Before Christmas, I had coffee with an actor friend who was visiting London after relocating to Hollywood. I was somewhat taken aback: instead of the bank-clerk physique that had been the secret of his success, he now resembled a nightclub bouncer, with pecs you could shelter under in case of a sudden shower. What on earth had happened?
"Nothing," he assured me shiftily. "It's just that I've got an interview for a TV series next month and it requires me to get my kit off." He glugged greedily at his alfalfa sprout smoothie and changed the subject.
In fact, he didn't even need to mention the nudity bit to explain his transformation. In Hollywood nowadays, a six-pack is as essential as a green card and a decent interview suit. The idea in LA seems to be that everyone depicted in the movies should be able to double up as a personal trainer. We haven't quite got there yet in Britain, but you wait a year or two.
In theatre, actors with the best bodies are notorious for trying to disrobe at every possibility. As regards the rest of us, it all depends on how we're looking. Shelley Winters best captured the dilemma when she famously remarked: "I think onstage nudity is disgusting, shameful and damaging to all things American. But if I were 22 with a great body, it would be artistic, tasteful, patriotic and a progressive religious experience."
I've only ever performed naked on one occasion, for about five seconds at the end of a production of Alan Ayckbourn's Way Upstream, at, of all places, the Yvonne Arnaud theatre in Guildford. I don't think the good burghers of Surrey knew what hit 'em – I'm speaking metaphorically now – but the moment in rehearsal when I got my kit off for the first time was something of a watershed. For days beforehand, whenever we reached "the scene", I'd faff around, neatly sidestepping the stage direction itself, miming the removal of my trousers. Finally I could put it off no longer – after all, we were opening the following week.
The odd thing was, once I'd done it, it felt OK. Sort of. Crucially, it felt advantageous to the play, which after all is the only fig leaf any actor has to hide his spiritual nakedness. When the artistic director (himself fearful of the moment being too upsetting for the unsuspecting punters) suggested I needn't strip at all but could keep my pants on, I was having none of it – so strongly did I now feel about its necessity to the play. In fact, I threatened to walk out if the nudity was cut. Funny cusses, actors.
As a mark of how the show had gone, the scene actually proved a remarkably good litmus test. On performances when we hadn't quite nailed the drama, the final brief moment of nudity was received with sheepish titters. But more often that not, and somewhat to my delight, it was accepted as a natural part of the play.
Once you're over 40, feeling conscious of saggy flab matters a lot less because you're no longer hoping to look good in the first place; roles at this age can only mean you're playing an invalid or a nudist. Or Lear. The concern then isn't whether the audience will laugh or reel in shock, merely whether the theatre radiators have been turned on well before curtain up.
Sadly, I'm now at the age where nudity, on stage or off, is probably a bad idea. Or as my wife said the other night when I came into the bedroom naked, "I don't know what you're wearing, but it needs ironing."
