Playing Shakespeare

It is Thursday, 19 Mar 1998, 11:35 and I've bunked off school. I'm about to be on TV. I don't think I've told anyone.

A few months prior, I had auditioned for a TV show and got the part! A few days later - with school's permission - I started rehearsals in some weird BBC rehearsal space. At the end of the week, a car took me to the then-abandoned St Pancras hotel, where we filmed.

The resulting programme was... fine. I guess. I've written more about my experiences - but I never saw the show again. For the next few years, the royalty cheques came dribbling in. Shakespeare is a perennial favourite, and TV stations around the world are eager to buy good productions. But tastes change, what once was cool and edgy now looks tired and rubbish. So the money dried up.

I thought that it was probably one of those bits of ephemeral media destined never to be seen again. I didn't imagine it had been junked like early Doctor Who tapes. Just that there was no interest in sticking it on iPlayer. A little moment of my personal history, lost in the æther.

And then...

I've recently become a university student again. That means access to all sorts of interesting digital archives. One of which is Learning on Screen. It features just about every show broadcast on British TV. And, after a bit of wrangling with the search engine, I found my fifteen minutes of fame.

Here's an excerpt - strictly for the purposes of criticism:

If you have an academic account, the full show is available. It features a lot more actorly commentary about the scene - suitable for improving young minds.

It's hard watching it back - I don't think anyone really enjoys watching their performances. It's almost never as bad as you fear. But I think I do OK with what few lines I have.

To paraphrase Florence Foster Jenkins - people may say I can't act, but no one can ever say I didn't act in Shakespeare for the BBC.