Interviews

Photoplay, January 1973 "I Love Playing Real People" by Valerie Ward

Women's Realm, October 1973 "Man of History"

Radio Times, 29 August 1975 "A Man Above Trouble" by Russell Miller

Photoplay, December 1975 "Rendezvous with Quiller" by Sue Clarke

My Weekly, April 1982 "Enjoying the Sound of Success" by Sheila Hutchinson

May 1995 First Person Quiz

2002- "The Great and the Good - Profile: Michael Jayston" by Patrick Newley

Michael Jayston Interviewed by Ian Wheeler October 2004

Audiobook Collection Interview of Michael Jayston

Insight City News, April 22- May 5 2006 "Michael Jayston" by Poppy Smith

I Love Playing Real People

A Valerie Ward Interview

Following his performance as Nicholas in Nicholas and Alexandra, Michael Jayston has been back in historical costume playing Hardy to Peter Finch's Nelson and Glenda Jackson's Emma Hamilton in the Hal Wallis production, A Bequest To the Nation. The ex-Royal Shakespeare Company actor who says's he's basically a comedian, thoroughly enjoys playing historical characters. Remember his portrayals of Beethoven, Dickens, and Royce of Rolls Royce on TV? Now he wouldn't mind a stab at Cellini and Beethoven on celluloid.

Michael, once a fish salesman and wages clerk in his native Nottingham, never gets immersed in a character to the extent that he believes he is the person, but is aware it sounds Freudian for him to relish hiding behind false whiskers and noses. "I think most actors like to hide behind something, but as Stainislavski once said, when an actor starts believing he's the character he's not an actor anymore, he's a lunatic."

We're in his favourite Covent Garden pub. Michael is a direct, funny and articulate guy. He lives in Cobham with his wife Hearther, son Tom and a few antiques.

Michael is a sports fanatic, particularly about cricket, riding and football, and admits he has little talent for relaxing.

"Not many people could do an average day's work on a film without getting exhausted, but there's still a glamour about the business. I'm a bit old-fashioned in a way. I thing people want entertainment to help them escape, brecause life at the moment is fairly violent, sordid and decadent. Entertainment's meant to reflect society, but if it really does, we're in a helluva state.

"I love playing real people, because they're far more interesting and outrageous than fiction. Nobody can say things are too ridiculous to have really happened because history says they did.

"You've got to be shrewd and show warts and all however much you love a character. It's popular nowadays to find out about a great man and knock him to pieces, but he must have been a great man in the beginning otherwise he would never have been recognised as such."

A Bequest To The Nation concentrates on the domestic relationships between Nelson, Emma and Hardy and looks like being heady sutff, with Hardy defending his beloved sea-lord like a faithful sheep-dog while stormily hating Emma for oaring in on Nelson's career. Micheal had not seen Glenda Jackson for six years and was delighted to find her unchanged by success. "She went off early one day and I asked if she was doing night-filming. 'Oh no,' she said, 'I'm going to cook chops for my old man'."

Hal Wallis also comes in for some Jayston bouquets. "A lot of producers know nothing apart from making money. They think they know abot acting, directing, photography and lighting and they sack people left, right and centre, probably to assert their masculinity. Hal Wallis is an absolute exception. He is a modest American, which is unusual and he doesn't need to prove he's a man. And he's honest. If he doesn't like something he tells you to your face, whereas one or two others I've worked with say things behind your back and when in a roundabout way you get to hear it, they deny having said it.

"A lot of producers and directors think they've got to work an actor into the ground. I can be easily led, but like most people, not driven. And some directors go on about characterisation, but I don't want to know about all that chat. You've just got to stand up and do it.

"All actors, I don't care who they are, worry if they're out of work. I used to worry about getting old, but now it's only in as much as I won't be able to play so much sport. I think I've got about twenty years left."

Without sounding corny he says, "I'm an actor not out of self-adulation but because I like entertaining people. Acting's a peculiar business. You can't have a phoney sportsman, because he'd be found out. He can't fake it. But you get a lot of phonies in the film business."

In or out of character, Michael Jayston is not one of them.

END

Man of History

Michael Jayston has made such a habit of playing famous characters from history just lately that it comes as a bit of a surprise to see him without an elaborate wig, beard or moustache, and wearing an open-neck shirt and casual slacks.

In the last four years, Michael has played no fewer than fourteen historical characters, from Beethoven, Charles Dickens, and the First World War poet Wilfred Owen on television, to Tsar Nicholas in Nicholas and Alexandra, General Ireton in Cromwell and Captain Hardy, Nelson's faithful companion in Bequest to the Nation, in the cinema.

"It's terrific, playing real people," Michael said, "because if people say 'That's ridiculous, totally unbelievable!' you can say, 'No, it isn't, it actually happened that way and I can prove it.'"

It's also been an education, giving him a chance to brush up on his history. "I usually do quite a bit of reading, but when I came to Beethoven, he's such a colossal character that I really didn't know where to start. You can't play every aspect of a man, because it would get so diffuse, so you have to hit up on two or three main facets of his character and stick to them.

"With Beethoven there were almost too many facets to choose from, but one day I was listening to one of the symphonies and I glanced at the notes on the back of the record cover. Someone had written, 'Considering his ill health and deafness, he had, within him, a monumental affimation of life.' and that's what I based the performance on. I loved playing him because he was such an incredible man- when you consider how people these days give in to the slightest little thing, and there he was, almost deaf, creating marvellous, positive music!"

Nicholas Romanov, the last, ill-fated Tsar of Russia, was an entirely different kettle of fish because Michael found it very difficult to sympathize with him. "He was basically very weak, and the only way to play someone like that is as though he doesn't know he's weak."

