My Starring Role in the Primary School Play: ‘Listening Isn’t the Same as Waiting to Speak’

The other day I came across a photo of myself on stage when I was at primary school.

I was playing the Mayor in a musical called ‘Edelweiss’ which we performed in front of the local old folks’ home. There I am in my velvet jacket, medal of office and tricorn hat, executing a vibrant dance number flanked by my chums Paul and Arthur. There’s a rather impressive backdrop of snowy mountains, fir trees and flowers. And a good few of my classmates are arrayed across the stage in their Alpine gear - looking somewhat disinterested.

I recall there was also a rom-com element to the show. This entailed me singing a song to fellow pupil Tracey.

‘Oh, I love your eyes of blue and I love your kisses too.
But most of all I love your custard pies.’

Given that pies and custard are two of my favourite things, this refrain could well have been written for me.

The curious thing about ‘Edelweiss’ is that I don’t recall anything about the plot, the cast or the other characters. I just remember my starring role.

In his splendid autobiography, ’The Moon’s a Balloon,’ David Niven tells a story of his early years as a struggling actor in Hollywood. He’d just played a small part in the 1938 romantic comedy ‘Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife,’ and Charlie Chaplin was attending a private screening. After the movie Niven was gratified to receive compliments from those in attendance, but he was particularly keen to hear what the great man thought of his performance. Chaplin paused for a moment.

John Springer Collection | Credit: Corbis via Getty Images

‘Don’t be like the great majority of actors… Don’t just stand around waiting for your turn to speak – learn to listen.’  

Niven took Chaplin’s criticism on the chin, and indeed felt it ‘constituted the greatest advice to any beginner in my profession.’

I’m sure that’s true. So often we see actors on stage or screen that seem disengaged from the other characters around them, or indeed from the scene they’re performing in. They’re just waiting for the moment when they get to deliver their lines. 

I think this is the case in commerce too. I recall being told once that we all go into a business meeting with a fair idea of the amount that we are likely to say. Juniors will speak seldom, but will hope to play a significant supporting role. Middle ranking people will say a good deal, sustaining the bulk of the agenda. And they will vie with each other to dominate the speaking parts. Senior people will talk less, but will swing in towards the end with illuminating wisdom and definitive conclusions.

If we go into a meeting already understanding the role we’re about to perform, what are the chances we also know the lines we’re going to deliver?

Despite the fact that nowadays we are endlessly encouraged to be active listeners, I suspect that most of us still struggle to attend to the other participants in our meetings. They’re holding us up, distracting our attention, delaying the moment when we’ll deliver our pithy analysis, our penetrating insight. 

Too often life is a drama in which we’re only interested in one of the characters. Surely we’d make a bigger impact, and enjoy ourselves a good deal more, if we paid proper attention to the other roles that populate our play, to the plot that drives it and the themes that sustain it. As Chaplin observed, listening is the key to a great performance. And listening isn’t the same as waiting to speak.

On reflection, I’m not sure the Mayor was the starring role in ‘Edelweiss.’ It was probably just a bit part.

'Why fool yourself?
Don't be afraid to help yourself.
It's never too late, too late to
Stop, look,
Listen to your heart, hear what it's saying.
Stop, look,
Listen to your heart, hear what it's saying.
Love, love, love.’

The Stylistics, ‘Stop-Look-Listen’ (J Abbott / T Bell / G Black / L Creed / C David)

No. 297

Living Life in the Wrong Order: Jack Cardiff and the Integrated Narrative

‘In my mind this light is the light in which cinema was invented.’
Martin Scorsese, on Jack Cardiff

I recently watched a documentary (‘Cameraman,’ 2010) and a play (Terry Johnson’s ‘Prism’) about the legendary cinematographer, Jack Cardiff (1914-2009).

Cardiff began his life in film as a clapper boy in the silent era. He went on to become a master of the Technicolor age. He shot the likes of Dietrich, Niven, Bogart, Hepburn, Gardner, Monroe and Loren. In the latter part of his career he was an accomplished director, and in his seventies he applied his expertise to the world of digital.

‘For his inventions, imagination and sheer audacity, there has never been another colour cameraman like Jack Cardiff.’
Michael Powell

Cardiff’s greatest work was with the film-making duo Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Together they created the icons of British cinema, ‘A Matter of Life and Death,’ ‘Black Narcissus’ and ‘The Red Shoes.’ These are films of bold ambition, rich invention and touching romance.

Cardiff was an avid student of Rembrandt, Vermeer and Turner, and he regarded the cameraman as ‘the man who paints the movie.’ He gave us lush green forests, blood-orange sunsets and ominous dark shadows; he produced iridescent purples, vibrant pinks and luminous turquoises; he conjured up disarming flashes of passionate crimson lips, intimate close-ups on smouldering brown eyes.

‘He gave me half of my performance with the lighting.’
Kathleen Byron, Actor, Black Narcissus

I was quite taken with one particular observation Cardiff made in his autobiography, ‘Magic Hour.’ Looking back on his career, he reflected on the disordered structure of most of our lives.

‘It would be far more conducive growing old gracefully if our lives were lived in a rewarding and heartening sequence. Submit your life to any decent script editor and they’d reject it on structure alone.’

This theme is taken up in Johnson’s excellent play.

 ‘A real life does not boast a satisfying story arc. We are doomed to live the events of our lives in the wrong damn order; it’s like shooting a film, not watching one…The time of our lives is not the finished masterpiece; it’s just whatever we got in the can today.’

It’s true that our lives are often messy, complex and chaotic. We behave erratically and inconsistently. We are overtaken by events, by relationships, and circumstances beyond our control. We tend to live our lives in the wrong order.

I understand that in the world of psychotherapy patients are encouraged to create an ‘integrated narrative’: a single story that accommodates diverse experiences and relationships; that makes sense of the past and present, both logically and intuitively; that gives some direction for the future; that is recognisable as one’s own. An integrated narrative provides a certain amount of meaning, identity and purpose to one’s life.

I suspect that brands and businesses could do with integrated narratives too. So often a brand acquires associations and characteristics that are somewhat contradictory and at odds. So often a business is led by groups of people with very different points of view. So often decisions are made and affairs are played out in the wrong order. In such circumstances all would benefit from a coherent story that accommodates these multiple events and perspectives; that binds the disparate threads together into one fabric.

I’m well aware that many are sceptical of talk of storytelling. It sometimes seems too easy, flip and commonplace. But I have found that narrative continues to be a valuable tool in life and business. Stories are universal and timeless precisely because they make sense when we are confused; they unite us when we are divided; they provide direction when we are lost.

In Johnson’s play Cardiff quotes the director John Huston with whom he shot the Bogart-Hepburn classic ‘The African Queen’:

‘We’ve all got a strip of celluloid running though us. It’s got a thousand images on it and it’s a fragile thing. But if you are an artist you are going to cut and colour and grade and project that celluloid back at the world, because our past is all we’ve got to give.’ 

No. 156