Thin Ice

by Alan Ford

Charles Harwood is an out-of-work actor, but fill-in jobs aren't for him. He doesn't want to drive a minicab, deal dope or have 'another string to his bow' - he's a purist. And without any acting to do, the main event of his day is an audition for an ice-cream commercial. The next job, and getting through the day on the few quid in his pocket, are Charlie's main preoccupations. In one day, he wends his way through a traffic jam in his dilapidated car and meets old faces. An after-work drink turns into a big night out - an opening-night party, followed by a sexual encounter with a soignee star with an arthritic hip. This is the world of Charles Harwood and most other actors in the business. It is a hand-to-mouth, event to event, lifetime spent in a state of controlled desperation.

192 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2006

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Barry Hammond · Rating 4 out of 5]

London actor Alan Ford, who played Brick Top in Guy Ritchie's Snatch, narrated Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels and had many other roles on British stage, screen and television, including parts in The Sweeney (2012) and The Bill has written a novel about a day in the life of a working actor. His character, Charles Harwood, is not famous. He's the sort of actor who plays character parts: nasties, thugs, bullies, failures and fools because of his lower class accent. People sort-of recognize him because he's been on television quite often but they never remember his name. Probably based on his own life and that of many of his working actor friends, the book accurately depicts a-day-in-the-life of such an actor with all its quiet desperation, its ups and downs, triumphs and tragedies, small glamour, rituals, frightening freedom, not quite toppling into the abyss, the improvisations, scrounging, trying to look good on very little cash, without winding up living on the street, petty jealousies, kindnesses, generosities and hard realities. A really good book about the life of an actor. -
BH.

[Jonathan Norton · Rating 4 out of 5]

"'What about my fucking refurbishments? You cunts! I hope your fucking theatre falls down in the middle of Shopping And Fucking, you fucking cunts!'"

Bleedin' 'ell, it's tough being an out-of-work straight-up proper East End geezer in the acting game, when all the theatres are controlled by upper-class pricks who knew each other at public school and university, and agents are all flash bastards who'll drop you in the blink of an eye. Trying to get through the daily grind of screwing posh birds in Hampstead, driving home stoned, signing on the dole, fucking up auditions, cadging loans off barmen, and reading in the paper about some complete shit who's landed a brilliant role in EastEnders and he can't do the fackin' accent, the cunt.

Although there is a reference to 9/11 and suicide bombers, bits of this book (for example the job centre scenes, and anything related to signing on) seem to be older, maybe dating from the late 80s, when its author would have been the same age as Charlie. There's a passing remark about "Christine Edzard's Victorian films", which makes 1988 the lower bound. Since then Alan has got more success by being typecast as East End Hardman, which he plays well. And his book is bloody good fun, honest about acting and highly conscious of London from the perspective of a certain kind of grifter, who knows all the bars in Soho to look around in for work.

Four stars for the totally frank, man-to-man details in chapter 2 about how Charlie "shat himself" after a near-fatal car breakdown. I bet Nick Hornby and Tony Parsons wouldn't go there, though I've never researched this opinion and don't really care if it's accurate at all. Charlie won't take a role in EastEnders because it's beneath his dignity. In conclusion: WHAT A FACKIN LEGEND. Danny Dyer has got a long way to go still before he catches up.