Jamie Nichols - Preparing for Houdini

Jamie Nichols as Harry Houdini

Jamie Nichols, an accomplished young London actor, commences a gruelling national tour this week in the title role of Stuart Brennan’s Houdini, a tightly cast play based upon the legendary American escapologist. Rehearsing out of town before the show opens in Stoke this week, I grabbed a few minutes with Jamie, in between rehearsal sessions and a final lesson in illusions. 

A Londoner born and bred, with three older brothers and two younger sisters, Nichols has predominantly been cast to date in roles that reflect his London background. After a modest break from performance to explore life as a theatrical agent, he was cast earlier this year by Rikkie Beadle Blair as one of the four Prospect brothers in Blair’s contemporary take on broken Britain, Gutted (reviewed by me here).  Set in south London, the play was an honest and at times harrowing account of fractured lives, with Nichols performance being as physically demanding as it was compelling. Nichol’s talks of the regime to prepare for Gutted as having some echoes of what he is currently going through pre Houdini. Interestingly, he also speaks of having to have explored the subtle differences between the two Londons that exist on the different banks of the Thames. A passionate Arsenal supporter, he was the only north London cast member and he talks of having found the research into the different nuances of London life, between north and south, fascinating and distinctive.

His affinity with the capital will have had little to do with Nichols having been cast for this role, for other than when Houdini toured his act to London, the Hungarian born magician had little association with the UK. Notwithstanding, one of Houdini’s toughest on-stage moments ever came about in 1904  when he was nearly beaten in a challenge laid down by the London Daily Mirror that required him to escape from a purpose built set of lock and chains in front of an audience at London’s Hippodrome. Nichols, who had studiously worked on magic tricks and handcuff escapology prior to his audition for the play, was thrilled when he learnt that the auditions were themselves to be held at the legendary Leicester Square venue as a mark of respect to the man.

Nichol’s regime in preparation for the role has been all consuming. With a strict diet and extreme exercise, he has shed a stone in weight and has almost halved his % body fat. He is indebted to dietician/trainer James Farmer who is coaching him through this process, though Nichols has also reflects with some sadness how the totality of the rehearsal process has led to him having to have missed social events including a friends’ wedding, such has been his immersion in the role.

It turns out that immersion is to be the watchword of this all consuming performance. Harry Houdini was famed for his Upside Down stunt that required him to be suspended by his ankles in a glass tank filled with several thousand gallons of water. Nichols’ does not give too much away, but when he hints that he has undergone SCUBA training and that the show will feature an onstage water escape and when he  goes on to sketch out the health and safety planning that has gone into the stunt’s design, it suggests something spectacular. 

In one of those historical quirks that saw gangster Al Capone imprisoned not for murder but for tax fraud, so did Houdini die at 52, not in a disastrous stunt-failure but rather from the complications of a burst appendix sustained from a punch. The play references that tragic blow and nursing a few minor injuries himself Nichols suggests that getting ready for this show in particular has taken a modest toll, though nothing of course that his super-fit physique cannot endure!

The show also features Houdini’s brother Theo, played by Brennan and wife Bess played by Harry Potter’s Luna Lovegood, Evanna Lynch and Nichols speaks warmly of the camaraderie that exists between the entire cast. Working with the writer, he has immense respect for Brennan’s knowledge of his subject.

The five week tour concludes in Ireland, with Houdini being a play that promises to offer a compelling turn from this remarkably talented performer.

Touring from 9th September . For details, visit www.HoudiniThePlay.com

Gutted

Theatre Royal Stratford East

*****

Written & directed by Rikkie Beadle-Blair



Louise Jameson and Frankie FItzgerald

On entering the Theatre Royal Stratford East, you immediately notice that the plush curtains have been removed from the stage and in their place a mirrored wall, which like a safety curtain, rises as the play begins. Rikki Beadle-Blair who directs as well as writes has a clear message. Gutted will mirror parts of society and that however hard it may be, watching his play is to take a look at either ourselves, or at components of our communities alongside whom we live.



This is a strikingly innovative piece of drama. The four Prospect brothers, their mother Bridie and their relationships with their partners, are tracked from twenty-something years ago, to the present. The writing is gritty and very coarse. Eye-wateringly funny knob-gag humour, never once gratuitous nor out of context, sits side by side with deeply harrowing revelations of abuse. This is a story of damaged people trying to find their way in the world and more often than not making wrong decisions along their journeys.  Through Beadle-Blair's text, in which nearly every character with only few exceptions is damaged goods, we watch how over the course of lifetimes, decisions are made, that are often at best no more than shoddy compromises and at worst a series of blind-eyes being turned to horrendous acts of evil.

The performances are all flawless and several are outstanding. Louise Jameson is the widowed Bridie, a loving, supportive and feisty mother and grandmother. She is the rock of the Prospect clan albeit with a complex past and it is not until her spectacular, raw,  denouement scene towards the end of act two, that we understand how she has hardened herself to have survived a life of continued misery, mixed with a surprising combination of profound understanding of what has occurred around her and also encompassing a mind  boggling talent for denial. Rarely has one character earned in turn not only our sympathy but also our contempt.

Frankie Fitzgerald shines as middle son Mark Prospect, most notably when, acting as his younger self and as a child who has not been subjected to the sexual abuse that his siblings have endured, expresses his own low self-worth and inadequacies as to why he is not attractive to the abuser. Through snatches of such distressing dialog does Beadle-Blair reveal a world that is fatally flawed. Later in life when Mark learns that his own infant children are being abused, the horror of his comprehension combined with the manner in which he speaks to his terrified damaged kids, is deeply moving. The performance is all the more astonishing given that there are in fact no children up on stage and Fitzgerald is speaking to empty space. Sadly, his performance is so good that we can painfully conjure up the images of the youngsters in our minds eye.

James Farrar and Jennifer Daley

Jennifer Daley's Lucy Lockwood is another fascinating and ultimately morally bankrupt character. She is a young woman drawn to brother Matthew Prospect (played by James Farrar) and so in love with him that not only is she accepting of his damaged sexual history, she is prepared to support his warped cravings, offering to "breed lovers" for him. She portrays her character so un-sensationally that when we hear her make that hellish offer, one that so rails against the basic precepts of maternal love and protection for a child that rather than be shocked, we weep. Lucy is one of the most complex and profoundly selfish characters created for the stage in recent years

Beadle-Blair's writing is a requiem for Britain's victims of moral depravation, though he does sow some seeds for hope and redemption, via youth, in the final scenes. The Prospect family are a brood who have learned to satisfy their craving for love and respect via football, drugs, religious fundamentalism and abusive behaviour. Their sexualities are ambiguous, and any sexual respect for others that they might have had, was lost years ago. The play is uncomfortable, searching and also downright bloody brilliant. It deserves a transfer to a more central stage for a longer run. Soon.

Runs until May 25