'Two Halves of Guinness' - Actor and broadcaster Zeb Soanes on playing the many faces of Sir Alec Guinness

Jonathan Moran (JM): It’s great to meet you, Zeb. As the subject of our discussion is Sir Alec Guinness, it seems fitting that we should be here at The Island Queen in Islington.

Zeb Soanes (ZS): Yes, they held the wrap party for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy here and it's just terrific to think of the cast and crew being here at the end of filming that series. I also love the fact that Noel Road is where the playwright Joe Orton lived, and that's got real resonances for me too. 

(Zeb Soanes and Jonathan Moran outside The Island Queen in Noel Road, Islington)

JM: Two Halves of Guinness is an exploration of one of Britain’s greatest actors, Sir Alec Guinness. How did you become interested in him?

ZS: I’ve loved Guinness since I was a teenager. He was the sort of actor I wanted to be, a man of many faces. I was a very shy young man, but I loved acting. I loved playing. I found confidence in playing other people. Peter Sellers was how I discovered Alec Guinness, but Sellers, for me, was too broad. Not that I'm denigrating Peter Sellers, but Guinness was something very special and Peter Sellers also idolised him. I started watching all of his Ealing films, which then led me on to Tinker Tailor.

I wrote to him when I was 17. I was very careful not to mention Star Wars, because I'd read in his memoirs that when he got anything relating to Star Wars, he just binned it. So I talked about the Ealing films and I talked about his stage work, never really expecting a reply. I grew up in Lowestoft, a little seaside town, and boys from Lowestoft didn't write to Hollywood stars. I remember asking the librarian at school, “How do I write to Sir Alec Guinness?” And she said, “Well, you just go to ‘Who's Who’.”

I went to ‘Who's Who’ and found his agent's address. I wrote this little letter and sent it off, never knowing if it was going to get into his hands. A week later, I came home after school and my father said, “There's something for you.” It was this little envelope with beautiful copperplate handwriting. Inside was a Smythson correspondence card that just said ‘Guinness’ at the top and then a little note, wishing me luck with my career. That was framed, went on my bedroom wall, then went with me through university and I treasure it still. It meant the world to me. Now that I'm a broadcaster and people write to me, I always take the trouble to write back, because I know how much it means - particularly nowadays, where people don't really write letters anymore. So Guinness was my focus in terms of wanting to become an actor, and then going to university to study drama. 

JM: Tell me a bit about this production and how you became involved.

ZS: When I joined the BBC in 1998, it was never with the intention of having this thirty-year career as a broadcaster. A successful audition to be a television announcer brought me down to London and the plan was still very much to be an actor. Even back then I had been turning over the idea of writing a show about Alec Guinness. A few years later, a colleague said, “Someone's written a one-man show about Alec Guinness”, and my heart sank. She said, “It’s got a great title, it's called Two Halves of Guinness.” So I got in touch with Mark Burgess, the playwright, sent him a recording of me doing Alec Guinness and he agreed to meet me for lunch. He was very complimentary about my impersonation but told me he had written the play for a friend, the actor Trevor Littledale, who also loves Alec Guinness, and that it was naturally his to do as long as he wanted to do it. Mark took me to see it, and it was a terrific show and Trevor gave a really fine performance.

Over the years, I kept touching in with Mark, saying, “How about now?” — he even kindly cast me as Derek Nimmo in a Radio 4 play about the comedy series All Gas and Gaiters, in which Trevor was playing Robertson Hare. After one of our recording days Trevor said to me in the pub, “I know you want my Alec Guinness play — and I’m going to let you have it — but not yet!” So I respectfully backed off and grew a bit older, which wasn’t a bad thing! I’m now approaching fifty, so much better placed to convincingly play both the younger and older Guinness. Eighteen months ago I realised it was approaching the 25th anniversary of Guinness’s death. Selina Cadell had already said that if I ever did a one-man show, she would direct it for me - she's just been directing Eddie Izzard’s Hamlet - and Mark very kindly agreed I could now take on the play. It’s taken a year and a half to bring it all together and we start rehearsals in a few weeks’ time - it's suddenly quite terrifying!

