I first heard of Ant in early July 1970 when I was handed a scribbled note on a scrap of yellow paper (which I still have). It read:
‘Mr Matheson of The Grand, Wolverhampton, called. Can you come up tomorrow morning and start rehearsing The Odd Couple. You will be playing Vinnie. The read through is at 10.30am.’
I hurriedly packed and caught the next train from London home to Stafford, a mere 15 miles from Wolverhampton. And that was the start of a friendship that lasted – well, you can work it out: a few weeks longer than 50 years. I had not auditioned for Ant, I never knew how he got my name or how he had heard of me, a quite unknown actor at the start of his career. But it was one of those lucky encounters that changes one’s life. It certainly changed mine.
We kept in touch after Wolverhampton. After a period as a freelance lighting designer and television scriptwriter, by 1976 he had begun to earn a reputation as the go-to director for new and experimental plays in what we then called ‘alternative theatre’. I did one for him – three terrible short plays called Meat Love, all set in the near future when the meat supply of the world had virtually run out. Prescient, perhaps? It was a lunchtime show. Not one for the vegans.
A few years later, I adapted Jerome K Jerome’s comic novel Three Men in a Boat into a one-man show. I arranged to put it on at the Edinburgh Fringe, and asked Anthony to direct. Was he free? Would he like to? Could he come up to Edinburgh?
I got lucky for a second time. Yes, yes and yes. The rehearsals in my flat were hilarious, stimulating, challenging, rewarding by turn. It was then that I got to know Ant and to see him at his best. He wasn’t just a director. He was a collaborator – an equal partner. He was encouraging, full of ideas, flexible, provoking – and endlessly patient. In fact, the only time I ever saw him lose his temper was after a matinée of The Odd Couple when there had been an enormous collective corpse during the poker scene. We were hardly able to speak. Afterwards, Anthony called us all down to the stage. He was not only the director of the play but also the artistic director of the theatre. He was furious. People had complained. ‘Look. If you want to laugh, go out front and buy a ticket. OK?’ It was a lesson well learnt.
Well, we made it up to Edinburgh. We sold out for three weeks and all went home happy and slightly better off. Over the next year, Anthony and his business partner Michael Paton formed a theatre production company, Rhombus Productions, with the idea of producing Three Men in a Boat in the West End. We opened at the May Fair Theatre in September 1981, ran till the following January and I got nominated for an Olivier Award. But far more important was the night when Anthony popped in to see the show one November evening to give me notes. We were sitting in the bar of the May Fair after the performance when a beautiful vision wafted by our table. I had spotted her from the stage in Row D sitting next to a man who seemed to be asleep. ‘Thank you for a delightful evening,’ she said as she swept by our table and made her exit.
The man she had sat next to in Row D turned out to be a friend of the front-of-house manager. I found out where the beautiful vision worked, rang her, asked her to dine with me and – to cut a long story short – married her three years later. I am still married to her. There was only one man who could fulfil the role of best man. If Ant had not come to see the show that night, I would never have met Jillie.
It’s a great sorrow to Jille that she was unable to attend Ant’s funeral, for she became as fond of Ant as I was. He was a natural fixture in our lives, an integral part of our network of friends, though we inevitably saw less of him when we moved out of London into the depths of rural Essex. We shall both remember him with enormous affection of course, but also as a man who wore his learning lightly – and his learning on a vast range of subjects was as profound as it was impressive. We shall also remember him for that gentle humour and quiet manner which charmed so many people. He was, in short, a very loveable man, a decent man, and a wonderful companion – especially over a drink or two. He was, is and always will be, part of the fabric of my life.
Ta-ra a bit, Ant. Love you.
Jez Nicholas