An Interview with Alan J. Mirren

So, any relation to Helen?

No, never heard of her. Is she famous? I’m actually Alan Hunter, but I thought Mirren gave me a certain ‘je ne sais quoi’, a certain ‘joie de vivre’, a certain ‘salle de bain’. I actually chose it in recognition of my football team, the glorious Paisley St. Mirren, currently languishing in the depths of the Scottish 1st division.

Have you always wanted to be an actor?

No I wanted to work in a bookshop – “There’s more to life than books, you know, but not much more” (Morrisey) – but it is such a difficult profession to break into, you know, you spend years slogging away in the second hand book stores in the hope of being picked up by a high street chain, but for so many it is an unattainable dream.

What was your first acting job?

After leaving drama school, job offers were flying in. In the end, I turned down both the National and the RSC to tour primary schools and social clubs in a pantomime of Puff the Magic Dragon for £160 a week, two shows a day. It was a sheer delight to be the object of ridicule for 7 year olds from East London. I particularly enjoyed being the target for their games of “Mand M’s” throwing. It was such a joy that I consequently undertook another 6 theatre-in-education tours.

Would you say theatre-in-education is rewarding?

Yes, in a mentally and physically exhausting, soul destroying sort of way.

Ok, what was your first real play?

A noted, gay comedy at the Edinburgh Festival. An actor dropped out, so I travelled to Edinburgh one Saturday morning (opening that night), learned the lines on the train up (not exactly Shakespeare you understand!) and ended up on stage that night with 6 other naked men covered in baby lotion. Weird! Over the course of the month, we had many audience members, male, raincoat-attired, jacking off at the back of the theatre. We took the show to Brighton, the curtain opened on the first night to me, bullock naked, and three people in the audience. Another career highlight.

Since then?

Well, I’ve done a one man show at the Mercury Theatre in Colchester, played Malvolio in Twelfth Night and Demetrius in Midsummer Nights Dream, but nothing quite compares to that Magic Dragon.

So, how do you keep going?

Well, in the words of Bruce Robinson: “It is the most shattering experience in a young man’s life, when one morning he awakes and quite reasonably says to himself, I shall never play the Dane. When that moment comes, one’s ambition ceases.” That’s what keeps me going.