More reviews of More lives than one

This one has some extracts from the show, and is referenced here, where they were supposed to review us, but didn't.

Cecil Boys takes a shine to the chaise lounge here, with a glance at my socks to boot:

With a smooth and mellifluous voice Clark gives Wilde lovers an informative and well researched show, peppered with excerpts from the great writer's plays. As the actor says, 'Today, Oscar would be tickled pink by his current respectability' and Clark matches this with his vibrant socks. An enjoyable and revealing evening for any Oscar Wilde fan.

Claire Smith is a bit less complimentary. Some of her readers disagree however, bless their socks.

Cats on stage

I remember being in a dreadful production of “Andromaque” by Racine when stray ginger cat, bushy tail in the air, come strolling across the stage several nights in a row (they could never catch him) and wailing in a perfect imitation of the leading lady.

Horror stories #3 and #4

So what else can go wrong? I was once two floors above the stage when I heard my cue over the intercom. The audience waited.

They also waited when I was 15 minutes in to my one-man-show Un Gros Câlin (Cuddles) in French when all the lights fused. I carried on for an hour, in the dark, while the audience waited for the lights to come back on. They stayed, but I suppose they couldn’t have found their way out anyway.

Horror story #2: Props

As George in a production of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? preparing to come on with a gun behind my back to pretend to be about to blow Martha’s brains out, when I found there was no gun! Stage management cock up. All I could find was a hammer. You should have seen the faces of the other actors who were expecting me to do a number with a gun.

Horror story #1: Drying

To dry is to forget your lines. I can remember dryng stone dead twice in The Business of Murder at the Grand Opera House, York: enough said.

Another review

Can't seem to find this review online, so here it is in its entirety, with thanks to Stewart Conn for letting me reproduce it here:

AUGUSTINE'S (VENUE 152) 41George IV Bridge ... 4-10, 12-17 Aug 08 7.25pm

Dear Conjunction Theatre Co. presents
MORE LIVES THAN ONE: Oscar Wilde & the Black Douglas
Written and performed by Leslie Clack : Directed by Patricia Kessler


In pools of light are a chaise-longue, a stool and a chair, a table bearing a large tome and on a plant-stand, an elegant vase of flowers. The varied social milieus these signify reveal themselves throughout the action. Similarly, in a series of transformation scenes as seamless as they are mesmerising, Leslie Clack encapsulates the personalities not only of Wilde but of those central to his downfall.

Dramatically conjured up are the malevolent Lord Queensberry, father of Wilde's beloved 'Bosie', and whom he had the folly to sue; and at his trial the implacable Edward Carson, a former friend at Trinity but now an adversarial defence counsel,

As a counterpoint to Wilde's tragic progress comes a crisp mosaic of witticisms and fictional vignettes. Dorian Gray reels back from his portrait. In the classic scene from The Importance Of Being Earnest an aghast Lady Bracknell utters the word, 'handbag'. It is a joy to experience the text's lucid gathering of momentum allied to the poise, insight, impeccable timing and sheer intelligence of Clack's performance. This finds a perfect match in the clarity and pacing of Patricia Kessler's production

As the threads unravel, the play becomes profoundly moving, not least in a letter Wilde's mother wrote after his prison term, begging him – at whatever price – not to leave the country; and a religious order's blunt rejection of his plea for sanctuary. Heightening the emotional impact are the total stillness accompanying The Ballad of Reading Gaol, and the tracing of Wilde's last days, to his death (or the last of his deaths...) in Paris.

The real triumph is that Clack's theatricality never aspires simply to dazzlement for its own sake. We come out indelibly reminded that the grounds on which Wilde (be he good or bad) was persecuted were not moral but basically – and brutally – political.

Stewart Conn
6th Aug 2008

Getting started

Why become an actor? Even as a child I was a bit of a performer, though only among my familiars. In both my mother’s and father’s families there were and are many very funny people, natural raconteurs, entertainers. As I lost my father very young, these uncles, aunts, grandparents were my role models. I was always a raconteur, a joke teller, but suppressed my desires to become an actor and went into teaching. Only at the age of 32 when living and teaching in France did I kick over the traces and join a theatre group. I won a Conservatoire award, gave up teaching and have never looked back (or is it forward?) since.