MY WEEK: DAVID BURKE






Interviewed By Susannah Prain
The Independent
April 15, 2000




MY WEEK: DAVID BURKE; THE ACTOR WHO IS PLAYING JOHN OF GAUNT IN THE ALMEIDA
THEATRE'S PRODUCTION OF 'RICHARD II', STARRING RALPH FIENNES, AT
GAINSBOROUGH STUDIOS, LONDON





Sunday


On such a fantastic day, I feel privileged to be at our house in the country with my family and we spend the day gardening, reading and enjoying my last liberated Sunday. Friends come in the afternoon to wish me well for the week ahead. Wednesday will be the press night for the Almeida Theatre's Richard II with Ralph Feinnes in the title role. I am Old Saint, I am about the right age. Saint was also seriously rich. So it is clear that the casting department know their business. I have an early night, as I am convinced that a beauty sleep just the tonic I need for my gruelling but exciting week ahead.


Monday


I travel up to London early, to join the rest of the cast at the Gainsborough Studios in Shoreditch for notes from our director, Jonathan Kent, who is endlessly encouraging and enthusiastic. We do the show and I give it a bit of "welly". I finish my death scene and change into my street clothes and hurry away (I am excused the curtain call) to catch my bus and hopefully watch the nine-o'clock news. However, Jonathan Kent appears from nowhere to tell me I was "a bit over the top tonight. Take it down a touch David." Now I've missed my bus.


Tuesday


Determined to win back brownie points from my director I take my performance down a notch to 55 watts rather than 60 watts. However, he catches me again and says "now you've gone too far". Tomorrow I'll pitch it at 57 and a half.


It is an amazing sensation working in this theatre. Our stage is covered in grass so that from the audience it looks as though we are acting in a field. The theatre itself is incredible, it was originally built as a mill, then became a warehouse and eventually transformed into a theatre. You would expect the acoustics to be terrible but they are, in fact, perfect; I can feel our voices resonating around the auditorium as we do our performance.


Wednesday


My wife, Annie, and my son, Tom, come up from the country to provide me with support for The Big Night.


Annie brings an advance copy of Celia's Secret, the book I have written with Michael Frayn, to be published in May. I look at the dust jacket with wonder. I am in print. It is the story of some wartime German documents that are found beneath the floorboards of an English country house, which shed a startling light on some aspects of Michael Frayn's play Copenhagen.


We are late starting the play. It goes well, though Ralph Feinnes and Linus Roache think that it's not our best show. After my death I scramble out of costume and sneak in front, disguised in spectacles and woolly hat, to watch my chums wing their way with never a false step through the rest of the play. At the curtain call the reception is good - lots of noise.


At the party afterwards I meet a lot of actors I haven't seen for many years. America is represented by Glenn Close and Donald Sutherland. The drink flows, but the Burke family is tucked up in bed by midnight.


Thursday


Years ago I would have been up at dawn to scan the reviews with beating heart. But I have learned my lesson. I have a relaxing morning and in the afternoon, make my way to the theatre to do the second night of the play. Jonathan Kent will not be watching tonight. Good, I shall catch my bus. The play feels second-nightish, but Linus is encouraging. He tells me we played our farewell scene "like a jazz improvisation". Louis Armstrong eat your heart out. I retire feeling pleased with our performance.


Friday


My sister, Rosaleen, will see the play tonight. So I must be good. Of course I do try my best every night but it helps to know that there is someone special in. I'm not sure what it does for one's performance to be told that Paul Newman is in tonight. Does one hope that he will pop around to the stage door to see us. I am working alongside a fantastic cast. Ralph and Linus are highly talented actors and we all work very well together. The performance goes well and my sister appears saying "you were wonderful, darling", as Alan Bennett says, it is the only appropriate compliment for an actor after his performance. I go home, shower and collapse with my book.

 

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