JM: What periods of Guinness’s career does the play cover?

ZS: The play starts in reverse, with Guinness receiving his lifetime achievement Oscar and lamenting the fact that he thinks he's only going to be remembered for Star Wars. It then takes the audience back through his career from the beginning. It ends with Star Wars leading him to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and him having difficulty finding who Smiley is. Then he realises that he and Smiley share very similar qualities. So the end of the play is him realising that he is Smiley.

JM: Many people who have worked with Sir Alec Guinness complement him as a brilliant actor and a generous colleague. They also say he was a very private man and they didn’t really get to know him as a person. What’s your take on him?

ZS: It's difficult never having sadly met the man, but I think it is fair to say he was a very private person. I think also kind of impish. Everyone I've spoken to has said he loved gossip. He had a mischievous sense of humour. I think he found his confidence in playing a wide variety of roles. He gets described as a man of many faces, but I think they are all faces of Alec Guinness. When you look at Kind Hearts and Coronets, which is a tour de force, it should be Dennis Price's film - Dennis is the lead but Guinness steals it.

JM: You said that he inspired you to pursue your career - what was it about Guinness as an actor that you admired?

ZS: I think it was this sense that, whereas other actors like John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier gave very 'outward' performances, I always felt that Guinness drew you in. For me, there was also a sense that there was a game that he was playing. Whatever character it was, whether it was Charles I or Obi Wan or Herbert Pocket, he'd worked out the thing about that character that excited him. He invited you in to play that game, whatever that game was. So that appealed to me about him. Also, I think he enjoyed shrouding himself in mystery and that made him fascinating. He would give you a little flash of leg every once in a while, just enough to keep you interested.

JM: How have you been preparing for the role? 

ZS: There is only so much you can get from the documentaries and reading about him - the accounts of his own life are very carefully curated by Guinness himself. I wanted to talk to people who really knew him, who sat around a dinner table with him so I could get a three-dimensional sense of the man. I want to present him in a way that is respectful, sensitive, and hopefully in a way that he would be happy with. He would probably be deeply unhappy about someone playing him on stage, I don't know, but I want to do it in such a way that is as respectful as possible. 

I first went to see Dame Eileen Atkins. She was a very close friend of his, and we had a couple of hours together one afternoon. Guinness bonded with her because they both hated their mothers. Guinness never knew who his father was, and his mother was a constant embarrassment to him throughout his life. She would turn up drunk at stage doors on payday for her handout. Eileen said they had this kind of quite tempestuous friendship where they would often fall out, so we were able to talk about that. She said physically, he hated his hands. He would look at his hands and say, “These are the hands of a butcher”. 

(Sir Alec Guinness and Dame Eileen Atkins in Smiley's People)

It's something that Siân Phillips also said. She saw him on stage in the Scottish play, and he kept his fists absolutely clenched in front of him. So, physically, it was interesting to know what he didn't like about himself. 

Siân Phillips also talked about playing Ann in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. It's a wonderful scene, because she's the character that is talked about throughout the series and then, finally, we get to see her at the very end. She hadn't done a scene with him before, and they hadn't rehearsed. She travelled to the location and they were kept waiting in a room. She said to him, “Sir Alec, shall we go through it?” He said, “Oh, no, no, I don't think we need to do that.” She said he just went round the room picking up things and placing them down carefully. So, she was quite tense, and then, of course, they went on to shoot the scene. It’s an extraordinary scene. I always remember the moment where Smiley gives her a gift. She doesn't even unwrap it, just puts it straight in her pocket. It’s awful, horrific. 

(Sir Alec Guinness and Siân Phillips in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy)

JM: Who else have you talked to?

ZS: Piers Paul Read, the biographer, who had full access to the family papers. Guinness had asked that he be the person to write the biography, and it's a wonderful biography. We talked a lot about the ambiguity around Guinness’s sexuality, which is not something that I dwell on in the production, but it adds to the mystique of who he was. Sam Beazley and Fred Banbury, who were actors who worked with Guinness under Gielgud, believed this slight sexual ambiguity also contributed to him being such a good chameleon and a great actor. But, of course, he loved Merula. There was absolutely no doubt that they didn’t love each other deeply. 

