Acting is best left to the professionals, especially when it’s Shakespeare. Extras who blunder into scenes are a liability…
Quarshie stood at the front of the stage staring at him in disbelief. His face carried a blunt message: ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’
Quarshie was Mark Antony. Caesar’s body lay next to him. He had just ordered the mob to avenge his mentor’s murder, the mob had shuffled off to locate the perp and give him a good seeing to, and now some scruffy little arsehole was standing there, front stage, trying to act. A woman in the audience burst out laughing.
Pretty soon, the gang of departed citizens returned, swallowed their lost member back into the fold and Quarshie’s body language softened. What director Sir Peter Hall made of it all was never reported. The name of the woman in the audience who laughed out loud was Angelina.
● Read the full story, ‘My Mate Casca’.