Deep Heat: Encounters with the Famous, the Infamous and the Unknown. Robin Soans
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First published in 2011 by Oberon Books Ltd
Electronic edition published in 2012
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Copyright © Robin Soans 2011
Robin Soans is hereby identified as author of this work in accordance with section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. The author has asserted his moral rights.
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
PB ISBN: 978-1-84943-090-6
EPUB ISBN: 978-1-84943-690-8
Cover illustration by Andrzej Klimowski
Printed, bound and converted in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd., Croydon, CR0 4YY.
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ROBIN SOANS
DEEP HEAT
ENCOUNTERS WITH THE FAMOUS,
THE INFAMOUS AND THE UNKNOWN
OBERON BOOKS
LONDON
There was an owl sat up an oak;
The more he heard the less he spoke;
The less he spoke, the more he heard;
Oh that we were all like that wise old bird.
INTRODUCTION
This is a book of monologues which are either based on conversations I’ve had or overheard, or are edited versions of interviews I’ve conducted in the course of research for my plays. When I’ve been putting together a playscript, it has often been frustrating to leave out material because it was too long or didn’t fit into the general scheme of things. So here I have an opportunity to allow those voices to speak in full. It is also in some ways autobiographical. None of my recent life was particularly planned, but, in the course of writing my plays, I have been sent round the world and, like a pinball in a slot machine, collided with many brilliant, insightful and passionate people who have opened my eyes to the complexity of life. Added to which I am insatiably curious, and above all determined not to be pinned down to any one strand of society. I remember one afternoon at the late September meeting at Ascot, watching the thoroughbreds circling the paddock. The gentry were standing round on the lawn in their cavalry coats, and the women gazed out from under the brims of expensive hats, while the first lime leaves spiralled down onto the manicured grass. That evening I was making my way up a concrete walkway in a run-down block of flats in North London, having to thread my way through a litter of hypodermic needles, and, at one stage, climb a burnt-out sofa blocking my path. I was going to talk to a man who had spent the last fortnight in bed with the covers pulled over his head; he had eaten little apart from chocolate biscuits, and was trying hard to pretend that the outside world didn’t exist. I wondered as I saw the cracked glass in the front door, the pile of washing up with mould on it, and the deep litter of biscuit wrappers, how many other people who had been at Ascot Races were having a similar experience to mine.
This is much more than a collection of monologues. Yes, they could be used as audition speeches, or texts for actors to work on; or a number of them can be put together to provide an evening’s entertainment, or, as has already happened, a fundraising venture…thirteen of these speeches were performed at Amnesty International’s base in London.
But collectively they add up to something much more. They will appeal to the historian and sociologist in all of us, and to those who know that there is more to a situation than the superficial gloss, or the version handed down by duplicitous governments. The subjects range from people who have held high office to others who have tried to blow those people up; from those who live in large country houses to others whose home is two blankets and a pile of leaves in the corner of a disused garage. It gives, by putting such a catholic group of voices together, a rare glimpse into a more diverse world than we are used to seeing. A term I particularly dislike, much used by politicians at the moment, and even BBC political journalists, is ‘Ordinary People’. It comes from an increasing tendency to pigeonhole and categorise. These monologues expose how much more complex and fragile the human spirit is; they show just how ‘un-ordinary’ we all are, and how the best way to further our self-knowledge is by sympathetically examining the lives of others. And of course I hope at the same time it will lead to an increase in our mutual tolerance.
1
PHILIP
THE UNDERSTUDY (1)
Philip (50) in the Green Room of a provincial theatre. Faintly over the tannoy we can hear the evening performance.
PHILIP: Just a sec. (A voice on the tannoy announces ‘Lights up on Act I, lights up on Act I’.) There we go…phoor…curtain up; not that I can relax and drink half a pint of Tequila…nothing like that… let’s just say we’ve gone from red alert to orange.
This is a very nice Green Room. Someone told me once why they’re called a Green Room, but it’s gone clear out of my mind. We’re in Malvern this week; to tell you the truth it’s a very nice town altogether. I’m staying…I’ve got digs in a house halfway up the hill, owned by a man called Tony. I’ve stayed there three times before…spotlessly clean…he does a very nice continental breakfast…and he will do me a boiled egg if I leave a note on the hall table the night before. I said I didn’t want the fried breakfast when I first phoned him up...you know when I just plumped for something off the digs list, and quite soon into the conversation he said, ‘Will you be wanting the fried breakfast?’ and I said, ‘No’ and he said, ‘Actually that’s a relief, cos you feel you have to ask, but to be honest I think the smell of the fat catches in the curtains, and it’s very difficult to get rid of it.’ Other than that he said, ‘No smoking, no pets’ and I said, ‘Fine, that suits me fine.’ My room doesn’t have that sweeping view across to Bredon…actually it’s quite dark…darkish anyway…I’ve got a cedar tree outside actually…you can see the cones…they’re rather exotic…not like an ordinary fir-cone…nothing like.
Right…cup of tea and a biscuit and the Guardian Quick Crossword…I try not to race through the crossword…make it last until the interval. I limit myself to two custard creams a night. I don’t want to get podgy. If I’m being honest, I was contemplating a sandwich, and I went down to the supermarket to get one…and I got in a right state…there’s just so