I love Derek. Well, I don't love him. But I certainly admire his enthusiasm and courage. In his fifties, for most of his life he's looked after his invalid mother. She died last year and upon reading her diaries he came across this entry: 'Derek, follow your dream.' His dream had always been to act and so, taking his mother's words to heart, he made a brave decision to attempt to break into the business come what may. Early days but already he's done pretty well. He's found himself an agent and landed the small role of a policeman in a corporate video. But he feels that he lacks training and experience, which of course he does, and has come to me for help.
Derek is a big man, - about 6'4" - a stereotype for the part of a policeman. The only trouble is, he's incredibly softly spoken, a gentle giant. Judging from appearance alone, the roles he'll be offered will be cops, thugs, bouncers, hard cases. And yet his whole personality would seem to suit the much more recessive character, the ivory-tower academic, the hen-pecked husband, the shy bachelor. There's a disjunction, in other words, between the way he looks and the way he is and in order to prepare him for auditions for as wide a variety of roles as possible I've not only got to work with him inside his comfort zone, - the way he is, - but to force him to perform outside it, in alignment with the way he looks.
I've given Derek a speech from Bouncers by John Godber.
Role: Eric
Also, Disposing of the Body by Hugh Whitemore.
Role: Henry
(Whilst Eric is obviously outside Derek's comfort zone, Henry ought to be well within it).
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