Derek Jacobi endured a instance of it during a world tour of Hamlet. Bill Nighy struggled with it in the run-up to The Vertical Hour premiering on Broadway. Juliet Stevenson has compared it to “a illness”. It has even caused some to take flight: One comedian went missing from Cell Mates, while Another performer left the stage during Educating Rita. “I’ve totally gone,” he said – even if he did come back to conclude the show.
Stage fright can cause the shakes but it can also provoke a complete physical paralysis, to say nothing of a utter verbal loss – all precisely under the gaze. So why and how does it take hold? Can it be overcome? And what does it appear to be to be gripped by the actor’s nightmare?
Meera Syal describes a common anxiety dream: “I discover myself in a attire I don’t know, in a role I can’t recall, viewing audiences while I’m naked.” Decades of experience did not render her protected in 2010, while performing a early show of Willy Russell’s Shirley Valentine. “Presenting a one-woman show for a lengthy period?” she says. “That’s the aspect that is going to give you stage fright. I was truly thinking of ‘running away’ just before opening night. I could see the exit leading to the courtyard at the back and I thought, ‘If I escaped now, they wouldn’t be able to catch me.’”
Syal mustered the nerve to stay, then immediately forgot her words – but just persevered through the fog. “I looked into the void and I thought, ‘I’ll overcome it.’ And I did. The role of Shirley Valentine could be improvised because the show was her addressing the audience. So I just walked around the stage and had a brief reflection to myself until the words came back. I ad-libbed for a short while, saying utter gibberish in character.”
Larry Lamb has contended with powerful anxiety over decades of stage work. When he commenced as an beginner, long before Gavin and Stacey, he adored the practice but performing caused fear. “The moment I got in front of an audience,” he says, “it all began to cloud over. My legs would begin knocking wildly.”
The stage fright didn’t lessen when he became a professional. “It continued for about 30 years, but I just got more adept at hiding it.” In 2001, he dried up as Claudius in Hamlet, for the Royal Shakespeare Company. “It was the initial try-out at Stratford-upon-Avon. I was just into my initial speech, when Claudius is speaking to the people of Denmark, when my lines got lost in space. It got worse and worse. The entire cast were up on the stage, watching me as I totally lost it.”
He got through that act but the guide recognised what had happened. “He saw I wasn’t in charge but only appearing I was. He said, ‘You’re not engaging with the audience. When the illumination come down, you then block them out.’”
The director left the general illumination on so Lamb would have to acknowledge the audience’s attendance. It was a pivotal moment in the actor’s career. “Slowly, it got easier. Because we were performing the show for the bulk of the year, over time the anxiety went away, until I was confident and directly engaging with the audience.”
Now 78, Lamb no longer has the stamina for stage work but relishes his live shows, delivering his own verse. He says that, as an actor, he kept obstructing of his persona. “You’re not allowing the freedom – it’s too much you, not enough role.”
Harmony Rose-Bremner, who was chosen in The Years in 2024, echoes this. “Self-awareness and uncertainty go against everything you’re attempting to do – which is to be free, relax, totally immerse yourself in the part. The issue is, ‘Can I create room in my mind to let the persona to emerge?’” In The Years, as one of five actors all portraying the same woman in distinct periods of her life, she was thrilled yet felt overwhelmed. “I’ve been raised doing theatre. It was always my happy place. I didn’t ever think I’d ever feel stage fright.”
She recollects the night of the initial performance. “I really didn’t know if I could continue,” she says. “It was the initial instance I’d had like that.” She managed, but felt overwhelmed in the initial opening scene. “We were all stationary, just speaking out into the blackness. We weren’t looking at one other so we didn’t have each other to bounce off. There were just the lines that I’d rehearsed so many times, approaching me. I had the classic indicators that I’d had in small doses before – but never to this degree. The experience of not being able to take a deep breath, like your air is being sucked up with a void in your torso. There is nothing to grasp.” It is compounded by the sensation of not wanting to fail other actors down: “I felt the responsibility to all involved. I thought, ‘Can I survive this immense thing?’”
Zachary Hart attributes insecurity for inducing his stage fright. A back condition ruled out his hopes to be a athlete, and he was working as a warehouse operator when a friend enrolled to drama school on his behalf and he got in. “Appearing in front of people was totally alien to me, so at acting school I would go last every time we did something. I stuck at it because it was pure escapism – and was superior than factory work. I was going to do my best to conquer the fear.”
His initial acting job was in Nicholas Hytner’s Julius Caesar at the Bridge theatre. When the cast were told the production would be captured for NT Live, he was “terrified”. Some time later, in the first preview of The Constituent, in which he was chosen alongside James Corden and Anna Maxwell-Martin, he uttered his first line. “I perceived my voice – with its pronounced Black Country speech – and {looked
An avid hiker and nature photographer with a passion for exploring the Italian Alps and sharing travel insights.
News