With a beard- his own- and the right clothes, Michael didn't look unlike Nicholas, but there was no way he could make himself physically resemble Captain Hardy, his latest historical venture.

As he says, "I really don't know why I got the part- Hardy was 6 ft. 3 in. tall, had bright red hair and a West Country accent." Michael is about 5 ft. 10 in., has dark brown hair and his accent is Northern. I couldn't do much about the first two, but I did offer to play it with a West Country brogue. The director thought it might jar, though, because most people don't know anything about the man, apart from the fact that Nelson said, 'Kiss me, Hardy,' just before he died.

When we met, Michael had just fnished playing, by way of a change, one of the most famous fictional characters in English literature, Mr. Rochester, in the BBC's new serialization of Jane Eyre. "It was marvellous stuff to do, a part you can really get your teeth into. I played it once before at drama school, though obviously I was much too young. It was when the film version, with Orson Welles as Rochester, came out, and I thought he was dreadful! He looked magnificent, but I don't think American actors can cope with period dialogue."

While he was working on the last episode of Jane Eyre, he started rehearsing ATV's production of The Merchant of Venice and was dashing backwards and forwards across London trying to remember what he was supposed to be doing where. "It really did begin to feel like a job of work then- luckily, it isn't something that happens too often." Michael is playing Gratiano to Sir Laurence Olivier's Shylock. They have worked together before on Nicholas and Alexandra, when the roles were reversed and Michael was the star while Sir Laurence was a supporting player. "He certainly made his mark on the flim, though," Michael said with a grin, "and was marvellous to work with."

Sir Laurence is a bit of an idol in the Jayston household- even Michael's eighteen-month old son Tom can pick out his photograph. "I showed him a photo on the cover of a magazine and now, whenever I say, 'Where's Sir Laurence?' he trots off and fetches the magazine!"

Michael was born in Nottingham thirty-seven years ago, into a "genteel, impoverished family," His father died when he was two, his mother when he was sixteen. "I wish she were alive now, because she was the one who gave me an interest in literature in the first place. By the time I was twelve, I could recite the whole of How Horatius Kept the Bridge, and great chunks of Omar Khayyam, though I didn't understand it all, by any means. I'd always liked dressing-up; putting a metal colander on my head and being William the Conqueror; and once I painted my face with my mother's nail varnish when I was being an Indian- I had a sore cheek for days because I couldn't get the stuff off!"

When he finished his National Service, at twenty, he took a job in the wages office of the local Coal Baord, and channelled his acting ambitions into the local amateur dramatic society. "I'd thought about taking it up professionally, but the only professional theatre I'd seen at that time was the Nottingham Rep., and they put me off the whole idea. They were so good that I used to think, 'If this is the standard I might as well forget it.' Little did I know that the company in Nottingham was about the best in the country, and it wasn't until I saw a touring company who were appalling that I realized I might have a chance!"

Finally, he decided to try to get into drama school, left the Coal Board and took a job in the local fish market. The money was so good that he was able to save enough to pay his way through drama school. "I worked from four in the morning until five in the afternoon, then acted with the local amateur group in the evenings- pretty gruelling."

After drama school came rep., eventually the Bristol Old Vic and, finally, the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford-on-Avon where he stayed for four years. If the RSC hadn't insisted that Michael took a holiday in January, 1968, he would probably still be there! "I didn't feel like going away anywhere in January, so I accpeted a part in a television play by William Greatorex. Six months later he created ATV's The Power Game, remembered me and offered me a part." That led to Cromwell, with Richard Harris in the title role, not only Michael's first break into films, but an introduction to Heather, then Richard Harris' secretary, now Michael's wife.

Their elder son, Tom is already showing signs that he's inherited his father's dramatic talents. "I say to him, 'What does Humphrey Bogart do? and he slides his top lip up and down on his teeth. Everyone things it's amazing, but I must confess I cheated- I started off by asking him what a rabbit does, then sneakliy subsititued Humphrey Bogart for 'rabbit'." Tome has seen his father on televsion doing Jackanory, but showed not the slightest interest, much to his father's chagrin. "He heard my voice the other night on a commercial, though, and his ears pricked up at that.

In the last few years, Michael's been so much in demand professionally that he's had little time to himself, but when he has a few hours free, he'll spend them happily blowing bubbles- yes really!

He confessed, "I bought one of those little pots of solution with a wire loop for Tom one day, but then I found I could make much better bubbles with my own solution, a mixture of washing-up liquid, treacle and gelatine. I can blow them the size of footballs and they last for ages!"

He's also mad about cricket- plays for his local team and, sometimes, for the Lord Taverners in their charity matches. "I'd have liked to have been a professional cricketer, but though I had a trial for Notts schoolboys when I was fifteen, I wasn't really good enough. Obviously, I'd be very happy if the boys turned out to be good at the game, but I'm not going to push it. I can't stand people who are half-hearted aobut things. If you do anything, then you should do it to the best of your ability."

This is a philosophy Michael clings to, whether he's acting, playing cricket or blowing bubbles. "When I've finished a job, I enjoy being at home, but by the third day I'm on edge again."

So far this year he's made three films which have yet to be released, Harold Pinter'sThe Homecoming, and two psychological thrillers. "I still call them horror movies! In one I play a man who falls in love with a tree trunk. Joan Collins plays my wife, and I"m sure that most men, given the choice between a tree trunk and Miss Collins, would opt for the lady, but not the character I play."

He's nothing if not versatile, Mr. Jayston!

