Tribute from Patrick Stewart

The first time I saw Tony Church act he was doing what he did best and almost without equal; bringing into life a complex text, speaking the blank verse with precision, sensitivity, irony and truthfulness. He was Polonius in Peter Hall’s great Hamlet, with David Warner as the Prince. His Councilor to Brewster Mason’s towering Claudius was shrewd, manipulative, dangerous, misleadingly comic and silky smooth. He was, for me, the Polonius of my generation. One day, I suppose, I might be fortunate to play the role and though I will struggle to find a fresh insight into the tragic/foolish figure, Tony’s interpretation will constantly tug at my sleeve and memory will draw me towards what I witnessed in 1965.

Sitting in the audience at The Aldwych Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company’s London home, I was an outsider, a young, provincial actor pressing my nose against the window pane that displayed the dazzling work of the greatest Shakespearean company in the world. That Hamlet, audacious, provocative, intelectual, chalenging, exciting, real, was only the second time I had seen the recently created RSC at work. A year or so earlier I had seen John Barton’s glorious ‘sandpit’ Troilus and Cressida with Ian Holm, Peter O’Toole and Max Adrian – breathtaking. Now with this Hamlet before me, I knew that I had one ambition, and one ambition only; to become a part of this company, this collection of talent, this asemblage of brilliance – and six months later, I was.

Following a gruelling audition with Peter and John I had been offered one season of modest work; to understudy Paul Rogers as Falstaff and to play Sir Walter Blunt and Lord Mowbray in the Henry IV’s, The Dauphin in Henry V and take over the First Player/Player King in that same Hamlet in its revival at Stratford. Now I could watch these actors in close up and Tony I learned was to be the King in Henry IV. That meant I would be on stage with him in several scenes. Him, and the awesome, intimidating Ian Holm. In fact at the very start of the first day that I showed up for rehearsals ( that rehearsal room being what is now the Donmar Theatre), we were to read and put on its feet the opening scene of Henry IV Part 1. “So shaken as we are, so wan with care…” Clifford Williams was directing the rehearsal – this was the season of a triumvirate of directors – and after one simple read through of the scene, he turned to the handful of us actors – Michael Jayston as Exeter being one – and said; “So, what do you think?” What did we think? What did I think? Nothing. Nothing at all. No director had ever asked me that question before. But while my brain was still in shock, Tony Church had started talking and although I must have missed it, I am sure his first word was “Well…?” Over the years I got very familiar with this word in Tony’s mouth. Exasperated, querelous, somewhat patronising. Yes, Tony was talking, and talking….and talking. I had never heard so many words emerge from one actors mouth so articulately and passionately. He was talking about the scene, about Henry, about the back story, the objectives, the context, the language, the imagery, the line endings, even the other characters in the scene. What a nerve.

I had gone from shock to mouth agape amazement and finally to terror as I realised Clifford would shortly look in my direction and it would be my turn to ‘say what I thought.’ What I thought? I was an actor. I had come to act, not to think. But now the other actors were joining in a free for all discussion, half of which went right over my head. It was clear that just like Tony, they had been reading, studying, researching, preparing, though none of them with the thoroughness and analytical dissection of T.Church. It was not for nothing that Tony was known in the company and for all his life as The Established Church.

But I was ashamed and humiliated and that morning, mouth dry and perspiring, I made a promise to myself that I would never, never be caught in such a situation again. I would be ready. And my first lesson in readyness would be to get Tony Church in a corner of The Duck, put a pint in his hand and ask him how he did it. Well… I did it and he did it and that is how Tony became my mentor all through that long, thrilling spring, summer and glorious autumn in Warwickshire.

I listened to Tony and I watched him. I studied how the brain and the heart and great language can be fused into ‘life’ on stage. I also began to learn what it means to be a ‘Leading’ actor. What the responsibilties are and where the dynamic lies. That you lead from the front. Not just talking about what you are going to do, but doing it, boldly and fearlessly, never looking over your shoulder to see if anyone is following. And doing it with humour, something I put into practise every night as my company hack and hurtle themselves through Rupert Goulds fantastic Macbeth. There must be room for laughter, for the twinkle in an actor’s eye that the audience never sees, for the ‘in-joke’ and accident that will be giggled over for the rest of the evening. Like last night my being caught by the lights going up for the interval trying to walk through a wall, instead of through the down left exit.

I was the victim of Tony and Ian Holms ‘twinkling’ at the end of the great confrontation scene in Henry Part 1 between the King and Prince Hal. I would stand in the dark behind John Bury’s great iron clad door, waiting to make Sir Walter Blunt’s entrance at the end of this stupendous scene, acted by Tony and Ian with ferocity and eye blazing anger and pain. On cue I would stride through the door - and only once did I let it close on my cloak, thereby pinning me to the wall, at which the two of them just laughed out loud – annoucing some boring rebel troop movements, the King and Hal would share a look and after an interminable pause Tony would say, with mockery dripping from his lips; “Sir Walter Blunt, this news is five days old.” The audience would laugh (relief after the flesh tearing scene they had just witnessed), Tony and Ian would twinkle and I, for the whole long season, never found a reaction appropriate to this put down.

I only acted twice more with Tony at the RSC. Once when he took over from David Waller as a wicked Pandarus in an ill conceived Eurpean tour and again replacing the same actor as Tubal to my Shylock.

And there are other reason for my gratitude towards Tony. One being that on that same European tour, in a restaurant in Geneva he insisted that I order Osso Bucco, of which I had never heard, but which has become my immediate dish of choice whenever I see it on a menu.

However, there is nothing I shall be more grateful to Tony for than inviting me to join him, Lisa Harrow, Bernard Lloyd and Charles Keating in a six week tour of American universities under the title Actors in Residence (AIR). This programme, created by our dear friend and visionary teacher, Homer D. Swander, Professor of English at The Universiry of California at Santa Barbara, put RSC actors into classrooms to share with students their passion and knowledge of Shakespeare. Now Tony was a Cambridge graduate and I left my Secondary Modern School at fifteen without even a diploma, but he convinced me that I could walk into the classroom of a distinguised university English Department and not only have something to say, but believe I had reason and right to say it.

And that brings me back to where I began. There have been many people over the years who have reached out a hand and given me a hoist up to the next level of work and living. But Tony did it to me all through the years of our friendship. And recently, from his hospial bed, he cheered out loud when I told him I was going back to the RSC, at last to give my Claudius in Hamlet. In Oliver Ford Davis I know there will be another brilliant Polonius, but Oliver you will have to live with the certainty that, for me, whenever I hear you speak, there will be a faint echo of a predecessor, friend, teacher and fine actor, the too soon gone, Tony