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I was sent a couple of photos this weekend, one from this week and one from around 1988. Again I am struck by how much I have changed in the last four decades, but mainly I am left wondering what happened to my eyebrows. In the 1980s strong dark beautiful eyebrows - in the 2020s little greying tufts that barely qualify as brows. It's not the only physical decline I am left worrying about but it's the only one I can write about on a family website like this.
And again I was left wondering what happened to Richard Herring the actor. Obviously success at University doesn't translate into success in the real world and the other two people in this photo, both also feted in the 80s are now both writers (though Emma Williams, now Kennedy) did get a fair number of TV acting gigs before pivoting to writing books and doing Lego. This production of the Alchemist is fondly remembered by my (at least). I played Subtle which meant taking on a variety of characters as I tried to con gullible idiots (for some reason - I don't really remember). Nowadays I joke about how useless I am at accents, but back then I confidently took on many personas, I only really remember being a former German Nazi (not as per the original script surprisingly), but there were four or five others. I think I was OK in the role, but who knows?
It's funny that Cherwell (the student paper) still managed to get me confused with Stew, but I am not sure they ever got my name quite right and wonder if it was some kind of running joke with the staff there.
I remember being thrilled that my photo (that same photo) was on the poster and thus up all over town and that I was securing main parts in a competitive environment. I was ambitious and wanted to be "famous" even if that was within the limited bounds of University life. I couldn't quite believe any of it was happening, but it felt like another step towards the possibility of doing comedy as a career. I believe this came after my first Edinburgh, but before the 1988 Oxford Revue which at least partially crushed my performing confidence.
The confidence was key. At some point I decided to cut my losses and make out (maybe truthfully) that my talents were limited and that I couldn't convince as anyone but myself and not always then according to the Evening Standard review of You Can Choose Your Friends.
I can't believe how thin I was and how handsome I was. I may have bluffed my way through as an actor, but I had very low self-esteem about my attractiveness (and to be fair I didn't get a lot of indication from the women around me that I was wrong about that). In thirty-five years time I will doubtless look at the photo of me on the news and be surprised at how well things were holding up. But I'll be 91 then so I'd better look a bit more pleasant now than I will then (though some people find corpses sexy).
No matter to all this wallowing. Mainly I was reminded of a really fun time in my life. I started the play by flashing my arse, had to kiss Emma Kennedy which was odd and had to kiss another girl who I fell a bit in love with in real life (but who obviously wasn't interested in me and whose melting in my arms was merely acting) and had some knockabout fun, got my face all over the student part of Oxford and dreamed of my future
I love that John Barrowman faced little boy. I wonder what he'd make of me. I am not sure he'd quite believe that that weird looking old man could possibly be him. I am not sure the full-eyebrowed boy can me. Is it possible to get switched with a different person in the hospital when you're no longer a baby?
