the times | Wednesday January 26 2022 5
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Orchard, also at the Theatre Royal
Windsor. He sported a shaved head and
a long bushy beard to star as the eccen-
tric manservant Firs.
“I don’t feel that I have got much to
prove in my career any more so why not
just do the things I enjoy doing,” he said.
“I have never had a list of parts I want to
play but areas of theatre to work in.
There are a few left.
“One would be the musical. Cert-
ainly, playing the detective is some-thing I haven’t done. I do like getting in
front of an audience and entertaining
them and this will be a new way of
doing it.”
He added: “I know I am sounding op-
timistic about it but there is a sort of
dread at the same time.”
Three years ago the theatre ran its
first run of Whodunnit (Unrehearsed)
starring Gillian Anderson and Matt-
hew Broderick, among others.
McKellen said he was grateful thatNeil Young has asked Spotify to remove
all his music from its streaming plat-
form in protest over vaccine conspiracy
theories that have been broadcast by its
most popular podcaster.
In a letter posted on his website,
Young said he was asking his manage-
ment to take “all of my music off their
platform” in response to an episode of
The Joe Rogan Experience.
“I am doing this because Spotify is
spreading fake information about vac-
cines — potentially causing death to
those who believe the disinformation
being spread by them,” Young said, ac-
cording to Rolling Stone. “They can
have Rogan or Young. Not both.”
The webpage on which the letter was
posted appeared to be faulty yesterday,
but Frank Gironda, Young’s manager,
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s plan
to release podcasts appears to be
resuming after a hiatus of more than a
year.
Spotify, which was said to have paid
the couple £18 million for a series of
podcasts promoting “shared values”, is
advertising for producers to make
further shows.
To date Meghan and Harry have
made only one episode, released in
December 2020, in which they invited
celebrity guests including Sir Elton
John and James Corden to reflect on
their time in lockdown. It was released
under the title of Archewell Audio.
Spotify, the streaming service, usedfootage of the couple in a promotional
broadcast in February last year but the
duke and duchess have not released
any further content. This is despite
having hired Rebecca Sananes, a pro-
ducer, last July with the suggestion that
she was “looking forward to sharing
more content later in 2021”.
Meghan has previously spoken of her
enthusiasm for making podcasts. “One
of the things my husband and I have
always talked about is our passion for
meeting new people and learning about
their lives,” she said. “This is also a time
to celebrate kindness and compassion.”
The couple described themselves as
“citizens of the world” who wished to
use podcasts to “elevate under-
represented voices”.Meghan and Harry podcast
revived after a year’s silence
Jack MalvernNeil Young threatens to quit Spotify
said the issue was important. “He’s very
upset about this disinformation,” he
told the Daily Beast. “We’re trying to
figure this out right now.”
Rogan, a podcaster with an enor-
mous following, signed an exclusive
deal with Spotify in 2020 that was
worth more than $100 million, The Wall
Street Journal reported. The show typi-
cally features Rogan interviewing a
controversial author or academic, dis-
cussing hot-button issues in free-ran-
ging conversations that run for hours
and draw up to 11 million listeners.
Episode 1757, which was posted on
New Year’s Eve, featured Robert Malo-
ne, who has been thrown off Twitter for
coronavirus misinformation.In their
conversation, Malone suggested that
coronavirus vaccines were unsafe and
that millions of people were being hyp-
notised by Anthony Fauci, PresidentBiden’s chief medical adviser. He said a
similar phenomenon had occurred in
Nazi Germany.
After the show was broadcast, a series
of psychologists said the “mass hypno-
sis” theory had no basis in science and
was based on broadly debunked ideas.
More than 200 scientists, health ex-
perts and hospital staff signed an open
letter to Spotify, warning that the com-
pany was allowing people on its plat-
form to “damage public trust in scien-
tific research and sow doubt in the
credibility of data driven guidance of-
fered by medical professionals.”
Other platforms, including YouTube,
Twitter and Facebook had policies to
limit the spread of vaccine misinforma-
tion. But Spotify “has no misinforma-
tion policy”, the researchers said.
