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| Loose Ends First Broadcast - BBC Radio 4 – 18th June 2011. Clive Anderson interviews Douglas Henshall. The following is a transcription of that interview. We now come to Douglas Henshall who’s appearing along with Kristin Scott Thomas and Ben Miles in one of Harold Pinter’s best known, best loved plays Betrayal at the Comedy Theatre in London. It’s not one of his political works, but an exquisite examination of the betrayal involved in which your character is having an affair with his best friend’s wife . Yes. All in a day’s work really! It's a pretty well-known play and of course Harold Pinter is no longer with us and this is probably the first production since he died and a lot of previous productions talk about Harold coming along to the rehearsal or sometimes he is in his production of course. Has that been a bit of a liberating aspect of this, you can start changing it around a bit or is it very meticulously plotted anyway? No. I think that the way that Harold Pinter writes is meticulous. I don’t think there is anything that needs to be changed. I think the way he constructs plays is very good the way it is. I think if you are going to change something like that you’d have to be pretty sure you were adding to it. Have you done a lot of Pinter before? No, no, no this is the first time I have ever done a Pinter play and I had never read Betrayal before I got this, which is nice, a surprise to get something like that and read it. It's been filmed. Did you see the film? No. I deliberately didn’t want to see somebody who was better than I was at the particular time I was watching it, so I decided it would be probably better for me not to. It’s a good production and it’s a good play, an unusual play and you sort of start after the end of the affair really and then the play takes you back in time so that the dramatic irony of everything is sort of heaped on more and more as we go back to the beginnings. Yes. It’s a kind of a happy ending actually. It’s that idea of rewinding the wedding video or that sort of thing. Yeah. I suppose it’s a kind of memory play really. I think that the way people kind of think of you if you go back in time to the beginnings of something you don’t start there, you tend to try and pick your way back don’t you ? To find the kind of significance piece of dross or whatever it is you’re trying to get to the heart of. I think that’s the way he’s written it which ....... you know. I’m not sure happy ending is quite the feeling.......... No, no It’s quite poignant, sad, heart rending play, really isn’t it? Yeah. I was trying to find the positive for you there Clive. I’m not putting you down. It’s well known now it was based upon his own life, his own affair with Joan Bakewell and people wondered whether it was something to do with Lady Antonia Fraser, but it kind of pre-dated that, he’d had this affair. In a sense you’re playing Harold Pinter, though Ben Miles actually looks like a young Harold Pinter. Yeah. Well, I suppose. I think it might be............I don’t know. I couldn’t tell what was in Harold Pinter’s mind at that particular time, as to whether he was trying to take attention away from himself or what. I mean I think it must be very difficult for writers to actually write about themselves with a great deal of objectivity or clarity. I think he (Pinter) actually played the part himself on the radio play. ....... He played Robert. I don't blame him. I really don't blame him. Well he’s got a strong character, whereas yours, in a way you are revealed as being a little less on top of things than you think you are at the beginning. Well. I think Jerry’s rather a tricky part to play because he’s not really the man he says he is. At the end of the play, which is chronologically the beginning of the play, he has this monologue, this kind of hurricane of love that he gives to this woman Emma, but then you spend the rest of the play not quite living up to who you say you are. Well, there’s a truth there somewhere isn’t there? Yeah. Kathy Griffin (comedian, also a guest in the show ) says: I would have totally dated that guy. Are you having an affair in your real life right now with anyone you want to talk to me about? Are you free tonight? No. The research for that particular part I thought I’d put on the back burners. He’s not free tonight; he’s appearing in his play. It’s only just opened. No, but he’s actually acting with Kristin Scott Thomas. It’s a fine performance from her as well. It’s a fine performance from all three of you, indeed the waiter. There’s a waiter who has a small part. Yeah. Let’s go back in time. How did you get involved in acting in the first place? You come from is it Barrhead. Barrhead yes, which is a quaint little town on the outskirts of Glasgow, which at the time I was growing up was famous for a toilet making factory called Shanks and the dog meat factory called Kennomeat. It’s quite a romantic place then. Yeah, yeah, yeah(laughs). I thought there was maybe something out with those boundaries for me. I got into it in the first place, it's is quite sad really there was a girl I had an enormous crush on. She told me one day that I might look good on stage as a way of getting me to come along to join the local youth theatre. I went along you know thinking that love was definitely in there, only to realise that they needed guys essentially that was my only purpose. That is a great recruiting drive for acting though isn’t it? What flattery and flirtation ? Trying to get off with girls at school,is why, a good many actors as they have gone on to become have got involved with girls in the first place. The Scottish Youth theatre you did after that? Yeah. They used to have a Summer Festival every year, for five weeks in the summer in Glasgow, which was kind of a great excuse for a lot of people to meet up and drink and do inappropriate things with the opposite sex , then throw in a bit of theatre. Then, it’s all taken off for a while you do films, TV. Primeval people remember you in that. That was a crazy, crazy show. I don’t know what the status of that is. It sort of came and went. Is it coming back again Primeval? I’ve no idea. I left a couple of years ago. And you don’t care about that? Yes. Exactly. (Jokingly sarcastic)You’re off to do Pinter now. Don’t worry about that. (Laughs) Yes. There are no dinosaurs in Harold Pinter plays thank goodness. Now, I’ve done some secret research on you, cos I bumped into a friend of yours on the way to the theatre (Laughs) No, please don’t do this Hardeep Singh Kohli thing please. Please don't do this. I am just not having it. No, I won’t. How do you know it was Hardeep Singh Kohli I was talking about ? Why? Because I spoke to Hardeep the other night and he told me about it. We’re talking about betrayal here actually. I thought I was just going to ask you..... You’re not getting it, no! All he told me was that you were a great poker player. Oh really! Was that what it was?! That’s a better one! Is that right? Are you just a fun poker player? Or are you one of these people who makes millions between the hours of .......... That was how I actually met Hardeep I knew how it was. There’s a poker club just down the road from where I lived then that I frequent occasionally and I popped in there one night and Hardeep was sitting at the table, so we sat down and kind of nodded at one another and then proceeded to take each other’s money, but that’s how we met and kind of became good friends after that. Occasionally we still play a little poker together. I like that expression outside a little poker club I occasionally go into. What does that means? It’s a real den of ........ No it’s not. It’s kind of a doorway with a nice little sign above it you know. We’ll stop there. We can see Betrayal with you at the Comedy Theatre. I don’t know how long it’s booked in for. We run until August 20th (2011) |