‘My fame won’t last’

9:17am Saturday 22nd March 2008

Busy actor and biographer Simon Callow feels he won't be included in a history of the theatre

HAS Simon Callow always been larger than life or is this a skill he's managed to acquire? "I don't particularly experience myself as larger than life," he says cautiously about his effusive role as Martin Dysart in Peter Shaffer's Equus, which tours to Newcastle's Theatre Royal next week.

"I've always been ebullient and extrovert and always been a show-off.

As a child I was a show-off and I was completely astounded about this being pointed out. One of the most remarkable conversations I had was with the great soprano Jessye Norman who came to my dressing room after a show called The Importance of Being Oscar and I told her I was very worried about doing it because it was written by Michael MacLiammoir, whose dresser I'd once been, because Michael was so exotic and she replied and you're not?'.

So although I didn't think of myself as especially like that, I know I'm not retiring."

Simon performs the role of a psychiatrist in Equus. He's a medical man who is haunted by his own ghosts as well as his realisation that he envies the mindset of his patient, Alan Strang, who he must ultimately turn from a notorious criminal, who has blinded six horses, into a different person. Callow is a respected actor, still best known for tragic Gareth in the film Four Weddings And a Funeral and his various portrayals of Charles Dickens. He is also a director, author, biographer and literary reviewer who is currently turning his own acclaimed work on Charles Laughton into a stageplay for Timothy Spall.

Simon points out that the expansive role of Dysart highlights an intellectual's envy of a boy who has found freedom in pagan worship. He sees Alan's central character as perfect for any young actor and would have loved the opportunity himself at that age. He had to wait until he was 30 to play Mozart in Shaffer's other landmark play/film Amadeus.

The scholarly actor has gone on to, surprisingly, review the work of other novelists. "It's a curious thing that, because I wouldn't review theatre, absolutely not, but it's true that I do review books." He groans at being reminded that he has a reputation for tackling nothing under 750 pages. "I've just reviewed a book for the Guardian and I just adored this book because it lasted 89 pages.

"Anyway I can hardly complain about other people (having reached the second volume of a biography of Orson Welles with an even longer third volume due in December). It's normal for writers to review other writers but it's completely unheard of for actors to review others actors.

"What it does do is make me more diligent because I know how hard it is to write it and I read every last syllable including the notes and footnotes and index. I don't think Anthony Burgess ever read a book he reviewed. He'd tell an anecdote from his own life and then some vague generalisation and wrap up by saying it was the best book written on the subject. He was such a consummate writer that it was still worth reading."

Simon is also in the "very, very hard"

process of creating a play on the life of Charles Laughton which will rely on the prodigious acting talent of Timothy Spall. "I can't think of another actor in the world who could play Laughton, I couldn't. I think Tim could so I'll try to do my best to write him a good part," he says of the play which has been commissioned from him for June.

Despite being one of theatre's busiest men, Simon believes with brutal honesty that any future history of the industry will not feature his name.

He blames this partly on performing hardly any of the classics with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, although he was delighted to break his RSC duck in The Merry Wives Of Windsor: The Musical last year alongside Dame Judi Dench.

"One of the things that, for various reasons, has been impossible for me to do, is commit myself to a long season at the RSC mainly for financial reasons.

Other actors have given their whole careers to the RSC and the National, and not earned very much money. Alex Jennings has brought up a family of about 18 children as well," he jokes.

"It's true they haven't exactly beaten down my door to do things, but I have been asked."

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