A perfect Coward

IT'S not 'either' writing, directing or appearing as Gary Essendine in Noel Coward's Present Laugher it's AND, " says Simon Callow correcting me with a laugh about his workaholic lifestyle.

The 57-year-old actor is juggling so many major projects at the moment that is seems almost insulting to mention his recent appearance in ITV1's highly-popular Midsomer Murders as an over-sexed demon doctor. Yet millions will have spotted the actor, still remembered as the 'Stop all the clocks. . .' subject of John Hannah's grief in Four Weddings And a Funeral, who has conquered everything from Shakespeare to the West End's The Woman In White.

"They sent me the script and I was rather pleased with playing a chainsmoking, marijuana-puffing, womanising GP, which was a wonderful paradox. I've never confined myself to any genre and if I thought I had the capacity I'd do stand-up comedy on the end of the pier, " he laughs.

Next week he's treading the boards at Newcastle's Theatre Royal and discussing a possible extension of the run into the West End. But that may depend on the gregarious actor's workload. He says: "This month is a bit of a bugger because I've got a book coming out (the second of his Orson Welles trilogy) called Hello Americans and I'm writing the second draft of a screenplay about Noel Coward and Gertrude Lawrence for HBO in America and I'm trying to write the first episode of a documentary series about great opera houses for Australian TV, " he says. Simon admits he has to abandon all that in his hotel room 'and mentally close down all those files' so he can become Gary Essendine, which Callow believes offers a big insight into the real world of Noel Coward. "It's a wonderful part. He not only created a wonderful performing vehicle but seized the opportunity to tell a little about certain aspects of his life.

Unexpectedly it's a rather realistic portrait of an actor-manager.

"The gender is bent so to speak because his affairs with the girls were affairs with boys but the essence of the play is about the wisdom of having affairs within your working circle. . . the answer, fairly clearly, is no. He's also brave enough to describe himself as being on the point of middle age and losing his hair and behaving fecklessly for someone in his position."

Simon admits he's puzzled as to why this is his Coward debut having read his plays since he was 15 and seen every production he could.

"He combines a certain sentimentality and romanticism with a real rebarbative wit and anarchy which is always there, a madness waiting to break out at any time. Coward picked his words with tweezers and they are beautifully chosen for rhythm and assonance and the clash of the consonants are carefully thought out, " he says.

Simon explains he's made no attempt to impersonate Coward's clipped mannered diction and comments: "It was the result of his mother being rather deaf which made him develop a precise manner of speech. She was quite deaf in one ear and not very reliable in the other, but there's no point in me trying to reproduce that sound."

Having been hand-picked to write and direct the HBO TV film about Coward and Gertrude Lawrence, Simon remains remarkably modest about his artistic output. But is there a danger he might end up with an American actor trying to avoid mangling the English language?

"If I'm directing it as well they'll be nobody mangling anything, " he laughs .

And life isn't all work and no play.

So far Simon has collected between four and five thousand classical CDs while wandering the streets in between projects. "And nothing piled on the floor so far, " he adds proudly.