Seeing through the mists of time – past and future

By Derek Lord

Published:

ARRIVING home from rehearsals on Tuesday for the pantomime in which I am engaged this Yuletide, I just caught the last few minutes of a TV documentary on the meaning of time. The handsome young scientist who fronted the programme was explaining Albert Einstein’s theory that time stretches in front of us as well as behind us at any given moment in our lives. He compared it to standing on a highway where we can look ahead of us as well as behind us.

He said that if Einstein had it right, our lives could be seen as a straight line along which we travelled until it came to an abrupt end with our demise. This would go some way towards explaining how fortunetellers, psychics and the like operate. Perhaps they can zero in on this line and look both forwards and backwards along its length.

A recent scientific study of prescience involved showing various people a number of images, some soothing and pleasant and others that were shocking and alarming. The subjects’ brains were wired up to some gizmo that registered their grey matter’s’ response to the pictures.

The researchers discovered that the brains of some of the subjects registered the appropriate response several seconds before the image was revealed to them. This came as no surprise to me. In my darts-playing days, I always felt I knew when my arrow was going to find the desired double before it left my hand. Conversely, I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, when I was going to miss my target by a country mile.

In the last 15 years since I took up the maddening game of golf, I have had a similar experience with putting. As I draw the putter back on a 25-footer, I know when it is going to end up in the hole, and when it isn’t.

The same thing applies to a putt of 18 inches. As I stand over these tiddlers, logic tells me that I can’t miss, but I know, as that terrible sinking feeling engulfs my entire being, that I am going to miss as sure as God made little green apples. My psychic powers have kicked in and seen the ball circle the hole and defy the laws of gravity even before I struck it.

In the case of the putts that manage to drop into the hole, a wondrous sensation of calmness and serenity descends upon me as I address the ball. My heart ceases to pound, my nerves stop jangling and I feel in tune with the universe and my faith is rewarded by the plop of the ball as it finds the bottom of the cup.

Of course, this is all conjecture. It may just be that when I relax I putt better than I do when I’m standing there rigid with fear. If our subconscious mind could really see into the future, most of us would be afraid to get out of bed in the morning.

Would Hitler have invaded Poland if he knew that he was going to end up blowing his brains out in that bunker in Berlin five years later? Would anybody have climbed the gangplank of the Titanic if they had had a premonition of the doomed ship’s fate? If there are any genuine psychics about, they seem to be as scarce as hens’ teeth.

As for Einstein’s theory that our lives run in a straight line, I would like to point out that my own life, at the moment, anyway, is more of a Möebius strip – a continuous loop that keeps bringing me back to where I started.

Let me explain. My first memory of appearing on a stage was when I played a tree in a school play when I was in primary two. Perhaps this gave me a taste for showbusiness and planted the seed that would see me embark on a career as a professional actor some 15 years later.

In the 40 years since then, I have played leading roles in many of the world’s top theatres, appeared on screen with some of the cinema’s greatest icons, managed to survive in a TV soap opera for a considerable period, and now I find myself playing a tree again.

Who said God doesn’t have a sense of humour? When He decides to put you in your place, He doesn’t mess about.

This circumstance arose when the manager of the Pavilion Theatre in Glasgow rang me several months ago to offer me a part in a pantomime based on The Wizard of Oz. Great, I thought. Would I be the lion, the tin man or the scarecrow? No, these parts were cast. He wanted me to play one of the broker’s men.

My heart sank. Had my life come to this – sharing bottom billing with Toto the dog? My pride and feeling of self-worth couldn’t take it. I thanked him sincerely for his offer but told him that the humble pie he had presented me with was just too big to swallow.

He was gracious enough to say he understood and explained that I would have been doubling as the wizard. Since the wizard appears for only a few moments, the role wouldn’t justify a full salary so whoever played him would have to play one of the clowns as well.

After I had hung up and told Herself of my decision, the stupidity of what I had just done began to sink in. Who did I think I was, turning down work that most actors would die for? At any given moment, 95% of professional actors are unemployed. Besides, the winter months are the worst during which to be unoccupied.

I rang back immediately, apologised for being such an eejit and told the manager that I would be delighted to accept his offer if it was still on the table.

And so it was that on Wednesday night I charged on stage, did a pratfall in front of 1,500 expectant punters and delivered my first gag. The crowd roared their approval and I was off and running. Two-and-a-half hours and umpteen costume changes later – including struggling in and out of that darned tree outfit – I took my bows in front of the appreciative throng.

It was great fun and I wouldn’t have missed it for the world. My knees took a bit of a battering, but my pride is still intact.

Ah, there really is no business like showbusiness.