DEREK JACOBI AUDITIONS FOR NIDA

Recently the ham British actor, Sir Derek Jacobi, auditioned for NIDA, the premier Australian acting institution. The audition was archived  and reproduced, unedited, below.

NIDA: Next...name? Holy shit...it's...

DEREK: Derek Jacobi

NIDA: ..Mr Jacobi..

DEREK : No need for formality. You may call me Sir Derek.

NIDA: Sir Derek, I'm a fan, but aren't you a little old for this?

DEREK: Whatever do you mean?

NIDA: Only that you may feel uncomfortable working with young actors decades younger than yourself...

DEREK: Not at all...quite the contrary...I'm very comfortable working with actors decades younger than myself.

NIDA: I see..and what will you be performing for us today?

DEREK: I beg your pardon?

NIDA: Your audition.

DEREK: Audition??Audition??! I am Sir Derek Jacobi, RADA graduate cum laude, knighted for services to the theatrical Arts, my credits include Men of straw, The Borgias and Anonymous. My Queer Lear was a cause celebre in Shaftsbury Avenue, my Camp Richard a triumph. Surely my admittance to your establishment is a formality. A fait accompli.

NIDA: Well I'm afraid not Sir Derek. You're going to have to audition...just like everyone else.

DEREK: You do know I was Pope Pius the tenth?

NIDA: Yes I do.

DEREK: Time does not weary me nor custom stale my infinite variety...

NIDA: Is that part of your Shakespeare today?

DEREK: Shakespeare?? Who? Oh.. you mean the Earl of Oxford .

NIDA: Whoever, whatever...begin. With whatever you have ready.

DEREK: Well , I suppose, I could summon up some Hamlet...

NIDA: Splendid Sir Derek. Which character?

DEREK: How dare you, you Ocker Orangantang ! Hamlet himself of course.

NIDA: Don't you think..ah.. Polonius more suitable, for example?

DEREK: Listen to me you colonial clot - it was I who created Prosperina, the Al Queda McBeth...and the menopausal Ophelia. Shakespeare is not just for all ages, he is for all ages.

NIDA: So it's Hamlet the pensioner...brilliant concept. Let's have it.

DEREK: Do you want a soliloquy or an exchange?

NIDA: Soliloquy.

DEREK: High or low diction?

NIDA: er...High.

DEREK: Prose or Iambic pentameter?

NIDA: Prose.

DEREK: OP or MP?

NIDA: Modern pronunciation will be fine today.

DEREK: Would you prefer the Keene version, or Laurence Olivier, ? Richard Burton or Richard Harris, Ralph Richardson, Ronnie Corbet, Ronnie Barker or someone beginning with ...S?

Anthony Hopkins' leering lurching Hamlet that flouted convention, the old tote Oliver Reed performance in which he famously peed on the entire front row or would you prefer my own subtly nuanced Hamlet as praised by Time Out, 1959?

NIDA: Peed on the front row? We have incontinence pads for that these days, Sir Derek.

DEREK: How dare you! The impertinence!

NIDA: I dare because I care. Can we get on with it?

DEREK: Which interpretation do you prefer?

NIDA: Interpretation?

DEREK: Do you want the existential nihilist Hamlet, the Freudian Hamlet, the Anarchic Hamlet, the Imperialist Hamlet, the sexist Hamlet, the racist Hamlet, the Che Geuvera Hamlet, the Stalinist Hamlet, the Maoist Hamlet, the sensitive New age Hamlet , the Ham Hamlet, the Jon Ham Hamlet, the flouncing fop Hamlet, or the east end lout Hamlet, my specialty... 'oi didn't you kill my farver?'

NIDA: Are you fucking with my mind Sir Derek?

DEREK: I'm trying but you're not giving me much to work with!

NIDA: Can you in fact remember any Hamlet at all?

DEREK: Period or modern dress?

NIDA: Does it matter?

DEREK: It's part of my process.

NIDA: Modern.

DEREK: Modern it is. Which act?

NIDA: Any act.

DEREK: Good Lord! What kind of acting school is this? Any act? Direct me, you Antipodean upstart!

NIDA: Very well. Hamlet's Advice to the players.

DEREK: Excellent choice. Meee meee moi moi moi maa maaa.

NIDA: Excuse me Sir Derek, you're meant to do your warm up exercises before the audition.

DEREK: No, no no this is part of my process. Warming up is the first thing Hamlet would be advising the players to do.

NIDA: I see, Go ahead....

DEREK: meeee maaaa moi moi moi..Sprechen sie sprach, ich lectern zos..

NIDA: No No No stop....Sir Derek...what are you doing?

DEREK: Authenticity. Process. Research. Something you strines just don't get. Of course Hamlet would be speaking Danish. At first..then I turn around, and it comes out English. I got it from Tom Cruise - a fine actor by the way, belittled and maligned by the Australian owned gutter press.

NIDA: Fine, fine, just leave out the turning around bit and lead us straight into the piece.

DEREK: Indulge me. It's part of my process. Mee maaa...Sprechen sie sprach, ich lectern zos

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you...(pause) line!

NIDA: Oh fuck...'trippingly, on the tongue..'

DEREK: Not that line , you muttering mongoose. The other kind of line.

NIDA: We're not in the habit of giving lines to auditionees, Sir Derek.

DEREK: What kind of establishment do you run here? Oh mediocrity, another triumph!

OH Chaos, another masterpiece!

NIDA: We teach method acting here. Sir Derek, not meth head acting.

DEREK: How dare you! What impudence! It was I who was the first to see Richard the third for what he was. A camp matryr to the enemies of gaydom. It was I who played Sir Francis Bacon as kosher, I was the first to portray Macbeth as Obama. Oh come on just a little toot!

A toot for each player and one for the tote as we used to say.

NIDA: But why, Sir Derek? You are the peer of Alec Guiness, Peter Finch, Patrick Stewart..do you really need it?

DEREK: Oh reason not the need! Our basest beggar is in the poorest thing superfluous. Argue not more than what nature needs, Man's life is cheap as beasts!

NIDA: Is anything wrong, Derek? Do you want to compose yourself for a second?

DEREK: Oh you know don't you? I can tell. Let's hang it out then. All the dirty linen. All right, it's true,

I was in the urinal with a young man but it was not a public lavatory, as the gutter press would claim, it was the MCA building. Secondly, he was not a rent boy, he was an aspiring prompter. On reflection, in my defence, I made a small error in mistaking his penis for my own. It was easy to do!

I was tired after hours of arduous rehearsals for my Lear, for which the reviews were luke warm, as the magistrate observed, he has suffered enough. Ripping chap. Fellow Etonian, blade on the feather... as we row row row...

NIDA: Sir Derek, Sir Derek, please...that is not your problem..

DEREK: What is it then? Is it that incident at Covent garden, utterly distorted by the Murdoch gutter tabloids? People forget it was not I shaving Peter O'toole's front bum, it was Mckellen, it was him, the old poof - why don't they persecute him... is it because he was Gandalph ...? and anyway it was for a bet. All in rollicking good fun. My only role in the entire affair was to lift up his testicles. Supporting O'Toole's old tool you might say. Are you a homophobe Sir? I'm required to ask.

For Gods sake I just want to act!!!

NIDA: Sir Derek?

DEREK: Yes...?

NIDA: We'll let you know.