MEET OUR AUTHORS An occasional series – No.8  DAVID ERDOS

Julian Costley, CEO & publisher at Bite-Sized Books, interviews some of our authors to provide further background to their books and to their approach to writing. And a little ‘behind-the-scenes’ glimpse of their life and influences.

In this edition Julian talks to author, journalist, actor, playwright, and stage director DAVID ERDOS TV about his new book NO LAST WORD – PAUSING TO PRAISE PINTER, his three books in the RETURN TO REASON SERIES and more generally about the influences in his life, his literary work, music, stage direction and performing. 

JC
You’re a writer, poet, actor, theatrical director, screenwriter, lyricist, music producer, literary editor, educator, and so much more. I knew about your acting of course as I’ve seen you in the lead roles of Cyrano de Bergerac and School for Scandal.  And we’ve published some of your work, of which more later. But take us back to where it all started – growing up, education and what followed.

DE
I grew up in the Northwest London suburb of Eastcote, and went to school at a local comprehensive, which is where, as with anyone, ‘it’ all started. I was fully formed at a young age (as opposed to now, where I can be seen to have too much form!), and where I was recognised for my skills in painting, acting and writing. 

I fall in line with that group of artistically orientated achievers at any level, where I was good at what I was interested in and average at what I was not. But I was always supported in my efforts by friends and teachers alike. While never part of the in-crowd, I was singular enough to be seen and appreciated as – for want of a better word – undeniable, a tenet which I’ve always tried to maintain. 

The drama took over from the art and after a post A level year off working in the Education Department at the architectural trick of brick that is Uxbridge Civic Centre, I went to Liverpool JMU which I did my degree in Drama and English and where I started acting professionally, through an association with the renowned Unity Theatre. 

Before I graduated, I was head hunted by Lee Beagley’s Kaboodle Theatre Company, which was the leading Company in a different Northwest, and who had an international reputation, and went on to the Everyman, and Playhouse Theatres and wrote and performed my first professionally produced play, a one man show on the life, legacy and afterlife of Lenny Bruce. 

JC
What I wasn’t aware of was the extensive scope of all your collaborations. Few will know you’ve worked with Harold Pinter and Heathcote Williams, whose last play Killing Kit, was entrusted to you. Who else?

DE
I’ve been lucky enough over the years of my work as an actor, writer, director and teacher to meet and befriend most the artistic and creative heroes I’ve had since the days of my first teenage reading. 

Harold and Heathcote date back the longest, but the list includes the marvellous and somewhat marginalised playwright, novelist and one-man aesthetic, Snoo Wilson, a continued and much prized communication with Steven Berkoff, and a friendship the last surviving example of genius literature still has: Alan Moore. 

After an initial meeting in Liverpool Alan and I kept in touch and an interview I did with him on the publication of his masterly novel Jerusalem gave me one of my most magical moments, when after discussing Heathcote Williams on film, Heathcote just happened to phone me, and I was able to put these two remarkable men in touch on my phone. (https://internationaltimes.it/ode-to-the-eternalist-a-litera-matic-encounter-with-alan-moore/)  

Further joys have come from working closely with the writer and film maker Chris Petit, artist extraordinaire, Andrew Kotting and the true descendant of Emmanuel Swedenborg and Arthur Machen, the great Iain Sinclair, who writes about me in his book THE LAST LONDON. 

I’ve continued to review and meet Iain regularly at various events and the fact that someone I used to read as a kid supports and praises my own work gives me reason to go on. My mother was an inveterate reader, and I only wish she had lived to see this and the other books that both preceded and followed.   (https://internationaltimes.it/kensal-rising-on-walking-the-london-night-with-iain-sinclair-andrew-kotting/)

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Last-London-True-Fictions-Unreal/dp/1786071746

I’ve also enjoyed some close associations with the UK’s greatest musical and cultural documentarian Tony Palmer, the wondrous Michael Horovitz and the true link between the Beats and Pyschedelia, Pete Brown. 

As a childhood Genesis fan, my friendship with Rock Music’s loveliest couple, Steve and Jo Hackett is an equal joy, and I’ve enjoyed wonderful collaborations with Youth, David Dramwell, Ken Campbell, Henry Woolf, Susan Williamson, Christien Anholt, Simon Drake, Alan Cox, Johny Brown, the great actor, writer, director Jonathan Moore, and the wondrous Jeff Young, as well as rubbing shoulders with a vast array of seminals from Jeremy Corbyn and Jah Wobble, to the most popular poet in Iraq!

DE with Ignacio Lusardi Monteverdi 

JC
Acting has been a big part of your life too, how did that start and what would we all know of the work you’ve done on stage but also on radio and TV?

