Globe glory boy

IT’S electrical chaos at Darlington actor Jamie Parker’s new home in Hampshire when I call him with congratulations over the stunning reviews he’s getting for playing Shakespeare’s Prince Hal in the mammoth project Henry IV Part 1 and Part 2 at London’s The Globe Theatre.

“I think our power supply is akin to something from the 15th Century, but we’re trying to bring it up to the 21st.

Although I don’t feel very Princely at the moment,” jokes the 31-year-old.

The North-East actor who hit the big time playing Scripps on stage and in the film of The History Boys by Allan Bennett is modesty itself when asked about his involvement in the capital’s famous recreation of the Bard’s open air theatre.

“I’ve known the director Dominic Dromgoole for years and he gave me my first job back in 2002 which was After The Dance and I worked with him last year at The Globe in a monster project called A New World – A Life of Thomas Paine, after I’d done As You Like It. At the end of the season last year, I knew he was doing Henry IV but hadn’t said anything and I was kind of biting my tongue because Hal is the first big role that a lot of young actors come across. You stick a pin in that one and say ‘some day’.

“The season had done well and I knew I hadn’t embarrassed myself but there was no guarantee of anything at all and then Dom brought up the idea of me playing Hal and I was sort of floating at that point. Then I found out that Roger Allam was playing Falstaff and it was kind of my birthday,” he says.

Parker looks at Allam – with a lengthy theatre career including the original Inspector Javert in Les Miserables – as the real deal when it comes to playing Shakespeare and feels that the two are earning accolades from critics and audiences because the actor-apprentice balance between them translates perfectly to the stage.

“Falstaff is a monster role with over 20 per cent of the lines in each play while Hal is on a lot of Part 1 but in Part 2 he’s more of a satellite character and only takes over again in the last two acts. The banter between them is competitive and there’s this absolute gift of a half-hour scene in the pub with words that can turn on a sixpence from light-hearted to very, very dark. Shakespeare wrote it for two actors who can stand centre stage.

You have to know when to disappear in a scene and when to grab it with both hands,” he says.

Parker admits he’d been diffident about taking on Shakespeare when he first left Rada in 2002 because it normally involved a long contract. “At 22 I was able to do lots of things and I got to make a lot of mistakes and things that were very good and it could have been quite dangerous to get stuck into the fluffy white shirts and nothing else,” he says.

Research for Hal wasn’t easy because the two plays are “big and expensive, complicated and don’t get done that often. We’ve got a large company of 15 with a massive number of doubling up on roles”. Parker admits that playing Hal takes up most of his time but he does sneak into The Globe audience dressed as a monk “which feels a bit Monty Python when I’m one of the monks trying not to giggle”.

I ask him about stepping into the shoes of Shakespeare by playing Hal outdoors come rain or shine in front of an all-seeing audience.

“It does feel at times like you’re fighting a losing battle because there are aeroplanes and helicopters and party boats going past on the Thames.

Just to be inside with a roof would be so much better. But then everything works and it’s so magical you can’t ever imagine doing Shakespeare again with the audience in the dark and you in the light.

“There’s nowhere to hide... and you feel like a dog or a drunk because so many things are coming at you. You can’t do the English actor thing of ignoring things and carrying on. If someone’s texting, yawning or being bored then you see them. If you go over and try and do something about that it can be terrifying,” says Parker who actually feels that running Part 1 and 2 on the same day is easier than separate performances.

“The best Shakespeare I’ve seen hasn’t been approached with the idea ‘oh my God this is the most famous play in the past 400 years’. They’ve done it like it’s just another play. That takes the curse off it,” adds the actor who is pleased that critics are writing nice things about his performance.

“This is a genuinely new thing for me but the first thing that is always asked is ‘who is playing Falstaff and who is playing Hal?’. Normally I wait until after a run is finished before reading anything, then I’ll sit and devour the press pack,” he says.

In fact The Globe is so pleased with Henry IV that the plays’ runs are being extended into October to finance the performances being filmed. Parker stresses that some shows lack “that certain something...

that last threshold crossed which I’ve seen from the audience and been up on stage when it happened and it’s a thrill, but by its very nature it’s very elusive”.

He admits there are a number of leading roles he’d like to get his hands on “having made a good stab of playing leading man’s best friend so far”.

Parker and his actress wife Deborah Crowe do still manage to visit his parents and extended family in Darlington regularly and enjoyed a recent trip out to the Yorkshire Dales.

“In my career so far I’ve got bits of everything in film, TV and theatre, but mostly theatre because I think that’s what I grew up doing and I’d happily do bits of everything in future,” he says.

■ Henry IV Part 1 and 2 run at The Globe Theatre, Bankside, New Globe Walk, London, SE1 NDT, until October 9. Box Office: 020-7401-9919 shakespeares-globe.org