JM: From what I’ve read his childhood was quite chaotic. Would you agree?

ZS: It says in the play that they moved home about thirty times when he was a young man, and they were always running away from rent demands and bills. When he got to boarding school, the structure, discipline, and importance of being on time helped him a great deal. This was something that he took through the rest of his life. I think that when he became a Catholic, it was another layer of exactly the same thing. He found an anchor in this imposed structure of faith, going to mass and prayer.  I think it appealed to him greatly. My father is a Methodist minister, so I was brought up in the church. When I was reading Guinness's memoirs, that was something that chimed with me as well. 

JM: How did he get into acting?

ZS: The first half of the play is very much about him wanting to be an actor. In those days, there weren't many people in the London telephone directory, so he just looked up John Gielgud and phoned him and said, “Hello, Mr. Gielgud, my name is Alec Guinness. I would like to be an actor and I wonder if you could give me some tuition”. 

Gielgud sees him and, thinking that he might be from one of the rich brewing families, sends him to Martita Hunt for acting lessons, because Martita was a bit hard up and needed money. I think Martita very quickly realised that Alec wasn't from the Guinness Brewing family. She taught him his very characteristic way of speaking. She said to him, “Always stress the verb before the noun”, so in a sentence, ‘was the cat lazy’, she was suggesting the stress goes, ‘was the cat lazy’. You can hear that influence because Guinness puts a strong foot down at the beginning of a sentence. 

JM: Was there anything in your research about Guinness that surprised you?

ZS: I think his sternness and his private life with his family, I didn't know very much about that. I think he could be quite difficult at times, from what I've read. An actress friend of mine knew his son, Matthew - she kindly phoned him and asked if she could put me in touch. I sat at home one morning staring at his mobile number on a slip of paper, thinking, “I’ve got to phone Alec Guinness’s son, with whom it's been said he didn't have the easiest relationship, and I've got to tell him that I'm going to be playing his father.” Guinness was away in the Navy for the first two and a half years of Matthew's life. When he came back, it was a difficult period of adjustment for the family. Matthew was charming on the telephone and was very helpful in recalling some moments from his childhood that are mentioned in the play.

When you are looking to play someone, you have to get a handle on the more difficult sides of their character. That isn’t easy, but I didn't lose my admiration for Guinness at all. It just helps to present him as a more three-dimensional person.

JM: John le Carré said he treasured his relationship with Guinness, but he always felt that it would be easy to damage it. Did you talk to others who felt similarly?

ZS: Eileen Atkins said she felt that Guinness had one skin fewer than everybody else. He took things very personally and took offence very easily. He was very sensitive. She remembered an occasion where Guinness threw a party in London and Omar Sharif was going to be there. I suppose they must have been doing Lawrence of Arabia around that time. There were two tables, and Merula and Alec sat at one table, and everyone else sat at the table with Omar Sharif. She said she remembers Alan Bennett getting his tea and cake, and going and sitting deliberately on Guinness's table, so he didn't feel offended. 

I’ve not spoken to Alan Bennett, but he tells a story about being taken out for dinner with Guinness, and it was Guinness's treat. Alec said to him, “Do feel free to have exactly what you'd like”. Alan Bennett said something like, “Oh, the potted shrimps look quite nice”. And then Guinness responded, “I think you'll find that they do a particularly fine Dover sole”, which meant you’ll have the Dover sole. And then when, Alan Bennett would go down to stay with Guinness, he would say, “Have you any idea which train you might be getting back to London?” And Bennett would respond, “Well, I thought I'd get the ten to”, and Guinness would say, “I think you'll find the five past is more direct”, which meant you’ll be on the five past. 

JM: There may be people coming to the show who haven’t seen many of Guinness's films or television roles. From your perspective, are there any performances you’d recommend? 