A Man Above Trouble

Code Name: Quiller. Classification: 9 (has withstood torture). Date of Birth: 11.10.36. Personal History: Not recorded. Vulnerabilities: Nil. Operational Sphere: World-wide. Missions Completed: 35 as at Aug 75. Injuries Sustained: See medic file JA/594/B. Modus Operandi: Alone. Unarmed. Special Comments: Can be difficult - handle with care. Will: Nothing of value, no dependants, next-of-kin unknown. Quiller is not his real name. He works for an organisation known as The Bureau, which officially does not exist. His past is a mystery. He does not drink or smoke, never carries a gun, rarely smiles. He is obdurate, nihilistic, extremely dangerous..

This is how he describes his job: "You've got to learn to cross the line and live your life outside society, shut yourself away from people, cut yourself off. Out there you're alone and you have no one you can trust, not even the people running you: because if you make a mistake and look like fouling up the mission or exposing The Bureau, then they'll throw you to the dogs". The words are Elleston Trevor's. Mr Trevor, author of some thirty-four books, created the enigmatic figure of Quiller in the mid-1960s when the spy novel, as a genre, was at its zenith. Fleming, Deighton and Le Carre had presented the fictional secret agent with a totally new image. Gone were the unashamedly xenophobic and gentlemanly days of Richard Hanny and Bulldog Drummond. James Bond was packing the cinemas, laying all the best-looking girls, eating and drinking of the best, ruthlessly killing his enemies..

John Le Carre, in The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, had shown, almost for the first time, the seamy dishonesty of the whole espionage business. And in The Ipcress File, Len Deighton's spy hero was something else again: a cheeky working-class lad from Burnley with a cheerful dislike for all forms of authority. Following this illustrious line came Quiller. Close, antic-social, acerbic, almost puritanical, he owed nothing to his forebears. Elleston Trevor, writing under the pen-name Adam Hall, completed six Quiller books (the first of which was filmed as The Quiller Memorandum) and none of them sheds any real light on the emotions or motivation of the main character. Brain Spattered All Over The Wall: Paradoxically, it is the deliberately unanswered questions about Quiller that make him such an interesting man. You know nothing of his background, how he came into such a dangerous game. He claims he is in the business because he needs the stimulation of constant risks; yet there is an underlying implication of high morality, a desire for a better world..

Michael Jayston, who plays Quiller in the BBC-1 series starting this week, says that about the only thing they have in common is that neither of them carries a gun. Jayston is thirty-six, married with three children, and thoroughly enjoys both drinking and smoking. He was born in Nottingham and worked as a trainee accountant in the offices of the National Coal Board before he became an actor. "I had always been very keen on the idea of acting, but it wasn't until I happened to see a touring company in action that I decided to have a go". He won a scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and kept himself by working during the holidays in Nottingham fish market. After a spell with Salisbury repertory, he joined Bristol Old Vic and then the Royal Shakespeare Company. His portrayal of the Tsar in the film Nicholas And Alexandra established his reputation..

Last year he took over Alec McCowen's role in Equus at the National Theatre. Jayston does not take life too seriously. In Who's Who In The Theatre, he says his favourite sport is "listening to drains". "You mustn't get the idea that Quiller and I are totally out of sympathy," Jayston was careful to point out. "There is a lot about him which I respect. For example, he's an obstinate, perverse so-and-so. The way they get him to accept a mission is to tell him he can't do it, so he will then do his damnedest to get it out of sheer bloody-mindedness. That I like. But there are also elements of his character that would really frighten me. I mean, this business of refusing ever to carry a gun. He justifies it by saying that a gun would give him a false sense of superiority; he reckons his brain will get him out of tricky situations. Well, if you and I were agents on opposing sides out to get each other and you had a gun and I didn't, it seems to me that my brain is more likely to be spattered all over the wall than helping me escape"..

Although predominantly a classical actor, Jayston had no qualms about taking on the role of a contemporary hero. "I have always loved spy stories," he said. "I remember in the books I used to read as a kid, secret agents were terribly sporting. Of course it is different now: spies are just as likely to be inadequate, expendable, sordid little me as heroes. I suppose the reality of being a secret agent lies somewhere between the two extremes. Personally, I wouldn't think Bond bears much resemblance to the real thing. But Quiller … well, who knows?". (Radio Times, August 23, 1975 - Article by Russell Miller)...

RENDEVOUS WITH QUILLER

IT'S not every day I meet a secret agent. Our rendezvous was a pub in Drury Lane. What I wasn't prepared for was the opening line. With an apologetic grin, Michael Jayston (code name Quiller) explained he had come out without his wallet and could he borrow a fiver! What could I say? I handed over the money.

Michael has been bringing Elleston Trevor's shadowy secret agent to life in the BBC TV series, Quiller It's no easy task as Quiller is the ultimate in enigmas.

"It's easier to play Hamlet than a secret agent," Michael says with a sigh, "because by his nature he shouldn't stand out in a crowd. Quiller is a loner, he's ruthless, and very patriotic. He doesn't respect authority although he knows he has got to go along with it."

So how do you play a character who is not supposed to exist? "Well, he has a certain style and he differs from all the personality parts I have played before," says Michael, whose roles have ranged from Tsar Nicholas of Russia on the big screen, to Lady Wilder's lover in The Power Game on the small screen.

'There is something that is not me about Quiller- a certain steeliness. He's cynical about what happens in the world he is in, and he doesn't trust anybody. His maxim is that you can trust a man nine times out of ten, but it's the tenth time when you will end up in the gutter.

"Personally, I don't go-along with that. If you don't trust people, then there is no hope."

Alongside his contempt for rules and regu­lations, Quiller also has a streak of obstinacy about him. The quickest way to get him to take on an unpalatable mission is to tell him he can't do it, and "sheer bloody-mindedness" will do the rest!

Michael got a directive early in the filming that Quiller never smiles, an idea so alien to his cheery self that it's unlikely to survive. "I know black humour and cynicism is part of the success of the American cop series," he says, "but you've got to have some humour because it's the only thing that differentiates us from the animals- smiles and tears!"