DE
From school to Liverpool as mentioned, to acting and directing in most of the Pinter canon for numerous companies and venues, from Slupianek in Manfred Karge’s The Conquest of the South Pole, directed by the RNT and Abbey Theatre’s Conall Morrison, to Macbeth, Capulet, Shylock and Titus Andronicus, to short films for Granada and Channel 4 to a recent Docu-drama on the death of Marilyn Monroe on Netflix. 

My satisfaction in recent years has come from the sheer joy of acting in Semi-Pro Companies like Questors and PTC, where I’ve played O’Brien in 1984, Arthur Miller’s Alfieri, Joe Orton’s Dr. Rance and Cyrano De Bergarac. Within community Theatre people are doing something beautiful to no purpose, which could be one way of looking at the human condition. When we fail to do that or over-compensate, we end up with the world we have wrecked. 

DE as Cyrano and as O Brien with Actor, writer, Composer Julian Smith

JC
You and I share a friendship with Lisa Azarmi, who of course is one of the poets in the Return To Reason series book 1, The Poem is Part of the Eye. You and Lisa also share a friendship with Youth (Martin Glover), Killing Joke’s bassist, and prolific music producer including for Paul McCartney. Where has music taken you?

DE
Music is the highest art form. Nothing can match it for resonance in all senses. You can do more with 2 notes than you can with 20, or in some cases, 200 pages, so everything I do strives to attain a musical effect or resonance.

If you’re asking about taste, then Peter Gabriel, Kate Bush, Roy Harper, Talk Talk, Tindersticks, Popol Vuh, Neu! Brian Eno, Roxy Music, Philip Glass, Satie, Reich, Zappa, Nyman, Dead Can Dance; everything good about prog and divine about ambient, Krautrock and folk. From the miraculous Peter Hammill and David Sylvian, to Rober Wyatt, Kevins Ayers and Coyne, to Randy and Thomas Newman, back to Scriabin, Debussy, John Coltrane, to Miles Davis, to Bill Nelson, Simon Fisher Turner, Harold Budd; and not forgetting my two greatest musical loves: Matt Johnson’s The The and Anthony Newley.

My Dad’s favourite piece of music was the scene in Gounod’s FAUST where the devil enters the church. My Hungarian Grandmother’s was the last four songs by Richard Strauss. My mother’s favourite was at once time Sinatra. After a brief but chaste flirtation with Johnny Mathis, she ended up with Barry Manilow. If only she’d known! But the piece that made my Mum dance and show an almost childish excitement was the drum break in Phil Collins’ IN THE AIR TONIGHT.

JC
We should also mention an impressive list of accolades and the charitable and philanthropic work you’ve actively engaged in – such as your Peggy Ramsey Award, your work with Save The Children and the Arts Council, and your roles as Poet in Residence.

DE
Yes, the PRA came early on and was a real boost, which allowed me through the course of 30 years professional self-employed freelance work to never once be in debt. A couple of very generous friends saw me through COVID, (thank you Adam, Nick and Jon), but while I’ve never made a lot of money, but have always been able to do what I want to do; so in that regard, I’ve been blessed. It is wonderful to be able to eat a meal paid for by your pen. Sometimes that’s only a few times a year, with other dinners coming from other work.

And as for the other endeavours you kindly mention Julian, they stem from my work as a teacher and practitioner, where I was asked to work with isolated or underprivileged communities, in facilitating creative responses from those who rarely got the chance. My desire to teach and help others realise sometimes forgotten or neglected standards is a cornerstone of my work. And I do it as often as I can. I want to reintroduce or reengage people of all ages to the codes, practices and standards which inspired me. It becomes harder, as things have changed so much over the last two decades – possibly three, since Thatcher – and when it’s not wanted or even resisted I can find myself at a loss.

I am known and regarded as a creative resource for others, from friends and contemporaries to some of the people I’ve mentioned above, but I think we live at a time when peoples interest in what went before, or where certain approaches can lead has lessened; so the new lesson is how concise can one be to remain effective and to assess when and if that is possible. I had a small row with someone recently who said, “not everyone needs to know your advice,” which was both sage and sobering and something to remember.

Not everyone wants help, or even knows they need it. I’m not sure if that is what defines or deters the way we live now.

JC
If there’s one area of work you’ve been involved with that seems strangely outside your prolific creative work, it’s your active role as a Court Reporter! It’s taken to around the world, Dubai, Hong Kong, Stockholm, Athens. Tell us more?

Having attended a Harold Pinter course, I was running at the Cockpit, in 2013, my friend, the actor, photographer and Founder/CEO of TransAtlantic Legal Solutions, David Ross asked if I was interested in training to be a Videographer for his business, running Depositions for largescale American trials.

I needed a new string and violin, so I said yes and entered this new world of work, which has been a real eye-opener, and which has also allowed me to travel in fine style around the world. As the business is always developing, David asked me if I wanted to train as a Real-Time Court Reporter working on a new system.