ZS: The films that are referenced are The Ladykillers, my favourite Alec Guinness film, Dr. Zhivago, Kind Hearts and Coronets, Star Wars, Lawrence of Arabia, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. When I was growing up, you could turn on BBC Two or Channel Four, and all of these films would just be there, so you didn't have to look for them. Now you go on Netflix and decide what you want to watch. Netflix is carefully curating the other stuff it shows you based on what you've already seen. It's harder to serendipitously discover these things.

I feel very lucky that I had that exposure because it very much shaped my sense of humour and my character. I loved Margaret Rutherford, Alastair Sim, Terry Thomas, and all of those old British character actors that I might not have otherwise discovered. 

JM: You’ve recently spearheaded a campaign to raise funds for a statue of Benjamin Britten in your hometown of Lowestoft. How did that come about?

ZS: I was born in Lowestoft, and I knew growing up that Benjamin Britten was also born there. During that very intense lockdown, where you couldn't cross county lines, I'd managed to just get up from London to be with my parents but, because they were shielding, I couldn't stay with them. 

So I checked into the Victoria Hotel, on the seafront, opposite the house where Britten was born. And I was there for two weeks. Every morning, for my permitted one hour of exercise, I was walking up and down the seafront, past the house where he was born, and I realised there was nothing here to commemorate one of the 20th century’s greatest composers, who was born in this town. I had a friend who'd been working on Britten’s childhood, and she said to me we really ought to teach children in schools about Britten’s childhood. I thought that was a great idea, but we should also have a statue and so we decided to make the statue of him as a child (the age of 14 when his talent was really recognised) to inspire other children in the town to pursue their dreams.

Britten's mum took him to the Norfolk and Norwich Festival and introduced him to the composer Frank Bridge, who looked at some of Britten’s compositions, spotted his talent, took him under his wing and his life changed. For me, growing up in the town, I remember when I went to my careers teacher and said I wanted to work in radio and television, they suggested I work on the assembly line at the local Sanyo television factory. There was nothing wrong with that, but it wasn’t quite what I had in mind. It's very easy to snuff out flames of ambition, and sometimes just by a careless word. So the idea of this statue of the 14-year-old Britten gazing out to sea is to inspire young people that whatever they want to do, they can do it. It was unveiled exactly a month ago by John Rutter and I'm really pleased that the town has embraced it. 

JM: You also regularly support St Martin-in-the-Fields and all the proceeds from your book, Gaspard’s Christmas go towards the charity. What attracted you to support their work?

ZS: Well, living in London, you see homelessness everywhere. When I was at Radio 4, the Christmas appeal was always for St Martin-in-the-Fields, so that's what first got me answering the phones for them and then being asked to read at charity fundraisers. I wanted to write a children's Christmas story with a heart to it, not just a Christmas story exploring the characters that I had already established. I wanted a story in the Dickensian Christmas tradition of A Christmas Carol, that had a message behind it. I decided to try and find a way of introducing children to homelessness in a gentle way. I was inspired by J.M. Barrie who had given all the proceeds from Peter Pan to Great Ormond Street Hospital, so I thought this book should do some financial good as well. 

JM: You are touring with Two Halves of Guinness in 2026. Where can people catch the show?

ZS: So it starts at the Watermill Theatre at Newbury and we are there for three days. Then it's single days at the Colchester Mercury Theatre, the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford and the Norwich Theatre Playhouse. We have three days at the Ustinov Studio at the Theatre Royal Bath and then two weeks at the Park Theatre in Finsbury Park. There will also hopefully be a week at the Salisbury Playhouse in the autumn, on the anniversary of Guinness opening the theatre 50 years ago. 

JM: I’d love to get down to Salisbury to see that. Will you be taking some time off from Classic FM? 

ZS: Not a lot really. I've got three weeks in which I will be rehearsing during the day and doing Classic FM in the evening. I'm taking two weeks off to establish the show at the Watermill Theatre and then another two weeks for the London run, but other than that, I'm carrying on with Classic FM - so it's going to be a busy year!

JM: Thanks so much for your time, Zeb - all the very best with your preparation for Two Halves of Guinness.

ZS: Thanks, Jonathan

Screen captures from Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and Smiley's People (c) BBC 1979 and 1982