Another element that has changed since the original conception of the series is that instead of falling in love with co-star Sinead Cusack throughout, Quiller now has a different girl every week. He's a bit doleful about that because he says it's good to have the continuity of a girl around to lighten the load when you are filming such a tough series. Still, with Prunella Gee and Moira Foot among the ladies he meets, he's not complaining too strenuously!

Economies at the BBC curtailed the far-flung locations planned for the series (Clacton has to make do for the Caribbean and Green­wich doubles for Munich!), but Michael did get to Morocco for a week. "I spent most of the time running around," he recalls with a rueful grin. "I reckon I ran about three miles in bursts of 100 yards at a time, sprinting like mad to get away from this huge explosion we were filming. Falling down sand dunes too. I'd been out late the night before, and I really thought I was going to die . . ."

Back in London, Michael is finding that real-life events are catching up with some of those depicted in the series There's a 'Jackal' type killer in one episode filmed well before a comparable story broke in the newspapers recently. Quiller also gets involved in plots to overthrow governments, a coup in Saudi-Arabia, and even some murky goings-on con­cerning voodoo!

"Now we have done a number of episodes, we have more of an idea what Quiller is," Michael says. "He's not unpredictable, but he's an action man. He could never be a controller because he would get bored.

"Personally, I think it is nonsense to say that a man without a gun can beat one with. The mistake villains make is in advancing on the hero and saying / am going to kill you, then getting within arm's length and pow, they are disarmed!"

On the other hand, Michael points out, you shouldn't go delving into Qui/ler like Chekov. What is required for the nine months arduous filming is a sense of humour from cast and crew. "You go through peaks and troughs on a series like this," he explains. "We have vari­ous writers and directors, but there is a conti­nuity about it. Someone like Brian Clernens tends to go towards the cynical kind of comedy aspect, whereas other writers accen­tuate the ruthlessness. Sometimes I wonder if it will be successful- but we have good people in the cast, Richard Johnson, T. P McKenna, Christopher Neame and Hans Meyer from Coldltz."

Quiller is not about to become another James Bond, but in a way that's a relief because it evades the problem of typecasting. Michael has already had a taste of that with The Power Game which was the start of a lot of things for him. "I was doing four - and - a -half hours of Laertes in the National Theatre's 'Hamlet' at the time," he recalls. "It was so long that I used to go off and watch football matches in between my scenes'! I had two weeks off for holidays and did one episode of The Power Game. Six months later I was doing a full series. I was geared to working so much longer that I couldn't believe it was so easy- fifty minutes and it was over."

After Quiller, if he's given half a chance, Michael wants to do a TV comedy. "I always wanted to be a comedian in the Buster Keaton mould," he says, settling his features into a deadpan expression. "You see, I feel I have a blank face . . ."

With a quiet chuckle, Michael, who is hap­pily married with three children, finishes his beer and sets off back towards Quiller country-Two days later, I receive a cheque for the borrowed fiver- plus 5p for inflation! Our Quiller is a man of style! END

Enjoying the Sound of Success

Michael isn't all that easy to pin down, but when you do finally meet him face to face, his sports-jacketed, boyish figure and his life-long passion for cricket do not entirely destroy the image in your mind.

Making my way to meet him in his dressing-room at the Apollo Victoria Theatre, where he is playing Captain von Trapp opposite Petula Clark in the very successful revival of "The Sound of Music." I was nearly trampled to death by the crowds coming out of the matinee, muttering, "Wasn't it good?"

Michael Jayston is a very busy man, but it's soon clear that he's organised. Hard-working people usually are!

I found his dresser waiting to welcome me, since Michael had been called to a sudden meeting. When he did appear, 15 minutes later, still in the Captain's Austrian costume, he apologised profusely for the unexpected hold-up, before dashing off for a two-minute removal of make-up!

He was soon ready, but when we emerged from the stage door, there was another delay. Head down, he slipped into the shadowy street, but not quickly enough for some dozen or so autograph-hunters who spotted him instantly.

Michael is a caring man who gives his time to people. His brief chat with a girl up from Worthing clearly made her day!

Michael is easy going and instantly friendly, without the least trace of affectation, and adept at side-tracking subjects he feels need not be aired!

As we dashed through the rush-hour traffic to get some plaice, a fish Michael really loves, to sustain him through the evening's performance, he said, "Are you sure you don't mind eating now?" adding, "They do nice salads here, too."

Something about the way he looked reminded me of his performance in the last episode of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" opposite Sir Alec Guinness, whose work and temperament Michael much admires.

"Alec Guinness won't admit it, but he's enormously generous in every way," Michael told me when we'd settled down to eat. "That's what's wrong with so many things in life today- people lack comapssion for others, the sort of pity that makes thm do things to help. Money's important, but it's not enough to give just that. You must give time, too.

"I was brought up as a Catholic and I know I will never be anything else. But I feel some church people are very arrogant. They say, 'God made us,' but how do we know?" His light blue eyes were defiant. "Perhaps we made Him." Michael's clearly a thinker.

He drank some beet ate a little more of his meal and went on.

"I get really mad when people pick on those who are not in a position to hit back," he said, savagely peppering his fish with all the passion of a true Scorpio man.

"I hate to see directors who must have a whipping boy; customers who pick on waiters in restaurants in front of others; and football hooligans who, through boredom and frustrations, set about people who've had nothing to do with the game.

"I came off the tube one night," he went on, "and believe it or not, I had a cricket bat in one hand, and a bottle of wine in the other! Four lads eyed me and as they approached, I sensed trouble.

"They made a remark, and so I picked one out and threatened to lay into him with my cricket bat if he didn't shove off. I would have done, too! Luckily, though, they ran off. They were just cowards. But imagine what might have happened if I had had children with me, or if I'd been without that cricket bat!"

