We first did Kevin Elyot’s play My Night With Reg in 1994 in the Theatre Upstairs, a tiny room at the top of the Royal Court. John was well known in comedyland but inexperienced in legit. He was super-nervous and hopeless with props: opening champagne bottles, pouring drinks, lighting fags, etc. In rehearsals, to begin with, whenever he had to pour or smoke or walk and talk simultaneously, his astonishingly hyper-connective brain would short out and frazzle, and in his frustration John would launch into savage impro-monologues, viciously cursing and berating himself. If a firework could self-flagellate, this is what it might look like. Or sound like. Brand new verbs such as “Christ-stabbing” came spinning out like shrapnel. His improvisations in self-abuse had us all howling with laughter. We’d end up lying on our backs with our arms and legs in the air.
Then begin again.
“Where do you want to go from, John?” I’d ask. “Sorry. Can we go from here … No, actually here. Actually here, would you mind?” “That’s … that’s seven pages earlier. From where you come on?” “Do you mind? Shit. Sorry. Does anybody mind?” No one ever minded.
He sweated and worked, and worked and sweated. His sometimes mad, sometimes gentle intelligence filled the room, but never dominated it. His kindness and mischief and affection made him irresistible. And, most surprising of all, by the end of weeks of rehearsals, the bastard had us all sobbing hopelessly into our teacups … his performance was unbelievably delicate, muted, loaded, true.
