UK Edition
Christopher Eccleston: I don't get offered Shakespeare roles because I have a northern accent
When Christopher Eccleston takes to the stage as Macbeth in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s latest production, it will be one of the hottest tickets of the year.
But the actor has claimed that he only got the part because he wrote a letter to the RSC asking to be considered. Eccleston has been overlooked for Shakespeare roles for years, he believes, on account of his northern accent.
“I’m never offered Shakespeare,” he said. “I was born in 1964 on a council estate. I didn’t go to the right university or the public schools.
“You don’t hear many accents like me, and it’s discrimination and I loathe it. It’s held me back in terms of the classics because people like me ‘can’t be classical’.”
Eccleston, who was born and raised in Salford, Greater Manchester, will take the starring role in Macbeth next month.
He landed the role after writing to Gregory Doran, the RSC’s artistic director. “I wrote an old-fashioned letter to him and I said, ‘Since I was 17 I’ve always wanted to play Macbeth at the RSC, so can I do it?’
“Macbeth is horrendously flawed and I was fascinated by his battle to be decent and his failure to be decent. I’ve always felt that’s within me. So basically I decided to be an actor because of this play,” Eccleston told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He has appeared in a Shakespeare play only once before: in a 2002 production of Hamlet at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds, in a critically-acclaimed lead role.
Eccleston tries to retain his accent on screen wherever possible, including his performance as the Ninth Doctor when the BBC revived Doctor Who in 2005. He explained afterwards: “I wanted to move him away from RP [received pronunciation] for the first time because we shouldn’t make a correlation between intellect and accent, although that still needs addressing.”
He is not the only Doctor Who to tread the boards in Stratford-upon-Avon. David Tennant, who played the 10th Doctor, played Hamlet for the RSC but swapped his native Scottish accent for received pronunciation.
This is Eccleston’s first stage role in six years, although not for want of trying - he became a television and film actor “by default” because he was not offered the right stage roles.
In his radio interview, he acknowledged that he is “very fortunate because I’m white and I’m male. The only thing that’s missing from my portfolio is the middle class bit.
“It’s a lot more difficult for women, and I do think that what’s happened to theatre in terms of gender blind cast - and I really mean this - is the greatest thing to happen to British theatre since William Shakespeare wrote his plays.
“The fact there are women in this cast now who will one day play Macbeth and play Hamlet is the most wonderful thing.”
Greg Doran said last year that directors struggle to cast the “warrior” Macbeth, while casting Hamlet is easier. “We don’t breed Macbeths very often in this country,” he said.
Famous screen actors who appear on stage often bring with them the problem of starstruck audience members wielding mobile phone cameras. Eccleston warned that such behaviour will not go down well.
“This is Macbeth. There are men on stage, and women, with swords, and you will be parted from your mobile phone,” he joked.
In the 1960s, it was fashionable for actors to speak their lines with native northern accents - including Albert Finney, another Salford boy. Sir Ian McKellen once recalled: “The northern accent was an advantage when I first came to London. Albert Finney played Hamlet with a northern accent. Tom Courtenay played Romeo with a northern accent. I was a bit of a throwback. I thought you should try and speak posh.”
Sir Ian played Macbeth in a 1976 RSC production, with little trace of his Burnley vowels.