Ralph Richardson Stood on the Director's Trousers Mid-Audition. He Got the Job. | Parkinson on BBC

By The Michael Parkinson Channel

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Ralph Richardson hated school, got a job as an office boy at ten shillings a week and spent most of his time pulling the manager's leg and sending cheques to the wrong people. Then he saw Frank Benson play Hamlet at Brighton, watched him sharpen his sword on the floor making a weird noise, and thought: perhaps that is the job for me. In this conversation with Michael Parkinson, Richardson talks about banging on the door of a repertory company director the very next morning and announcing he had decided to become an actor. He had never acted before. He offered to pay a small premium. The director said come in and have breakfast. He stayed for quite a long time. He also talks about his audition for Charles Doran, where he launched into Mark Antony's funeral speech with great enthusiasm, became so carried away that he picked up something from the coat rack and started waving it around then dropped it, and was eventually stopped by the director, who pointed out that he had been stamping

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