Watching the hordes far below Humdrumming Mansions I am reminded of the Shakespeare Birthday Celebrations back in April, and the procession through the town that is such an integral part, and why no one seems to smile anymore, if they ever did, and then hearing loud (very loud) and clear above the military band…

” Mr Newman, sir, how the devil are you?”

I couldn’t see him but it couldn’t have been anyone else but my dear old friend Clive Bardell. Then I spotted him as he broke ranks (unheard off, old boy) and headed in my direction, his craggy old face one huge gap-toothed smile, and looking every inch the Shakespearean character he undoubtedly is.

Basically Clive couldn’t give a flea’s doings for the protocol of the moment, whether that’s marching in the aforementioned procession where all the dignitaries look very dignified, and the Beagle looks like a beagle, and the Mayor looks very stern, and Gregory Doran looks very smart,while others look very learned indeed (although most of them couldn’t tell the difference between a Shakespeare sonnet and The Ballad of Dan McGrew, which I think I once heard Clive recite in its entirety), or in the bar of the Falcon Hotel where, after one rather confused performance of my Oliver Cromwell play when two Japanese tourists interrupted half way through to ask directions to Anne Hathaway’s Cottage he made a rather unsteady but nonetheless heartfelt toast to:

” Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, God bless Her and all who sail in Her.”

A statement which was followed by a moment (no more) of something resembling a stunned silence (although you could still hear the wedding reception going on in the ballroom which by this time sounded as if it had reached the argument stage where the bride accuses the bridegroom of having an affair with one of the bridesmaids, you know the sort of thing) until Oliver Cromwell himself (Steve Devey), gentleman and scholar that he is responded with:

” To her Majesty, God bless her, and all her corgies, and Phil, and Charlie and Camilla, and…”

And on it went, toast after ridiculous toast, until we had all drunk her health very heartily indeed. I remember seeing Clive, as we left the hotel around midnight, sitting in a corner with a full bottle of red wine in front of him happily singing to himself and smiling the smile of the undefeated.

Clive is a good actor, in fact he’s a very good actor who has spent the last thirty years or more working at the RST. Before that he was a professional folk-singer and a drummer in a rock band. He still looks a bit like a professional folk-singer and a drummer in rock band.

When I started The Bird of Prey Theatre Company back in 1997 Clive was one of the first to offer help, and he’s been a very important part of the set-up ever since, whether helping to build sets, take them down, take money at the door, sell wine in the interval, drink wine in the interval, stage manage, drink more wine, show people to their seats, wash-up, finish off any wine that was left over, be the first to buy a drink in the pub, and the last to leave. In other words a jolly good chap to have around - and someone who can act his ancient socks off.

And I soon realised that I had to write for Clive and not just give him a part he might just be able to do reasonably well. So that’s what I did.

In my play about Ernest Hemingway I wrote at least three parts for the old hamster, including the part of a singing waiter at the Paris Ritz Hotel of the 1920s, a French Resistance Fighter during World War Two, and the Russian born Hollywood actor Vladimir Sokoloff (who had a major role in the film version of For Whom The Bell Tolls), which, as Guy Adams (who played Hemingway) will remind you was a riot from beginning to end, and I’m not talking about the film, or the rehearsals of the play either. If you want to know more send at least £100 in a plain brown envelope.

More recently Clive had a leading role in my aforementioned Oliver Cromwell thingy, 1651: An Evening With Oliver Cromwell, in which he played the part of the family retainer Jeremiah Beckett, where he had some pretty meaty scenes, and a couple of lengthy period style songs (written by Clive and myself) that required enormous singing talent to pull-off, which Sir Clive did with aplomb to spare! I like aplombs, don’t you, especially those big red ones…

Clive has just one problem. He gets very angry with himself when he doesn’t get things quite right, with the result that he’ll curse to high heaven. When he played the part of a batty German waiter in my wonderful drama about Elgar and Delius he was required to open a bottle of champagne with as loud a bang as possible (and it was real champagne so there was a genuine incentive for Clive to get it right), but could he get the cork out? No! After what seemed like an eternity the blind and paralysed Delius - momentarily, and miraculously, finding the ability to see and walk - jumped out of his wheelchair, opened the bottle to a repeated and ever lengthening chorus of expletives from Clive, which the audience thought was hilarious. Naturally we kept it in.

Clive Bardell is a gem, and I love him.