Imagining Michael, after you've chatted with him for a few minutes, without a cricket bat, is not all that easy. He wanted to be a cricketer when he was at school, but sensed that he wasn't "that good." Now he contents himself with the thought that most cricketers are finished at 40, and he writes the odd peice of cricket journalism to appease the side of him that later wanted to be a sports writer.

On the tube on the night he had just described to me, he might easily have had children with him. He has four- Tom, Ben, and Li-An, an adopted Vietmanese girl, from a former marriage, and a baby son, Richard, from his present one, born just last year.

"People always criticise a divorce after an adoption, but the poor little girl would have died if we hadn't adopted her," he said of his daughter.

Someone who knows him well told me before we met that Michael was a rather "unusual type" to be an actor, and he clearly does not believe that the stage is the world with himself in the centre of it.

He sets great store by a sense of humour, loving the comedy of the Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy and John Cleese. "I always watch him when I can," Michael told me.

"One responds to people with a sense of humour. That, and the different types of love, are the most important things in the world," he said. "That's the trouble with politicians. So many of them have no sense of humour. I think the best M.P. we've got is Jack Ashley. Look what he did for the Thalidomide children." People with power worry him.

The house outside London where Michael lives with Ann, his wife, formerly a nurse, and their baby son, has quite a large garden, where they grow vegetables- things like carrots, and the more unusual crops like salsify.

"How about that?" Michael twisted his hair boyishly as he pondered on the disastrous summer, which, with the start of rehearsals for "The Sound of Music," interfered with his planting.

"I'm not totally sold on gardening," he confessed. (Not, one suspects, if there's a cricket pitch nearby, or a chance to play the Lord's Taverners of for Bill Franklyn's Team for the Malcolm Sargent Cancer Fund!)

"I'd rather leave carpentry and electrical things to the experts, too, though I can change fuses and things like that."

Havaning said we needen't rush, he asked suddenly, "What's the time?" Eating with the mercurial Michael could be a bit like being present at the Mad Hatter's tea party, were it not for his innate consideration. Time was ticking away towards the evening's performance, and we had to leave.

"Look here, this has been such a rush for you, with that meeting and everything. Would you like another chat? Tomorrow? Same time?" Then he was off down the stairs and away.

"Shall I check it's all right?" I called after him.

"It will be," he replied, and I knew it would.

WHEN I arrived the next evening, Michael was reading mail.

"I'm so behind with this," he said. "But I do hate the sort of letters that begin, I don't suppose you will read this. Of course I shall read it. But it takes time, and I find that helping just five charities is all I can fit in now.

After his National Service, Michael did a variety of jobs to get himself through The Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He worked for the Coal Baord, which gave him an admiration for miners, and in a fish market.

Sicne then he has played a great variety of roles in repertory theatre and at the Britol Old Vic and at Stratford. He really established himself on TV in "The Power Game," and in the cinema with films like "Cromwell" and "Nichoals and Alexandra."

I wondered if perhaps a musical might be easier to atct in than a straight drama.

Michael leaned back in his deep armchair, holding his crossed knee, and said quickly, "Oh, no. In musicals there's not much dalogue, just enough to link the songs." (Michael claims to be able to sing "a little.")

"If you had dialogue, a musical would last six hours," he went on.

"In Shakespeare, you're given everything in the words, but in musicals you have to fill out the part yourself."

It's clear that Michael enjoys playing opposite Petula Clark's Maria- the novice nun who comes to look after his seven children just before the Nazi invasion of Austria.

Hitler could never get to power here," Michael said, philosophical again. "We have such a marvellous Press. They keep an eye on things."

So is Michael really a typical Britisher, if not Englishman?

"I don't think of my country right or wrong," Michael said as he shook hands, seeing me into the lift. "I just wouldn't want to live anywhere else."

First Person Quiz

First Ambition - To be a journalist/cricketer.

First Disillusionment - That people aren't kind back if you are kind to them. Not always anyway.

First Stage Appearance- Northern Ireland (Bangor) in a comedy.

First Screen Appearance - Ireton in "Cromwell".

First Trip Abroad - Ireland.

First Alcoholic Drink - Beer.

First Love - Do you mean sex? If you do Olga Marinkovitch when I was 16. If you don't mean sex - cricket.

First Car/Motorcycle- n/a I hate cars.

First Property Purchase- In Nottingham.

First Thing I'd Save from a Fire- My family.

First Impression I Give - Talk too much.

First Thing I do with Time Off - Relax with a book.

Favourite Story from "Doctor Who"- Any one of Patrick Troughton's.

Favourite Memory of "Doctor Who"- Patrick Troughton saying to one of the monsters, "They only want their ball back".

Favourite Doctor - Patrick Troughton.

The Great and the Good- Profile: Michael Jayston

One of Britain's most magnetic actors, Michael Jayston has had a rich and varied career that has encompassed the RSC, the National Theatre, television, major films and countless voiceovers. His acting strengths are subtle and diverse - he possesses a superb gift for comedy as well as the dramatic. He has steered clear of typecasting and any suggestions of the predictable in his portrayals, making him one of the most sought after performers of his generation. Films such as Nicholas and Alexandra made him an international star and he became a household name in Quiller plus other TV series such as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Darling Buds of May. This year he brought a touch of unexpected class to Eastenders as Barbara Windsor's latest beau.

Born in Nottingham, Jayston originally became an apprentice accountant before deciding to become an actor.

Before training at the Guildhall School of Drama, his early theatrical influences were a mixed bag.

"I didn't really go to the theatre much, it was people on film that influenced me like Laurence Olivier, " he says. "On the radio the voice of Valentine Dyall hugely impressed me. He was The Man in Black and to this day I still think that voice influences my own. I did go to pantomime and I saw a rather elderly Dorothy Ward and in variety I saw Max Wall, whom I met years later.

