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The Gambler poster

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The Gambler by Mel Smith & Bob Goody - Lionel

- Liverpool Everyman Theatre. Directed by Peter Rowe.

A great job that arrived out of the blue when Peter Rowe (who had been director of the London Bubble a few years before and who I'd worked with there two years running) rang and asked if I'd read for the lead role. The Gambler is a very funny musical play following the fortunes of Lionel, a small-time gambler, as he moves from the small time to the big time. Written by Mel Smith and Bob Goody it features a huge number of roles from pool players to greyhounds, all of which are played by the same four actors.

We had a brilliant cast with the exception of one 'actor' who looked perfect for the main role he was playing physically, but whose shortcomings as an performer were matched only by his total inability to learn his lines - somewhat terrifying to his fellow cast-members as the play absolutely relies on rapid-fire and accurate interchanges for its pace and humour. Still, we covered for him as best we could, and I don't think the audience were ever too aware of the horrible stutters that resulted from the occasions when one of us would have to desperately paraphrase his lines to cover a 'dry'. I grew to dread the sudden blank glaze in his eyes that signalled one of these lapses!

My performance for the first couple of weeks of the run was also impacted by an injury I suffered on the press night. My first entrance was a drunken stumble down a flight of stairs. Pumped up with first night nerves and adrenaline, I rather overdid the unsteadiness and slipped on the last step, turning my ankle over horribly. The adrenaline got me through the night's performance, though it hurt like hell. The following morning, though, my foot and ankle were the colour of an aubergine and I couldn't put my heel to the floor. A trip to the hospital revealed I'd torn the ligaments, so it was on to crutches for a couple of weeks! At least I didn't miss a performance, and we did manage to integrate them into the play to an extent at least, as pool cues and other 'props'.

"Jon Glentoran, Fergus McLarnon and Kraig Thornber play 60-odd roles...with bewitching conviction..." (The Stage)

The play ends in a 'cliff-hanger' moment as Lionel stakes all the night's winnings - millions - on the flip of a coin. As the coin reaches its apogee the lights snap to black, so the audience never knows the outcome of the toss. I'm not a gambler by nature, so I had little to go on in imagining what the feeling of risking so much might be like. The final moments of the play weren't working for me because of this. As part of our research into the play, the cast spent one afternoon at Aintree, and I resolved to give myself the experience I needed to play those moments truthfully. I put a hundred pounds on a horse to win. The horse was fancied (apparently) but had pretty good odds (I think it was about 16 to 1). At the time I had less than 250 quid in the bank, so if the horse lost I was pretty much wiped out(!). But if it won I would have more money than I'd had for a good while. So it was a pretty big deal for me and my heart was in my mouth as the race began.

My horse led the field for the entire distance and then lost by a head!

Believe me, those final moments never gave me a moment's trouble after that...