Then when we got the car we would drive there instead. It was before the age of the

motorway so the journey would take eight or nine hours from London along

winding country roads. We'd stop en route for a picnic or a cup of tea.

When we got there we always used to stay at the same guest house which was

run by Mrs. Dingle. She did B&B as well as evening meal and heaven knows

what it cost. Compared to today, not a lot I suspect. But the routine was

always the same. In the morning we'd go to play a game of miniature golf on

the putting green and then we'd have morning coffee with a doughnut. Then

came the beach or a trip out. At night, after dinner we'd go to the local

little theatre which used to put on two different shows a week so we'd see at

least four shows and two Sunday concerts in the time we were there. Then

there were theatres in both Torquay and Paignoton and a local summer

repertory theatre too. I do know I saw an Agatha Christie play there-- it

had to be Agatha Christie, really, to pull in the punters.

That part of the would is so beautiful with Dartmoor and Princeton (so bleak

but majestic) and Totnes where we'd take a boat on the river. There's the

beautiful abbey at Dockfast and all that wonderful coastline up through

Teignmouth and Shaldon, with those red cliffs. It was sheer bliss for a boy

growing up, and, do you know, I can't honestly say that I remember one day

when the weather was bad. That's what a selective childhood memory does for

you!

It was always such a wrench leaving the place because I loved it so much.

I'd get all sentimental and on the final day I'd say goodbye to the beach, to

the cliffs, to the boarding house...it used to drive my parents crazy.

In recent years I was the Associate Director of the Chichester Festival

Theatre in West Sussex, just under the South Downs. Now that's a

spectacularly beautiful part of the world and as I get older, I sometimes

think of moving down there. Not to retire, perish the thought!

I first went down to Chichester after Sir Laurence Olivier spotted me in

the early 1960's when I was working at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. He

invited me to joining his company in Chichester which was the embryo National

Theatre and so at a very exciting time for the company development. I'm

pretty sure that the first part I played for him--in the first major theatre

I appeared in--was Brother Martin in Shaw's St. Joan. My other job was to

understudy Jeremy Brett who was absolutely marvelous on television as

Sherlock Holmes but also a very fine classical actor.

I also understudied Sir Michael Redgrave in the play that I recently did in

the West End, Uncle Vanya. Only now, I'm the right age for Vanya--back then,

I was only 24, much too young. I never actually went on for Redgrave but I

came perilously close to it one night when it was announced that he had the

flu.

I went to the theatre, went through all the moves with the stage crew, put

on the make-up, the wig and the costume, and 15 minutes before the curtain

went up (and Olivier and Dame Sybil Thorndyke had been round to wish me luck) the door to the dressing room swung open and there was Redgrave, clutching on to the wall. He said, "While I have breath in my body you're not doing the part for me", got changed and did it--superbly as usual! I wasn't the least bit resentful--actually I was rather relived. At that age I would have

looked ridiculous and made a fool of myself.

The great thing about Chichester is that every time I walk into the foyer I

remember wonderful people like Dame Maggie Smith and Albert Finney who were in the first company with me. It was like being on Olympus. The other thing is that while you're at that theatre you never do two shows in a day. So you either have the daylight hours to go and walk on the beach at Pagham Harbour, Bracklesham Bay or around the sea at Bosham, or to go somewhere delicious like Goodwood House. There are tons of little local pubs for the evening and lots of antique shops to potter around in. I'm a great collector of

Staffordshire china and have been for two decades now. I was given a piece

as a present and with it came a book about the stuff. I was hooked. I have

about 60 pieces at home and my favorite is one which represents Shakespeare, the actor Kemble and the actress Mr. Siddons. Staffordshire is very expensive now and beware--there are a lot of very good fakes around.

In 1996 I made Hamlet with Kenneth Branagh and a film for the BBC on the

life of the celebrated World War II scientist Alan Turning and then I've been

back to Budapest to make a few more episodes of Cadfael--the stories about

the medieval monk--which really seem to have caught on all over the world.

It's nice gently stuff, costume drama that people seem to appreciate. The

only inconvenience of playing Cadfael is that I do have to shave my hair to

make a monk's tonsure...I tried getting away with wearing a wig but it looked

so fake. All wrinkled and nasty. 

The countryside around Chichester and in Devon couldn't be more

different--in Devon there are those high hedges and walls along the lanes,

where you have to stop the car to get a look at the view. In Sussex, the

country seems to spread out before you--in the summertime it is sublime.

A lot of people ask me if playing the stuttering crippled Roman Emperor in

I Claudius is an albatross around my neck as far as my career goes. It's

been shown just about everywhere in the world. The answer is no because it

opened up a lot of doors for me and got me recognized. Added to that, the

scripts were marvelous and there was a very theatrical--nay, camp--feel to

it which makes it stand up very well, I think. Even after 20 years.

As a matter of fact, the entire cast had a reunion recently in London at

the British Academy in Piccadilly. The BBC put together an hour-long

compilation of clips from the series and we all sat there after lunchtime

drinks had loosened us up, shrieking with laughter. It was a wonderful day

out. John Hurt was there, and Brian Blessed, Sian Phillips, Maggie Tyzack

who played my mum and who is about the same age as I am--the lot. Thankfully fate has spared us all. The funniest thing though was that back then we all had to sit for hours in the make-up chair at the BBC having bits of plastic

and putty and prosthetics stuck on to our faces to make us look old and

tired. Now we could all do it without the aid of make-up! All except Sian,

she still looks terrific!