I'm Here, I Think, Where Are You, Letters from a Touring Actor

by Timothy West

Book by West, Timothy

240 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1996

About the author

Timothy Lancaster West was an English actor and presenter. He appeared frequently on stage and television, including stints in both Coronation Street (as Eric Babbage) and EastEnders (as Stan Carter), and Not Going Out, as the original Geoffrey Adams. He was married to the actress Prunella Scales. From 2014 to 2024, they travelled together on UK and overseas canals in the Channel 4 series Great Canal Journeys.

Reviews

[Vansa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t know why this lovely collection of letters, so beautifully evocative of the life of an actor, isn’t
more famous. This should practically be one of the first books recommended about all the quirks of
being an actor who isn’t a part of the Hollywood machine-and most actors aren’t. Timothy West wrote lettersto his wife, Prunella Scales, for a period of 30 years, beginning in 1961. I love all the anecdotes but more importantly, he really draws the curtain back, to put you in the scene and what it’s like. West begins his letters when the repertory company he’s with is at Nottingham, and he describes traveling to other towns, some with charmingly unconventional arrangements, at the performance spaces and for their living arrangements. In one of them, the theatre crew all have other day jobs so aren’t available for the matinee shows, and West describes how the for those performances, the cast members not on stage at those instances all put their shoulders to it to shift props around and change scenes! I loved his descriptions of traveling abroad too, and the unique stages, in ways both good and bad. He write, for instance, of a performance in Istanbul, of Macbeth, where they were allowed to use actual period weapons from the Topkapi Palace museums, and the attack was staged in an amphitheatre with actors actually coming in from over a slope. There’s a moving bit about their performances in Czechoslovakia where the political dimensions of plays resonated with an audience facing severe repression. There are pratfalls too-a hilarious part of the book is where West gets roped in to a celebration of St.Cyril at the Vatican when he’s in Italy. What I found fascinating was that the Vatican has its own propaganda officer, who’s also in charge of ceremonies, and he invents a ritual for West to perform, of waving around a thurible, to lend more gravitas to his celebration/performance- a reading from the Bible, and lends a 14th century thurible to West to practice at home. He almost gets arrested for stealing Vatican property by the Swiss Guard, till the Swiss Guard realizes West is in showbiz, assumes h’es close friends with Benny Hill, and being a great fan of his, lets West go! West takes in Hollywood too- the theater company
is doing a run in America of Hedda Gabler, with Glenda Jackson and West, and he gets invited to the
Oscars. The winner of the Documentary Award was Peter Davis for Hearts and Minds, an anti-Vietnam War movie, and Bert Schneider, who collected the award on his behalf, read out a telegram from the North Vietnam delegation at the Paris Conference that marked an end to the war, that thanked American anti-war protesters. Sinatra and Bob Hope were co-hosts and immediately after that, Sinatra came on stage and said he was reading out a statement on behalf of the Academy, declaiming responsibility and apologizing for Schneider’s speech. As it turned out, Hope and Sinatra had cooked up that statement because that was what they personally wanted to say-the Academy hadn’t said anything to them! It was the 70s, what can one say, I guess.West also writes very movingly of the Bristol Old Vic’s financial problems, and of the closure of theatres, but he ends with the hope that theatres can also re- open, and there’s still a theatre-going public. The joy he takes in acting, and everything it entails are so vivid in this book, and given that he continued to act till a few months before his death last year, at the age of 94, indicates he meant every word of this book. Hugely enjoyable.

[Bettie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The actor reads letters written over 30 years to his wife Prunella Scales.

Love both husband and wife but this does not make for interesting reading unfortunately *yawn*