It took a year, but I am now doing it, it seems successfully, providing a unique service to major English and American law firms on groundbreaking cases. So that has been a wonderful new development for me and means that my artistic work is still created in brief but intense periods of activity.

JC
It’s perhaps a trite question, but of all the creative disciplines you’ve embraced what’s given you most reward?

DE
It’s hard to say. Writing, acting and directing are all equal joys for me and I am able to contain my full sense of self in each of them when not doing the others. Writing is of course the purest part; acting the most natural and gives me pleasure through people’s response to my voice – as the body can’t provide much! And directing is where you learn the most.

So that crucial triumvirate is where I am happiest. I do love to teach and share what I have learned so far. The communication of one’s enthusiasm and vulnerability is the best thing you can do for another person, apart of course from making them a meal.

JC
Turning to what you and I have done together, tell us more about The Return to Reason Series and the thinking behind it?

The first three of the six-part RETURN TO REASON SERIES
Available on Amazon here: https://tinyurl.com/msahd73m

The idea was to provide Bite Size with a creative arm, and to introduce your core readership to styles and voices they have not have heard of or been familiar with. I have great hopes for it.

So far Volumes I to III have come out, the highlights being some of the last writing of the legendary poets Michael Horovitz and Niall McDevitt, to uncollected pieces from the equally legendary John Higgs and David Bramwell, to new pieces from Lisa, Saira Viola and Julie Goldsmith, Max Reeves’ luminous images and as I said, a host of new writers. There are still three books to come with more work from Jeff Young, Chris Petit, Iain, Andrew and Eden Kotting, as well as new names to learn.

Your publisher with David after book publication

JC
And we can share that, as your publisher, we’ve just published your book about Harold Pinter to the market. You worked with Pinter, and more recently of course since Pinter’s death, have continued to be close to the family in particular with Antonia Fraser and her son, BH Fraser. Why and when did you become such a committed fan? 

Available on Amazon here: https://tinyurl.com/48uhsnca

DE
I saw Harold’s play ONE FOR THE ROAD on TV in 1984, starring Alan Bates and it completely captivated. Bates was a great actor, but a little arch in that production, but it was with the power of the play itself that I became completely enamoured. I think the next day or possibly week, I was on the Kings Road and found in a book shop there, the first edition hardback of the play which had just come out. It was the first book I ever bought for myself and I have it still, in pristine condition. I keep his letters and cards to me in it. And it is as you might expect my prize possession. I then went and got everything, and the work has informed my entire life and career.

Everyone who meets me knows my love for Pinter and that his work is scored through me, like Brighton Rock; chiefly because of its power, beauty, resonance and continuing relevance today. He captured and created the way we communicate and defined what we choose or are unable to disclose. Everyone who writes a play is influenced by him. Even those who do not care for his work, as they then write despite him; but it is always there.

There are some later pieces which are not perhaps equal to what went before, but they are as rich in their own way, through either playfulness or variety. I usually carry some around with me, simply because I like looking at it.

My connection has remained constant for 40 years, from that first reading and OFTR becoming my party piece, through to playing Mick in The Caretaker at the Liverpool Everyman with Lee Beagley and the wonderful Bim Mason.

I usually open every workshop or creative event I host with a recital of his poem for Antonia, It is Here, as it is quite simply the greatest and most romantic 8 lines in modern literature, and the first poem in NLW which was written to mark what would have been his and Antonia’s 40th Wedding Anniversary was read by her at his graveside in 2020. You couldn’t really ask for a greater return than that.

JC
We should share that you’ve just performed a number of readings from the book at the Cockpit Theatre. I’m going to include that wonderful photo I took of you and the theatre Director Dave Wybrow after the event.

David Erdos (left) with Cockpit Theatre Director, Dave Wybrow 

DE
Yes, Cockpit Director Dave Wybrow and I go back thirty years. He produced my first one man show HIS LAST CABARET about the life, legacy and afterlife of Lenny Bruce as well as my two productions of Heathcote Williams’ last major play KILLING KIT.

JC
I always ask what advice you’d give to an upcoming or emerging writer. But perhaps, in this interview, I need to extend the scope of the question to actors, screenwriters, lyricists and so many more disciplines within the arts world?

DE
Bruce Robinson has a Joyce quote above his typewriter: ‘Write, damn you. What else are you good for?’ Which says it all, but I would only add in this time of overkill, what is the value or redeeming feature of your work? What does it do to earn or merit the attention of others? And is it beautiful, or dare I say it, undeniable. It’s the question anyone who creates must face. There is so much stuff out there. How do we learn to discern at a time when subjectivity obfuscates objectivity.

I truly believe that there is a danger of no-one being clear about what is really good anymore. British TV Drama is a perfect example. If it doesn’t have a Detective in, or isn’t overly graphic, or morose, it doesn’t exist.