"I suppose at one time I wanted to be a stand-up comedian, which is the most diabolical job you could think of."

He made his acting debut at the Salisbury Rep. Later he joined the RSC at the Aldwych playing such roles as Exeter in Henry V and Laertes in Hamlet.

"It was a great grounding for me and there were marvellous people there like Ian Holm. Malcolm McDowell was a walk-on in some of the plays." From the RSC he went to the National Theatre, then under the auspices of Olivier, an actor with whom Jayston was to be associated on several occasions.

"Olivier was a very generous actor to work with, " he says. "I've always said that he was the sort of man you would have gone over the top with in the First World War.

He was a great actor and I think that all great acting is a form of madness. Tom Baker once said to me that all great actors have peculiar voices and that's true. Gielgud, Richardson, Scofield, Olivier.

They don't do it deliberately and so I think that great acting has something to do with the voice."

Jayston's film career began in 1968 playing Demetrius in Peter Hall's version of A Midsummer Night's Dream and three years later he was cast as Tsar Nicholas II in the sumptuous epic Nicholas and Alexandra. He gave an astonishing performance which won him wide praise from the critics, though Hollywood did not bang on his door afterwards.

"No, the only thing I got offered was a truly terrible film, a musical version of Lost Horizon with Peter Finch and Liv Ullmann, which I turned down. I read the script and said I couldn't possibly do this. I went straight back to the theatre. There were one or two films I was offered but I had no regrets turning them down either because they were complete nonsense.

"I prefer working on stage - if it's good. I like an audience if you've got a good part because if you're in a bad television show it doesn't really matter. If you're in a bad play, well, it comes off."

He gave a major performance as the psychiatrist Martin Dysart in Peter Shaffer's powerful play Equus, a drama acclaimed as a reflection upon the conflict between rationality and instinct both at the National Theatre and a long West End run but he lost out to Richard Burton in the film role. His early television work included Mad Jack, a superb film about the First World War poet Siegfried Sasoon and his singlehanded protest against the carnage on the Western front.

Jayston majored on adaptations of the classics - he was Edward Rochester in the BBC's eighties version of Jane Eyre - and dramas such as The Power Game and Callan. He was later one of a distinguished cast that included Alec Guinness, Ian Richardson, Beryl Reid and Sian Phillips in John le Carre's intellectual spy thriller Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy as well as spells in Dr Who, The Good Guys and Outside Edge.

Yet despite his popularity on TV, Jayston is far from happy with the current medium. "Television in my lifetime has got far worse for an actor. In the old days you had things like Play for Today but nowadays, if they put on a 'blockbuster' like Dickens, it's billed as a fantastic event. It never used to be - it was the norm."

Jayston also believes it is becoming increasingly difficult for young performers to get a foot in the door. "There is nowhere to learn your craft like reps because most of them are now gone and there is no real training for TV and so you just go in there. They put you on a set and say 'okay, well you be a Cockney', " he argues. "There are some good actors in soap opera and some who just behave, people who are just themselves - which of course isn't really acting at all.

"I have to say with EastEnders I get very fed up with listening to not particularly good Cockney accents.

Nowadays we have casting directors who go on what you look like and not whether you have any talent. When people say 'when he came into the room I knew immediately. . .'

it's complete rubbish. But don't get me wrong, some soaps are excellent. But I can't stand that awful Neighbours.

The dog, however, is marvellous - so he'll probably get a Bafta."

Sitting in his dressing room at the Chichester Festival Theatre, Jayston reminisces about the good and the great of theatre with charm.

He was recently in the town starring in Jean Anouilh's Wild Orchids, a play originally seen in London under the title Times Remembered.

Anouilh's whimsical themes of innocence and make believe are ideally suited to Jayston's brand of subtle acting.

"I don't know why Anouilh is not as popular these days because he is a marvellous playwright. I think that the Festival Theatre has a sort of safe image, obviously because audiences are slightly older than they would be in the West End. But you do get a lot of youngsters coming to the Minerva next door."

So any unfulfilled ambitions as an actor? "No, not really. As long as I get good parts I don't mind and I don't think I'm one for King Lear, " he says. "I'd love to do a pantomime because pantomime is an art form. I'd love to play the dame - but nobody's asked me. I once played Widow Twankey in rep and I got quite good notices. I was a sort of very northern dame. Dougie Byng and Billy Dainty, both dames of note, came from my home town of Nottingham."

Prospective panto producers take note. A consummate performer in whatever medium he chooses, no doubt Jayston would look quite fetching in a mob cap and skirts.

Michael Jayston is appearing in The Rivals at Eden Court Theatre, Inverness

CT was able to talk to Michael Jayston

CT: Michael, how did you become an actor?

I was in an amateur group which had Ken Loach in it. Tom Baker was in it after me and Sue Pollard, Peter Bowles and John Bird. I managed to get a scholarship but the Nottingham Rep Company at that time was so good I didn’t  think I stood a chance. I’d acted a bit at school and I acted when I was doing National Service as well. If I hadn’t have got a  scholarship I’d have been in trouble because in those days up North and in the Midlands it was very difficult to get a grant. Whereas people down South just said ‘oh I want to be an actor’ and they got it.

CT: Had you watched Doctor Who as a viewer in its early days?

I saw Hartnell a few times but some of those early ones were very creaky, you could see the gaps in the sets. It was made very cheaply. I watched it when Troughton was in it and from then onwards really. As I was working, I hardly ever saw Sylvester McCoy in it, only two or three. I suppose the most I saw was Tom Baker.

