Murder Unprompted

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Charles Paris was in the Number One dressing room.

True, the Number One dressing room at the Prince’s Theatre, Taunton, was distinguished from the other dressing rooms only by the white plastic numeral screwed on to the door. In size and lack of amenities they were all identical.

And true, Charles was sharing the Number One dressing room with another actor, Alex Household, who had a larger part in the play.

But the fact remained that, for the duration of the three-week run of The Hooded Owl, Charles Paris would be in the Number One dressing room and, though publicly he always affected lack of interest in such petty distinctions (‘Men are led by toys’, he would say, loftily quoting Napoleon), he was secretly delighted. However cynical he appeared, however logical he was about the likelihood of a sudden breakthrough at the age of fifty-four, his actor’s imagination could still leap in seconds to the pinnacles of theatrical success. Dreams of sudden public recognition of his talents had survived almost unchanged from his teens, and reality, in the form of modest achievements and much ‘resting’ since he had started in the business in 1949, could make little impression on them.

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