One of my favourite places is the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, though not entirely for the theatricals. I find it at its best in the mornings, especially early in the week, when the music has been muted so as not to interrupt the rehearsals in progress, and the silence is somehow enlarged upon by distant voices ricocheting around theatre round. The cool calm of the building proper is impregnated with the echoing urgency of lines learnt, which contributes to a unique atmosphere of insistent quiet.

Above and beyond stage level, the Royal Exchange Theatre has many interesting tales to tell. For starters, it is a magnet for budding thespians, who keep the restaurant and bar stocked with great staff and if you want the low-down on the latest production, they're the ones to ask. Alas, they eventually move on in pursuit of their dreams but not before they've freshened up the general atmosphere with their enthusiasm.
Steve Coogan is one notable Thespis who worked at the Royal Exchange, before steering his career onward and upward. Part actor, part mimic, one of Coogan's best performances went unrecorded some years ago, when he got up at a school reunion and took off his old teachers. Oh, and his Alan Partridge character is reputedly based on one of the (still-serving) theatre staff, but delicacy forbids!

In days of plain and plenty, the Royal Exchange Theatre used to have a satellite branch of the Waterstones book store chain in its innards: with a shop on the theatre premises, it made good commercial sense for Waterstones to use the Royal Exchange for major Manchester book signings.
I can recall a bored looking Melvin Bragg, plonked at a small table outside the shop, who was occasionally interrupted for a signed copy by smart looking ladies in their late forties. I can also recollect the curious spectacle of Michael York in a packed theatre, passionately telling similar ladies how he got the blood of stigmata on his hands whilst walking the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem. This caused an uncomfortable hush, for most of the ladies had put on blood red lips merely to drool passionately over the eternal blonde, or ask inane questions about The Three Musketeers.

The late/great Alec Guinness had them queuing around the block when he came to sign copies of his autobiography. But the Jedi faithful were warned in advance of his distaste for nonsense, and on the doors to the theatre they were forewarned: 'No Star Wars questions'.

And who could forget Will Young, eating his lunch on one of the cafe benches, beneath a huge poster of himself in Noel Coward's The Vortex? Or living the life around town with his on-stage mother, Diana Hardcastle, as they made merry in the restaurants as decadent mother and son just might.
When Will Young began rehearsals some weeks earlier, one of his few concerns was getting the password for the WI-FI and over his first weeks in Manchester he seemed at ease with blessed anonymity. But it's a strange thing, fame, and whilst those who have it in their veins appear to find justification in the stage lights, not the shadows, they often pine for that which eludes them. It seems Oscar Wilde wasn't far off the mark when he said that the one thing worse than being talked about was NOT being talked about.
Anyhow, it wasn't long before local paparazzi started snooping around rehearsals, looking for the shot of Will with his head resting in his then boyfriend's lap (which they missed)...and any others that ensured Will would stay in the collective pulp-consciousness.
Scarier than the snoops was watching grown women sneak around emptying the ash trays containing Will's dog-ends, and lovingly tucking them into handbags for posterity.

A more edifying spectacle happens when Eoin Colmer is in the Royal Exchange Theatre, doing his one-man show 'Fairies, Fiends and Flatulence'. Such is the popularity of his Artemis Fowl series of books, that the author fills the theatre with paying customers, and he performs with relish and to rapturous applause from his young audience. He also signs a mind-numbing number of books and always with a smile, clearly aware of what else he might be doing for a living if he weren't lucky enough to be doing what he most loves.

The filming of a new Debbie Horsfield television series titled All the Small Things, starring Sarah Lancashire, has been taking place recently at the Exchange, as well as in the Northern Quarter, Collyhurst and at the bottom of my street, where the BBC took over a church for some 3 months. With 300 extras drafted in to the Royal Exchange the other Sunday by the BBC, who were all paid with a free television licence (just kidding), the series is no small affair and apparently will be aired in Spring.

I don't go to many of the plays, largely because Shakespeare and Pete Postlethwaite don't appear often enough. Not only is Pete Postlethwaite the best actor I've seen at the Royal Exchange or most anywhere else, he has a clear grasp of what great acting is: basically, adapting to the words of those who (occasionally) have something to say and the sublime gift to render it. As Chris on the bar will tell you, good actors don't need to shout and stamp and posture and impose. They need only take words worth saying, and allow them to come to life. Only bad writing demands an actor impose his adaptive personality to make up for any shortfalls and black holes (which is one reason why television is awash with egos and shit writing). But then Pete Postlethwaite has worked hard to make his craft seem effortless and these days he is in the enviable position of being able to pick cherries from a full and bountiful tree.
Postlethwaite has the increasingly rare gift of giving life to the one supreme art, which requires an egotistical smallness that is an integral part of his great skill. Acting shouldn't be about the life it can give you: it's about the life you can bring to the art.
It is also a feat of modesty that (unlike many who've passed this way,) he who has given many in Hollywood an acting lesson has time and encouragement for the aspiring thespians behind the bar.