CT: Did you worry that the Valeyard, a classic villain  in a black cloak, might be a bit ‘cartoonish’ or did you feel there was enough in the scripts to make it more three dimensional?

Some of the scripts weren’t amazing and I just played it as a villain. In some ways it was one dimensional - he was determined to get the Doctor because, as you know, I’m one of the Doctors.

CT: Did you know straight away that your character was in fact the Doctor?

Oh yes, I did. There were one or two exchanges where some of the responses that Colin Baker had to make like ‘the Barn Yard’ or the ‘Scrap Yard’ were a bit silly, especially when he was working against a supposedly brilliant mind i.e. the Valeyard.

CT: The Trial scenes were very much courtroom drama. Did you feel they were a bit static?  

Well, not really, because don’t forget that whenever you had a courtroom scene, it then flashed to something else and those people I only ever saw when we met for the reading, like Tony Selby. Although I did go on location on Camber Sands towards the end and I was also in the potteries and I met the Geoff Hughes character. I liked the potteries because I had to do that maniacal laugh. I had to change into Geoff Hughes.       

CT: Were you aware of the some of the problems that were going on between John Nathan-Turner and Eric Saward?

There were a lot of funny things going on because Michael Grade suddenly started to say it ought to be dropped.  There were some problems with the script at the time. The Bakers were writing them weren’t they? I like them, they’re nice people.

CT: Did you feel upset for Colin as a friend when he was axed from the series?

Yes, I got on very well with Colin. He's got a bright mind, he does the crossword puzzles. I try to do The Times one but I hardly ever get through it.

I worked with Troughton on a radio years ago. I liked him. He was very eccentric. Tom’s eccentric.  Colin isn’t eccentric as a person. But he managed to put it into his interpretation of Doctor Who.

CT: Do people often remember your part in Doctor Who?

Quite a few, yes. I did a thing at Llangollen a couple of years ago for the Hyde Fundraisers. It was mainly youngsters. They watch it on the videos. There’s a whole new audience for it. They watch it on UK Gold.

CT: Did you know that your character has had new adventures in the novels?

I know. There’s also a website in Australia that I’ve never got in touch with. I’m better than my wife with computers. My daughter is brilliant at it. I wanted to find out what I’d done in certain years. I typed in ‘The Valeyard, Michael Jayston, Doctor Who.’ I got everything I’ve ever done going back to radios I did when I first started out. It was unbelievable.

CT: Did you like the script for your audio story He Jest at Scars?

Yes, I did. It was very well written. It was strange to go back to it like that.

CT: Who do you admire?

On the acting level, I like Bill Nighy a lot out of the current actors. I like Al Pacino. I suppose historically I like Churchill. I know he wasn’t a saint but I think he did save this country.  I like Jack Davenport, he’s a good actor. There are some good people coming up but a lot of youngsters nowadays think in terms of film and television instead of learning their craft. You can’t play comedy, for instance, if you haven’t got timing or technique and you learn that through experience.

CT: With the current trend for Reality TV, do you think drama has suffered?

I think a lot of television is absolute rubbish nowadays. So-called reality television is not reality at all. They’re surrounded by cameras and they can edit out the bits they don’t like, like in I‘m A Celebrity. I’m afraid I have watched that but for Ant and Dec because I think they’re very funny and they send it up in a very subtle way. I don’t think they’re supposed to be sending it up. Do you remember Chris Tarrant used to have a programme going all the way around the world and you’d see Japanese people going through excruciating tortures and we all roared with laughter thinking how cruel and how sadistic?  We’re doing the same thing. As long as they get the ratings they don’t mind. That’s the way it’s going, it’s very sad.

CT: Will Doctor Who struggle coming back in this new climate?

I think it deserved  never to have gone off the screen because there is a market for it. I did my Doctor Who eighteen years ago and I still get about three letters a week. McGann, who I’ve met and I liked, takes the mickey out of himself. I thought he was good but Doctor Who is not Superman. McGann did the best he possibly could with it. There was a conference recently at the Hilton in London (Panopticon). That’s when I met McGann. He was sending himself up about how tall he was. We had a chat about Ireland because I had a relative in Ireland.

CT: Do you think actors get associated with one type of role and then only get offered that role?

Yes, I used to get ‘ oh he’s a posh actor’ and it’s nonsense, I came from Nottingham. I’m not a posh actor. Nowadays, there’s no closed shop. Anybody thinks they can do it. It’s like Pop Idol. I feel sorry for some of them because they’ve got it the wrong way round. What they want is fame or money.

CT: We interviewed Sir Derek Jacobi in CT recently and he was saying how he wants to be in Coronation Street but has never been asked because he is seen as ‘a posh actor’.

I know. It was the same the same with Lawrence Olivier. He was working there  (at Granada) producing his own thing  and they did their damndest to try and get him in it. The schedules  didn’t work. He said ‘I just want to play some sort of shopkeeper because Coronation Street is an institution.’ He meant it, he wanted to have just one little scene and they couldn’t do it. They worked it out and then he fell over and hit his head.

CT: Would you do the Valeyard again on television if it was a good script?

Oh I think so, yes. Most people outside of Doctor Who don’t think I’m a Doctor. I’m rather proud of it. I think if you haven’t been in Doctor Who you haven’t lived.

With thanks to Michael Jayston.

Audiobook Collection Interview

Clearly an actor who likes a challenge, he picks the role of Teddy in The Homecoming as his widescreen highlight. 'The discipline required to perform any of Pinter’s work is taxing,' he explains, 'but exhilarating when you get it right.'

The challenge of audio books is entirely different. 'I love working on different accents and characterisations,' he admits. 'It goes back to the basis of communication between actor/reader and audience, which is simply telling a story.'

