In the Nick of Time--The Autobiography of John Altman, EastEnders' Nick Cotton by John Altman

Author:John Altman [John Altman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786061959
Publisher: John Blake Publishing
Published: 2016-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

In the early days of the show we would take a shuttle bus that we could get from BBC Television Centre in Shepherd’s Bush. One of our initial tasks as an ensemble was to have a photo call on set. I noticed that the crew seemed terrified of Julia Smith but I remember feeling no fear at that time: she was the boss and she knew what she wanted. Later that day I drove back from the studios with Oscar James, who played Tony Carpenter. Oscar was a gentleman and was quite heavily into Buddhism and often promised to take me to one of his meetings. Our characters Tony and Nick were great adversaries in the programme.

Our first day of shooting in the studio was on 19 December 1984. I took the shuttle with Leslie Grantham and rehearsed in the morning. I had a fight scene in The Queen Vic with Nejdet and Leslie. It went well and I enjoyed punching the glass in the pub door. We played the analysis game again and the make-up girls were much amused by it too.

I was invited to a party by the director Matthew Robinson (brother of Tom, the singer) but I was working too late to attend. ‘Still,’ I wrote in my diary, ‘think how healthy I’ll feel tomorrow.’

The exterior Albert Square set was known as ‘the Lot’. It was built on the same plot that Auf Wiedersehen, Pet was filmed on. One viewer even noticed that the tower blocks in the background were the same in both series! It could be freezing cold out there and one day the temperature got me down – I was only half in the show that day and I wanted to be alone. The facilities weren’t very good at that point. There was no heating at all for an hour and I wondered if they were deliberately trying to give us all colds and flu. For myself, I felt alone and rather distant all day.

The final studio day for the year was on 30 December. I had a restless night, dreaming of fights, East End pubs and bags of jelly – I wonder why? It seemed the majority of the cast had had similar experiences as we headed into the final day of recording. I still get that to this day – I never sleep well before beginning rehearsals in the theatre or filming. Anita Dobson and Leslie Grantham (as Angie and Den Watts) seemed to click. We gave Anita a round of applause at the end of her first day of rehearsal.

I avoided the dreaded portakabin where we had to wait to be called for our scenes on the Lot and spent the morning in my dressing room, reading the Sunday papers, rehearsing my lines and dozing. The whole cast turned up for lunch, having been assembled for a photo call featuring the 23 regulars, so that excluded me. It’s strange to think back now but there were comparatively so few long-term cast members than there are these days.

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