The names of famous double acts roll easily off the tongue. Torvill and Dean, Laurel and Hardy, Butch and Sundance, Charlie and Jake . . . Charlie and Jake? Unknowns they may be at present, but these two bright boyos are confident that by the time their five-week run at Dublin's Tivoli Theatre is over, their fame and fortune will be in no doubt. Courtesy of actors Conleth Hill and Sean Campion, Charlie and Jake are set to send waves of tears and laughter rippling up and down the country in Stones in his Pockets, Marie Jones's bittersweet play of thwarted hopes and dreams.
This Lyric Theatre production recently notched up two Irish Times/ESB Theatre Awards - for Conleth Hill as best actor and, under Ian McElhinney's direction, for best production. Together they played a significant part in securing for the Lyric the award for best company, completing a very satisfying night for Northern theatre.
Hill and Campion have themselves become something of a theatrical double act. Each time Hill has been nominated for an award, he has paid tribute to the performance of his on-stage partner, as well as to the contributions made by Jones and McElhinney. In November, Hill figured in the nominations for the UK's prestigious Barclays Bank Awards, established by the London-based Theatrical Management Association to reward excellence in theatre outside the West End. In their deliberations, the panel of judges from national newspapers in England, Scotland and Ireland had difficulty in deciding which of the two could be judged to have taken the lead role.
And that's the way they like it. Not for them any attempt to upstage the other, which, as they admit, is not always the case in their profession. "It's never a case of `this is your big moment and this is mine'," emphasises Hill. "We each play seven different characters, every one a vulnerable person with a very real life and personality. The play is beautifully written by Marie Jones and has the effect of making the audience care desperately about everyone they encounter."
Campion recalls coming out onto the street during the show's brief run at Andrews Lane Theatre. "An elderly lady stopped us and asked for our autographs and a photograph. She thanked us for making her use her imagination. That's one of the things that is so clever about this play. It makes an audience feel good about itself. We translate the words as truthfully as we can, but the audience has to work hard to stay with the storylines and the characters.
" Sometimes, when we're both on stage and we refer to another character, you see the audience turn their heads as though they can see that person - which they can, in their imagination. They seem to forget that the two of us are the entire cast." Everyone who sees Stones is immediately struck by the fast pace, the slick changes of accent and body language, and the maze of exits and entrances through which this pair have never - yet - lost their sense of direction. They first met in rehearsals for Northern Star at the 1998 Belfast Festival, but it seems as though they have been inseparable from the year dot. They seem genuinely to enjoy each other's company, which is just as well, since, with runs at the Tricycle in London, the West End, Canada and the US in the offing, they could be spending the best part of the next year in very close proximity.
In conversation, they do a subtle personality swop. Hill is the more reticent, fidgety in an interview situation, constantly protesting that he has nothing of interest to say, interspersing every serious observation with a deliberately throwaway put-down. Campion is laid-back and relaxed, feeding his partner his lines, setting up the cues for Hill's black Northern humour, which he clearly enjoys hugely. Each is the perfect foil to the other.
Hill compares the instinctive fluency of their stage act to a couple of footballers - he is fanatical about Manchester United. "My passion for football is as a supporter not a player - that's fairly obvious. Though I might have been good at slicing oranges. I think we probably could find each other in the dark now. It's true to say that we haven't got hopelessly lost yet. Have we?"
Campion: "Well, there was the time I came on in the Opera House in Belfast, nearly fell down on the rake on the stage and dried. You looked at me with a kind of pleading amazement but I managed to stumble on regardless." Hill: "You should worry about the rake, what about me in the Irish dancing scene? It nearly killed me." They trade anecdotes of near-disasters, recalling one scene which it took until opening night for Campion to get through without collapsing into helpless laughter. What shines through all their joshing and joking is the sheer enjoyment and team spirit that has been the real bonus of this theatrical success story.
Hill has worked many times with McElhinney and Jones since returning home from drama college in London many moons ago. He looks back fondly on productions such as The Government Inspector and Christmas Eve Can Kill You as defining moments in a career which has turned him into something of a box office draw in the North. Gone are the days, he says, when Northern Ireland actors played the minor roles in local productions, while the lead roles were filled by actors flown in from England for the privilege. He detects a growing confidence amongst his peers, which leaves less room for the protection of individual egos and results in a greater camaraderie.
"I have a great sense of pride about theatre in the North," he says. "Since I came back from London, it's been very good to me. The repertoire at the Lyric is widening all the time. Last year alone, I appeared there in Whistle in the Dark, Waiting for Godot and Stones - that's some collection."
Last November, a break from Stones saw Hill and Campion cast side-by-side again as the two tramps in Gabor Tompa's variously received production of Waiting for Godot. Tompa went to Dublin to hear them read and said that it was then that he first heard the Irishness of Beckett ring out loud and true. It was to prove a major influence in his shaping of the production.
Like Hill, Kilkenny-born Campion also says he has much for which to thank Northern theatre. His first appearance in Belfast was in DubbelJoint's debut show Hang All the Harpers, directed by Pam Brighton. After doing Frank McGuinness's Mutabilite in London, he was cast as James Tyrone Jr in Simon Magill's production of A Moon for the Misbegotten, also for DubbelJoint. This led to Stephen Rea's landmark version of Northern Star, staged in Rosemary Street Presbyterian Church. And the rest, as they say, is history.
A year of global plane-hopping with Stones lies ahead. After its Edinburgh Festival appearance in the summer of 1999, no fewer than 44 international festivals requested its presence. Now, deals are being done which stretch way into 2001 and there is talk of a film. But, the four main protagonists have their collective hand firmly on the dotted lines and nothing will be signed that does not have the goodwill of them all.
"It's a bit like the Good Friday Agreement," sighs Hill, wearily. "You think everything's on course, then, oops, there's a hold up and it's back to the drawing board. You don't want to get too excited about these things. Wait and see is the best policy." He grins knowingly at Campion. They light up their cigarettes in unison, become engulfed in a cloud of blue smoke and lapse into a long, shared silence. Charlie and Jake are in business.
Stones in his Pockets runs at the Tivoli Theatre from March 2nd. To book: 01- 4544472
