We wrapped up Day 2 of rehearsals this evening with another readthrough and a bit of table table work. It's incredible how different things felt and sounded tonight on just our second readthrough. I take that as a good omen for the discoveries all of us in the cast will continue to make as we work the process.
Confession time.
Typically, I try to build some sort of backstory for my character(s) before we begin the rehearsal process. And if they are historical figures, I'll do quite a bit of research into their lives. In this case, I (foolishly) assumed that my character Frank Nicklin, the original sports editor of The Sun, certainly must be fictional. I didn't pursue it any further, and began to sketch out what I thought would be a reasonable backstory for him.
When I got home this evening, I decided to see if maybe he was, in fact, a real person. And boy was he!
Frank Nicklin (1922-2002) was indeed a real person. And I could never have imagined a more colorful life story than the one he actually lead. Here are a few of my favorite excerpts from that linked obituary.
He began his career on the Derby Evening Telegraph, but the outbreak of the second world war saw him join the Royal Air Force as an under-age volunteer. While flying Kittyhawk fighters, he was twice shot down and captured, and twice escaped.
Sport under Nicklin played as big a part as page three girls in taking the tabloid Murdoch Sun into a circulation lead over the Mirror in seven years. Nicklin once said: "Larry Lamb, the Sun's first editor, called me a pie-and-pint man. He was right. I'd be down the pub talking sport like our readers. We never wrote down to our readers."
He could be a tough, cantankerous man to work under, but he had a tender spot for birds. Once, at Hayter's, a feral London pigeon was trapped, injured, in the office. Nicklin boxed it up, called a cab, and paid its fare to a bird sanctuary. His funeral request was "No flowers. Donations to the RAF Association and the RSPB".
That'll teach me to procrastinate on my show research.
Now the real work begins; bringing this incredible character of a man to life on stage.