Actor, author, political commentator and OH Player Ricky Ritchie explains why on earth we do it.

“I am sure many OH Players ask themselves this question. For the most part, we are not ‘professional’ Old Harrovians who make a habit of returning to the Hill. It is not as if changing into tights in the basement of the War Memorial is a pleasant experience – although I’m surprised by how many OH Players are disappointed when a director decides to dispense with the Elizabethan wardrobe. Learning lines can be very tedious, especially if one is getting older and not being paid. What, then, is the attraction?

Laughter. I have been subjected to more helpless fits of uncontrollable laughter in Speech Room than perhaps anywhere else in the world. Very often these were encouraged by and shared with Dr Christopher Tyerman, formerly as an actor and lately from his favoured position in the front row of seats, chosen in order to inflict maximum embarrassment on his personal acquaintances in the cast.

But he is not alone to blame. When playing ‘Green’ (of the famous Bushy, Bagot and Green trio in Richard II in 1978), Christopher and I were joined by Jeremy Lemmon who encouraged us to interpret these roles less ‘traditionally’… Somehow it worked, but perhaps not in the way Shakespeare intended. Jeremy isn’t always as ‘purist’ as one might expect. This performance led to the only occasion in my memory when male members of the cast were presented with bouquets at the Society’s Annual General Meeting.

Of course, I have on occasion been cast in heroic mode, but somehow the same rules often seem to apply. I am told, for example, that my Julius Caesar was possibly one of the funniest things ever to have been seen on the Shakespeare stage – certainly much more amusing than my Feste, Touchstone or Bottom. Nothing, however, can compare with the glee which greeted a certain Macbeth in tights (many years ago) who, on being greeted with guffaws of laughter on his entrance – guffaws, incidentally, which had nothing to do with him; something else had gone wrong – compounded the mirth by rather too obviously checking his fly buttons. He had forgotten he didn’t have any.

But to return to my career as an OH Player, I had the honour once of making Joanna Lumley ‘corpse’ as Rosalind by repeating a line and apologising for it afterwards. I have played one of the longest roles in Shakespeare – namely as a schoolboy prompter of Iago. On that occasion, I had for the first and last time the pleasure of a solo curtain call. I was the Director in 1981 of the OH Players’ first attempt at Hamlet- that was the occasion when Osric (James Morwood) nearly stole the show and the Ghost’s cloak (Michael Levete) nearly got stuck in the trap door. But actually it was a tremendous performance, with James Ramsay as Hamlet confirming himself as one of the OH Players’ all-time greats.

It would (I hope) be unfair to give the impression that OH Plays are more for the enjoyment of their actors than of the audience. There have been some great performances in the past and there are some Harrovians whose love for Shakespeare began with an OHP Production at the start of the Summer term. We take it seriously, and try to get it right. But if amateur theatre has one advantage over the professional, it is that the cast is made up of friends. There are no auditions. We are not competing for parts. We enjoy each other’s company, and I find it hard to think of OH Players without smiling. In the words of one of our founders, Herbert Harris: “When the founders conceived of such a troupe their first expressed hope was that it should be an assembly of OHs who, not wishing to play ball games, would like to gather on the Hill for their own pleasure and perhaps some benefit to the School.”

The answer to the question ‘why on earth do we do it?’ has never been put better.”