Old Hand, Big Jule.

   After relative newcomer to BCOS Amanda, my next willing victim was Tim, who has been a member of BCOS since 1985.  He’d just got back from a few days away so, before he threw himself back into the world of credit insurance broking, he kindly gave up an hour of his time to chat to me. 
   Tim has played a wide range of characters in his 28 stage productions, with romantic leads initially, though those are harder to come by now.  “The advantage of Gilbert and Sullivan,” Tim said, “is that the characters are from all age groups, so I have more chance then.”  In previous years, Tim has played Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof and Mephistopheles in Faust, and this year he has the pleasure of playing the gangster/gambler Big Jule (I am assured it is pronounced like the girl’s name Julie, though anyone suggesting it’s a girl’s name to Big Jule might regret it).
  Tim has calculated that if he learns a page a day of his 54 lines, he should finish by the end of August, when we are supposed to be off-book for rehearsal.  He claimed to be less disciplined now that he has fewer lines to learn. “I’m delaying it to the last minute,” he laughed, though it sounds pretty organised to me.  He’s already learnt the first five pages.  Tim’s method is to record the scenes he’s in, reading all the lines but only doing his own in character.  “Then I listen to them over and over again in the car,” he said.  Part of the challenge is going to be maintaining the gravelly voice he has developed for his character.  “And I’m going to need a fat suit,” Tim told me.  “Big Jule needs to be Big.”
   I asked Tim what he was most looking forward to and for him, it’s very straightforward.  “The shows themselves.  It’s much better with an actual audience, much more fun than all the preamble of rehearsal.”  It’s part of Tim’s regular calendar now and he actually finds the whole experience very relaxing.
   Was there anything he wasn’t looking forward to?  Tim said not.  He doesn’t get stage-fright as such, just enough adrenalin to maintain the excitement.  And memorising all those lines?  “I’ve never forgotten my lines,” Tim told me, “never taken a prompt.” That’s quite an achievement for someone with so many shows on his CV.  And Tim doesn’t intend to let that change any time soon.