Actors, writers of all types, directors to some extent, have to be experts in the field their practise in order to benefit others. Art is about asking questions, telling us things we didn’t or need to know. Otherwise there is a danger of indulgence. Actors are not special because they can stand on a stage or in front of a green screen. They are special because they have the skills or need to serve, share and communicate something which in my view has to be both beautiful and/or undeniable. Most modern cinema or celebritised theatre isn’t, as it is faked, either by technology, or the need for sequelisation or exposure.

So, the writer, actor, enabler has to ask themselves why act/write/create? What is it about your stance that is different to what has gone before? What is its value, or contribution? What do you want people to feel or take away from it? If you can answer that, great! Send me a copy and I’ll review it. But I’m not sure many can. Individuals have a need to act, write, paint, compose, dance, film, edit etc. Know why. How you do it is immaterial. We all need tech now, but my generation is not, or doesn’t need to be dependent on it, just as young actors don’t need to be famous. They all want to be, but even that has changed.

Fame is no longer the frame we thought we wanted to contain us. And John Updike’s famous quote about the mask of celebrity eating the face remains as true as it ever was.

Mark E. Smith’s quote about ‘technology being fire in the hands of fools’ is the single best sentence I have heard, and can apply to politics now as well. The artist if they are not to be a dilettante has to be both an ambassador, assistant and expert of either emotion or interpretation. References, which I am somewhat notorious for, as a famous advert once said: ‘gives people wings.’

In conclusion, its simple. If culture is to survive with the same viscerality it had in the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s, we need a recognition of how inspiration is defined. Alan Moore said that if you look up the world visionary in the dictionary what you should find is a picture of William Blake. I think you could put one of him under there too, alongside a few of the other names I have mentioned.

There will soon be youngsters who do not know or care who the Beatles were. Or Harold Pinter. Or Heathcote Williams, or Leonard Cohen, or even, God forbid, David Bowie. Jack Lemmon, Orson Welles, Paul Newman; the names recede, rather than fade. But who replaces them? An artist in any form is part of a long legacy. By all means, adapt, or build from it, but first of all, know what it is.

Honour it.

JC
A big thank you for sharing some ‘behind the scenes’ of your life and work. Looking forward to working with you so much more…

A little more about David…

David Erdos is an Actor, Writer, Director, and Teacher with over 300 professional performance credits in a career that dates back to his teens.

The writer of ten collections of poetry, three collections of essays and over 200 plays, screenplays and multi form pieces, his work has been published and performed around the world in Theatres, Studios, Universities, Schools and across numerous digital platforms. This work informs his position as Mu Magazine’s Literary Editor, and as a contributing editor for The International Times, a position he has held since 2014.

David is a previous winner of The Peggy Ramsay Award and has lectured students and led acting departments around the world on all aspects of theatre and film making, performance and creative writing for twenty years, enhancing standards for educative establishments such as Bird College, Save the Children and the Arts Council of England.

He won great acclaim in 2017 as English Poet in residence at the Babylon Festival of Culture in Iraq, and was a former writer in residence at The Unity Theatre, and Merseyside Maritime Museum, Liverpool and Cockpit Theatre, London for over a decade. David has toured his one man show, HIS LAST CABARET: On the life, afterlife and legacy of Lenny Bruce across the UK in two different centuries and it remains for many the best evening they’ve ever had in the theatre.

David’s books include EASY VERSES FOR DIFFICULT TIMES, OIL ON SILVER, CHANGING PLACES WITH LIGHT, NEWS FROM MARS, THE SCAR ON THE CLOUD and with the Photographer Max Reeves, BYZANTIUM. He is the lyricist for over 300 songs with the composer Sara Varnoy, and continues to collaborate with musicians around the world. In addition, David is a published illustrator and editor in chief for a new range of titles he has developed for Bite-Sized Books, the first three of which are published out of a planned six book series.

During the English lockdowns, alongside a 4 part radio serial, and the writing and directing of several new online plays, David produced four poetry volumes: DAVID’S COVID, THE COVIDIAN AGE, THE PEOPLE’S PRISON AND UNEASE AND VERSES FROM DIFFICULT TIMES, all of which are featured on his YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTF8w39Ch-LuOuC7yEa0K9Q with selections published by IT, Culture Matters and The Morning Star, among others.

David Erdos has dedicated a career not to the pursuit of celebrity but to creating new standards of practise for the arts, artists and developing culture as a whole. His aim has always been to advance each form and its subsequent understanding and to contribute to developing legacies of insight, challenge and fulfilment based on the love of those who inspired him. His album BETWEEN BRIGHT WORLDS is an attempt to display those intentions and will soon be available on vinyl. From words alone we can win better worlds.
https://suriyarecordings.bandcamp.com/album/between-bright-worlds