Author: David Nicholls
The Understudy is a book by David Nicholls, and another one I re-read albeit with different eyes than when I read it the first time. It is a story of trying to succeed in an industry, which is not meant for people without connections. Interestingly, I started to read this just as a report came out about issues working-class children face when trying to join creative industries, with acting being particularly mentioned as dominated by upper-class people. A report by The Sutton Trust argued recently that there is elitism in arts and creative industries and that the closure of arts degrees will not support the cause of widening participation.
In The Understudy, written in 2005, and long before the report, Nicholls writes a story of Stephen C. McQueen, C added as an initial to avoid confusion with a famous American actor. Stephen is an understudy for Josh Harper, a famous actor, and they are doing a West End play. Stephen hopes some days Josh will not be available so he can act and have his big break, and throughout the book, we follow Stephen’s story of working with Josh, meeting his wife Nora, and narration of Stephen’s life is skillfully presented. Josh is undoubtedly a prick who mistreats Stephen and rubs his successes on a struggling understudy. This eventually brings about the worst in Stephen, who then makes some moves that he does not particularly cherish, thus the book also shows how good people can misbehave when persistently mocked and mistreated, which I thought was interesting.
Nora, Josh’s wife, was a struggling waitress from New York. She had one hit single, and her career then took a downturn, which was followed by a long line of waitressing stints, and then meeting a famous British actor and moving to England where she found herself alone, with no friends and regularly reminded of her background and how much she benefitted, allegedly, from the marriage with no affection, conversation, human contact and marked by cheating. The book opens a question of relationships and how relationships between people of different origins and different levels of success in life may or may not work, and what matters in relationships and life in general. The book is also about career choices, doing what we are good at and contemplating whether some careers are worth the effort even if we are good at what we do.
The ending is somewhat unexpected and there are some wow elements, particularly with how Stephen gets his big break, and what happens in the aftermath…But, what happened to me personally is that once again I realized I really like books about theatre plays, theatre crews, and the acting world. So, just like I enjoyed Nicholls’ Sweet Sorrow and Tom Lake, I also loved this book.
Another wonderful book by David Nicholls, on par with all other books he wrote. Other excellent books by Nicholls are also Us, You Are Here, and One Day.
Thank you for reading!