Playing
Under the Piano, by Hugh Bonneville. Non-fiction.
The only people who haven’t heard of the smash-hit TV
series (with two full-length movies also snaring huge box-office returns)
‘Downton Abbey’, must be a lost tribe of the Amazon. Seldom has a between-the-wars tale of British
Aristocracy, complete with love between the classes, scandal, heartache and
tragedy been so successfully brought to the screen, and universally loved by
millions – of all classes. And apart
from being the wonderful scripts of Julian Fellowes, it fell to the
perfectly-cast actors to cement the reality of their screen lives indelibly
with viewers in every episode: who
hasn’t heaved a sigh of frustration at the thought of having to wait a whole
week to find out the fate of Lady Mary or Lady Edith, or their darling little
sister, who dies in childbirth, the child being the daughter of the chauffeur!
And now we are fortunate to have a charming memoir
written by Hugh Bonneville, who plays the aristocratic father of those three
gels and, true to form, explains that no-one, least of all the cast, could
predict the runaway popularity of the show but, needless to say, everyone was
predictably delighted to have long-term work, for regardless of reputation, an
actor’s life will never be 9-to-5, every week until they retire.
Mr Bonneville is a very funny man. And a wonderful writer, especially as he
recounts his early years as a trainee Shakespearean actor, along with such other hopefuls as
Ralph Fiennes, receiving an excellent grounding in the classic plays of British
literature at elite theatres - after
attending Cambridge University with a half-hearted wish to study law, or
Religion with a view to becoming a minister.
Yes, truly! Our hero was a man
without a clear mission until he caught the acting bug, and lucky for us that
he did, for he has appeared in some memorable plays and films, all of which are
entertainingly covered here, including ‘Notting Hill’ and the charming
Paddington Bear films. He shares
wonderful memories of the luminaries he has worked with (and they are Legion),
with never an unkind word from or for anybody, yet still imparting cosy,
gossipy, charming little anecdotes that humanise such greats as Dames Judi
Dench and Maggie Smith, both of whom left him ‘awestruck’.
He explains the ‘mechanics’ of acting that allow the
actor through his expertise –sleight-of-hand? – to lull the audience into
thinking that every move and direction is natural, unforced on stage or before
the cameras: acting is indeed a precise
and suble art, and Hugh Bonneville, once so unknown that ‘he couldn’t get a
table at MacDonalds’ is now a literary luminary, as well as an acting one. Big Macs, anyone? SIX STARS.
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