THE BACK NUMBER

Evening Star, Issue 20586, 11 September 1930, Page 7

THE BACK NUMBER

STUDY OF AN OLD ACTOH You will find him any morning or afternoon outside the theatre and in the streets where the agents have their offices. Wherever you see him you see a score of men of his sort, for he is of the typo that can never bo alone. Ho can only live in crowds, lie is the outmoded actor, and these places serve as his club. He and others like him frequent them because the offices of the theatrical agents are near at hand (writes Thomas Burke, the novelist, in the ‘Sunday News ’ in an article that is us pathetic as it is well written). Ho is well and neatly dressed. Ho looks prosperous and pleased with mmself. Ho glances amiably about him with the air of a man of leisure observing the human pageant. But the chances are that he will have no lunch and no dinner, and his supper—if he can run to it—will be fried fish. All his prosperity is in his clothes It has to bo, for appearance is' his chief stock. An actor may live in a back-street bedroom at Camden Town, and may pawn most of his jwsscssions, and feed on bread and cheese in little public houses. But whatever else goes, the one thing that must not go is his wardrobe. Without that ho is like i carpenter without tools or a musician without an instrument. He is the back number; the smallpart actor who knows his job, but has never made-a name. In his most tnccossful days he earned much applause for his character studies from the audiences of small provincial towns—No. towns. Ho has never earned the applause of a .West End audience. Not (as ho himself will tell you) because he couldn’t, but because for some inscrutable reason he has never been given the chance. His whole life has been a life of obscure, ill-fitted theatres, long hours of Sunday travelling in theatrical specials, cncan lodgings, Press notices from cheap local papers, and cheap, food. To-day it is not even that. What with films, dance-halls, broadcasting, and other things, few touring companies arc being sent out, and in_ .he few that are there is no room for him. Lately his best jobs have been crowd work in films, and, owing to the present state of the film industry, that, too, has failed him. But he is still dapper and debonair. Hopefully', every morning he turns up at the agents’ offices. He waits with others in bare and dirty waiting rooms. After two hours a clerk comes out and “ sees ” him. “Nothing doing just now, Walter But there may lie something later, veep in touch during the day.’’ When ho is dead those words will be Pound graven on his heart: “Keep in touch during the day.” So out he goes to kill time and to meet the crowd of others who are killing time. They meet at one or other of the rendezvous, and exchange gossip and reminiscence. BRAVELY THEY LIE. Bravely they lie to each other. It is known that they are all out of work, but nothing else is known. This gives scope for optimism. Out of work they may be, but it appears from their gossip that they all have work in the offing. Next week or the week after big tilings are to happen. Hullo, Herbert! And what are yon doingP” “ Nothing at the moment, Walter. But I’ve just been seeing Black’s, and they want mo to go out next week witn the Number One Sunbeam Company. But 1 don’t know. . . . Their idea of terms isn’t quite mine. And what are you doing?” “ Oh, I’ve just been offered Blank’s part in th Number 1 Dreamland Company—Manchester, Leeds, Bristol, Nottingham. Sick of touring, though, liike to stay in town for a bit. They wrote me the other day about that new thing coming on at the Queen’s. They think there’s a part in it for rno. But 1 shan’t decide till I’ve read it.” “Ha! Well, what about a drink?” “ Well, I’m afraid not, old chap. As a matter of fact, things are a bit tight. I was counting on a cheque from .” “ That’s all right, old man. They’re on me this time. You can do another time ” So Walter has drinks with Herbert, and Herbert knows that Walter is completely broke, and Walter knows that he knows. But the fiction of temporary embarrassment is politely kept up, and they are such good actors that after the second drink they almost convince each other. After the third drink and two courses of bread and cheese they become confidential. Herbert says that ho can’t understand—simply can’t understand—how it is that managers don’t jump at Walter. They simply can’t know their business. Walter agrees. The present-day manager is hopeless. Look at the failures he has. TJsey didn’t have those failures in the old days when managers did know their job. “ Look at that show, ‘ Tho Wailing of the Wind.’ 1 played the old bishop in that for four years. Eour years, my boy. What is there to-day that keeps on the road for four years? Eh? A few plays like that. And a few casts like that. Eh?”_ Walter still believes, as every outmoded actor believes, that the public wants to see him. and is only prevented from seeing him by the stupidity of agents and managers. In the back bedroom ait Camden Town is an ailing wife, as old as himself. But Walter doesn’t think of her during the day. He mustn’t think ot her. He must he the agreeable and independent actor who is willing to consider offers. Tho offers—when they do come—are usually offers of an engagement at a working men’s club dinner or at some obscure suburban picture theatre, where the best seats are Is 9d. Walter accepts them with a shrug of tho shoulders, but with gratitude, for, to tho actor, any show is better thau no show. And there is always the chance—so sanguine is your actm* —that somebody who matters will see him in those obscure places and will recognise his greatness, and reinstate him. Nobody ever does; but that cannot stop Walter from being sure that some day somebody will. Walter gives his ago at forty-three. Walter is sixty-one. If you are with him for five minutes you will believe that his age is what lie says it is. It you an with him for half an hour you will guess his real age. In his young days he was happy, and he had no philosophy. To-day he is a hopeless optimist. At midnight, in tho Camden Town bedroom, he recognises his position for what it is. Is he downhearted? Yes. Will ho let anybody know it? Never. Ho is a back number. Nobody wants him And he knows it. But he will be standing in Charing Cross road until he can no longer get out of bed. For ho knows that if he can no longer get out of bed that will be his finis. The curtain will come down on an empty house; not only will nobody want him; they won’t oven know that he hai gone.