One of my favourite places is the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, though not entirely for the theatricals. I find it at its best in the mornings, especially early in the week, when the music has been muted so as not to interrupt the rehearsals in progress, and the silence is somehow enlarged upon by distant voices ricocheting around theatre round. The cool calm of the building proper is impregnated with the echoing urgency of lines learnt, which contributes to a unique atmosphere of insistent quiet.

Above and beyond stage level, the Royal Exchange Theatre has many interesting tales to tell. For starters, it is a magnet for budding thespians, who keep the restaurant and bar stocked with great staff and if you want the low-down on the latest production, they're the ones to ask. Alas, they eventually move on in pursuit of their dreams but not before they've freshened up the general atmosphere with their enthusiasm.
Steve Coogan is one notable Thespis who worked at the Royal Exchange, before steering his career onward and upward. Part actor, part mimic, one of Coogan's best performances went unrecorded some years ago, when he got up at a school reunion and took off his old teachers. Oh, and his Alan Partridge character is reputedly based on one of the (still-serving) theatre staff, but delicacy forbids!

In days of plain and plenty, the Royal Exchange Theatre used to have a satellite branch of the Waterstones book store chain in its innards: with a shop on the theatre premises, it made good commercial sense for Waterstones to use the Royal Exchange for major Manchester book signings.
I can recall a bored looking Melvin Bragg, plonked at a small table outside the shop, who was occasionally interrupted for a signed copy by smart looking ladies in their late forties. I can also recollect the curious spectacle of Michael York in a packed theatre, passionately telling similar ladies how he got the blood of stigmata on his hands whilst walking the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem. This caused an uncomfortable hush, for most of the ladies had put on blood red lips merely to drool passionately over the eternal blonde, or ask inane questions about The Three Musketeers.

The late/great Alec Guinness had them queuing around the block when he came to sign copies of his autobiography. But the Jedi faithful were warned in advance of his distaste for nonsense, and on the doors to the theatre they were forewarned: 'No Star Wars questions'.

And who could forget Will Young, eating his lunch on one of the cafe benches, beneath a huge poster of himself in Noel Coward's The Vortex? Or living the life around town with his on-stage mother, Diana Hardcastle, as they made merry in the restaurants as decadent mother and son just might.
When Will Young began rehearsals some weeks earlier, one of his few concerns was getting the password for the WI-FI and over his first weeks in Manchester he seemed at ease with blessed anonymity. But it's a strange thing, fame, and whilst those who have it in their veins appear to find justification in the stage lights, not the shadows, they often pine for that which eludes them. It seems Oscar Wilde wasn't far off the mark when he said that the one thing worse than being talked about was NOT being talked about.
Anyhow, it wasn't long before local paparazzi started snooping around rehearsals, looking for the shot of Will with his head resting in his then boyfriend's lap (which they missed)...and any others that ensured Will would stay in the collective pulp-consciousness.
Scarier than the snoops was watching grown women sneak around emptying the ash trays containing Will's dog-ends, and lovingly tucking them into handbags for posterity.

A more edifying spectacle happens when Eoin Colmer is in the Royal Exchange Theatre, doing his one-man show 'Fairies, Fiends and Flatulence'. Such is the popularity of his Artemis Fowl series of books, that the author fills the theatre with paying customers, and he performs with relish and to rapturous applause from his young audience. He also signs a mind-numbing number of books and always with a smile, clearly aware of what else he might be doing for a living if he weren't lucky enough to be doing what he most loves.

The filming of a new Debbie Horsfield television series titled All the Small Things, starring Sarah Lancashire, has been taking place recently at the Exchange, as well as in the Northern Quarter, Collyhurst and at the bottom of my street, where the BBC took over a church for some 3 months. With 300 extras drafted in to the Royal Exchange the other Sunday by the BBC, who were all paid with a free television licence (just kidding), the series is no small affair and apparently will be aired in Spring.

I don't go to many of the plays, largely because Shakespeare and Pete Postlethwaite don't appear often enough. Not only is Pete Postlethwaite the best actor I've seen at the Royal Exchange or most anywhere else, he has a clear grasp of what great acting is: basically, adapting to the words of those who (occasionally) have something to say and the sublime gift to render it. As Chris on the bar will tell you, good actors don't need to shout and stamp and posture and impose. They need only take words worth saying, and allow them to come to life. Only bad writing demands an actor impose his adaptive personality to make up for any shortfalls and black holes (which is one reason why television is awash with egos and shit writing). But then Pete Postlethwaite has worked hard to make his craft seem effortless and these days he is in the enviable position of being able to pick cherries from a full and bountiful tree.
Postlethwaite has the increasingly rare gift of giving life to the one supreme art, which requires an egotistical smallness that is an integral part of his great skill. Acting shouldn't be about the life it can give you: it's about the life you can bring to the art.
It is also a feat of modesty that (unlike many who've passed this way,) he who has given many in Hollywood an acting lesson has time and encouragement for the aspiring thespians behind the bar.