Angus Mackay Diaries Volume VI (1985 - 1986) ANGUS MACKAY DIARY NO. 59 April 16 1985 - June 10 1985 Tuesday April 16 1985 cont. It is safe to say that just as I never go through the lower hall and bathroom without a pang, so I never walk on to the tube platform without wincing at the thought that I could go straight to Holloway Road from that platform. Sometimes I can’t even look at the run of stations to H. Rd on the signs. 2:45 – Niceish night with Simon except that Infernal Machine is September. And that he and D are worth a million of John or Nicholas Grace or anyone. D. K. Wednesday April 17 1985 I don’t think I can be bothered to describe the drunken night with Simon. Altho’ it was pleasurable, it was a bit useless. The end, with Nicholas Grace hovering repellently over our table, was a bit horrid. S is extraordinary in not sticking to the point. It is curious my mixed feelings to S just now. Let’s see whether my letter about Nicholas will show it. We scarcely discussed the Cocteau. Woke this morning very hurriedly at 9.10 just in time to clear the kitchen for Mrs E with a dirty mouth and bursting head. Decided not to lunch with John N because of hangover. At 10.15 Roy rang to say he was coming down to stay. So I said I would try to arrange Ken Branagh to meet him because they want him for the football film. At 11.00 K rang. I said Don Boyd had said he can go on with the film by himself and with his own choice of lyricist. Me? But he wants a screen-play writer. Can I suggest anyone? I mentioned Friday. He snapped a bit. But he does with me, I just must face it, like moving into the flat. He does it to no one else. Rang David Parfitt. Got Michael. Very animated as I asked him to dinner. Rang Sandy Johnstone. Fixed that dinner. David P had given me Ken B’s number – he’s moved into Camberwell Grove. Lo, he rang himself some half hour later. Oh, he recovered himself completely to me. He comes out with Roy and me tomorrow. And when I told him of the football film he said how odd as he’d love to be in football film. The film he might do Sept is Charles Wood Falklands Isles and a bit iffy. To film of Captain Invincible with my hangover, at the Minerva. Quite funny. Scene in warehouse where animated hoovers attack the hero and heroine. When he fights them off, he says ‘No wonder nature abhors a vacuum.’ Roy rang to say he couldn’t be here for lunch with Joe S. I don’t believe it. Oh, still, the whole day shot through with just the one talk. I wish he’d told me what songs. Thursday April 18 1985 Joe to lunch. After interview for ‘Absolute Beginners’. He comes through to me, especially after the main course. He is star material, I think. But hasn’t much personal stuff to offer yet, a late developer, but I love him. He left about 4.30. Roy arrived at 5.0. Desultory talk. We decided to go to Carmen. It was superbly good. Café Pelican, Ken arrived, – I must describe it tomorrow. Because all the time I just wished he was there. The flower song made me nearly sob. No, I can’t write. What did Pepys do when he was drunk? Will he want to go out tomorrow night? Will he cry off again? It is terrible to me that I still can’t rely on him. No, I mustn’t write. Friday April 19 1985 Yes it was a good evening, tho’ I realised today that I must have a session alone with Ken, as he couldn’t speak so freely in front of Roy. He was tired but in fine form all the same, describing Shakespearean gagging hilariously, and what he’s gone through with the RSC. I am happy to say he is completely disillusioned with them. Happy because I despise them so much. He found out he was getting the same money as, for instance, Roger Allam, and stood out for £16 a week more, to come into the Barbican. It was all unpleasant and finally some creep had him up to the office and said how awkward he was, and that they’d have to manage it out of a special fund. And all this is their new star! With the result that he’ll leave in September and not go back except very much under his own terms. I think we were better off with Binkie Beaumont and Bill Linnit. He made us split the bill which was a relief to me, as it was £84. Today David Parfitt came to lunch partly to talk about the broken drain pipe and the redecorating of the dining-room. He is a responsive chap and bright. He told me of Ken’s scheme. He and Ken and Kate Burnett are starting a company which hopes to go into production next year. Brian Blessed has given them £47,000! and interest. Plans now are for Romeo and Juliet in Ulster, opening in Belfast, then Scotland, Newcastle, Bristol, Reading, London? We talked a bit of all the problems – D said they hoped to bring in a package deal, one man shows, perhaps our musical. What about K as musical director? Altogether invigorating. K rang at 3.30 and would have come out, but confessed to feeling lethargic. So we changed it to tomorrow night. Nothing gave me such a vivid picture of his life than him saying What are you doing tomorrow night? and going away to find his diary and saying Yes, it’s free. He hasn’t thought of his diary for days. Saturday April 20 1985 11.20. Oh perfection. Sunday April 21 1985 6.30 a.m. Do you know, I can’t remember what I did yesterday, except wait for the evening? Roy was about, wasn’t he? Got there at 7.45, upstairs, and I knew it would empty fairly quickly, with most people having a pre-cinema or theatre meal. He arrived on the dot looking so much better, shaved and well, not dressed up but fresh, his face soft and responsive. (In the tube, not having seen him for ten days I thought do I feel the same. ‘Across the crowded lift’, I saw long hair and a forehead. It wasn’t, but my stomach was.) Settled, he said, ‘Now for the good news. I sent a tape to WEA in November, you remember. Well, someone played it. He’s called Lindsay Wesker, and he’s knocked out by the songs. He kept saying That’s a hit, - that’s a hit. And when I sent him another tape he kept ringing up after playing each one! He is in liaison with the man at Warners! But it’s only a coincidence.’ I think the thing that most impressed me, by instinct, was that after K. had told a bit of his troubles and, at some other point, revealed that he couldn’t buy all the tapes he wanted, L.W. said ‘You want tapes? I’ll give you tapes’, took K’s little plastic case, went to a cupboard, and filled the case with tapes. And, you see, he couldn’t do that with everyone, or he’d have none. They turned out to be demos sent in by, among others, Howard Jones! He played them when he got home and Howard Jones was almost the only one which was any good, and he was good, but ‘some of those tapes made Joe and Azaar’s tapes sound good’. And ‘I went to the Embassy to hear Joe’s group. It was awful. Heavy metal! I just heard his keyboards for a tinkly moment at the beginning.’ So you see, he does see Joe and Azaar straight, contrary to Chris P. (Chris P is certainly too negative). All in all, he feels as I do – that L.W. is certainly more genuinely enthusiastic than anyone before. He sounds more genuine, at least more real ‘no bullshit’. For example, the other morning K had to meet him at the junction of Seven Sisters and Holloway at 9.45 (I’ve forgotten why – couldn’t K have got wherever it was easier by himself – certainly as it turned out!) At 10.25 he was just going to leave, when there was L.W. with his wife and child in the back. His wife they dropped at the Royal Court, ‘where she’s writing something.’ Dear K. ‘And she’s a pain.’ So I’m carefully hopeful. ‘I didn’t tell you until now in case nothing happened.’ He went with Caroline to the last night party of Gems, and hasn’t seen her since. ‘It’s a bit iffy.’ That same day he dropped in to see Simon Lee, who’d rung and made peace. In a ‘lovely’ rented flat in Neal Street. Hair as long as mine and said to me I can’t write original music like you.’ So far, so good, he was there half an hour. As long as he isn’t drawn into any tat... Oh, did he say Caroline was going to the Royal Court... Help. Chris stayed there all the week, playing on the new tapes.