Spotify did not respond to a request
for comment yesterday.Will Pavia New York
working commit-
ments had kept him
from seeing the ini-
tial run, as it has
stopped him get-
ting any clues of
the plot.
He said he was
open to invitations
for other acting
roles on his “bucket
list” although he warnedthat musical producers
might regret signing him
up.
“I have sung occasionally.
I did a pantomime at the
Old Vic a few years back and
I sang in a fashion. I can hold
a tune but I am not a proper
singer. I am available but
incompetent.”
He might not even bother
to learn his lines.Plot is a mystery (even to the actors)
David Sanderson Arts Correspondent
GARETH CATTERMOLE/GETTY IMAGESThe dread of many actors stepping on
stage is that they forget their lines. Sir
Ian McKellen has a possible solution —
don’t know them in the first place.
The 82-year-old actor has teamed up
with other renowned actors for a
murder mystery theatre production
with a difference — the detective has no
idea of the plot or their own lines.
McKellen along with Dame Emma
Thompson, Sanjeev Bhaskar and many
others will each take the role of the
detective for one performance of Who-
dunnit (Unrehearsed) at Park Theatre in
north London from next month.
The stars will turn up, choose their
costume and take to the stage, where
the detective’s lines will then be fed to
them through an earpiece. McKellen
said it was a “crazy idea but I hope it is
going to be crazy fun”.
“I suppose many of the audience will
come along wanting to see an actor fall
flat on their face and they may very
well be rewarded,” he told the BBC
yesterday.
The production will also feature
David Mitchell, Lee Mack and Meera
Syal during the run, which is aimed at
raising £300,000 for the theatre, which
does not receive any regular Arts
Council England grant and, like the
majority of venues, has been ham-
mered financially by the pandemic. The
actors are performing for no pay.
McKellen, whose career spanning
seven decades has brought him every
prestigious stage award, said he was
now drawn to new ventures.
Last year he received acclaim for his
performance as Hamlet in a production
of the Shakespeare play at Theatre
Royal Windsor. The role of the Danish
prince is usually played by actors in
their thirties — at the oldest — and he
had first played the role 50 years earlier.
The play was billed as being “age, colour
and gender blind” in its casting.
Following that, McKellen and the
rest of the cast moved on to a perform-
ance of Anton Checkhov’s The Cherry
Four forgetful faces
Al Pacino During his time in theatre,
the Godfather star appeared in
almost every Shakespeare play
imaginable — so many, in fact, that it
became hard for him to distinguish
between them. During a production
of Hamlet he launched into a
soliloquy only to realise halfway
through that it was for the wrong
play. To escape, he said he always
had 10 emergency memorised lines
that were general enough to recite
at any moment and see him through
the scene.
Marlon Brando The legendary
actor, and another Godfather star,
took pre-emptive action to stop
himself forgetting his lines. David
Thewlis, who starred alongside him
in the 1996 film The Island of Dr
Moreau, claimed Brando wore an
earpiece so an assistant could feed
him what he had to say next. It
didn’t all go to plan, however: the
earpiece often picked up radio
messages from the local police —
leading to Brando shouting out non
sequiturs.
Robert De Niro It’s impossible to
forget your lines if there are none to
memorise. In the Martin Scorsese
film Taxi Driver, the famous scene
where Travis Bickle looks in the
mirror, gun in hand, and repeats
“You talkin’ to me?” was all De
Niro’s own improvisation.
Michael Gambon Forgetting
lines can have more serious
consequences for some actors.
Gambon, 81, revealed he no
longer appears in plays because
his memory is not as good
as it was and he fears he
will dry up on stage.
During rehearsals for a
play in 2009, he said he
was taken to hospital
twice with severe panic
attacks at the thought of
forgetting his lines.Sir Ian McKellen in
the “age-blind”
production of
Hamlet. He and
Gillian Anderson,
below, are among
the big names set to
star in Whodunnit
(Unrehearsed)