[Jan Brock]

.... sorry .... I forget what I was going to say about him ....

[armadillo]

Have you forgotten the medication, Jan?

[Jan Brock]

Ah. Satire is wasted on you !

[Jenny_tyr]

.... sorry .... I forget what I was going to say about him ....

Thanks for bringing up this topic, Jan. It seems that almost every play that Timothy West has been in lately has seen this complaint of him fluffing the lines, at least early on. Since he’s such a seasoned actor, I can’t really believe that’s it caused by a lack of preparation so perhaps his memory is beginning to fail him, and in that case it’s really sad. I’m glad that I won’t be seeing Coriolanus until the very end of its run, and hopefully he’ll have the lines down by then. Are there other big-name actors who are similarly having trouble remembering their lines?

//Jenny

[armadillo]

Satire is indeed wasted on me when it refers to incidents about which I know absolutely nothing and threads I haven't read. Clearly I should pay closer attention to all your posts so I can understand such subtle jokes. However, since I've seen Timothy West a couple of times in the last few years, and haven't noticed any fluffs, I'll have to take other people's word for it.

[wickedgrin]

Yes - a shame - he really should give up stage work. I saw him in a play last year and his grip of the script was very poor. I felt sorry for the rest of the cast who nightly must have been nervous wrecks willing him to get through it!!

[Jan Brock]

It is sad on a personal level of course, but as it seems to be well-known (there were several posts about it during the run of the play he did before "A Number") one wonders why RSC have employed him - it is not only embarrassing for his fellow actors, but also the audience. It reminds me of when I saw Ralph Richardson very late in his career - there were so many prompts that it killed the performance as a whole stone dead (although in his case there were several really excellent moments too). I have seen T.West plenty of times and he has been good, fairly recently as King Lear, so his present predicament must be fairly recent.

[tsaurus]

I've seen Mr West a few times over the past couple of years and he always seemed to have problems with lines. In 'Galileo' at Birmingham Rep about 2 years ago it really looked like he was struggling and other actors around him were clearly having to accommodate.

I'm not seeing Coriolanus until the last performance - let's hope he nails that one.

[Edagar]

Jan, are you maligned by the RSC? You seem to have some sort of vendetta ...