His favourite audio recording is Le Carre's The Spy who Came in from the Cold. (ABC 500) 'To me this is the best of its genre - anti-heroic but with an underlying humanity and deep understanding of human nature in all its forms.’ His taste in books is eclectic - Shakespeare, Hemingway, Thurber, Spike Milligan, Graham Greene and Alan Bennett feature alongside Le Carre and P. D. James - but, like many of his colleagues, the novel he’d really like to get his teeth into for audio is War and Peace.

The list of those he’s enjoyed working with is long: Dames Peggy Ashcroft and Maggie Smith, Sorcha Cusack, Rowena Cooper, Peter Barkworth, Maureen Lipman, Leo McKern, Sir Alec Guinness, Maria Aitken, and Billie Whitelaw - plus, of course, his favourite actor, Ian Holm. ‘In boxing parlance he is pound for pound one of the best actors in the world. Why he hasn't been knighted I cannot imagine.'

Future plans are fluid ('I'm waiting for the postman to bring some good news soon!'), but he’s disturbed by the current trend towards 'too many productions, especially on television, which seem governed by the cheque book and viewing figures instead of talent. I hope this is rectified soon.' As far as unfulfilled ambitions go he confesses to being 'fairly content but ready for anything legal. I would like to be the oldest man to climb Everest, but I think I'll leave that to that lovely lunatic Brian Blessed!’

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MICHAEL JAYSTON

Michael comes from the old school of acting, and, at 71, the charm that had him in the running for James Bond in 1980 is still evident. He talks of partying with Laurence Olivier and spoke to Maureen Lipman only the other day, transporting us back to the decadent days of being an actor in the Sixties and Seventies. "A hell of a lot of people on TV today can't act on stage," he laments. "Now they just want to get straight into doing film."

The story of Michael's childhood is a sad one. His father died when he was one. "He was playing rugby with a bad cold, got booted in the chest and developed pneumonia. He was only 25." His mother died when he was nearly 15 and he was brought up, an only child, by his grandmother and uncle..

Psychiatrists always told him his behaviour was a result of the traumas of his past, something he believed until recently, when he looked up an old aunt in Nottingham. "I asked her what my father was like, and she said he used to play awful jokes on people, and I was so pleased that it was hereditary and not psychological," he laughs..

Growing up in Nottingham, Michael went to a Catholic grammar school. ("I'm not a good Catholic. I got out of it when I was about 25, but then you get the guilt.") where he first became interested in acting. After a stint in the National Service stationed in Germany, where he performed in many plays, he returned to Nottingham to train as an accountant for the National Coal Board. I always wanted to be an actor, but I thought I didn't stand a chance at getting into the Nottingham Repertory Company. It was very unusual for its time; it had an amazing cast of people, like Brian Blessed."

After taking Grade 8 in acting, he won a scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. "I left it until I was nearly 25 when I went to drama school, which is quite late but, as it was, I got all the parts that were going then." Picking up an agent before he had even left the school, he made his first professional debut, aged 27, in a production of The Amorous Prawn before going on to work on the stage at the Salisbury Repertory, Bristol Old Vic and then with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Michael's first major break into TV was The Power Game, with Patrick Wymark. "In those days I thought I was getting paid a lot" I was getting £500 an episode for The Power Game and £60 a week from the Royal Shakespeare Company.".

His first film was Cromwell in 1969. ";How long have you got?" he laughs when I ask him about it. I'm on now actually!," he says, eyes lighting up, searching for a TV. "Cromwell's just about to start on Channel 4." Although his favourite films are the little-known The Homecoming with Harold Pinter ("A tiny film but it had a discipline to it") and A Bequest to the Nation with Glenda Jackson, he's probably best known for his roles in Zulu Dawn and Nicholas and Alexandra, with Laurence Olivier, in which he played the lead role of Tsar Nicholas II. "Zulu Dawn has just come out on DVD on one of the newspapers, and it was called 'a classic'";. Around 70 per cent of the notices tore it to pieces, and it had a better cast than Zulu".

Michael's the first to admit when something he's been in is below average. I ask if he's ever turned anything down. "I did turn down a Jeffrey Archer. But I'm not prepared to say why" After starring in the TV series Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy with Alec Guinness in 1979, Michael moved to Brighton with his present wife Ann where they brought up their two children, Richard and Katy. "I just liked the idea of Brighton, the whole sequence. Olivier was living in Royal Crescent and we used to go there quite a lot. He also had a house in Steyning and used to have 30 or 40 people around every weekend. I remember answerng the phone there once. ' Douglas Fairbanks here,' said the person at the other end. I nearly said, 'Oh you can piss off', then I realised that because I was in Olivier's house it really was Douglas Fairbanks. And Olivier said, 'Oh God, what does he want?'"

Aside from acting, Michael spends most of his time playing cricket for Rottingdean, of which he is president. "I bowl leg breaks. Last year I played 41 matches and got the most wickets. Now I sound like I'm boasting." He also has a fascination with going to old churches and seeing how many people have died. It's like people have just fallen asleep," he says, his father's sense of humour coming out again. "I think they've been buried for the wrong reason."

Today Michael mostly does television, with forthcoming roles in Holby City and The Bill. Three years ago he was filming East-Enders in Puerto Banus with Barbara Windsor. "She's marvellous, I like her a lot. The director asked her if she knew the area at all, and she said "Darling, Ronnie was out here, of course I know the area!" After nearly two hours in Topolino's, during which we eat some excellent lemon sole and everyone who comes in knows Michael, the tape runs out. "Im sorry, he says in that husky thespian voice that once played James Bond on radio. "I've been rabbiting on about nothing."

If talking about days with Laurence Olivier, playing cricket at Lord's, treading the boards with the RSC and turning down Jeffrey Archer is nothing, I'd like to know what something is..

Text: Poppy Smith.