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William Hoyland |
Billy the baddie calls Tony Blair to account
Actor William Hoyland has played many a villain in his time, but it’s Tony Blair who’s in the dock for this courtroom drama, writes Tom Foot
WILLIAM Hoyland has played the villain throughout his illustrious career in top films spanning the Oscar-winning Gandhi to the Nazi-demon romp Hellboy.
But Bill the baddie, who lives in Camden Town, is preparing to play a thoroughly upstanding commissioner of intelligence services in the highly anticipated Called to Account at the Tricycle Theatre.
The play, a fictional courtroom drama holding Tony Blair and others to account for war crimes, follows the Kilburn playhouse’s groundbreaking series of “tribunal plays”.
“It’s grey-haired men in suits talking for two hours,” jokes Hoyland who has just got back from filming in India with the actress Angelina Jolie.
The tribunal format – where court scenes are recreated on stage – is political theatre at its very best.
It has become the Tricycle’s trademark, spanning Guantanamo, Stephen Lawrence and the Bloody Sunday under the supreme editorship of Richard Norton-Taylor.
Tricycle productions must stand on the shoulders of giants but Hoyland will raise the bar even higher.
He says: “My character is Sir Murray Stuart Smith, commissioner of the intelligence services. He keeps an eye on the home secretary.
“I played the officer in charge of the 1st battalion, Colonel Wilford, in Bloody Sunday: Scenes from the Saville Inquiry, so it’s quite a relief to play someone who, although ex-Eton, at least has reservations of the Establishment.”
Not one of the reasons given for the war – weapons of mass destruction, violation of United Nations resolutions and removing Saddam Hussein – provided a satisfactory legal basis for attacking Iraq.
Yet those with reservations about the Establishment, who call for Tony Blair to be “called to account” in a court of law, and did not go to Eton, tend to be dismissed as mad ravings of the loony left.
Brian Haw, the resolute anti-war protester who has lived in Parliament Square for more than five years, is a case in point.
This is something Mr Hoyland is well aware of, noting that the key to the success of Norton Taylor’s work was balance. He applauded his “diligence” in condensing the build up to the invasion – including the death of David Kelly, the second UN resolution and the elusive weapons of mass destruction in – into less than two hours.
“In The Colour of Money, about the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry, we had five or six police getting up and claiming they could not remember anything – it is riveting. I hope the same will happen of this show.”
Mr Hoyland has appeared in scores of theatre, film and television – most recently in the hit BBC series Life on Mars.
His career began 42 years ago at the Drama Centre in Prince of Wales Road. “There was Jack Morgan and John Bletchley – they’re long dead now,” he recalls.
Past students of the drama school in the old Methodist Church in Prince of Wales Road, now closed, also include Pierce Brosnan, Simon Callow, Colin Firth, Frances de la Tour, Geraldine James. Sir Anthony Hopkins and Warren Mitchell were on the board.
“In those days,” he laments, “we would decide to do a play and the Arts Council would fund it. Nowadays you cannot do that sort of thing – there is so much bureaucracy. Take Tricycle and this production for instance. The show has to be sponsored. With more than 20 actors the ticket money wouldn’t even cover the cast. It means actors have to rely on showcase performances in pubs.”
But Hoyland, 63, has lived in Camden all his life with stints in Highgate, Gospel Oak and Camden Town and he is upbeat about the area.
“I love Primrose Hill and Hampstead Heath,” he said. “I like going to the Stables Market and eating out in Camden. It’s great to see the Roundhouse back, and not just for the shows. They are doing some wonderful projects for youngsters.”
Hoyland reflects on being fortunate in a successful career – but that he still has to perform “bread and butter” jobs.
“I’ve just got back from filming in India. It’s about a murdered journalist Mariane Pearl starring Angelina Jolie,” he says. Tough times then? “It’s not all plain sailing,” he protests. “My part in Hellboy was shot over three weeks in a quarry in Prague in the pouring rain.”
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